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

    A Democratic Approach to Education

    By cmaukonen on Mon, 12/27/2010 - 3:20pm |

    They are doing it in Denmark and other places in Europe. An approach we should also think about.


    Richard Day's picture

    POSITIONS; HOW TO GET PROPERLY JOBBED

    By Richard Day on Mon, 12/27/2010 - 1:19pm |

    File:UnemployedMarch.jpg

    Okay we have these unemployed peeps all over the goddamn place.

    And the politicians continually scream that what is lacking is education.

    If we only had a better educational system, everybody would be happy and employed and reading and learning and sexually satisfied.

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Just Another Day

    By Elusive Trope on Sun, 12/26/2010 - 2:34pm |

    And so another Christmas has passed.  The twenty-sixth of December.  Just another day.  Yet the New Year approaches.  Time to look back on the year that was, make the lists and debate over the most memorable moments, the greatest achievements, the best movies, the worst commercials.  A seemingly collective effort not to forget, to ensure some shared memory of what has actually passed, and which is now fading like a dream, is somehow captured, made permanent and enduring.  A time, too, of looking forward, to ponder one’s resolution for the new year, the one thing not to drag along into the f

    Elusive Trope's picture

    My Christmas and Shabbat Offering

    By Elusive Trope on Sat, 12/25/2010 - 2:39pm |

    Christmas and the whole holiday season stretching back into my teens has not always been exactly my favorite time of the year.  This is neither the time nor the place to go into all the reasons for this.  I would say this has something to do with the fact that I am not religious, and spiritual only through a lifetime of struggle to rise above the militant atheism of my youth.   I can remember one particular moment when this affliction born of a teen’s anger toward God began to finally melt.

    SleepinJeezus's picture

    My Christmas of the Broken Wing

    By SleepinJeezus on Sat, 12/25/2010 - 11:36am |

     Santa Claus was only one of the characters in the regular group of customers at my father’s tavern. This was a secret, however, that was kept from me. I knew him as Lemoyne Doucette, a house painter and a Frenchman of large girth and a robust laugh. His father had worked winters as a lumberjack in the northwoods and in one of the many sawmills in town during the summers. The lumbering boom had long since gone bust, and so Lemoyne had inherited little more from his father than a boyish sense of humor as well as a taste for good brandy.

    Barth's picture

    Merry Christmas

    By Barth on Sat, 12/25/2010 - 8:43am |

    This is not my holiday, but it is hard to miss the signs that it is one celebrated by many others in this country, though Bill O'Reilly and his colleagues think otherwise. Oddly, by mystical coincidence, Shabbat and Christmas coincide this year. To many confused people, Chanukah is a supposed equivalent holiday to Christmas, but it's not. Shabbat, on the other hand, means Jews and Christians will be praying at roughly the same time.

    Watt Childress's picture

    Baby, it's cold outside

    By Watt Childress on Fri, 12/24/2010 - 9:25am |

    The rich inner experience of Christmas is coated with a sweet nutty blend of pop culture. Features for the holiday range from angels to elves, from wise men to talking snowmen, from Jesus, Mary, and Joseph to Rudolph, Prancer, and Vixen. Believers bask in the starry wonderment of Christ’s rustic birth while decking the night with merriments as bright as Las Vegas.

    Howdy Babe!

    jollyroger's picture

    Prez redeems his sorry ass: Announces VA Friends and Family Medical Plan. Single Provider At Last

    By jollyroger on Wed, 12/22/2010 - 7:11pm |

    Yes, we are officially in fantasyland.

    That said, if you remember when GEICO was only for actual  government employees, and when the Slovenian Community Credit Union required appropriate ancestry, you will perhaps be amused by a single provider plan which could, I think, result from executive vigor (if only we had a vigorous executive...) with no tiresome legislative hoorah-ing.

    Thusly:

    Richard Day's picture

    THREE HEROES IN THE DAYS OF YORE

    By Richard Day on Wed, 12/22/2010 - 3:47pm |

    File:Polo pony taped.jpg

                      RUSH IN YOUNGER DAYS

     

    1970: Place: Some Selective Service Office:

    Oh I was supposed to check in here, my number is 9.

