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

    OBEY TOOK ME BACK TO THE ODYSSEY

    The discussion with my old friend Obey involved Julian Jaynes and his essay entitled:

    THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BICAMERAL MIND.

    I had not heard from Obey for years? and yet he made some comment on my latest blog and he inspired me to look up an old blog from years back (7 years?) involving Jaynes.

    Hillary's vote , Dec 13

    Highest popular votes in past years.

    Obama 2008         69,499,000

    ​Obama  2012        65,916,000

    Bush      2004        62,000,000

            --------------------

    Not much changed

     This year,  noon  Dec 13* 

    Hillary                    65,759,000 

    Trump                    62,916,000

    *From  Cook Political Report  2016 National Popular Vote Tracker.  

    Compared to yesterday's

    Hillary                     65,757,000

    Trump                     62,913,000

    Have I got a plane for you!

    Thank goodness our President Elect includes among his qualifications   being manifestly better equipped than the US Air Force to   evaluate an  "Air Force One" category aircraft  . And ,lucky us! ,is  in possession of his very own such plane  which, in exchange for never paying any taxes-or something- he'll generously agree  to lease to the Air Force as a stopgap while he  artfully re-negotiates the existing Boeing  development and delivery deal.

    Let's see. What was the amount of that Trump university settlement ?

    Just wondering.

    Loose Cannon Overboard on SS Trumptanic

    A deranged Hillary hating fake news reader's gun blazing assault on a Washington DC pizza restaurant has shaken the SS Trumptanic and caused a man-overboard alert - even before the ship is cut loose from Trump Tower:

    Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

    In 1992, Bill Clinton was under attack for a reported affair with a woman from Arkansas. His wife, likely pissed, could have taken the easy way out, stayed in the shadows, let Bill work it out. Instead she went on camera and gave a speech that largely revived her husband's presidential chances - and cemented her negative opinion in the public eye for all time to come.

    Richard Day's picture

    STRICT CONSTUCKTIONISM

    Now listen here Focker...

    (DeNiro in some film he did)

    Everybody is screaming about the foxes who will soon run wild in the hen houses!

    stillidealistic's picture

    TRYING To Wrap My Head Around This Election

    It's taken me awhile to even be able to write much about the situation we find ourselves in. Wrapping my head around it is proving to be a difficult, if not impossible task.

    I was in Havana, Cuba election night, in a hotel room at the Nationale, surrounded by like-minded Americans. We thought it would be a close election, but there was not a one of us who thought for moment donald would pull it off.

    We'd been telling frightened Cubans for a week that Hillary would win. They wanted to make sure we voted before coming over, and we assured them we had. 

    Remainders (if 6 turned out to be 9)

    It becomes easier and easier to blog the absurdities, but unlike intelligence, time has not distended. So in the interest of keeping up, a few thoughts on where we are. Are we going to pass Peak Trump early? One could only hope, but seems his cohorts and apologists adapt to each new event easily, as like the fake Westworld-like CNN panel on SNL last week.

    Trump has ushered in the post-TV era for campaigns. It's not just the free airplay he gets on the networks - he really doesn't need promo anymore - it's all organic. He spent 1/3 of what Hillary spent, and nobody cares - every new tweet or news blip is simply good news for Trump, however bad it sounds. It's all impressions, "likes". Just like Facebook doesn't have any "unlike" button, there's no such thing as bad news for Donald - any mention will do. We have to find a way out of this or we're sunk

    [Update to note the right's already absorbed any Taiwan damage - it's either "China can't tell us what to do", "that Trump's a straight-shooter, yay!", or my favorite, "the left is sexist cuz Taiwan's leader is female". Surprised?]

    tmccarthy0's picture

    Running For Office Week 3: Dems in Disarray

    Last night was the LD reorganization meeting, and it was eye-opening, depressing, and shed a bright light on why Democrats haven't won in my district in 12 years. 

    The reorganization meeting was large. Many people are motivated to try to take the district back, but the lack of professionalism and seeming lack of organizational knowledge is stunning. There was a full table of people still fighting the primary results. And while I still am convinced I should run, I am not sure that our local party has the organizational chops to help  support a successful campaign.

    Carrier/United: A Fool & His Money...

    For all who whinged about the supposed Clinton Foundation supposed possible appearances of "pay-to-play" for their charity, Donald's not even in office and the pay-to-play and corporate welfare has begun.

    In order to look tough on losing jobs to Mexico, he's orchestrated a sweetheart deal of high-level access to United Technologies to keep 1000 jobs in Indiana, half of its planned offshoring. Contrary to the suggestions that this was done with Indiana tax breaks, most of which had already been rescinded due to Carrier going back on its promises).

    Imagine, a $56 billion a year company, with $7.6 billion profits, requires handholding from the President-elect to not offshore an operation that's 0.1% of its revenues - a blip. In return, it gets government access for its US government military business likely worth billions, since it sells $5.6 billion to the government yearly.

    When the dogs stopped eating the dog food.

    Ocean-kat asked 'Why did HIllary do better than Feingold in Wisconsin. But why did he lose and so did she.As she did elsewhere even though she did better than many other democrats on the ticket '

    Bernie was right that Hillary was  somewhat  to the right of many of his supporters. AOBTW of Russ Feingold and of many others of our candidates this year. She did better than him and them ,not despite being to their right but because of it.

    One more time. Yes Hillary was further right than Bernie. And his supporters.But that wasn't what cost her the election.

    acanuck's picture

    Recounts aren't the answer. Focus, people!

