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

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White is the new Black

By PeraclesPlease on Fri, 11/25/2016 - 10:49am |

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.

Identity's Many Forms

By PeraclesPlease on Wed, 11/23/2016 - 3:28am |

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.

Golden Goose vs. Golden Calf (updated)

By PeraclesPlease on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 12:40am |

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....

The Neoliberal Inside Me

By PeraclesPlease on Sat, 11/19/2016 - 5:12pm |

You may have heard this story. I hadn't. Or at least not beyond the punch line, the cruelty part.

There was a man, a black man. He was angry a lot and one night when a friend couldn't afford $3 cover charge to get into a dance hall, he pulled out a gun and shot 3 people, I presume also black, but maybe not. One died. All over a $3 cover charge. He then drove away and stayed with different people for 3 days until his sister got him to agree to surrender to an old acquaintance, a cop. The cop was sitting in his mother's kitchen, said hi to him, and then turned back to speak to the mother, at which point the man fired 2 deadly shots into his neck and head.

He then walked outside, and fired a shot into his own head, leaving him partially lobotomized.

Abortion: Taming the Beast?

By PeraclesPlease on Sat, 11/19/2016 - 11:01am |

"Safe, legal & frequent"? Hillary tried finding a way to calm the culture wars, to unite women and all people in a divisive climate around an issue that shouldn't be bipartisan - Republican women and girls go for abortions in nearly the same numbers as Democratic ones do.

Vagina Decalogues

By PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/17/2016 - 7:39pm |

This year's election brought women's anatomy into play with some of the crudest language ever. We all remember that quote that kicked it all in:

"I don't vote with my vagina"

(or at least that's the one I remember).

But worse, the cat was out of the bag (or Pandora's "Box", so to speak) - women's privies are fair game for contemptuous political comments. A woman, Susan Sarandon, told us so. And she's a liberal political activist, a feminist, so it must be okay.

Just in case that wasn't clear enough, in endorsing Bernie she clarified "I don’t vote with my vagina…It’s so insulting to women to think that [we] would follow a candidate just because she’s a woman."

The Wizard Behind the Curtain

By PeraclesPlease on Wed, 11/16/2016 - 4:27pm |

After a bit of thought & perusing through the archives, I'm pretty convinced Trump will give us the greatest chaos, most godawful scenarios, and we'll be tickled pink to give him what used to be an awful deal, but will now be thought of as a bad but acceptable alternative. [once upon a time Bill Clinton was a master of setting out an audaciously wide field too, to put the expectations on his side]. Trump knows how to play chicken and game it in so many ways, such as with the huge threats re: immigration, and if we don't up our game quick, we're in for a heap of trouble.

Do It To Julia...

By PeraclesPlease on Wed, 11/16/2016 - 3:29am |

I think I read somewhere or came to the expectation that values would converge - maybe because of the speed of communication, our increased mobility, our common tongue...

I was wrong.

Society doesn't move backwards or forwards - it moves sideways like a crab. Buckminster Fuller used to hope for that day we could move directly towards our needs, but a man embedded in tetrahedrons and spin should have realized we're always in orbit orthogonal to something we're zipping past.

If We're Starting Over, Bernie Goes Too

By PeraclesPlease on Tue, 11/15/2016 - 2:35pm |

In the "lessons learned" department, we seem to be going through major soul-searching for how the party should reinvent itself, with some major finger pointing that the Clinton campaign didn't learn from its mistakes (or "doesn't think they made any"). Fair enough, maybe still clinging to a crushing near-win, maybe just unable to adapt to modern techniques of politicking. History will be the judge.

Say it ain't so, Joe

By PeraclesPlease on Tue, 11/15/2016 - 3:15am |

As Democrats sadly and nostalgically wave goodbye to Obama and Biden, a small upsurge of the "why didn't we elect Uncle Joe" has popped up.

Coincidentally, researching another topic, I was surprised to discover that Biden had been a Republican in 1968, making the irony complete - no "Goldwater Girl" (at 16) for Joe at 26. 

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Defies gravity Can spit really far Almost touch my toes Can cut a fly's legs off with a beer cap from 20 paces Know how to say useless stuff and prattle on in a dozen languages Don't know when to shut up
Favorite Quotes
To be for or against the Plague, it's much the same thing. Fiddledee, how a body shure do get around - just 2 weeks ago I was in Mississippi and now I'm all the way to Tennessee... Eat or Be Eaten Better to be pissed off than pissed on.
Biography
Born in swaddling clothes (designer, of course) at the confluence of big waters, my first recorded words were "Dad, can I have the keys to the car?" Raised a Southern Pedestrian, my musical talents were recognized at an early age, leading to my being exiled to the shed out back with a stack of books that became my eddykayshun - advanced readin', writin' & ritmytick, creating a major quandary of "what will I do, oh what will I do?" (Gunslinger) As an old black man advised in song, "You Gotta Move", so move I did, traveling the byways sideways even a lot of driveways, picking up sticks and psychological tics, even movin' to Beverlee through a quaint misunderstanding of the seriousness of TV series, until finally I blew up so big the carry nation incarnation tarnation couldn't hold me no more, so I fixed my sights on yonder sitar, and like Queequeg and Paul Bowles and one of those abducted kids by the Pied Piper of Hamelin, I ventured forth to the larger world, pickin' and grinnin', doin' me some reckonin' and naughts from naughts, occasionally rightin', building me some buildings and wiring and just trying to understand the babble comin' out of people's mouths and heads, I finally ended up in what Rummy quaintly calls "New Europe", which ain't so new from what I sees, but that pit in my stomach from lack-of-moving-sickness finally disappeared, and instead I sit behind a whopping big desk stacked with missives from all the chiefs with big whampum around the world telling me "what's going on". Which seems like a load of boolshit to me, but I guess that's what keeps me busy and entertained now, separatin' the weeds from the chapstick. So my name is Perry Keys, or Peracles to you, and since my mammy always said, "say please and thank you", I added the please, but I'm holdin' back on that thankee until I feel you've earned it. But do welcome, and I hope we's a gonna have a real good time. It all starts with, "I wuz born a poor young white chile livin' in the South..." and we cycle through again, like Nietzsche and his infernal regurgence. So enjoy, and let's spin a spell...

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