BASEBALL!!! -OR- Hope To Cope

"People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. ...

When delivered by James Earl Jones in "Field Of Dreams" these words are restorative.

It culminates the restoration of Jones' character Terrance Mann from "Get off my lawn!" iconoclastic resignee to human again. (Well, then he wanders off into the cornfield never to be seen again, but he'd made his peace?)

The first encounter between Mann and Ray Kinsella didn't go quite as well.
Terence Mann: Oh, my God.
Ray Kinsella: What?
Terence Mann: You're from the sixties.
Ray Kinsella: [bashfully] Well, yeah, actually...
Terence Mann: [spraying at Ray with a insecticide sprayer] Out! Back to the sixties! Back! There's no place for you here in the future! Get back while you still can!

My daily life more closely resembles the latter. The one constant for me is my long-suffering wife. Her suffering of my lack of place in this future, is acknowledged, but never weaponized. We're a team. Taking on all comers.

This first weekend of spring training is a mixed bag. As much as I'd like to embrace the harbinger of better days and harken back to the good old days, I'm reminded that even baseball has been cast aside. It is still there to remind us, but has to compete with the ramp-up to the more frenetic, more appropriately named March Madness of the NCAA.

Still, for these first few weeks of the spring rituals in Florida and Arizona, the unlikely unknown still has a shot. At least one walk-on prospect will defy the odds, disprove the experts and get a coveted spot on the major league roster. The rest of us can live vicariously through that experience.

Erased and rebuilt. One blight on our landscape at a time. However unlikely, it is still possible in baseball. What of everything else? Meh, not so much.

But wouldn't it be nice?

Bundled Insecurities -OR- Got Any Lupins?

The hits just keep on coming.

The continual, disingenuous framing of the "debate" by and for heavily leveraged proxy groups to the exclusion of what are labeled radical or fringe ideas like SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE, PEACE and a SUSTAINABLE, LIVABLE PLANET leaves us without viable alternatives.

We are constantly bombarded with false choices, false statements, false policies and false premises, then we are told that it is an If:Then situation with no good options. We are painted into this corner and that's how it HAS to be.

The big lies have a cumulative effect. When perpetuated and accepted as biblical canon, they prevent alteration. The median age in America is 36.1 years. That means that for over half the population it's simply always been this way.

Please. Enough Already. Our too big to function government manipulated by our too big to fail banks and global corporations driving a too stoopid to be believed freight train wide fucking open, with no brakes and no safeties. Anything that flies, falls or explodes off into oblivion is not worth worrying about. Don't worry, be happy?
Fuck that.

We no longer have viable National Security. Nor do we even have a grasp of what national security is anymore. Instead of worrying that people we've fucked with forever can and will be looking for a little payback, we should STOP FUCKING WITH THEM. That is what is in our national security interest.

Instead of pissing on the poor and middle class concerns, we need to heed them.
Not the pasty faced, full of shit pundits or the pwned shills posing as our representatives whose allegiance is willingly compromised and whose integrity never existed. They have ignored our subtle and not so subtle attempts to bring their petty, ceaseless games back into perspective. They dismiss our efforts as only necessary to validate their parking and perpetuate their delusions of importance.

When you come right down to it, our REAL message is not much different from that heard on the streets of Kabul, Baghdad, Port Au Prince or Havana. "Leave us the FUCK alone." Get yer own shit together, then MAYBE you can lecture us on behaviors. Quit trying to HELP because you don't have a clue what the word means. If we NEED you we know where you are and vice versa, but quit crying WOLF. Quit demonizing shit and quit taking our paycheck. Let your real bosses cut your checks and provide your benefits. But most of all instead of being satisfied as long as you've elevated yourself above the muck and mire of everyday life, consider who put you into that position and do your fucking job.

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose"? Are we ready to fight for our right to A political party? What does that fight entail? Where is the battlefield?

Clowns to the left of me (metaphorically), jokers to my right? Here I am. Clinging to my better world. If you're in the way when the hammers start to fall... oh well, that's the way the mop flops.

