Get Busy Livin' Or Get Busy Dyin'

Form And Void
 

RUSS COHLE:  I tell ya, Marty -- I been up in that room, lookin' out them windows, thinkin' -- it's just one story. The oldest. 
MARTY HART: What's that? 
COHLE: Light versus dark. 
HART: Well...  I know we ain't in Alaska, but (looks up at the night sky) -- it appears to me the dark has a lot more territory. 
COHLE:  Yeah, you're right about that... but you're lookin' at it wrong.  
HART: How's that? 
COHLE: Once, there was only dark... You ask me, the light's winnin'.

-- Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson / True Detective (Season One, 2014)

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Yes; recently went through a True Detective / Season 1 marathon (which explains the previous post, too, also). Days like these: Work = bad; experience of daily living = not a great deal better -- and I find myself drawn back to the lines Nic Pizzolatto had written for the character of Rustin Cohle as delivered by Matthew McConaughey: Existence as bearing witness to the Unsolvable, the bottomless and apparently no-limit ability of humans to fuck with each other; the unfathomable What of all and everything. Let's just say it's not a period when I choose to watch musical comedies.

(One of my favorite quotes: Episode 7, 'After You've Gone'; Hart and Cohle interview an older black woman who winds up spouting about Carcosa and death is not the end, another link in the investigative chain leading them on, upriver, looking for Kurtz, madness hiding in the Bayou.

(McConaughey lights a cigarette, looks off into some far distance and says to Harrelson, "Sure hope that old lady's wrong."  Puzzled, Harrelson asks, "About what?"   " 'bout death not being the end," McConaughey replies.)
 

McConaughey's character looks at the Daily Monster and doesn't flinch; he wants, and doesn't want, an answer to the What question (an old Suicide Club acquaintance once said, preparing to do a handstand on the summit of the west tower of the Bay Bridge, an age ago, now: "You're scared but you do it anyway"). In the end, he has an epiphany of a kind -- in my imagination he comes to some understanding that some days the universe is that bottomless, reductive, time-in-a-circle-eternal-recurrence, Dantean pit. Others, it isn't.

And that line penned by another writer, Frank Darabont (yes, he of TWD), keeps resonating, too: Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'. That's absolutely goddamn right.

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If This Is Tuesday, It Must Be

Photograph Of Glen Fleshler For Absolutely No Goddamn Reason

 (Photo: Somebody)

Slow news day, relatively.  Good actor, though.

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All Aboard For Somewhere

With Stops In Soiled, Illusory, And New Normal

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

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Reprint Heaven Forever: Victory

( Fifty-one years ago, now.  Another annual repeat. )

Victory In Europe (V-E) Day; May 8th

May 8th, 1945; Kaiser-Wilhelms Church, Kurfurstendamm, Berlin

San Francisco, May 8, 1945

May 8th, 1945; Times Square, New York City

Canadian Troops, German Refugees Outside Hamburg, May 8, 1945

May 8th, 1945; Ebensee Concentration Camp, Bavaria

May 8th, 1945; Russian Soliders At The Reichstag, Berlin

May, 1945; Russian Soldiers Near Führerbunker Show Location

In Chancellery Garden Where Hitler's Corpse Was Burned

May 8th, 1945; Berlin

May 7, 1945; Survivors Of Mauthausen Concentration Camp

May 8th, 1945; Winston Churchill At Whitehall, London

May, 1945; Bomb Damage Still Being Cleared, Central London

May, 1945; Berlin

May 8th, 1945; Paris

May 8th, 1945; German Refugees, Juchen (N.Rhein-Westphalia)

Memorial, Mamayev Kurgan, Volgograd

Memorial, The Cenotaph, London

Memorial, Near The Mall, Washington, D.C.

Memorial, The Neue Wache With Kollwitz Pieta, Berlin

Memorial, Deportees And Prisoners; Lyon, France

Memorial, Yad Veshem, Jerusalem

Kaiser-Wilhelms Church; Kurfurstendamm, Berlin

European Union Headquarters Building; Brussels, Belgium

---

Roads, Woods, Divergence

The Winners

(CHEESE STAR NEWS) Senator Bernie Sanders came from behind in some polls run by some who wanted to influence the outcome, to deliver a smart, stinging slap to the flabby, botoxed features of Hillary The Inevitable in today's Indiana primary, emerging as the winner of the Democratic contest.

Meanwhile, Republicaner Trumpo swept to a commanding victory in Indiana on Tuesday, making it all over but the shouting (and there will be much of that) that the Capo Di Buffoono Capo will be the party's presidential nominee -- and not 'Crazy Ted' Cruz, who finally ended his stuttering, wheezing and increasingly erratic campaign...

