Torn From Today's Headliners

No Harrassing Ex-Fox News Charges In Roger Ailes' Mishandling Of Clinton Sexual FBI Emails 

After a subheading like that, you're expecting text?

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Menschlichkeit

Elie Wiesel, 1928 - 2016

It's late to say, but Elie Wiesel passed away over the weekend.

There's little I can add to what's already been said about him, even during his lifetime. My introduction to him was reading Souls On Fire ("When I am asked about my Jewish affiliation, I define myself as a Hasid, " Wiesel once wrote. "Hasid I was, Hasid I remain"), which contains one of my favorite thoughts about the power of writing and belief. 

The great rabbi Baal Shem-Tov loved his people, Wiesel wrote. Whenever he sensed they were in danger, he would go to a secret place in the woods, light a special fire, and say a special prayer. Then, without fail, his people would be saved from danger. Baal Shem-Tov passed on and his disciple, Magid of Mezritch, came to lead the people. Whenever he sensed his people were in danger, he would go to the secret place in the woods. "Dear God," he would say, "I don't know how to light the special fire, but I know the special prayer. Please let that be good enough." It was, and the people would once again be saved from danger. 

When Magid passed on, he was succeeded by another rabbi, the Rabbi Moshe-leib of Sasov, and whenever he heard that his people were in danger, he would go to the secret place in the woods. "Dear God," he would say, "I don't know how to make the special fire, I don't know how to say the special prayer, but I know this secret place in the woods. Please let that be good enough." It was, and the people would once again be saved from danger. 

When Rabbi Moshe passed, he was succeeded by Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn, and whenever somebody told him that his people were in danger, he didn't even get out of his armchair. He could only bow his head and shrug his shoulders. "Dear God," he would pray, "I don't know how to make the special fire. I don't know how to say the special prayer. I don't even know the secret place in the woods. All I know is the story, and I'm hoping that's good enough."

It was, and his people would be saved.

Then (Wiesel adds), the moral of this is, God made man because He loves stories. 

Now he knows what we do not. Another Mensch leaves us; and as I do not tire of saying, we live in a world with a very limited supply of Mensches.

Benny The Beaver Blue

It's New

Courtesy of The Soul Of America, it seems the good people at Oregon State University (Go Beavers!) have developed a new shade of the color, Blue, called YInMn -- Mn for Manganese, and the rest for, uh, another thing.

But, unless you're a chemist, you don't care. While the compound has many exciting properties related to infrared radiation, and determining whether Hillary The Inevitable likes Cold Cereal Porn, it's simply very beautiful.

Obligatory Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Filler

Occasionally, that's all that matters. At the moment there's not exactly a surfeit of Beauty in plain sight, so take a break, expand the size of this photo on your desktop to 1000%, and enjoy. No, I do not mean the photo of The Hillary.

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The Monster Truck And The Rubber Duck Collide

And The Universe Was Born

O Happy Zion: Your Reward Awaits You In Jesusland™

What, you have a problem with this cosmology? It's as valid a Creation Myth as any other. I'm not fond of Monster Trucks (no matter how much I liked the series, House), true, but The Great Duck is our savior; He also floats, and is appealing as a chew toy:  I like my saviors to be multi-purpose.

Obey the Great Duck in all His forms. 

But yes, What Is All This? Why Are We, and What's It All For? Ah, the age-old questions -- life in all its multitudinous forms.  We won't be finding any answers today, but there is still fun social commentary for YOU, which is almost as good. Possibly.

( Click For Huge and Readable Version; It's Easy And Fun! )

MEHR, MIT EIN GESICHTE:  Speaking of Cosmology and Ducks and Fun, here's a true story: I once had a friend, who is now (just by the luck of the draw) famous and wealthy, someone who has in fact added to human culture in a not-so-small way, and who once told me a tale about his hitchhiking days. It relates to the Big Questions Of Life, but only just barely.

He was seventeen, and one Fall day, splitting from his home on the Great Lakes (which also involved a brush with John Wayne Gacy, but that's for another time), began thumbing it up north into Canada. He hooked up with two men, a classic Mutt-and-Jeff team, driving up into The Maritimes ostensibly to make and sell chocolate fudge. Jeff was tall and spindly in his forties or early fifties with a shock of black hair greying at the temples; Mutt was short, with a close-cropped buzz-cut (known from my Army days as a 'high and tight') who smoked cigarillos and looked a little like Popeye. 