It's A MONEY Trick Part MMX -OR- Presto Chango

“Life is not a static thing. The only people who do not change their minds are incompetents in asylums, those who can't are in cemeteries.”
-Sen. Everett Dirksen quote

He also said: “I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.”

and
“I think the Congress finally has succumbed to the very infectious virus of bigness that began at the beginning of the century, when we first heard about big business. After a while we heard about big government. Then we began to hear about big labor. This whole bigness idea has intruded itself on the thinking of the country.”

Of course, his best remembered utterance dealt with the trivialization of money.

His successors can, and do, argue the trivial at the peril of all. Against all odds and their own better judgement, Congress, for all of their lofty rhetoric, is a fubar clusterfuck. Omnipotently impotent.

It is in the third quote that I feel we get a hint at where things may have seriously gone off his reservations.

Can you see it too?

2-4 2sDay Feeling Kinda Rough Seein' Double

U.S.A U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A? -OR- H.S.A. H.S.A. H.S.A.

THEY LIVE! At the CPAC orgasmic cotillion, the Hegemonic States of America were in full plumage. If one were to doubt the united-ness of our union, look no further for validation. The deep and abiding faith on which this gathering feeds, all flag-draped and facade, hideously sucks the marrow from the very bones upon which it anchors its beliefs.


It is an ANTI-Union gathering in every syllable uttered. Divide and control. Splinter and pillage. Taking full and complete credit for all that is good. Singularly responsible, good and benevolent, without need to examine the tenets or question the agenda.
A starker contrast between words and deeds would be tough to imagine.



The basic premise of their pitch now, as it has been for...
fucking...
ever
is that if you give them the POWER, they'll let you prostrate yourself before them. If you don't let them run the show, they'll pretend they do anyway.

Put us in and we'll make things better! For US. We're gonna put it to you so hard and so often that you'll be stunned for decades. And you'll THANK us for it.
It's empty, self-serving, self-aggrandizing crap. They failed miserably implementing their stated vision, but have managed to construct their compound and insulate themselves and their actual agenda from accountability.

The evil they conjure to underpin their deception is perhaps the most bizarre thing of all. DFHs? Aren't Slackers by definition historically benign? (except in the GOP fables)

What a wonderful world if this were the law of the land?

I gotcher Podcast right here -OR- Throw a towel over it.

Fanfare! The newest Blue Gal and D r i f t g l a s s Podcast for your listening pleasure?.

Listen to it. Listen to Drifty. Feel his pain. That is my draft folder.

It's no surprise that Michael Steele is lying. No shock that he's churning the base of ugliness that remains as the GOP. Their ugly is pegged at ELEVENTY! That their redundant dance of bullshit, gainsaying and feces flinging still evokes the desired response. Distraction.

Yes, everything they STATE is 180° from reality. Everything they claim is being done by liburals is the result of their arrogant, ignorant existence. They are reborn every yesterday. Nothing happened before that to create or perpetuate this opposite world time loop. You can sit here in the waiting room or you can wait here in the sitting room.

I linked to the podcast at Blue Gal's site because she has the PayPal link. They need to defray the costs of distribution. Please help them. Encourage them. It's a great platform that brings needed perspective to the challenges we face.

You say you're unhappy
you blame it on ME
I can't make you happy
you don't listen to me.

So will you listen to Blue Gal and Driftglass?
Listen to two of the best progressive voices you'll never hear or read in the MSM.
Do it NOW.

Shoes For Industry -OR- Going, Going... GONE!

I don't have a clue about the personal hell in which John Six-Stack lived. Something about him having his own plane suggests that it was truly on another plane. Not of any realm with which I am acquainted. Yesterday's post here touched some of the same themes as his attributed missive (to which I will not link). I and many other curmudgeonly bloggers have been critical of almost everything Mr. Stack included in his message.