After retching convulsively for over an hour at a Motel 6 outside Indianapolis, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince "Nancy" Priebus declared that Trumpo was "Il Duce", and dressed in an off-the shoulder silver lame evening gown by Okki DeLa Renta, told an audience of three reporters and a cleaning woman, "We all need to take that learning annex course about what to do with a sow's ear, and lemons. Oh, and we gotta defeat Clinton."

Greg Stillson Cries While Our Savior Shoots Rubber Bands At The Innocent

As the vote returns flowed in, Cruz alternately sobbed like a little girl and screamed in an unknown language ("Talkin' in them tongues again," observed a campaign aide). With his wife and helpmeet at his side, Cruz announced that his campaign was over. "Together we emptied ourselves across the fields in Indiana," said Cruz, "So be careful where you step. I am shamed, tired, and all of you will pay when the godly take this country back."

Dashboard Jesus, Cruz's principal campaign advisor, gave everyone a Thumbs-Up, Who's-Awesome-You're-Awesome series of meaningless gestures, shot rubber bands at random passers-by and laughed, fit to bust.

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This is hardly an original observation -- but this presidential election is about the large number of people who are casting votes to reject the political system in America and (even if less obviously) that part of our population which benefit from it. Amorphously, it's a kind of unspoken Populism.  

Trump and Sanders' popularity is an obvious expression of disenchantment with America's political system, the most serious challenge to Business As Usual politics since Ross Perot's outsider candidacy in the 1990's -- except both 'outsider' candidates in 2016 are still members of the two dominant parties. That Sanders' and Trump's popularity might also indicate disenchantment (or something more) of the Peasantry with how Our Fabled Wealthy have rigged the game is less often mentioned.

People appear to be voting against something this season, more than voting for anything specific (possibly a feature of the primaries; less so in a general election, where specifics matter). And even if that rejection isn't fully understood by the people who experience it -- not everyone pissed off about things dresses in black on May Day and marches in Seattle under the "A" banner -- people understand we could be facing Fifty Miles Of Bad Road. Many are frightened of what our future holds. 

We're living in a country on the cusp of a robotics technology revolution that could make entire classes of employment obsolete for humans within the next decade, just as it will enrich Silicon Valley's wealthy still further. Issues of race and equality are as starkly apparent as they were in news films from the early 1960's, but now with The Fire Next Time : a more ugly, in-your-face edge.

The reach and power of corporations (who now have the same legal rights as human beings) has never been greater. 'Business' is touted as The Great Game, and business "leaders", avaricious and narcissistic, are held up as heroes, role models. And not since the Gilded Age of the 1880's and 90's have the gap between The People who Matter and the rest of us been more apparent.

People always vote about the future, even if we're not certain what that future will be (e.g., people voting for JFK in 1960 didn't know he would be responsible for avoiding a general thermonuclear war with the Soviets two years later. Good pick, that).  On the Left and the Right, we look for leadership who will help to navigate it, or throw the brakes on and delay it as long as possible.  But what seems different about this election season is --whether frightened or optimistic, a large number of people seem to be casting votes which say they don't trust the Powers That Be to run that future for anything but their benefit.

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Sentencing

Character, Defined

CHICAGO (New York Times Online) J. Dennis Hastert, once among this nation’s most powerful politicians, was sentenced to 15 months in prison on Wednesday for illegally structuring bank transactions in an effort to cover up his sexual abuse of young members of a wrestling team he coached decades ago... “The defendant is a serial child molester,” said [Federal District Court] Judge Thomas M. Durkin... in a tough rebuke of the former speaker before issuing his sentence.

 ...

A long list of supporters — from Mr. Hastert’s wife Jean to Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader — sent letters of support for Mr. Hastert to Judge Durkin. “He doesn’t deserve what he is going through,” Mr. DeLay wrote.

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A Kid Can Dream

Role Model

(Mr Fish, 2016)

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MEHR, MIT GELD:

Every Day Is A Blinding Toad

It Gets A Little Closer

The Weasel Knows Now: There Is No Way Out; It Is Trapped On His Head.
(Original Photo:  Shannon Stapleton / Reuters)

Do Not Open Your Mouth When Feasting On The Body Of Your Enemy

(Original Photo: James Keivom / New York Daily News)

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In other news, NASA has released a new HD video of the Aurora Borealis taken from the International Space Station, as it orbits Planet Trump -- or Clintonia, depending on how November goes.

One item of note -- and I would get down on your knees and thank whatever This Universe Is About for this -- it seems much less likely that Grand Turtlebear Greg Stillson of the Church Of I Kill You ! will be made Sainted Leader.