My friend had a well-developed radar for Crazies, and after a time riding along read these two as fairly routine types (at least they weren't serial killers).  They had a station wagon pulling a U-Haul style trailer filled with fudge-making apparatus and a sales stand. It also became fairly clear that their business, while necessary, wasn't the prime focus of their travels.

It didn't take long for my friend to determine that Mutt and Jeff had Little Black Books, and their trips were like unto the routes of sailors, reaching ports of call where they knew the names and telephone numbers of every love-starved and rapacious widow, divorcee, and spinster librarian under thirty from Vancouver to Newfoundland. 

Apparently, they drove across Canada during the year, making fudge, making some money, seeing women they knew (and being introduced to a few new ones), then taking another route back west before starting all over again.

My friend passed himself off as nineteen, out of high school and just bumming around. Mutt and Jeff nominally appeared to accept my friend's story, and offered him the chance to tag along and join their team. Their normal routine was to drive into a town, file whatever paperwork, sell fudge by day and live well by night. My friend, at seventeen, was flabbergasted at the frank availability of the, uh, ladies Mutt and Jeff knew -- who also had friends very happy to, uh, get to know a young man. This all went on until needs financial and physical were satisfied; then, they pushed on to the next wind-swept Canadian town.

Canada: Renowned Worldwide For Its Beaver, 

And You Knew This Joke Was Coming

Somewhere in there, Mutt and Jeff also picked up The Kid. Not the Kenosha Kid -- this one was nineteen, tall, painfully blonde to the point of being a near-Albino. He was also Mormon, who had been out on his Year Of Witnessing (or whatever it's called). Young Mormons performing this rite of passage do so in the company of other Young Mormons, or with an Elder whose job is to keep a watchful eye on them.  

The Kid had a crisis of faith on the road. He wasn't sure if he was Mormon, or what, any longer, and had simply walked to the nearest highway and put out his thumb: If you don't know which way you're going, it don't matter which road you take. To the other Mormon(s) he was traveling with, The Kid had just up and disappeared.

I refer to him as The Kid because, even two years older than my friend, The Kid was clueless. And hitchhiking alone across Nowhere Canada, with dwindling finances, ashamed and frightened at the idea of returning to his family in Utah in his confused state.  

My friend's take was that Mutt and Jeff sized him up as Not Crazy, just Trying To Sort Things Out, and felt sorry for him. While he wasn't a danger to others, he was a Kid alone on the High Way, and Mutt and Jeff decided to take him into the Empire Of Fudgelandia for a while until he could decide his next move, and offer him an opportunity to make a little cash in the process. Plus, he got to meet girls in a way that he wouldn't have been able to do in the shadow of the Big Temple in Salt Lake City. The Kid, as the trip progressed, seemed to like that part of it.

He was given, however, to questioning the religious beliefs with which he had been raised -- volubly and frequently. He argued for them, against them; back and forth, a mirror of his own inner conflict, thinking out loud. Mutt and Jeff were fairly tolerant of these outbursts, which were greatly toned down if The Kid had ready access to Girls.

The drive up into The Maritimes continued. It began to get colder. Mutt and Jeff, my friend and The Kid drove in the station wagon-and trailer into a town that had a medium-sized mall with two floors of shops on all four sides of a large, open area, and topped by a skylight. The mall was heated during the winter months, and the open area was a perfect location for the fudge stand.

One day around noon, Mutt, The Kid and my friend were manning the fudge stand inside the mall. The sun had been trying hard to break through clouds most of the day; sales were slow, and The Kid had been banging on about religion in a general way since the morning. Mutt, dressed all in white when making and selling fudge -- white pants, apron, white T-shirt and a small white fry-cook's cap -- was leaning against the fudge machine, his face screwed up like Popeye's as he looked up every now and again at the skylight, listening as The Kid explained some aspect of Mormonism to my friend.

Even though Mutt's attitude toward The Kid's diatribes was kindly, he usually declined to join in.  Finally, The Kid turned to Mutt and asked, "So, what religion are you? I mean, what were you raised as?"

Mutt slowly took his omnipresent cigarillo out of his mouth. "I'm a Hueyist," he said simply, and looked up towards the grey sky above the mall. 

"What -- you mean, that big duck in the cartoons?" The Kid was nonplussed for a moment, then laughed at Mutt -- no; he guffawed. " 'Baby Huey' ??"