    Selective Service: Oh well that is fine. Just go over there in that line with the semi naked guys.

    tmccarthy0's picture

    Barney Frank Eviscerates CNS Reporter over Gay Soldiers Showering with Straight Soldiers

    By tmccarthy0 on Wed, 12/22/2010 - 1:20pm |

    Barney Frank, pretty much owns this dude, but hey, they kept the video up, so there I'll give them a hand for that, although I am pretty sure they think their reporter got the best of Frank. Not realizing, no one gets the best of Barney "arguing with you is like arguing with a table" Frank.

    we are stardust's picture

    FCC Passes Net Neutrality Rules: Plenty to Worry About

    By we are stardust on Wed, 12/22/2010 - 12:41pm |

                                     

    Yesterday the FCC passed new ‘Net Neutrality’ rules along party lines: 3-2.  The full text of the rules haven’t yet been released, but the core proposals have drawn plenty of fire from both sides, and many experts predict different portions will end up in court soon after they take effect at the beginning of next year.

    WHISTLEBLOWN TO EXPOSE BANK OF AMERICA

    By Oxy Mora on Wed, 12/22/2010 - 9:42am |

    In what is possibly a hoax, HuffPost, a sensationalist internet based rag sheet is reporting that WhistleBlownData intends to expose executives at the Bank of America early next year.  WhistleBlown has a cache of secret documents which will most likely reveal embarrassing comments and/or quasi-illegal actions on the part of executives--the name of CEO Ken Lewis comes to mind, although he has not been accused of anything seedy at the moment.

    The SS Trust Fund is going broke. Good

    By Flavius on Wed, 12/22/2010 - 8:31am |

    There ought not to be any amount in the Trust Fund. It's a rip off.

    As I've explained tediously , each year some money is subtracted from the TF  to be paid out in benefits. And some is added by witholdings from workers' pay checks.

    I've seen the Trust Fund and it is

    By Flavius on Tue, 12/21/2010 - 9:59pm |

    not very impressive.

    Some years ago, probably around the start of W's second term, PBS did a program on his brief campaign to privatize Social Security--just in time for us to have diverted our payroll withholdings into securitized sub primes.

    At one point in the program they tried to make things more visual by showing the Fund. It was easy. It wasn't a room full of gold bars, or thousand dollar bills. Just a couple of filing cabinets about 4 feet by two feet.

    cmaukonen's picture

    WAR Stories

    By cmaukonen on Tue, 12/21/2010 - 2:40pm |

    Death...destruction, disease, horror...that's what war is all about, Anan.
    That's what makes it a thing to be avoided. You've made it neat and painless.
    So neat and painless, you've had no reason to stop it.
    And you've had it for 500 years. Since it's the only way I can save my crew and my ship,
    I'm going to end it for you one way or another.

    How the Americas of the Great Depression and the Reagan recession compare to America now

    By artappraiser on Tue, 12/21/2010 - 1:09pm |

    The Pew Resarch Center published two reports on those comparative studies topics on December 14. They really are a must read for those who are interested in "FDR values." Whether you agree with the conclusions or not, they clarify some of the arguments about where that infamous group, "the American people," were compared to where they are now:

    How a Different America Responded to the Great Depression
    by Jodie T. Allen, Senior Editor, Pew Research Center

    Obama to propose social security cuts in the SOTU

    By Flavius on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 3:51pm |

    according to Robert Kuttner, via destor.

    I'm almost without exception a defender of Obama here.  Not on this one if Kuttner is right.  Not just no but damn no.  In spades.  With bells on.

    we are stardust's picture

    A Rare Celestial Event + a Dagblog Roast

    By we are stardust on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 11:37am |

                                                                       

                            

    Nuke-related cables coming out

    By artappraiser on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 2:28am |

    The Guardian's feed of diplomatic cables from Wikileaks is just now putting out a cluster of them on nuclear security matters, and they have also published a couple of related articles So far, for me at least, there's some clues why Obama might be so fixated on nuclear regulatory issues. Especially if the PDB is full of this kind of stuff. Some links after the jump.

    cmaukonen's picture

    The truth can have consequences.

    By cmaukonen on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 9:37pm |

    "Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."   

    Decader's picture

    Death of a Clown?

    By Decader on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 5:05pm |

    As John McCain comes unraveled, it struck me as kind of important to think what the GOP gave the American public to vote for in 2008 - and what it chose by what, 46,47%?

    Yeah, a guy on his last legs, having trouble holding it together, and a woman completely unprepared for governorship of most states (including Alaska, as her resignation implies) - much less to assume the presidency of the US.

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