His delusional act didn't change anything, didn't help anybody and in the end, solidified the status quo he could no longer tolerate. In short, he was NOT a very practical anarchist. The body blow, he thought he was delivering, failed to land. (gallows humor?) His was not the first, nor the last, insane blaze of Howard Beale glory. It was only significant and deemed newsworthy for its conjuring salaciousness.
Today, somewhat thankfully, we have Tiger Woods to fill that RDA in the newsfotainment diet.

I'm not sure exactly why I was reminded of high school by Stack's act, but I was.
Way back when I was a freshman in high school, my school's cafeteria served hot meals on REAL china plates with real knives, forks and spoons. Many of the 10" plates even had the school's crest inlaid complete with gold leaf. I often wish I had taken one as a souvenir. Being high school, and being the late 60s, there was a contradiction between past, present and looming future. By the time I graduated all the china plates were gone; replaced by divided styrofoam trays and plates with plastic utensils.

The time in between made lunchtime interesting. You never knew when it would happen. There were always rumors and anticipation. I learned that the bowls of "mashed potatoes" were particularly effective IEDs (improvised entertainment devices). You could take the smallish bowl and stick it to the underside of the table. The potato -like substance had enough cohesion to hold it in place to both surfaces. As the substance dried out, the cohesion would be lost and the bowl would drop noisily to the tile floor while you were alibied elsewhere. On some days this would start an all-thumbs-a-thon and all manner of breakables would start crashing to the floor. The attrition rate of plates was high.

The break fests were grand events. Much more sophisticated than the more routine food fights. The trick was finding ways to make the impromptu concerts appear accidental and coincidental. Pre-emption was a daily focus for the cafeteria's zookeepers.

We would imagine ourselves sitting, much the way young Ernest Hemingway, the school's most famous alum, had back in his days at OPRF. Ranking on classmates, vilifying the swill being served, noisy and active. Yet these were very uncertain times. While college loomed for some of the class, the draft was the more likely concern for the average male. The hippie anti-war caste faced off against the jocks and young republicans. Drugs were present but not defining. We were a very mixed bag.
Mostly unaware, unfocused hatchlings with fairly bland expectations and a fairly well indoctrinated cold-war fatalism. The world changed in 1968 taking the world I knew with it. I was young enough to think this was the start of something or the end of something, but whatever it was I had to find my way in it.

I'm much older now. A contemporary of John Stark. We went to different high schools together. I glean a sense of how unfair his world had become in his mind, but he could have smashed some plates instead of his option. It's an unfair world. Wear a helmet.

Not To Be Mean, Harsh, Rude, Crude, Cruel or Insensitive... BUT! -OR- Driving Miss Crazy

It's clear that I lack any gravitas. (Remember when that was imporant?) I'm just a DFH out here on the fringe. So while I may not have the audience, I might just have a vital perspective on a few things. I'm not constantly down in the trenches. I still have expectations. I reject the can't do attitude and the half-assed performance of those who begged, pleaded, promised and scummed their way onto the field. I cringe at our media. I find no pleasure in the irony of Sarah Palin's purloined and co-opted "Lamestream Media" descriptive. She is the proof of a media that has jumped the shark. The same media that brought us Paris, Britney, Jacko, Blago and newsfotainment 24/7? There is no seriousness left, no objectivity, no thinking involved. Otherwise they would be driven to explain that we are being driven and they (the media) are the prod. Without a media, what makes Sarah or Paris of interest? Their act isn't even mildly entertaining.

We can't get there from here. It's questionable if we can get anywhere we'd want to go from here. We're so far from there or anything remotely resembling there that there no longer exists except in the abstract. It is buried beneath a mountain of bullshit. The by-product of Trickle Down.

This is what my perspective tells me. We've been going the wrong way, doing the wrong things, for the wrong reasons for so long that we have now have to redefine our destination daily. PERIOD. No amount of debate, discussion, lecturing, polling or finger pointing matters unless it INCLUDES the blunt plain admission that, at this point, we are only compounding our mistakes, making it more difficult to stop doing the blatantly stupid things and have little say or choice left in much of anything.