Mutt paused, as if in thought, still looking up, then quickly looked at The Kid with an utterly rock-solid, serious expression and said, quietly, "Don't make fun of Huey."

At that moment, the mall was flooded with light, pouring through its glass roof; the interior of the little arcade blazed as if someone were testing a nuclear warhead in the sky above. The Kid looked up, eyes wide, mouth slack-open in Awe and Fear, utterly speechless. It was clear he was at least considering that it might not be wise to mock the Power and Glory that was Huey in future.

As The Kid stood gobsmacked, rooted in place and staring up at the heavens, my friend looked over at Mutt. A tiny smile was creasing his face, just for an instant, before he replaced the cigarillo in his mouth and turned back to the fudge machine. He had been looking up, watching the clouds through the skylight, and timed his response to The Kid just as the clouds parted and the sun, at zenith above the mall, suddenly broke through.

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Sarajevo

Unraveling

Cousin Ignatz, Asleep At Princip's Post: Sarajevo, 2014 (Matthew Fisher / Postmedia News)

Roughly twelve hours and 102 years ago, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the Grand Duchess Sophie, were shot by Gavrillo Princip, a member of an assassination team sent to the Bosnian city by the government of Serbia.

Collectively, the team was the gang which couldn't shoot straight: armed with crude grenades, a few pistols, and carrying some form of suicide pill, they waited along the route Franz Joseph's car would take as it drove beside the Miljacka river, which cuts through Sarajevo (local Austro-Hungarian authorities had helpfully published the Archduke's route beforehand).

Most of the team either was poorly positioned, or chickened out at the last moment.  One conspirator did throw a bomb at the Archduke's car, which bounced off its folded-back fabric top and exploded near a second car traveling just behind. Several people in the car had minor injuries and it continued on to a local hospital.

The Archduke's driver continued to Sarajevo city hall. When Franz Ferdinand arrived, he effectively unloaded on the hapless city administration about the state of their local security. Meanwhile, back at the river, the would-be bomber had jumped into the Miljacka and swallowed his suicide pill -- then, promptly threw up. The police arrested him, barely managing to keep him from a mob of pro- Austro-Hungarian citizens and save him for later trial and execution.

At approximately 12:30 PM, having finally accepted the thanks of the Sarajevo city fathers, Franz Ferdinand and his wife got back into their car, planning to go to the local hospital to see those wounded in the attack that morning. They used the same route, in reverse, that they had taken into the city, driving along the river, but their driver was confused.  He came to an intersection -- to the left, a street; to the right, a bridge over the Miljacka.

 The Royal Couple (Seated, At Rear) Leaving City Hall: Fifteen Minutes Left

Their driver turned left into the street, immediately realized he'd made a wrong turn, and stepped on the brakes. The car came to a stop a few yards up the street and the driver put it in reverse gear.

 The Intersection, 2014: The Archduke's Car Turned Left, Into This Street;
The Restaurant Where Princip Had Lunch Now A Museum (Photo: CNN)

At that same intersection, Gavrillo Princip, the last member of the Serbian assassination team, walked out of a small restaurant where he had gone for a sandwich, angry and dejected, after the team's failure that morning. As he stood on the sidewalk outside the cafe, the Archduke's car stopped directly in front of him; the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife were less than ten feet away. If you were writing a novel or screenplay, something that coincidental would be considered impossible.

Princip pulled out a pistol and stepped forward, firing several shots, managing to mortally wound both the Archduke and his wife. Their driver rushed them to the local military governor's residence, where a doctor could be called quickly, but Sophie died on the way; Ferdinand died a short time after they arrived.

Just over a month later, Europe was at war. Over the next four-plus years, the entire social fabric of the continent and much of the world changed irrevocably. Monarchies ended; millions died; the map of the world changed as the victors annexed territory from Germany and Austria Hungary, and new countries were created. New technology was developed -- and, in the Versailles Treaty, the groundwork was laid for a second, even more horrible war to begin by 1939.

(And, in 1918-19, the Spanish Influenza infected 500 million people and killed 40 million, worldwide; it was the largest number of deaths due to pandemic disease since the 'Black Death' Bubonic Plague outbreak in the 14th century [~200 million].  In the U.S., millions were made sick, and 675,000 died [0.6-plus per cent of America's population at the time, 103 million]. It's often referred to as the "forgotten epidemic" -- just one more terrible event in an ocean of violence and atrocity.)

