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

    The Tumon Tragedy

    This gives a whole other meaning to the word creepy. There was another mass murder in the United States, this time on the island of Guam - that little island where I went to to travel and experienced my own SSRI related breakdown:

    Richard Day's picture

    LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY

     

     

    I have written between ten and twenty blogs concerning our greatest President.

    I noted in a more recent post that Lincoln did not arise ex nihilo.

    There was a magic groundswell in the North that was called 'The Abolitionist Movement'.

    jollyroger's picture

    Your Honor, One Hundred Dollars does not BEGIN to measure my contempt for this court!

    My father was irritated because a Federal Judge had ordered him to produce before him his client, an Italian American businessman then vacationing out of the continental limits (and, coincidentally, the extraditional reach) of the United States.

     

    This moved my father to share with the judge his opinion that his obligation of vigorous representation of his client was incompatible with hauling him into court, and if the judge wanted him here, the judge could undertake to bring him.

     

    Orion's picture

    The Killer Profile Part Two: Mothers and Soldiers

    The last article I wrote here - The Killer Profile - attempted to profile the sort of individuals who have perpetrated massacres like Virginia Tech, that Aurora, CO movie theater and Sandy Hook Elementary. There's a fairly obvious profile for those individuals and they seem to model themselves after one another to some degree.

    coatesd's picture

    Waiting for the State of the Union Address

    SOTU addresses at the start of a second presidential term are relatively rare phenomena, and in recent times they have also been also relatively ephemeral ones. George W. Bush used his SOTU Address in 2005 to make a prolonged pitch for the partial privatization of Social Security.[1] That pitch went nowhere. Bill Clinton used his to launch a national crusade for education – his “A Call to Action for American Education”;[2] but listening to him, among others, was Monica Lewinsky. Ronald Reagan spoke of “lightening government’s claims on our total economy” by reducing the federal deficit; but his legacy didn’t quite work out that way.[3] So the precedents for an important and lasting speech next Tuesday are not good.

    Richard Day's picture

    PHIL MICKELSON, THE GREAT WHITE HOPE!

     

    Philip has had God's Light shine upon him.

    Philip's Mom and Dad did very well economically and Daddy was a pilot (when pilots actually made money) and was an investor of sorts.

    Phil hit college as a golf ace and won NCAA tournaments and one U. S. Amateur Championship!

    Orion's picture

    A Little Thank You

    I've done it in articles and in the comment section but -

    I really want to thank the readers and writers at Dagblog for helping me have a good vessel by which to rehabilitate myself and become an even better writer than I was before I had a mental breakdown. I could not have written anything capable of getting 1300 views without you.

    Take care and wait - all things get better.

    Orion's picture

    One Man's Death And Our Collective Madness

    This is a small news story - a murder of a successful individual from a poor area by his brother in a part of the country/world most do not think about. However, I think you should give it some heavy thinking:

    Orion's picture

    The World As It Is

    A couple months ago, in the midst of personal chaos, I went for a job interview. I was a nervous wreck and the interviewer could tell. She told me to "not be nervous." I painted a picture of myself and my situation that was much rosier than the reality - I didn't tell her I'd experienced a nervous breakdown, that I was without a home, any of that.

    It was a painful wreck during much of it but a connection was built. Towards the end of it, I was in her car and we started discussing the world. "It's a very strange place. The world we live in."

    "I sometimes wonder if it's real," I replied.

    "Oh, it's real all right but it doesn't feel like it sometimes."

    Epic Epigenetics

    [touched off by article on epi-markers & homosexuality]

    I'm excited about progress in science on a number of levels, and figure our understanding of matters will be vastly different in 20-30 years based on evolving tools & theories.

    Richard Day's picture

    SAFE

     

    I awoke at 7:00 in the AM on Sunday morning to a room filled with smoke.

    I was disconcerted.

    Had I left something in the oven or was my cigarette can on fire?

    Nope.