We've lost our collective minds. At the same time we are "investing" in social security/medicare we are also funding obscene pools of capital through augmental retirement vehicles. Social Security has been demonized, or worse, de-legitimized and looted by Medicare/Medicaid. (Which was avoidable by a REAL national health care plan for ALL.)

So, to put it in a nutshell, we're funding SS for government spending at the same time we are funding the private sector investors with our 401Ks. We act surprised when both lose value; predictably, cyclically and deliberately. Not a whole lot different from Vegas. The house wins. You lose, but lots of glitz and shiny shilling to distract the marks.

You want to have a National Security discussion, but not include the dangerous INSECURITY epidemic that results from our upside down priorities? You want to concentrate the prepoderance of our efforts and resources on nightmare fantasies hyped up to replace the Evil Empire? TIME FUCKING OUT. Let's, at least, think on that before we go all in. Somewhere in that there is an, almost, admission that we are pursuing an irrational course and consider our potential dangers to be more important than our very real ones.

Are good levies in NOLA in our national security interests? Are good schools in Altgeld Gardens in our national security interests? Is a functional 21st century power grid in our national interests? Are healthy, properly nourished kids in our national security interests? Is replacing gangs and drugs with beneficial activities in our national security interests? Does repairing a crumbling infrastructure benefit our national security? Do these national security interests deserve at LEAST the same focus, resources and commitment as the Pentagon?

We are sold that propping up the fragile financial system without repairing its unsound politics, policies and practices is our only option. We believe? Despite the clear evidence and admissions that these flaws are FATAL?

2-4 2sDay Laugh Clown Laugh.... dammit

Sir Reality -OR- Happy Warthog Day

Refusing to be upstaged by Puxatawney Phil, Richard Bruce "The Dick" Cheney, emerged from his undisclosed bunker location somewhere near Mordor, to once again look around and decree that black is white, down is up, war is peace, and torture is pure LOVE. The Emissary from Opposite World sure knows how to work a throng.

In an impassioned interview, he droned his superior understanding of good and evil as he has done consistently throughout his political career. Once again he was off by 180°, but remained resolute, unchanged and unbowed. He is still right and everybody who doesn't believe that is deranged. He ALONE has the intelligence and steely-eyed determination to catapult the propaganda. Doubling down on a world view that rivals the paranoid delusions of a product deprived tweaker -one shared by but not publicly admitted to by a substantial, but inconsequentional MINORITY- The DICK inferred, implied and suggested that we not abandon the master plan of reducing the whole world to internecine warfare.

He remains more visible than he was during his entire elected/appointed political career. I guess now the only thing left for the Dick is an e-ticket visit to the thrill ride of the Hague. That must be his goal. The Capstone of his legacy.

What a dick.

The Body's Willing -OR- Just `cuz You're Crazy don't mean they ain't out to get ya.

Illinois knows a few things about ex-governors. It has incarcerated some and sainted others for conducting their affairs in exactly the same manner.

Other states fare no better.

If "The Body" were truly interested in providing a public service, he could easily chronicle the deceptions of everyday practice in the State Houses and Council Chambers that hamstring all efforts at reform.

Instead, we get this?

Quickie Limerick

Marty from PA...


The Governor quit her job,
to become a Conservative heartthrob
"Who cares what I know
It's all a big show,
And I really appeal to the mob."

Diversions are required -OR- Non-sweaty petty stuff

Who'd a thunk it? The inter tubes can still surprise me.
Somebody has found time and energy enough to create a tribute site for Dogs Playing Poker. Albeit a commercialized attempt, it nonetheless exposes a curious world to the genius of Cassius Coolidge and those who've kept his efforts up over the years.

Somewhat fitting that others continue to enjoy and reap pleasure/profit from his life's work. If he hadn't done it chances are nobody else would have. At least not as timelessly as he did.

Reconciling What We KNOW vs. What We're TOLD -OR- Think For Yourself For A CHANGE

"We can rewrite those rules collectively." Thus spaketh Elizabeth Warren regarding the financial clusterfuck. She's right. We CAN.