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MEHR, MIT DER SCRUB:  From Greg Palast, writing about stuff:

Francesca Rheannon, whom you may know as the host of Writers’ Voice radio, did the civic thing by volunteering to work the polls in a town east of New York City.
“I just got off my 17 hour shift as an election official.  In my election district, out of 166 Democratic voters, 39 were forced to file affidavit ballots.  The last [election] I worked in, exactly ONE voter needed an affidavit ballot.”
That’s nearly one of four voters. Why?  Their names had gone missing from the voter rolls.
An affidavit ballot (called a “provisional” ballot in most other states) is a kind of placebo ballot.  You get to pretend to vote – but the chance it will actually be counted is …well, good luck.  If your name is wrongly removed, kiss your vote – affidavit or not—goodbye.
Rheannon’s experience was hardly unique.  In Brooklyn alone, over 125,000 names were quietly scrubbed from the voter rolls in the five months leading up to the primary.
To put it in prospective, the number of voters purged equals about half of the number who got to vote.  Scott Stringer, the New York City Comptroller will now audit the Elections Board--now that the election is over.  Hey thanks, Scott.
Neal Rosenstein, the lead voting rights attorney for the New York Public Interest Research Group, which plans legal action, notes that part of the problem is that partisan hacks sit on the Elections board in New York—hacks from both parties.
Brooklyn is under the control of the Kings County Democratic Party, one of the last of the big city machines.  Would they attack their opponents’ voter registrations?  I don’t have to guess:  in my wasted younger days, I was in the Brooklyn County elections office with the hacks where we were assigned by the Party to challenge voters’ signatures en masse.  (I wouldn’t and nearly lost my state job.)
Am I saying the machine “fixed” the election for Hillary Clinton?  Without further investigation, it would be irresponsible for me to pronounce judgment.  Some of the purged may have moved, some have died.  But those who waited in line only to fill out affidavit ballots are unlikely to be deceased.
If the Machine had been aware of the mass purge underway, would they have stopped it?  As they say in Brooklyn, Fahgeddabouddit.
- See more at: http://www.gregpalast.com/new-york-voting-fiasco-just-the-warm-up-for-the-november-game/#sthash.6Euo4H9q.dpufFrancesca Rheannon, whom you may know as the host of Writers’ Voice radio, did the civic thing by volunteering to work the polls in a town east of New York City.

[A polling station worker in Brooklyn immediately after the New York Democratic primary noted], “I just got off my 17 hour shift as an election official. In my election district, out of 166 Democratic voters, 39 were forced to file affidavit ballots. The last [election] I worked in, exactly ONE voter needed an affidavit ballot.”

That’s nearly one of four voters. Why? Their names [were] missing from the voter rolls.

An affidavit ballot (called a “provisional” ballot in most other states) is a kind of placebo ballot. You get to pretend to vote – but the chance it will actually be counted is …well, good luck. If your name is wrongly removed, kiss your vote – affidavit or not—goodbye.

... In Brooklyn alone, over 125,000 names were quietly scrubbed from the voter rolls in the five months leading up to the primary. To put it in prospective, the number of voters purged equals about half of the number who got to vote...

Brooklyn is under the control of the Kings County Democratic Party, one of the last of the big city machines. Would they attack their opponents’ voter registrations? I don’t have to guess: in my wasted younger days, I was in the Brooklyn County elections office with the hacks where we were assigned by the Party to challenge voters’ signatures en masse. (I wouldn’t and nearly lost my state job.)

Am I saying the machine “fixed” the election for Hillary Clinton? Without further investigation, it would be irresponsible for me to pronounce judgment. Some of the purged may have moved, some have died. But those who waited in line only to fill out affidavit ballots are unlikely to be deceased.

__________________________________

Francesca Rheannon, whom you may know as the host of Writers’ Voice radio, did the civic thing by volunteering to work the polls in a town east of New York City.
“I just got off my 17 hour shift as an election official.  In my election district, out of 166 Democratic voters, 39 were forced to file affidavit ballots.  The last [election] I worked in, exactly ONE voter needed an affidavit ballot.”
- See more at: http://www.gregpalast.com/new-york-voting-fiasco-just-the-warm-up-for-the-november-game/#sthash.6Euo4H9q.dpuf

