The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Richard Day's picture

    THE WATER WE DRINK!

    By Richard Day on Thu, 01/23/2014 - 3:41am |

    I am attempting (once again or fifty times again) to perceive some sort of order out of what can only be denominated as chaos.

    IT'S YOUR DECISION

    Obama's current thoughts about the Mideast region

    By artappraiser on Wed, 01/22/2014 - 7:41pm |

    are on pages 11 through 15 of Dave Remnick's article in the Jan. 27 The New Yorker (free online access): Annals of the Presidency: Going the Distance; On and off the road with Barack Obama. The article is the result of a lengthy "embed" with the president and ranges over the problems, both domestic and foreign, of his so-called "annus horribilus."

    Beyond Vietnam

    By moat on Mon, 01/20/2014 - 9:12am |

    On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I would like to focus on his opposition to the War in Vietnam and his reasons for putting as much energy into that struggle as he did on top of the pivotal role he played in the Civil Rights Movement. Many of his allies and his enemies criticized him for his outspoken opposition to the war for many different reasons. The clearest answer to all on the matter that I have found was given in 1967 at the Riverside Church when he was addressing a meeting sponsored by a group called: Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. The speech is titled: Beyond Vietnam

    A One Day Quick Blogroll About "Who Ya Gonna Believe"?

    By A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 01/16/2014 - 12:47pm |

    It is my observation that in any online discussion of politics, a discussion which is usually more narrowly about a particular facet of politics such as international diplomacy, an important factor in that discussion is always that of the credibility of the sources of information that one person or another chooses in order to form and then defend their position. It comes down to , "Who ya gonna believe"? I am aware of how 'confirmation bias' affects that judgment. I don't claim to be immune.

    Richard Day's picture

    I DID NOT HAVE SEX WITH THAT BRIDGE!

    By Richard Day on Thu, 01/16/2014 - 6:56am |

    GW Bridge.jpg

    I did not have sex with that bridge!

    (The Honorable Christopher Christie, Governor of NJ)

     

    I did not have sex with this woman...or that woman...or that other woman or....

    AEI's Fred Kagan "We" are at War

    By NCD on Sun, 01/12/2014 - 12:56pm |

    Fred Kagan, George W. Bush advisor, neo-conservative Iraq War cheerleader, and prophet of Endless War, on 'extending our presence' in Afghanistan, in the Weekly Standard, 1/2014:

    Richard Day's picture

    THE CRIMINAL INJUSTICE SYSTEM

    By Richard Day on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 2:44pm |

    BernardMadoff.jpg From 2005 to 2008, there are on average 14,172,384 arrests made per year in the United States. This is based on data from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’™s Uniform Crime Reporting program. Of all reported arrests, drug abuse violations remains the greatest, with on average 1,819,970 arrests made per-year/

    I checked with MADD and a little over one million of those arrests involved DUI's. So if I got this right, only three million of the 14 million arrests last year relate to drugs or alcohol?

    GOP: To Fight for the Poor

    By NCD on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 8:16pm |

    NYT: WASHINGTON — Senator Marco Rubio says the American dream has become “unattainable.” Senator Mike Lee says reforming government benefits programs should be the country’s “first priority.” And Representative Paul D. Ryan says the government safety net has “failed miserably.”...

    After doing nothing but obstructing every appointment, order, action, bill, spending measure, or legislation associated or backed by the President, along with unending muckraking investigations of the IRS, Benghazi, birth certificates and ACORNs, the GOP now plans to return to the 'compassionate conservatism' meme last used by George W. Bush who, in 8 years, started 2 wars with 'fabrications, deceptions and cover-ups' that killed somewhere in the range of 1 million people, cost trillions and plunged Iraq into permanent chaos, and also oversaw the crash of the US economy and banking sector.

    Richard Day's picture

    HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW?

    By Richard Day on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 2:11am |

    Socrates Louvre.jpg

    As I write this, I mean it took a couple of days, but during the last hour of January 6th (the Epiphany) it was 22 below zero (F).

    The ice has been permanently (at least it seems so) on my living room window for four weeks!

    We are now 16 or 17 days from the Solstice for chrissakes.

    jollyroger's picture

    Minimum Wage? Hell, No! Maximum Wage

    By jollyroger on Sun, 01/05/2014 - 1:43am |

    The degrading squabble over the level at which a nation still retaining some small capacity for shame will say "Below this wage, by irrefutable presumption, labor is uncompensated, ergo (implicitly) slavery", serves only to distract the working class, the surplus value of whose labor is being stolen, from the fact of the theft;

    We need a maximum  ratio by which the most highly compensated may command the compensation of multiples of their fellow humans.

    jollyroger's picture

    Rebuking Ronald Reagan--The Real City on a Hill swears in a Sandinista as Mayor

    By jollyroger on Wed, 01/01/2014 - 2:14pm |

    By the time "Imagine" (the Hippie Internationale...) was being sung, I had completed the transition from teary, to weeping to uncontrollable sobbing.