 Cousin Ignatz, Worn Out By All The History

__________________________

Why the history lesson? It's been a week of history. While the Brexit is not a shot heard 'round the world, and no one suggests that apocalyptic events will spring from it -- is it (A) the continuation of the slow unraveling of the alliances created after that Great War and WWII, which shaped the world we live in, or is it (B) the latest vote against the globalization of that world?

Hope you're not looking for an answer. I am, after all, only a Dog, and no one listens to me.

__________________________

Random Barking: Stuff Out There

Buh-Buh-Buh-Brexit

PUNKED-OUT SPIKY MOHAWK BOY:  Whata'ya cryin' for? Since when do we give a toss about this sorta bullshit???
GOTH GIRL:  Come on, Dysentery; where's your sense of national flippin' pride?

-- King Ralph (1991) 

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MEHR, Für Ihren Andenken:

The UK vote is a class vote. Those who have lost 10% of their wages since 2008 struck a heavy blow at prime minister David Cameron and the bosses, unanimous in their support for the EU. There is evidence that this vote is partly motivated by racist sentiments and that the far Right dominated the Leave camp. But the incapacity to articulate a Left Leave — beyond small formations like the Socialist Workers Party and a few union bodies — is a failure of the whole British Left. 

In particular it is a missed opportunity for the new Labour leader — and historic Eurosceptic — Jeremy Corbyn, who made his own small contribution to delivering the popular classes into the arms of his enemies.

This fresh electoral insurrection expresses the large-scale political recomposition now underway in the West: almost everywhere the extreme centre — centre Right and centre Left alike — is being put in difficulty by forces and figures as politically opposed as Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn, Podemos, and Marine Le Pen. The EU is the archetypical incarnation of the extreme centre project. In the 1970s continental integration was almost at a standstill, progressing only through the slow sedimentation of European Court of Justice decisions. Its resumed takeoff in the 1980s, which led to the realisation of the single market and then economic and currency union, coincided with the affirmation of neoliberal ideology and financial hegemony.

The product of this short historical sequence, the EU’s institutions definitively bear its stigmata. As the almost perfect institutional incarnation of the Zeitgeist of the neoliberal era, the EU does not have the historic depth that would allow it to address the great turbulence unleashed by the 2008 crisis and rearm itself for the new period. Lacking in any democratic roots, nor does it have the legitimising procedures that would allow it to reinvent itself. A space of compromise among "responsible"  governmental partners, the EU is the terrain of a permanent grand coalition excluding any popular involvement.

          -- Cédric Durand / Contretemps, June 25, 2016, via Soul Of America

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MEHR, MIT POSTEN:  Let we only think of the Brexit vote as populist Xenophobes and 'Little Englanders' versus The Left and those Brainwashed By Globalism, these Twittered comments to the Financial Times online made by various British citizens give a flavor of the Brexit issues and emotions:

“So let me get this straight: as a young person, we bailed out the city and the over inflated pensions and savings that were gambled away by governments we didn’t elect (Thatcher, New Labour), and we will have to bail all of these people out while millennials see a decline in earnings and an ageing population (rising pensions, healthcare costs, etc). What do we get in return? We lose the right of freedom to move, study, work, live and be treated as equals in any European country, we face rising debt levels and now even lower incomes as we punch our own economy in the face for some poxy nationalist cause and fake democracy. What about proportional representation? What about the House of Lords? Where were the Brexiters then? As soon as I’ve finished my studies, I’m out of this country.” (By "g7")

"I think you are missing the bigger point: for those of us living in London and working in the financial sector the benefits of a remain are obvious, but the fact is that we have reaped the biggest gains from Globalization and these gains have not be shared by other parts of the country…All of the time that this inequality has been building, that London has getting richer, enjoying double digit house price inflation and incomes at multiples of the rest of the country, an outcome like this (a vote against the establishment) was getting more likely. The condescending idea that this is due to ignorant voters (over half of the population) is way off."  (By "Hugh Firmin")

“I’m not sad. I’m actually oddly satisfied. The UK has reminded the EU a simple rule: you cannot govern without popular support. Since 2005 and the failed referenda on an EU constitution, the EU has lost all of its popular support. It has offered the same solution (more Europe) to people’s problems for almost 30 years without being effective. That is not the way a democracy works. Even now, the only thing EU officials are talking about is “avoiding contagion”. No one has ever tried to understand why a contagion would happen and why citizens would want to leave the EU. That is arrogance. Arrogance is met with disdain, and anger. Rightly so. You reap what you sow. You cannot expect to earn what you do not deserve."  (By "Kotaro123")

