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

Blog Posts

Sign Here: Obama Haters for Obama

By PeraclesPlease on Fri, 06/22/2012 - 6:41am |

Yeah, I'm rising from disrespect to contempt to despise.

Perhaps it's people telling me what I should do, but I think it's mostly his actions.

I woke up with one piece of judicial news and a non-finger-pointing assessment of our Supreme Court problem, and I was convinced: vote Obama, reverse Supreme Court.

A couple articles later, I revise equation: hold nose, sneer, vote Obama, pray the Supreme Court is enough.

Rmoney: Love in Bain

By PeraclesPlease on Fri, 06/15/2012 - 3:06am |

Sorry, couldn't resist.

9 out of 12 people haven't heard of Bain.

And you can be sure that of the remaining, a lot just think it was about downsizing companies in trouble, not gutting stealing the pensions & dumping the carcasses on the taxpayer (who didn't cover all the shortfall)

What a wasted opportunity.

Proof of Genetic Gender Difference

By PeraclesPlease on Thu, 06/14/2012 - 2:37am |

Recent scientific polling has shown differences between the sexes that can't be explained away by "nurture" vs. "nature" justifications or social upbringing. As this scores new technology that's never been used before, for entirely different benign effect, the resistance of women to its charms lends credence to a fully genetic model of inherited differences between the sexes.

As prelude (or foreplay, if you insist) to the rest of the analysis, the results first:

Timeline: 87,000 in Afghanistan

By PeraclesPlease on Tue, 06/05/2012 - 2:16am |

                Timeline

The President's going to end the war.

End of 2014, 2014.

13 years fixing stucco to a wall.

Still it all falls down, all falls down.

I remember when it was a little war,

Just 4 years ago

30,000 foolish souls

There to make a difference.

The only difference is 50,000 more souls

And a few who art in heaven.

But soon we'll have an end to this,

A newfound peace, newfound peace

Only drones remote controlled

And military police.

As they stand up, we can stand down,

Hair: Obama Punches a Hippie on Memorial Day

By PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/29/2012 - 3:00am |

Ah yes, trotting out those tired old lines:

”You were often blamed for a war you didn’t start, when you should have been commended for serving your country with valor. You were sometimes blamed for misdeeds of a few, when the honorable service of the many should have been praised. You came home and sometimes were denigrated, when you should have been celebrated

No matter how many times someone points out the myth of hippies spitting on vets just didn't happen in any numbers, that the protests were aimed at the Pentagon, not G.I. Joe, the story just won't die.

Apparently Obama missed one of the major vibes of the period, trying to end the war, trying to keep our neighbors from dying for no good reason. Are the kids at Kent State included in the remembrance of Memorial Day?

Canada's Got Talent!

By PeraclesPlease on Sun, 05/20/2012 - 4:42pm |

Jenna Talackova becomes the first transgender woman to compete in the Miss Universe contest after Donald Trump reverses the decision to ban her.

Her argument, that she knew she was female at 4, is rather convincing. That part of her conversion involved hormones has its implications for sports parallels, as the Olympics is already trying to find a balance. But apparently female hormones remove any advantages in body strength from male crossovers.

Counting Saverin's Lucky Stars (and Tax Obligations)

By PeraclesPlease on Sun, 05/20/2012 - 4:08am |

As Saverin seems to have gone off into tax haven lala-land, preferring some ex-British seat of imperialism for home of the brave and free, it's important he understand the continuing benefits he should be paying for. Such as:

When Corporations Renounce Citizenship...

By PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/19/2012 - 6:51am |

If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, who brings it a pillow?

Eduardo Saverin seems to have upset some in Congress, who have put down their bribes and chit sheets long enough to grasp patriotism by both lapels, screaming:

"someone's trying to avoid taxes!!!"

Of course even the President says his goal is to lower taxes, so you'd think this would be a shared national priority, kinda like watching "Dancing With the Stars".

I thought loopholes were written to be used - how else would accountants support themselves? 

Hollande's dilemma: Austerity vs. Insolvency

By PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/08/2012 - 5:56am |

The wave of anti-austerity swept Hollande into power in France, and for good reason - Merkel's austerity program, while sounding nice and grownup, doesn't work.

Nor has Greek tax evasion and profligacy - relying on economic statism.

With half the country avoiding taxes, 30% of income and 1/4 of GDP off the books, and about 60 billion € owed to the leisurely tax authorities, the responsibility spreads far and wide.

One touted effort at accountability showed 17,000 swimming pools around Athens with only a few hundred declared. But when a businessman confronted with a 600K € tax debt gets away with paying 11,000 €? Good luck to all that.

Even on the international scale, Greece carried 2 sets of books, the public one with 2% lopped off of debts thanks to some tricky Goldman Sachs moves - moves that cost the Greeks dearly in the long run. Though allowing her to get more loans from EU sources at better rates, plunging her further into debt.

[Refuted] Egypt Highlights the Peril of Democracy

By PeraclesPlease on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 1:44pm |

[Note: there is *NO* real source for claims about this law in Egypt - be careful with spreading - likely highly exaggerated urban myth]

With Egyptian politicians considering a 6-hour window on necrophilia, and lowering the marriage age to 14, we're left considering whether they were better off with Mubarak.

Ok, they haven't passed the law yet, and to their credit, many (including seemingly most women) oppose the changes, but it exemplifies issues of authoritarianism vs. liberal democracy in places (like the US?) where the populace as a whole seems to be veering off into insanity or cruelty or just backwardsness.

Mubarak's wife Suzanne helped push through changes in divorce law, which once took 10-15 years for a woman to obtain (but now comes much quicker if she gives up financial rights).

40% of marriages end in divorce, and there's a push to return to the old system. As if the causes for divorce weren't the issue more than the results. 

Pages

Personal Information

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...

History

Blog
View recent blog entries
Member for
12 years 9 months