The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Play Miss Tea for Me

    Rumor has it that Clint had a speech to give - and he backed out, ran it without script, talked to an empty chair instead.

    Clint's new movie debuts this month - is a senile guy able to put together a major picture?

    Or is he a savvy pro playing a senile guy on TV?

    (latest film due in 3 weeks - ailing baseball scout going on one last scouting trip, with everyone questioning his judgement - familiar territory? though seems he's now given up directing - back to being just an actor. Cue cameras?)

    Clint, I'm letting go.

    ---letting go of a small stash of money which rounds out my contributions to the President for the Primary season. Clint, you didn't weaken my commitment to the President, you strengthened it. And I'm letting go of you as well as some cash which at my age is not all that easy to earn back.

    I feel good about my additional contributions to Obama. I feel like the kid in me who spent his last dime at the country fair and came home with empty pockets but with a smile on his face.

    cmaukonen's picture

    What will determine the outcome of the election ?

    Romney is white and Obama is black. And for a large part of the white population and even some Cuban exiles, that is all they think they need to know.

    jollyroger's picture

    Paul Ryan-Icon of American social mobility, giving the lie to Democrat culture of dependency. (Says Limbaugh) Oh, the mendacity!

    Listening today to my obligatory dose of drivel from Rush Limbaugh (weep for Rogie--he listens so you don't have to) I was surprised to hear that we remain a beacon of social mobility.

    The proof that your destiny is not written on stone, per Limbaugh, *Paul Ryan's journey from mowing lawns, orphaned as he was at 16, to the nomination for Vice President. (A heartbeat away, blah, blah, blah, etc.).

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Romney's Speech Goal Tonight: I'm Not Caledon Hockley

    Most Americans are fascinated with the wealthy and the uberwealthy.  At some level the fascination is with envy - hence the obsession with some with the lotteries.  At some level it is  a fascination that one has for any culture one does not have access to - be it the mafia or a tribe in Papua New Guinea. 

    quinn esq's picture

    Homes Going Green For Free.

    Deloraine Houle is getting on-the-job training through BUILD, which steers men and women into the building trades. She says, "My grandmother is kind of proud of me - I'm the first girl in my family in carpentry."

    "A new inner-city programs, the first of its kind on North America, could see 400 leaky North End rentals get energy retrofits in the next year.

    That's 400 down, 79,600 more to go.

    This fall, thanks to a tweak in Manitoba Hydro's legislation, two inner-city renovation agencies are hoping to go door to door, block by block, in the William Whyte neighbourhood offering renters thousands of dollars in renovations, effectively for free.

    Obama, you didn't build that speech!

    For four long years Republicans have whined and carped about Obama's speeches. Speaking is Obama's only skill. Obama's eloquence just proves he's an empty suit. His admirers were mesmerized and taken in by pure rhetorical sleight-of-hand. Nothing to back it up. You can't create jobs with a speech. His speeches are all he has going. Yo, Mr. Speech. Speeches, Speeches...... 

    Medicare Sux: Overcharging lesson for liberals

     

    Okay, provocative title, but point is that we charge 2-3 times per person what sane countries charge, and our "cures" are to charge another third over the next decade. Bravo, bravo.

    (ref. Miller, WaPo)

    I recall debates over Medicare & Social Security 6 years ago - where I pointed out to conservatives that Social Security didn't have a problem - Medicare did. Any long-term projection showed this.

    cmaukonen's picture

    Wall Street's Groupies.....

    Groupies. If you have ever been to a concert, you can spot them. They hang around the groups there. Wangle to get the best seats. First up with the autographs and defend them to the death. The groups music is always the best and the members can do no wrong.

    Obama, throw a punch already

    Two turkey buzzards walk out of a bar. One says, "Now, what do we do?." The other one says, "I think I want to kill something."

    I don't think Obama and the Democrats have much understanding of the turkey buzzard resentment and pugilism beating in the hearts of men, particularly white men in this country, particularly those who work with their hands and those who don't have the education to qualify for upper level jobs. Unlike turkey buzzards, marginalized white males don't have actual targets to unload their instincts upon when extinction threatens them.  

    Enter, stage Left:  Obama, the Democrats, the "War on Women" and those ever present lazy minorities who are sucking the life out of us.

    The Quiet Man of 2012 - You can ask, but he won't tell

        John Wayne, star of the 1952 movie, The Quiet Man, was known to be a man of few words. But the Republican Presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, makes Wayne seem a veritable chatterbox when it comes to delivering verbal (or any) communication with facts, stances and issues relevant in this Presidential election, such as: 

    ‘His policy on Afghanistan is described as at best ‘murky’ by top senators of both parties and he hasn’t put forth clear and concise stances when attempting to address other beyond our border issues’:

    cmaukonen's picture

    Hurricanes and Climate Change

    Living in Florida since 1964, I had the dubious privilege of experiencing numerous hurricanes. The first being Cleo, making landfall in Miami as a category 2 storm. I was living just the other side in Naples at the time so we did feel the effects of it for a few hours until it was north of us. Cleo came through just a couple of weeks after we arrived so we had our trial by water as it were.

