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

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Baby Baby Baby You're Out of Time

By PeraclesPlease on Mon, 11/14/2016 - 2:59am |

Reality check on that "next woman candidate" thing. Women tend to rise to positions of power 10 or more years later than their male counterparts - if they're not being pulled up by some family connection slightly earlier.

Blaming the Victim

By PeraclesPlease on Sat, 11/12/2016 - 5:28pm |

Something's happened to America and the underdog, the underclass, the victim.

My father who died this year grew up in the Great Depression, so passed on the stories of his youth - Horatio Alger rags-to-riches stories, people who survived by their wits and hard work. This included his father who lost more than one fortune but when times were tough could always return to farming, the land.

The 3rd Party Factor

By PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/10/2016 - 2:55pm |

     Difference     Jill + Gary                             Electoral Votes
PA    68,000      192,000 (+21,000 Other)               20
MI    12,000       223,000 (+19,000 Other)              16
FL   120,000      270,000 (+ 25,000 Other)             29
AZ    85,000         99,000                                        11
 
GA 231,000     124,000
NM +65,000      84,000
NC 178,000     128,000
NH   +2,500       37,000
MN  +44,000    150,000
IA   148,000       68,000  (+ 25,000 Other)

White Lives Matter

By PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/10/2016 - 2:50am |

As we were fretting whether 88% vs 92% of blacks would vote, we missed out on the "missing white vote". Ridiculous as Trump asking black voters to vote for him, he asked - directly if not obscenely.

Sure, we tackled issues that affected white lives, but we didn't directly address "hey you, over there, I'm talking to you".

We have advocacy for blacks, Hispanics, LGBT, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and so on. But advocacy for white Protestants, or "Evangelicals" always takes on the tone of talking to the Klan, an implicit distaste and condemnation.

Wed Morning: The New Nothing

By PeraclesPlease on Wed, 11/09/2016 - 6:48am |

The lesson of Brexit - the grudge candidate doesn't have to offer anything real, just the role of representing those with an axe to grind - he can represent more than 1 incompatible causes.

All Hillary's policy papers are useless - the people never cared, they didn't want details, they didn't want to know if it would even work. They wanted to feel someone was listening to them. Hillary halfway got there, but she kept shifting to answers, solutions - they just wanted a slavish advocate. Be clear: everything she did to make things more concrete hurt her. Trump could say anything and everything, in 1 sentence, and it didn't hurt him, while her details just provided more fodder to attack. Okay, even where he was specific they didn't care. You know how Bad Boys are - they can do anything.

Election Day (Night) Thoughts

By PeraclesPlease on Tue, 11/08/2016 - 5:17pm |

My kid convinced me to hit a café at 3 or 4 am to watch whatever results roll in. Will be a brutal day tomorrow, but a memorable experience, so....

16 years ago I had a 2-day trip to a conference, and spent all evening in the hotel calling home, fretting over the results that kept changing... and then for the next 2 weeks... and then it was over. #NeverAgain

Saw a Bill Kristol piece talking about his pride in #NeverTrump. As the voting statistics roll in with Republican and Democratic votes close to even, I still wonder how much #NeverTrump is baked into the GOP side. I'd doubt there are that many people going to vote for Trump just cause they hate Hillary - stay home, Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, McMullin....

It Takes a Village (to elect a pres)

By PeraclesPlease on Tue, 11/08/2016 - 1:05am |

Short post, but I'm amazed by the ground game, the well- cultivated coalitions with the black community (yes, they're voting), the new Hispanic powerhouse, females everywhere, and a lot of old familiar faces.

Junkie Times - RNC not responsible for Trump?

By PeraclesPlease on Sat, 11/05/2016 - 3:35am |

Okay, as a sign of a true Political Junkie looking for that last minute relief, a sense that no more shakeups are going to drop, or if they do, in the right direction (Hillary says "stop clicking on 538" - easier said than done).

Does last minute news really change voter choices? Not really, but something blockbuster could, while turnout trends are much more important. Even early voting isn't as critical as who shows up on Tuesday, but with up to 40 million votes early this year, its significance is ever greater.

Campaign Thoughts (pt 3)

By PeraclesPlease on Mon, 10/31/2016 - 9:55pm |

How short is the typical American's memory? Which details affect it more - a debate, a Saturday Night Live spoof, a policy speech, a partisan attack, a new round of scandal...? And which affect voting?

Trade in Places: Nissan v Tesla

By PeraclesPlease on Mon, 10/31/2016 - 1:07am |

Aside from politicized malfeasance, the last few days have also seen 2 contrasts in trade and business.

Elon Musk announced his intent to vote on merging his Tesla car company with SolarCity new energy, once again mesmerizing us with his audacity in rolling out new concepts and prototypes - Hyperloop, Gigafactory, and of course SpaceX. But it's not all hoops and mirrors - Tesla turned its first profit this quarter, despite all the risks. Amazon in comparison has taken years to turn eyeballs/user base into a profit, despite pioneering cloud computing and other distribution breakthroughs.

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Superpowers
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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