Francesca Rheannon, whom you may know as the host of Writers’ Voice radio, did the civic thing by volunteering to work the polls in a town east of New York City.
“I just got off my 17 hour shift as an election official.  In my election district, out of 166 Democratic voters, 39 were forced to file affidavit ballots.  The last [election] I worked in, exactly ONE voter needed an affidavit ballot.”
That’s nearly one of four voters. Why?  Their names had gone missing from the voter rolls.
An affidavit ballot (called a “provisional” ballot in most other states) is a kind of placebo ballot.  You get to pretend to vote – but the chance it will actually be counted is …well, good luck.  If your name is wrongly removed, kiss your vote – affidavit or not—goodbye.
Rheannon’s experience was hardly unique.  In Brooklyn alone, over 125,000 names were quietly scrubbed from the voter rolls in the five months leading up to the primary.
To put it in prospective, the number of voters purged equals about half of the number who got to vote.  Scott Stringer, the New York City Comptroller will now audit the Elections Board--now that the election is over.  Hey thanks, Scott.
Neal Rosenstein, the lead voting rights attorney for the New York Public Interest Research Group, which plans legal action, notes that part of the problem is that partisan hacks sit on the Elections board in New York—hacks from both parties.
Brooklyn is under the control of the Kings County Democratic Party, one of the last of the big city machines.  Would they attack their opponents’ voter registrations?  I don’t have to guess:  in my wasted younger days, I was in the Brooklyn County elections office with the hacks where we were assigned by the Party to challenge voters’ signatures en masse.  (I wouldn’t and nearly lost my state job.)
Am I saying the machine “fixed” the election for Hillary Clinton?  Without further investigation, it would be irresponsible for me to pronounce judgment.  Some of the purged may have moved, some have died.  But those who waited in line only to fill out affidavit ballots are unlikely to be deceased.
If the Machine had been aware of the mass purge underway, would they have stopped it?  As they say in Brooklyn, Fahgeddabouddit.
- See more at: http://www.gregpalast.com/new-york-voting-fiasco-just-the-warm-up-for-the-november-game/#sthash.6Euo4H9q.dpuf

Francesca Rheannon, whom you may know as the host of Writers’ Voice radio, did the civic thing by volunteering to work the polls in a town east of New York City.
“I just got off my 17 hour shift as an election official.  In my election district, out of 166 Democratic voters, 39 were forced to file affidavit ballots.  The last [election] I worked in, exactly ONE voter needed an affidavit ballot.”
That’s nearly one of four voters. Why?  Their names had gone missing from the voter rolls.
An affidavit ballot (called a “provisional” ballot in most other states) is a kind of placebo ballot.  You get to pretend to vote – but the chance it will actually be counted is …well, good luck.  If your name is wrongly removed, kiss your vote – affidavit or not—goodbye.
Rheannon’s experience was hardly unique.  In Brooklyn alone, over 125,000 names were quietly scrubbed from the voter rolls in the five months leading up to the primary.
To put it in prospective, the number of voters purged equals about half of the number who got to vote.  Scott Stringer, the New York City Comptroller will now audit the Elections Board--now that the election is over.  Hey thanks, Scott.
Neal Rosenstein, the lead voting rights attorney for the New York Public Interest Research Group, which plans legal action, notes that part of the problem is that partisan hacks sit on the Elections board in New York—hacks from both parties.
Brooklyn is under the control of the Kings County Democratic Party, one of the last of the big city machines.  Would they attack their opponents’ voter registrations?  I don’t have to guess:  in my wasted younger days, I was in the Brooklyn County elections office with the hacks where we were assigned by the Party to challenge voters’ signatures en masse.  (I wouldn’t and nearly lost my state job.)
Am I saying the machine “fixed” the election for Hillary Clinton?  Without further investigation, it would be irresponsible for me to pronounce judgment.  Some of the purged may have moved, some have died.  But those who waited in line only to fill out affidavit ballots are unlikely to be deceased.
If the Machine had been aware of the mass purge underway, would they have stopped it?  As they say in Brooklyn, Fahgeddabouddit.
- See more at: http://www.gregpalast.com/new-york-voting-fiasco-just-the-warm-up-for-the-november-game/#sthash.6Euo4H9q.dpuf

Mongo Misses Chuck Also, Too

Es Müss Sein

Because it is so.

Free Market Oligarchy, Free-Market Theocracy

In November, Choose One.

Hillary The Inevitable and Little Lloyd, 2014 (Photo: Shannon Stapelton / Reuters)

From NYRB, via the Soul Of America:

Why is Hillary Clinton refusing to release the transcripts of her Goldman Sachs speeches? After losing eight of the last nine contests to Bernie Sanders, Clinton is trying to reassure voters that she is a reform-minded politician who can be trusted. Yet she has repeatedly refused requests to make public the texts of the three speeches she gave to executives of the Goldman Sachs ... in the fall of 2013, for which she was paid a total of $675,000. First she said she would look into it; then she said that she would release the transcripts only if all the other presidential candidates of both parties released the paid speeches they had given ...