    Romney for President

    After looking at Romney's Wikipedia page, it's hard to imagine anyone better suited for president, more admirable. A pro-business guy who was friends with the common worker, a Governor who managed the budget while expanding social programs, a very effective business leader who gave back excess bonuses, who stood up for civil rights and against the war.

    Why we ended up with Nixon in 1968 instead of Romney should give us pause for thought. Someone who seemed to unite the best of the right and left, an actual compassionate conservative, someone who believed in his people and his community, who raised taxes and expanded the budget to build a bigger, more effective state government.

    coatesd's picture

    Finding Private Ryan: Pushing Back the Republican Tide

    Unless the Republican convention in Tampa is swept away by hurricane force winds – itself a fascinating prospect for a party, so many of whose activists claim to be in regular and direct contact with the Almighty – the media will make next week an entirely R week. Monday through Thursday, it will be a Republican week, a Romney week, a Ryan week, a right-wing week, a week dominated by Republican talking points and talking heads.

    It will, that is, unless those of us who are not Republicans get out into the public conversation too. The question is how?

    Probably not by getting down and dirty, tempting as that is.

    Talking about Akin to Dan Callahan

    More years ago than most of you have been alive I attended Dan and Sydney's parties on Carver Street,behind the DivinitySchool.

    When W was angsting over his stem cell decision  a few weeks before 9/11 he called on Dan for advice , Which Dan described  later on Margot Adler's "Justice Talking" program.

    Ophelia's picture

    50 Shades of Feminine Repression

    I’d heard some buzz about the 50 Shades series around the web (let’s be honest, it was Pinterest) but I don’t usually pay much attention to that sort of pop culture so it went ignored by me. That is, until two friends, each unbeknownst to the other, discreetly and with the same mischievous gleam said the same thing to me almost verbatim, “So… I’m reading this book… It’s really bad. You have to read it.”

    So I read them. All three. They aren’t exceptionally well written and I don’t know how anyone understood one another, given that everyone was murmuring and whispering all the time, but that’s what I think is interesting about the popularity of this series. My husband commented that “if all it takes is a shitty pulp romance to get women hot and bothered, guys like Pablo Neruda actually put work into this sort of thing, what’s the point?” Romance has been done though. Everyone knows women like romance and men like sex. What everyone doesn’t know, or at least isn’t willing to acknowledge, is that women like sex too. This book is sex.

    MrSmith1's picture

    One Term More ...

     

    A friend sent this parody of "Les Miz" to me this morning...

     

    One Term More ...

     

    http://www.onetermmore.com/video_subtitles.html

    Ryan's story's one drawback.It's wrong

    according to Martin Wolf.

    In the Aug 18 FT.Where he encapsulates Plan Ryan this way

    The Ryan plan is (an) example...of the Republican   policy (of) cutting taxes in order to increase deficits and so justify cuts in spending

    Then goes on to do what any self-respecting economist could ,and ought to , do ;actually read  Ryan's plan and add up the numbers to see whether it does what Ryan claims.

    It doesn't.

    Paul Ryan runs home to Mommy

    Paul Ryan and his mother will be touring Florida this weekend and will be visiting the Villages, a large retirement center north of Orlando. I conjured such a Ryan trip to the Villages in a recent blog post here but admit that I completely mis-underestimated the potential leverage of Ryan bringing his mother along for the ride. In contrast to Romney, who shower-sang "America the Beautiful" at the Villages a few weeks ago, Ryan is likely to generate the best T.V. footage of the campaign there.

    CVille Dem's picture

    Romney/Ryan Care --The Future as Captured in a You Tube Short

    Camera UP:  View of Signage:

     

    Ten Years From Now Under the Romney/Ryan Dystopian World

     

    Location:  A typical doctor's office.  Patient (Mr Jones -- around 65ish in age) is seated on an exam table, and his wife is standing by.  They are both looking hopefully at the doctor ---

     

    Mitt Romney: Embellisher-in-chief

    I've been worried the past couple of days that Ryan, Romney/ Koch might be making some headway on the Medicare attacks. The thing that might have gotten some traction was the linking of Medicare reforms to the dreaded Obamacare. I thought Obama was a little slow on the uptake. But what I didn't realize was that Joe Biden set a trap for Romney who just tee-ed up the ball for Obama to hit out of the park. Biden's faux pas was intended to put Romney on a high and loosen his tongue---because Romney can't keep his mouth shut. Especially when it comes to embellishing his argument.

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