     

    (I know, I know, I am a pussy...)

     

    If he had retained enough cognitive function to know his own name when he died (he didn't...) Ronald Reagan would be spinning like a top.  

     

    Richard Day's picture

    2013 LISTS; HERE'S TO 2014!

    By Richard Day on Thu, 12/26/2013 - 11:52pm |

    I think the biggest stories of 2013 relate to energy.

    Over the last four or five or six years, some things have changed dramatically.

    Forget politics for a sec; capitalists decided that wind energy and sun energy became profitable enterprises, and this Administration has provided the tax credits and income tax provisions that add to this new substantial contribution to the national energy grid.

    The Splendour falls on castle walls

    By Flavius on Wed, 12/25/2013 - 8:56am |

    and snowy summits old in story

    The long light shakes across the lake

    And the wild cataract

    Leaps to glory

     

    ........................................

    Blow, bugle blow

    Set the wild echoes flying

    Answer echoes ,answer

    dying

                dying                    

                                  dying

     

    Tennyson

     

    Enjoy the holidays , whatever you call it.

    Flavius

     

    Votes for Chair of the Fed

    By Flavius on Tue, 12/24/2013 - 9:23am |

    From Brad Delong

     

    Volker  first time          83

    His reappointment        84

    Greenspan                     91

    His reappointment       100

    His third term                91

    Fourth                            89

    Disasterous Fifth         100

    Bernanke                       99

    His reappointment        77

    Yellen , last week         59

    The Phone is Ringing

    By A Guy Called LULU on Sun, 12/22/2013 - 11:08pm |

    The phone is ringing and Hillary is not deaf.
    I would like to believe that anyone with two brain cells working, and also a working conscience, would want the negotiations with Iran to achieve a successful agreement that avoids war. But, what I do believe is what is obvious, there are powerful individuals and groups within the U.S and our allied countries which are working hard to prevent that outcome and they might very well be successful.

    jollyroger's picture

    Va. Attorney General race recount aborted--attempted theft by fraud exposed.

    By jollyroger on Fri, 12/20/2013 - 5:06pm |

    A strange thing just happened on the way to a (true blue) full Democratic sweep of Virginia .

     

    The Attorney General election ended with a razor thin victory by the Democrat, Mark Herring. (169 votes out of millions cast).

     

    This being well within the .5% margin entitling the loser to a recount, Mark Obenshain availed himself of the statutory remedy.

     

    Several days into the recount, he decided to concede, rather than let it run its course.

     

    Huh??!!

     

    Richard Day's picture

    REPUBS SCARE THE DICKENS OUT OF ME!

    By Richard Day on Fri, 12/20/2013 - 1:02am |

    TINY TIMS

     

    MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT

    (St. Nicholas)

    As a fellow copywriter, I feel your pain...whoever you are.

    By Peter Schwartz on Thu, 12/19/2013 - 6:26pm |

    So I just got this piece of junk mail from AMEX touting their "high yield" savings account. They go further and ask me to compare it to the average of the rates offered by the top 50 banks.

    AMEX: 0.85%

    Top 50: 0.07%

    Naturally, they exaggerate this difference in a bar chart that shows the AMEX rate towering over the Top 50 rate. And in truth, it is 12 times more. Which means that, for every $1 your earn with the Top 50, you'll earn $12 with AMEX.

    Gallup Polls, How to Bamboozle the Public

    By NCD on Wed, 12/18/2013 - 10:29pm |

    The Gallup Poll question:

    In your opinion, which of the following will be the biggest threat to the country in the future - big business, big labor, or big government?

    The poll seems like some stupid question on a grade school standardized test:

    'Billy is playing his plug in radio while bathing in the bathtub, in your opinion, the biggest threat to Billy's future is big water, big electricity, or big slippery soap?'

    jollyroger's picture

    You know it's ugly when a Bush judge smacks down an Obama civil liberties infringement

    By jollyroger on Mon, 12/16/2013 - 5:54pm |

    I have in the past, in colloquy with the lamented, gone-but-not-forgotten Articleman, urged the utility of deconstructing the arguments advanced by the Department of Justice as offering guidance to their inherent devotion (or the contrary) to civil liberties.

     

    Richard Day's picture

    THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

    By Richard Day on Mon, 12/09/2013 - 10:10pm |

    File:Knight academy lecture (Rosenborg Palace).jpg

    At times we must cull the sick and the sore and the disabled from the flock so that the majority might survive!

    The breakfast club

    By Flavius on Mon, 12/09/2013 - 11:43am |

    Perhaps  10 years ago listening to an interview with BishopTutu, the host asked him whether Mandela ever saw Helen Suzsman now that they were both retired from active politics.

    He laughed and said "Every Sunday morning he phones her and asks whether she's thinking of making pan cakes today."

    A nice memory

     

        

     

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