“In Switzerland we know this feeling well: a no of the populace. Lessons for the UK? Leave is not a doomsday and remain has not lost in full. A great democratic nation has decided, so everybody in Europe [can] get its act together and reshuffle.”  (By "Eur-View")

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The Three Minute Poem From The Workplace

( Art by JR© 2016; the Docks, Le Harve, France. Installation by Labor [Shown] )

This, courtesy of The Soul Of America, and LeftVoice

Though it will not be today
some day
the free things I loved, with ardor
will be respected
will come back
will make warmth and light for people I do not know
and I will sleep as I did as a child

Some day
it could be tomorrow, the day after
every artificial structure
that we once had to navigate
that we had to pay for their use
will be shown incongruent
useless, toxic, inadmissible
boring
and will be left on the street
as a sign -- FREE TAKE AWAY

Some day
though it will not be today
the things I paid for, with real currency
will be honored
will be understood
will not return in the nights
and I will understand the important parts
in the way I had hoped

Though it will not be today
it will be some day
it could be tomorrow, or the day after
or not
but Some Day
we will be known and understood
one to the other
one hand open, one hand high
some day

_______________________________

Meanwhile, In Downtown Europe, Part VI

Britons Never Never Never Shall Be [ Insert ]

An Item Which Did Not Appear In Today's New York Times Online (Photo: AP)

A man who resembles the Pillsbury Dough-Boy stood in front of Winnie Churchill's old house yesterday, wearing a somber yet funereal tie, and made his famous Stan Laurel Face for fifteen minutes before blubbering like a little girl and begging the population of the British Isles not to make him look like a thorough, complete and manifest Stupid-Head.

"Look, it was just a little misdirection, is what it was," the Prime Rib told a small crowd (well, it was mostly his security detail, but the Superintelligent Parakeet was in attendance). "Back in the day, I was in a bit of a jam wit' me political Mates, ya know -- so I said, 'Fook it! We'll be havin' this vote to get outta the EU, then!'  I was tryin' to save me job! But I'm tellin' ya -- I never thought I'd got to go through wit' it!"

Cameron stressed for the sixtieth bazillion time that Great Britain's exit from the European Union "is just bad. Fookin' bad. An' stupid. Like drinkin' drain cleaner, is what it is."

"I get a call from Her Majesty jus' about every other day," Cameron added. " 'Davy!" She says -- 'Wot the bloody hell you think you're playin' at! I got a Tenner put on down the pub that says the UK is gonna stay -- and that's me Friday-night money! So you talk sense to the people!' "

Cameron appeared visibly moved by the image of a 90-year-old woman losing her beer money in a misplaced bet. "I know we got to stay in bed wit' a buncha Frogs and Krauts and Eye-ties, and now we got the bloody Turks, too. But to give in and take the easy road would be, you know -- like givin' in and takin' the easy road. Britons don't quit; we just hands in our notice. But not this time!"

And the feeling here in America? Let me to repeat myself: So long as the greater mass of my country-men and -women can make their house and monster truck payments, run up a few credit cards, have access to 400-channels of Big Digital teevee, and drink to excess occasionally, no one seems to care overly much what people over in that Eurp do.  USA !  USA !  Hillary The Inevitable ! Yay !

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MEHR, MIT SEHR INTERESSANT:  Over the past few years, the online betting and bookmaking parlor odds of an event occurring have been seen as more accurate indicators of how a Yes/No change may go down than standard polling.

Over the past week, articles have begun to appear in the British press which show the odds of a Brexit becoming narrower -- so, the media reports that 'Britons now favor remaining in the EU!' As Bloomberg reports, "Investors are piling money into bets on a victory for the 'Remain' campaign, led by Prime Minister David Cameron. The pound has surged to a five-month high and European stocks just posted their biggest three-day gain in almost a year, with the U.K.’s benchmark index erasing its monthly decline. Bookmakers have shortened their odds on a vote to stay."

However, it was noted by Matthew Shaddick, the head of the political betting department of Ladbroke's, the online professional betting operation, that

the key catalyst that moved bookie odds on Monday morning, the first day after the suspended campaign in the aftermath of Jo Cox murder was resumed, "we took a £25,000 bet on Remain this morning which helped move the odds in their direction." This in turn unleashed a global asset surge, as markets rebounded on expectations the Leave campaign was losing momentum, even as actual polls - still neck and neck - did not validate such an observation.