We don't and probably won't -at least not to the level needed- because there's no upside to it for the rule writers. Doing so would lessen their importance and threaten their elevated social caste. It's all a money trick anyway. Brought to you by fiscal conservatism, the letters F & U. Underwritten through a grant from Ronald Wilson Reagan (from whom all blessing flows).

You wouldn't know this because of anything you've heard, read or watched. The ways of that world are beyond your feeble talents unless you are fluent in their language and customs. Besides, you're either too busy trying to stay ahead of the Langoliers or you've already watched them rush by you and are quietly, individually, weighing your options. Except for the overarching umbrella of your subtitled citizenship, you don't have any dog in the fight. Your banking relationships are strictly a conduit. Your prospects and outlook are no longer inexorably hinged to the MARKET.

Consider the meetings that would be required. Would anyone invited to participate speak for you? Could YOU be invited to speak for you? "And it's One, Two, Three What are we fighting for?"

If you've paid any attention whatsoever, your approach has changed in response to the unchanging, intractable nature of everything not under your direct control. You are immersed in your new community, still hopeful, but with trepidations, that the U.S of A is too big to fail. That no sane beings could deliberately crash rather than alter their course.

You're just sitting there watching the wheels go round and round. Ducking the assorted bits, avoiding the shrapnel and clinging to whatever Plan B you've devised.
You have faced and come to grips with whatever may come. The great unknown just doesn't scare you anymore. It's coming. There will be no eleventh hour stay, no practical, pragmatic application of sound policy decisions. Everything is concentrated on, and consumed by, maintaining buoyancy and you've slowly realized your classification as ballast. Good on ya.

It's a big, bad world out there and time enough for getting even later. If we survive the ugly, we can meet at the pyre and raise a celebratory ruckus.

When that day comes, perhaps someone will write something similar to Lower Manhattanite's summation of events in Haiti. Eloquent, direct and matter-of-fact.

2-4 2sDay Big Brass Balls

There Oughta Be A Law Against EVERYTHING -OR- Regressives in the Wainscotting

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
James Madison

"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?"
Thornton Wilder

"Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it." -Henry Thomas Buckle

"He who frames the debate decides the fate." -Nobody Famous

I raised two children on the fundamental principle that they either control themselves or they will be controlled. They have both attained the age of majority intact, clear eyed and fiercely dependently independent. They know who is in charge and more importantly who IS NOT.

It's a daunting challenge to be a law abiding citizen. In fact, it is close -and getting closer- to being an impossibility. If all of our rules and laws were 100% enforced 100%, nobody would be innocent. We use clever-ties to avoid this reality.
Judicial discretion, selective enforcement and lawyerly maneuverings prevent the natural outcome of our dichotomy of Heinlein's truth.

I doubt the team behind Audi's entry in the Superbowl commercial contest was trying to expose the absurdity of our law and order zealots. It is unlikely that many of its viewers put 2 and 2 together to see that we are kidding ourselves. It's also unlikely that a critical mass will ascend to positions of effect to reverse the law and order juggernaut. By nature, the much needed ingredient for something different is genetically predisposed NOT to meddle. The systems, processes and institutions reject and/or repel anyone who dares make the attempt.

If you watched the commercial did you find it absurd? Was its premise so far-fetched?
Comparatively, is the concept of anarchy worse than absurd control freaks woven into every nuance of existence?

No? Watch it again.

Do You Believe? -OR- Who Dat?

See it now? Believe it.

Halftime Fun Courtesy of MPS

From Mock Paper Scissors via Skinny Dennis



Make your own Batman/Robin Comic

Not Amused -OR- What Do YOU Know?

see more Friends of Irony

As I type, the Gobsmacked goobers are gathered in glad garb getting goosed by Mooselini. She is reading to them the ghost-written words she knows they paid to hear. One part Saint Ronnie, one part Ayn Rand, one part Glen Beck, six drops of essence of terror, five drops of sinister sauce. Man, that woman can READ! She's the real deal! When you need someone to read for you... hey, wait a minute what is she selling? How many cliches can be strung together? Meet the new great communicator. Lie Baby Lie! Churn Baby Churn.