    Orion's picture

    The Killer Profile

    If we are really serious about stopping the mass shootings that are occurring in this country, we really need to get serious about what's really going on.

    There is an obvious shooter profile. Characteristics seem to fit every single one. Here is a description of the New Mexico Pastor's son who killed his whole family:

    Did Cheney and the Decider misunderestimate assurances from the Saudis? And how bad was it?

    It has always seemed to me that we weren't getting (duh!) the full story on 9/11. But so many of the smooth, pat, party-line conspiracy theories about it just seem wrong.

    Personally, I like my conspiracy theories like I like my men--smart, funny, a little rough around the edges, and just unpredictable enough to keep me interested. (Fortunately I finally found a lovely guy who fits the bill.) But enough about me.

    One freakishly admirable thing about the NeoCon thinking that dominated the Bush administration is that those NeoCons didn't sweat the small stuff. They had a big PNAC plan to transform the world and make the US its sole superpower--but they were willing to be somewhat flexible about how that sausage got made and adjust to whatever inconveniences reality would throw at them. In their Strauss--influenced worldview, truth, logic and right action took a backseat to the greater "good" of how much of a difference you could make. (It's fundamentally unlike Liberal/Democratic thinking, in which stuff actually matters.)

    News Flash: Republicans still dancing to DJ ToneDef

    Race and "My body, not yours.": Virginia DA Cuccinelli falls down, spins on back: TPM

    Race: Virginia Senate apartheids the dance floor.

    Orion's picture

    Martin Luther King Day

    A few good quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.:

    Orion's picture

    Fooling Ourselves

    This is a short one.

    We're not as clueless as we think we are or want to think we are. I started a music website several years ago, before the breakdown. I have been very slowly bringing it back together - very slowly.

    coatesd's picture

    Second Inauguration: Third Growth Model?

    Half-way points in two-term presidencies are inevitably moments to take stock and to consider redirections of policy.  Right now, the political blogosphere is properly full of that stocktaking and redesign. Lists abound on policies needed[1] and priorities to be pushed,[2] which is why there is no need to add to those lists in any detail here.

                What may therefore be more valuable is this: an insistence that, to properly situate this second Obama Inaugural, we need more than favorite lists and seamless histories. We need coherent policy platforms that are anchored in the proper periodization of time. For as a country and as an economy we are not just at any random moment in history. Rather, we are at the very end of the second great growth period experienced by the American economy since 1945. In consequence, we are currently in a deeper hole than any that can be quickly corrected by this policy or by that.  And unless we realize this underlying truth – and design the full sweep of our public policies accordingly – we run the risk (indeed, probably face the certainty) that the 2010s will eventually be remembered, as the 1970s are now remembered, as a lost decade. The 1970s cost one generation easy access to the American Dream. We must do all that we can to make sure that the 2010s do not impose a similar cost on another generation.

    Orion's picture

    Tragedy of Mass Trauma

    Alot has been talked of mental illness in the wake of all these tragedies. Obviously the culprits are mentally ill themselves and the way to contain such individuals is on every one's mind.

    However, think about this: These acts create more mental illness in the form of PTSD. PTSD is post traumatic stress disorder.

    Priming the Black Vision Thing

    [response to other threads got too long]

     

    You obliquely point out a big issue - people don't have any real ideas for creating mass jobs in the black community, aside from back to government.

    In the 50's I believe (via Buckminster Fuller), Brazil was intent on modernizing, with some wanting to emulate the US with its railroads, despite the existence then of airplanes more suitable for Brazil's vast distances and thick jungles.

    Orion's picture

    Drugs Behind The Shootings: The Case In Pictures

    I'm pleasantly surprised by some of the reception here. After I had my breakdown, I did alot of reading about psychiatric medication. What I found out was - disturbing.

    I read about toddlers literally being given anti-psychotic meds and I started to honestly wonder if the world was rigged against life. It's one thing to be depressed yourself but where I was at - good Lord, man. It seemed like the world itself was in decay.

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