So, is someone making serious bets (or getting their friends in the Trade to do so as a political favor) to influence the reported bookmaking odds, and give the appearance that the "Remainders" would carry the day, come the voting?  Oh, and provide a little 'bump' to the equities markets as well...

That would be the smart bet, wouldn't it?

__________________________________

This Is Your Illusion Of Freedom Monday

Punch 'n Judy

 
Predictions aren't usually accurate; we're not all Warren Wagar. That said, I'm going to make some unsubstantiated remarks based on nothing more than what a Dog's nose can sense about the future.

Ahem. Trump will not win the General Election in November.  Sorry, peeps; but does anyone expect that? Does even the Duke Of New York himself expect to win? C'mon. Really? Really?

Daily, conservatives spin between an outright condemnation of El Donaldo, and damning him with faint praise. Most recently, Little Pauly Ryan advised Repubs to "follow their conscience" regarding support for the Tubby One with the Big Tie. But the Good Ol' Boys who run the Republican party are collectively washing their hands of him, in public.

So, the Republican convention will become Surrealist Theatre for the die-hard "twenty-four per centers", red meat to the far right. There will be manufactured enthusiasm, a possible floor fight, and booing of the candidate -- a public shaming, which will allow Trump to spout and preen from the podium during his acceptance speech.

The teevee will show the faces of his supporters in the audience (rapt with, uh, something), and by comparison, the stony, wizened countenances of President Yertle The Turtle and President Ryan and President Sessions as they listen, unmoving, hands folded tightly against their private parts. When Trumpo is done, no one but his family will join him on the platform when the balloons drop -- unless they were paid to appear with Trump meats and wines and other fine Trump products.

And likewise, the Democratic convention will be grand theatre, a Kumby - ah ha moment for Her New America (She cannot tell you what that New America is, except it's everything that Trump is not). There will be something for everybody at this glorious time, Her time -- Crazy Old Man Bernie will be allowed a brief speech before being ignored forever -- and that historic moment, when The Inevitable rises, to thunderous applause which goes on and on and on, to accept the mantle of Goodness and Tough-Mindedness and Necessary Sacrifice. And She will then make The Speech.

We will see teevee moments of faces of The Faithful, upturned and expectant, as She speaks The Words. And introduces RunningMate Elizabeth (whose political integrity in my eyes will plummet immediately), again to titanic ovation, stupefying in its power, which goes on and on and on. All of it on the Teevee (as Stimpy would say) for youuuuuu. Such a spectacle.



Oh, but that will be nothing compared to the election itself -- even though as a practical matter, it will be an utter waste of time. It's a manufactured moment of public hysteria for the Proles, a cliffhanger without a real cliff; only a paper-mache model on a Hollywood backlot. A majority of Americans, Right or Left or Center, are not aligned with Trump; his own public comments and his conduct in debate with She will ensure that at the polls in November, Donald will lose.

Oh, the media will drag things out -- with plenty of commercials. They'll tell us things are "close", neck and neck; oh, how will American democracy survive? Oh No! Can She maintain that lead in Delaware? What about dentists in Milwaukee, who are wavering!?! But in the end there will be Triumph, and Yet Another Historic Speech. We will tire of hearing the word "historic".

So, let's just say it:  Trump can never win. Hillary The Inevitable is destined to become the elected Emptysuit leader of America. Why bother with an election? She has a country an Empire to run.  Let She be She; and in her train, the Billy-o.

In January, Herr Obama will wave Goo-bye and take that Fabled second-term trip away on Marine Won.  The Clintons will slide back into the White House -- as if the intervening years, with our nation and the world soiled by nearly a decade of "Lil' Boots" Bush and President Cheney, and befuddled by another near-decade of Herr Obama, were all just a Bad Dream.

One other quick observation: sorry, folks, but there will not be a right-wing takeover of the government. The arrival of Trump as the Right's front-runner is a sign of bankrupt conservative politics is in America, not a resurgence of power. Things aren't bad enough, yet, for a President Rexall.

America will likely continue deteriorating into a more polarized society, divided and defined by wealth (there's a reason Game 'O Thrones and so much dystopian fiction, film, and musical themes are so popular). You might have to worry more, when that happens -- but that's for later.