... Why was she giving these speeches at all -- and accepting such hefty payments for them -- given Goldman Sachs’s record during the Great Recession of 2007–2008?...  On the stump, Clinton’s criticisms of Wall Street can sound ... radical ... During a CNN debate with Bernie Sanders in March, Clinton said that ... “no bank is too big to fail, and no executive too powerful to jail” and that she has “the tools” to do it ...

Yet Clinton’s repeated dealings with Goldman Sachs and its top executives since the financial crisis -- including the 2013 speeches and more recent events involving the Clinton Foundation -- run counter to such claims. To understand the significance of these dealings we have to bring together two strands of history. One concerns Bill and Hillary Clinton’s long-running connections to Goldman, among their closest with any US corporation. The second concerns Goldman’s activities leading up to and during the Wall Street crash of 2007 - 2008, including its deceptive marketing of contaminated mortgage derivatives.

And, even the Right doesn't trust Grand Turtlebear Greg Stillson.

Mandatory Prayer In Schools; The Hour Of Power From The White House Bunker;
And Global 'Finance' Will Be Allowed A Free Hand

Cruz, in Mr. Haney from Green Acres voice, declared to one of the moderators, “The opening question [moderator Jerry Seib] asked — would you bailout the big banks again — nobody gave you an answer to that. I will give you an answer — absolutely not.”

What else would you expect a scoundrel to say who had secretly secured big sweetheart loans from Goldman and Citibank — by leveraging his retirement accounts –– to fund his 2012 U.S. Senate campaign. Loans which the Calgary Ted conveniently forgot to disclose to the Federal Election Commission. These are the very retirement accounts that he said he and his wife said he cashed in to fund his senate race. In other words, Ted lied.

At the same time Ted’s bulging 2016 campaign accounts and supporting Super-PACs are stuffed with big oil and gas money. He knows how to play the game.

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Das Langweilige ist interessant geworden, 
weil das Interessante angefangen hat langweilig zu werden.

-- Thomas Mann, 

"Doktor Faustus; Das Leven des deutschen Tonsetzers Adrian Leverkühn" (1947)

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MEHR, MIT "STUFF":  The discussion plaint passive-aggressive argelbargle continues. Yes of course I am aware of All Internet Conventions. Even the Secret ones the Kool Kids cooked up.

HILLCOL:  Are you serious? You think Clinton is an Oligarch?
DOG: Yes.
HILLCOL: You put her in the same category as someone in the Russian Mafia?
DOG:  If your definition of an Oligarch is someone who amasses and exercises power in such a way that the interests of the many are given lip service, and they claim to be acting in the spirit of FDR while the few become wealthier and more exclusive?  Fuck, Yes.
HILLCOL: That's bullshit.
DOG:  Okay -- it's bullshit. America and the world operates in the same way as the plot of It's A Wonderful Life. Mr Potter gets his just deserts and dies alone, while the rest of Bedford Falls is poor, but morally superior.
HILLCOL:  Here we go.
DOG: And in the fullness of time, Americans will get all they deserve. I agree with that, by the way. It frightens the hell out of me.

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UND NOCH IMMER MEHR, MIT SICHERHEITSTRUPPEN:  The Inevitable One steamrolled into Kiddietown late yesterday afternoon, for a very special, high-donor, mover and shaker dinner at the Fairmont hotel on Tinytown's famed Nob Hill, organized and hosted by the bashful Mr George Clooney and his lovely wife, Ehrgrud. 

Remind me never to see another one of his films -- which, with the exception of Good Night And Good Luck, aren't that good, anyway. His version of one of my favorite books, Joseph Kanon's The Good German, stunk. I mean, it smelled like someone tossed a twenty-pound Salmon into the backseat of a car with all its windows up, locked the doors , and walked away for a few weeks. And, Monuments Men? Very disappointing.

When Herr Obama appears at the same venue, one helicopter to provide security hovers above the Fairmont. The Prestident Of The Free Market World rates one helicopter -- The Ineviatble One had three -- especially after a smallish group of Sanders supporters gathered near the hotel, and traffic was snarled by the attendant many, many Polizei and guys in suits who suddenly appeared to counter the massive threat. 

Many of them must be schizophrenic, because they hold one-sided conversations with imaginary friends, or mutter angrily into their shirtcuffs. Don't try to give them money; it just makes them upset.

But, Saul Goodman. It was important those awful supporters of the Stupid Old Man not be allowed to spoil the festivities and treats available for People Who Matter. Wonder who from Goldman-Sachs attended?