    Dejected and desperate Democrats are grasping at hope that recounts in three (relatively) close states could reverse Trump's win and make Hillary Clinton president. They've tossed $6 million-plus into third-party candidate Jill Stein's recount campaign. Delusional. Meanwhile, they are ignoring the reality that Republicans have (so far) won only 51 of the 100 Senate seats. Louisiana will hold a runoff vote in less than two weeks.

    November 6 2018

    is when we're going to start fixing this mess.

    Some suggestions

    1. If your congressmen is a Democrat but a  real jerk ,never to soon to start planning to upset him. In 2022.

    2. Demonstrate , intelligence.Of course we'll want to show how deeply we object  to  the evil legislation coming down.  Obtain permission, tell the Chief that you the Town Council to congratulateto  him on how well he handled the demo. Sympathize with the Cops who are stuck out in the cold with you.  Don't block traffic

    Any friends who voted for Trump?

    Why?

    Who cares why the bad people did. We won't invite them to our next birthday partyl

     But why did your friends do it?

    tmccarthy0's picture

    Running For Office Week 2.5

    Thursday, November 24, 2016, I attended the Kitsap County Democratic Party year end membership meeting.  I got there early. I commute to and from work, and my commute includes a ferry. The ferry schedule is much different from a bus schedule. A bus leaves every 10 - 15 minutes, while our state ferry system departs every 70 minutes on average. Planning around that schedule is challenging.  When you are on the ferry schedule, you must plan accordingly, which inevitably means you arrive early to your destination. Because if you are not early you will be late. There is not in between in this scenario. I know, I've tried them all.

    Double standards

    I came across 2 stories this morning that rather shocked me for their overt incitement to race mongering:

    "Here’s the gossip: Breitbart is about to replace Drudge as most important White source of journalism", plus

    "When Paul Ryan changed political reality. And evangelist culture slapped him down"

    I wondered where they got the affrontery to talk like that, the implicit white privilege, and the rather retro political position they've taken as if we were going back to 60's Birmingham.

    And then I squinted a bit harder:

    Cuban Dependence

    This blog was inspired by and draws from Jerry Sierra's summary of Cuba's long struggle and failure to achieve independence.

    American's will cheer or lament Fidel's passing and proceed largely ignorant of our involvement in Cuba's history the last 300 years, even as the torch bearers of the budding British presence in the New World (and the benefactors of the chaos unfolding in the Old).

    America's Batista, Whorehouse of the Hemisphere

    As if we didn't have enough Irony this year and election cycle, Castro's death now invites disturbing parallels.

    It's like Cuba went into a deep sleep, and woke up not to the revolution, but to Batista's government back in power - with the new/old values led from Washington - more 5-star hotels, "beautiful women", rigged mafia ties, military/security force backing and a callous disregard for poverty or those disconnected from this wealth.

    Yes, America's voted in the Batista of the 50's to be its new Godfather-in-Chief.

    THE WAY FORWARD FOR PROGRESSIVES IN TRUMP’S WAKE

    Apocryphal Chinese curse - May you live in interesting times.

    Voltaire - We must tend to our garden.

    As the omnipresent sounds and sights of progressives rending cloth and gnashing teeth over the past fortnight powerfully demonstrates, an ignorant, anti-democratic, immigrant-bashing, climate change denying demagogue won the Presidential election two weeks ago. With both houses of Congress in Republican hands, an open seat on the Supreme Court, and 33 states governed by Republicans, Trump's power seems nearly unfettered. How should we respond? One is reminded of the old baseball manager riddle: Question: What's your strategy when you're down 13 runs in the top of the 4th? Answer: Pray for rain.

    White is the new Black

    It's interesting, if not disconcerting, watching the right co-opt the plaints and the postures of the left, in a thoroughly cynical but formulaic pattern.

    Sure I see some problems with Politically Correct speech on campus shutting down debate. But the irony is palpable - "Yet today free speech is blatantly under attack on multiple fronts, in all of our institutions, especially in the very place where it was supposed to be most enshrined: the universities", one article in the Federalist writes.

    jollyroger's picture

    L'etat, c'est Moi!" Turning America into a Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization

     

    Even as he settles one RICO action, paying 25 million dollars, by insisting, (pace Richard Nixon) that since he is King President there can be no conflict between his  interests and those of the state Donald Trump has declared it his intention to at least potentiate if not reify a shakedown scheme that dwarfs any since Rome monetized the Pax Romanum

     

    "L'etat", as the saying goes, "C'est moi"

     

     

    Identity's Many Forms

    Bernie's hit the trail again to talk about what he thinks is important, and to clue us in that voting for someone just because they're a woman is a dead-end, while blacks should be more concerned about social repression than racial.

    Since we had a whole season to get irritated with Bern-splaynin', and we just lost an important election over something we still don't understand, we should take his words for what they are - a cry for help.

    Richard Day's picture

    HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAGBLOGGERS!

    Thanksgiving grace 1942.jpg

    I hide.

    I am a hermit.

    I speak on a telephone with my children.

    I speak to others, sort of, on the internet.

    Ha

    We had a blizzard up here in the great white north on the 18th.

    When I say blizzard, I mean a real blizzard.

    Golden Goose vs. Golden Calf (updated)

    To hear Trump tell it, the US is in the worst financial shape ever. You'd never guess that unemployment for example had decreased from a Bush-crash high of 10% all the way down to 5%, along with restructuring banks, taking us off the "bankrupt" list, etc. (You'd think that would even produce some gratitude, but don't hold your breath. You see....

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