In the meantime / in between times -- so long as we can make our truck and house payments and get us some o' that 400-channel digital teevee and run up some credit cards... who the fuck really cares?  Ya gotta go for the gold. We ain't gonna live forever.  S'all good.  USA !  USA !  Yay!

_________________________________

MEHR, MIT MEHR:

DOG: Yes?
MVOHC:  You're still a hater, man.
DOG: Look, all I said was that Hillary is inevitably going to become the President. It's in the bag; the election is hers to lose. And you're taking issue with that?
MVOHC:  You have to get behind this.
DOG:  Hold it -- you're saying it isn't enough to already declare her the winner? That I have to show up and keep applauding, too? 
MVHOC:  Like you said, it's inevitable.
DOG: (Affectless Stare)
MVOHC:  What, it's going to kill you to support her? She's the only viable candidate. You're going to refuse to support her for the whole 8 years she's in office?
DOG: (Affectless Stare More) 
MVHOC: Fuck you.

____________________________________

 

Fear The Hillarump Walking

"Kill The Brain And You Kill The Ghoul"
-- George Romero's Original Night Of The Living Dead (1968)

So it's a Sunday; I've already seen very bad news this morning, and -- like you -- am looking for something, anything for a mindless, momentary distraction.

You found it with this blog; I'll switch on the teevee. Let's see -- politics? That's always good for a distraction, except I can't stomach any Talking Headless programs; I can barely stomach anything political In These Days.

Okay -- set's warming up; I can hear the tubes popping... what's this? Oh, cool -- it's Episode One, Season One, of The Walking Dead! No politics in here...

So, Rick Grimes stops for gasoline at  what's left of an encampment around a gas station somewhere in Georgia...

Wait a minute...  I don't remember this part.  My recollection is that TWD started in 2010... Oh, and check out how crisp and clean Rick's uniform and hat are: After the Apocalypse, laundries and dry cleaners are apparently still in operation. We will run out of food, medicines, gasoline, and televised organized sports or streaming music will disappear, but we'll be well-dressed. 

Zombies, on the other hand, don't care much for fashion or personal grooming. Their hair could use conditioner (or a good combing), the women neglect using even foundation makeup, not to mention eyeliner; and has anyone mentioned to them there are brightening strips for those teeth? I'm sure of all the things that weren't looted from pharmacies and supermarkets, those whitening strips are probably still sitting right on the shelves. 

And most importantly, the Zombies dress in tacky, stained clothing which, you know -- holds odors. Since they'll be wearing those clothes, uh, well, forever -- I'll bet they regret shopping at H&M now, since those items were never meant to last more than one season before falling apart.

All right -- that's just about enough of that. Too predictable.  The last time someone with a blog showed a presidential candydate being placed in harm's way was in 1996 -- the days of The Early Intertubes, when Yahoo! and AOL walked the earth and charged you by the minute for access. When there was dial-up and 33.6 Modems and rendering one frame of CG could take hours. It was before an infrastructure that could support the growth of digital tech. It was before Napster and Twitter, for god's sake. 

Websites were in their infancy, and Adobe Photoshop was still a new(ish) tool.  One enterprising Guy with a sense of humor decided to use a new Photoshop plug-in that someone else had made, which modified a digital photographic image to show people's head's exploding. The Guy decided to modify photos of the presidential candidates in that year, Then-Gropenator Billy Clinton and Senator BobDole, on his (pre-CSS) website.

A large number of people (and Dogs) who have their own Blogs and Sites are 21st century equivalents of the folks who build stuff in their garage and display it at crafts fairs: See what cool / funny / insightful things I made?

In this situation, The Guy thought that his ability with Photoshop Plug-In / Exploding Heads + Photos Of Candydates = Yeah, baby Teh Funny. So, he posted those modified photos of Dole and Clinton, and his friends sent him emails saying how cool it all was. The good time must have lasted all of twenty minutes, because it also earned the website's author an almost instantaneous visit from the Secret Service to "assess" him -- and provide the chilling effect such visits intend; an unspoken threat that anyone else shouldn't do things like that, or else.

So we'll leave the image above, with Hillaryombie charging Rick as he pulls something from a leather receptacle on his belt, alone.  Let's change the channel... gotta be something different out there...

Oh, Holy Mother Of God. What is this, Political Zombie weekend? It's 28 Days Later -- or, some version of it, anyway...

 

 

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