Driftglass encapsulates the crux of the situ.
Politically and professionally, I am heartily tired of being right, and losing, over and over and over again.

I’m tired of warning people not to give the keys to the shitwhistles, then watching them do it, then watching my nightmares come true, then watching them lie about it.

I am tired of drowning in a flood of other people’s self-absolving bullshit.

Tired of being a head smarter than primates who tell me to shut up and sit down while they fuck things up beyond repair.

Tired going broke while I watch people who have been wrong forever about everything prosper.

Tired of finding out – always too late – that there was another, secret rule book. Another, secret, organization chart. Another, secret list of the Clout Protected. Another, secret clique of insiders or brothers-in-law or made-media-men or A-lister’s who had already held their own Yalta Conference behind closed doors and have already divvied up the Brave New World I thought I was fighting for long before the battle was over.

Tired of finding out that while I was sweating my ass off, the game had been rigged against me by people who I thought were on my team.

Tired of finding out that the two ironclad rules of Illinois politics (Rule One: There is a club. Rule Two: You are not in it.) also apply to virtually every other institution.

Monsters & Money -OR- WTF?

WBBM TV, the Chicago affiliate of CBS has unveiled a new news show. "Monsters and Money in the Morning" breaks the newsroom/anchor desk mold. Four semi-iconic Chicago personalities instead gather around a Charlie Rose table and bandy words. Dan Jigetts, Mike North, Terry Savage and Mike Hegedus bring their respective games to the table.
Jigetts, offensive lineman with the `85 Super-Bowl Bears cum TV sportscaster. Mike North, Chicago sportsradio's brash and borderline deranged mouth that roared. Terry Savage, long time financial reporter and advice columnist. Mike Hegedus, late of CNBC coverage. By serendipity or design, the mash-up of their collective egos and long slog of working outside of the conventional morning fare is jarring to say the least.

A little bit Morning Joe, a little bit Bozo's Circus. Talking morning news as it affects sports and your checkbook mixed with a bit of weather and traffic?

You may laugh, but if this catches on, it will be in every market, every day.
from the Tribune's Tower Ticker w/ Phil Rosenthal

4:59 a.m. Dan Jiggetts introduces Mike North, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Terry Savage and CNBC alumnus Mike Hegedus. So much for needing caffeine. That high def picture will wake you up. These people look so much better in person. Jiggetts, who seems to be first among equals as the show's host of hosts, introduces Susan Carlson, who was part of Channel 2's previous morning show, and weathercaster Mary Kay Kleist, another refugee from WBBM's actual news teamrew. They seem awfully happy for not having seats at the table yet. Especially Kleist, who's literally standing in Carlson's shadow.

5 a.m. "This is like a big table here, Jiggs, as you know," North says to the others seated around the big table. "I'm going to tell you something right now. I'm going to go against the grain. I know you three want to make a lot of money for the show. I know you want advertisers for the show. You want us to so-called prostitute ourselves for the show, but I'm not going there. I'm going to tell you straight out and out, we just got to do what we got to do. Don't encourage sales or anything like that." Holding a box of Raisin Bran with slapdash sign on it that says Cereal Sponsor Needed, he adds, "Just pour the cereal in the bowl and enjoy yourself."

Still 5 a.m. "For anybody who's listening not watching, it says 'Cereal Sponsor Needed,' " Savage notes, either anticipating a radio simulcast or a distracted audience. North says: "If you're not watching, you're not seeing us. No. 2, I think the people out there can read, otherwise we're in trouble."

5:01 a.m. Jiggetts: "What about the milk?" North: "I can only go so far on the first day." Time to go to weather with Kleist, as Carlson takes a seat at the table.

5:02 a.m. Carlson says she's "excited to be here" and that it was an "exciting night in Chicago so to speak" with a "a lot of things going on while you were catching your Zs." Those things? Two fires.

MUST see TV? Train-wreck TV? I'm a little sadder today.

While I appreciate the "outside the box" thinking that brought this on, I must question the value this offers the viewership. Once the novelty wears thin, (approx. 5:02 am) I'm off to reruns of the Andy Griffith show to regain my tenuous hold on sanity.

This much perk and bombast to start one's day is sure to appeal to someone. somewhere.

If you don't believe me, take a quick peek...


(note: I refuse to join in the Scott Lee Cohen hysteria. To me, who better than a pawnbroker to play back-up to Blago's replacement?)

Listen While I Play My Green Tambourine -OR- Nothing Up My Sleeve

This Land's Not Your Land
This Land's Not My Land
Codified.
But that's not important.

Sometimes it helps to remember that it's all pretty much an illusion anyway.

It must be Thursday. I've never gotten the hang of Thursdays.
The National Security roll call is summoned up... AGAIN.
Hey Barkeep! Another round of ginned up fear for EVERYONE!



People weren't paying attention. Their last nerve having frayed away, they were starting to emerge from their trance and - GULP- ask questions about stuff again. Great expectations having been dashed on CHANGE to believe in. The dog needs wagging.

B.A.D. Genuflection

FireFireFire
What can I say. Fire is fascinating.
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert certainly doesn't need a plug from me, but it's a GREAT blog.
One Bad Century
The abusive relationship between Chicago Cubs and their "fans".
Beachwood Reporter Chicago done right.
Tome of the Unknown Writer
Morning Martini

And props to: Bluegal, Drifty, Tengrain, Tex Betsy and her beach bums (Freckles Cassie, Larue, Pellora, Assorted Gnomes), Jurrasic Pork, Dr. Zauis, Darkblack, Battacchio and the rest of the Sidebar All-Stars.

There are others I wish I could blogroll and recommend, but they've apparently gone walk-about. (I prefer to think that rather than to FB or tweeter) A few have climbed aboard larger sites and insist they haven't sold-out. They seek something? Recognition? Acceptance? A Paycheck? That's dandy, but why abandon the dingy? You might want/need it again one day. A few others have been cowed into taking down their content because they were "caught" by their employer talking about their work.
Such Muzzlement is a puzzlement to me. It's not as though their concerns have been addressed. is it?

Finally, of interest to me. YMMV
Juxtaposed
The first, a kid I watched grow up:
My (cooperative) Life Without the Cats
and lastly
an ex-in-law (once removed) blogs here:

The Third City

It's a tough slog to post ORIGINAL work every day. It takes some discipline and commitment. Once a week? Once a month? Who knows?

2-4 2sDay Illinois Primary Edition

Twas Ever Thus -OR- Get Over Yourself

Is there comfort in knowing we've been here before? That the vast majority of us never left? That we are the knot in a perpetual tug o' war? Being dragged back and forth, to and fro, hither and yon towards one ideological end or the other?

Probably not.

In this great philosophical debate, we barely participate. Our role: naivete', apathy, distaste, disgust, revulsion and contentment, then every so often, more often of late it seems, we are told to pick a side. Pick a Champion to sally forth in our stead so we can go back to our alleged pursuit of happiness, piety, contentment or salvation?

In the end, unless staggering incompetence is applied, the daily grind for the masses doesn't change much. Ups and downs, joy and pain, stress and leisure. How we define our own happiness determines the highs and lows. In that light, the primary focus of our Champions, and the criteria we employ in the choosing is best served by minimizing the things that alter that balance.

I'm not sure that such massive incompetence has ever been inflicted on a society. Perhaps it has and the history of that society has been forgotten, scrubbed and sanitized. Perhaps it was swallowed whole by its own incompetence. Whatever the case, it's hard to be optimistic about our prospects.

We should all take the time to ponder our options. We may one day look back at all of this and laugh. Today isn't that day. Today is a day to think about our network, our support, our resources, our assets and our liabilities.

Point of information. Facebook is not a "network" it's a diversion. It's a result of inbred fear of being in proximity. It's a cage. It's a time eater. Get out an mingle with the mangled. You'll be amazed how much we have in common.