by kara on March 14, 2011

This morning I woke up feeling like crap. Inexplicably confused about the time change, I left for work too early, so I stopped at Rite Aid, across from my office in search of an over-the-counter remedy for what ailed me: malaise, hazy-head, ennui. I roamed through the aisles and eventually did find that antidote, just not on the shelves. See, I had not set foot in a “store” in a dog’s age. Yes, I had succumbed to buying cat food and tube socks on the internet. The 5 minutes spent in a brick and mortar – albeit chain – store, and the subsequent interactions with employees – “how are you this morning”? “that’s a lot of Cool Whip and sugar free Jello”! – was all I really needed to make me feel well again. I like people (the nice ones – you know, the ones that usually work in stores) and I am probably the person most susceptible to little teensy acts of kindness. Telecommuting, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms, virtual town meetings, okay, but “shopping” was once fun! A pleasurable experience all its own, that you did with a girlfriend, or your mom, or your poor beleaguered brother, with it’s touchable sales racks, ingratiating sales people, cozy dressing rooms. Online shopping isolates us from one another in a city that already does that. I mean online chatting and texting have not replaced meeting pals for coffee or dinner, or watching a movie or going to concerts. While the internet is seductive with its icons of knowledge and power, tiny aspects of “life” via benign human interactions are quietly, relentlessly devalued and this nonplace is causing us to surrender our time on earth, more alone than ever. Even though I know it is a dissipating reality, in the time in which it takes the bull dozers to level the mini malls and shortsighted lunatics to throw up more Tuscan condos, I will stand up and walk out the door to “stores”. And as God as my witness, I will never buy tube socks on Amazon again.

Addition by Subtraction.

by kara on March 6, 2011

Post Secession Texas

Oh say can you see an America without Texas? Yes. I think I can!

The Texas Nationalist Movement marked Texas Independence Day with a rally on Saturday at the Capitol urging Texans to save the state by seceding from the United States. It’s sad to think there was once a tradition in Texas of southern progressivism, Lyndon Johnson and Southern Democrats raised on the New Deal that broke the back of southern massive resistance by finding common ground. But since the mid 1960s, the red (neck) states have given themselves over, increasingly, to those who believe the ideals of the old confederacy are superior to what has come since. And Texas leads the pack in God-appointed self-importance and entitlement. They think they are America. They call themselves “conservatives” and sometimes “Christian patriots,” but, the thing is, the ideas are pretty consistently not conservative, Christian, OR patriotic. I mean, what the hell is more unpatriotic than wanting to secede the Union?? Jeez, I hope Obama will have the good sense not to make the same mistake Lincoln made, and that he’ll let ’em go this time.

I’m all for a “states right” to opt out of America if they want. But, after all these years in the Union, we’d need to lay down some ground rules. Just as we have Constitutional provisions for a state entering the Union, so should we have provisions for a state wanting to abandon it. No hard feelings, guys, just Democracy at work! If the fleeing state is a “Donor “state (owes nothing to the Federal Government), it should be permitted to secede by – let’s just say 2/3 of  – its citizens vote and a simple majority vote from the other states. Of course we would need an agreement to get back the donated money of  –  let’s just say –  the last 30 years. If the seceding state is a “Receiver” state, then in addition to the 2/3  vote of its citizenry,  2/3 of the other states must agree to the proposal, also. There would be a consensus to return all Federal money that had been donated for a pre determined period –  let’s just say 30 years – of time. Just as we have clear, detailed marriage, divorce and bankruptcy laws on the books, we should have such provisions for both statehood & secession. The Republic of Texas only joined the US because it was dead broke anyway, there is no way in hell the rest of America, or our Chinese bankers, are going to let it just leave without squaring the books and having it take care of its share of the national debt. They are actually getting off cheap, seeing that the only reason Houston is even a city is because of massive federal spending 70+ years ago. Houston, Galveston, Corpus Christi, exist because after they were wiped out by ecological disasters, droughts, dustbowls and depressions, federal money poured in to their build military bases, munitions factories, POW camps, hospitals, and the hundreds of thousands of bereft farmers were able to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” (Never forget).

[click to continue…]

Friday Roundup: Ethos, Pathos and Logos.

by kara on March 4, 2011

 

I had a debate with a friend over breakfast the other day, where it was concluded that I was narrow-minded and intractable in my blanket hatred of ALL Republicans. “NO,” I said, “there are NO Republicans that I want to talk to ANYMORE”. At some point over the past 10 years – maybe it started with the hanging chads, I don’t know – I have become an intolerant lunatic. It’s been cumulative, I guess; the proud public displays of their own lack of education, empathy and IQ points with abject racism thrown in for good measure; the positively psychotic flying in the face of what is good for the country and for themselves; the spitting on the constitution when it no longer suits them to adhere to its principles; Sarah Palin sneering and rolling her eyes at a woman because she is a “teacher” (Sarah Palin period); the birth of a bunch of racist coots who call themselves a Tea Party and the end of collective bargaining and the New Deal. Basically it’s because they ruined the whole country. We share the same political beliefs, my friend and I, and have equal amounts of zeal. But where he is able to engage in clear and practical thinking, with tolerant acceptance of others and open-mindedness, I clap shut like a clam.”They are evil.” “They are stupid!” “We should let them secede! Let them die!” “We could just round them up and SHOOT them”!

My sense of community and good will towards others, I’ll admit, has been severely undermined lately, as it was based upon a (romantic? idiotic? puerile?) belief in the inviolability and essential justness of our constitutional principles. I know that we’ve never actually lived up to these principles, but having grown up in the the dramatic era of post Vietnam War/Civil Rights evolution and during the sexual revolution, I did stupidly believe that we were going to keep moving forward, towards at least that “more perfect union”. Turns out, the Constitution was just a piece of paper to be tossed aside at the first signs of adversity, along with generations of jurisprudence and other quaint notions of “Truth. Justice. And The American Way”.

[click to continue…]

by kara on March 4, 2011

“Tramp Clown”

by kara on February 28, 2011

When 77 year old Sarasota hedge fund manager Arthur Nadel left a disingenuous suicide note and went on the lam for two weeks before his arrest in 2010, he drove off grid in a pale green 2006 Subaru with fine leather interior. That Subaru was put on eBay with a “getaway car” label, hoping to fetch a tidy sum for Nadel’s victims. The septuagenarian money manager also left behind offices and homes decorated with “fine art”, including a sad hobo (“tramp”) clown painting by  Chuck Oberstein – of Emmett Kelly reading the Wall Street Journal – and a $75,000 painting by the late Jack Leland Bailey, the appraisal for which says the painting depicts “humanistic pathos.”

Investigators hunted down the rest of Nadel’s assets, including $1 million worth of flawless 7-carat diamond rings and assorted bling and a melange of properties that included a $2 million waterfront condo, a North Carolina land preserve, a Starbucks in Mississippi, a condo in Ohio, a Georgia Shell station and a Sarasota floral shop called “Mr. Florist” that Arthur’s wife Peg bought for $1.2 million and which surprisingly, never turned a profit.

400 victims lost $168 million because of their investments in what turned out to be Nadel’s Ponzi scheme. Nadel pleaded guilty in New York to federal fraud charges and got 14 years in the pen. Whose the sad clown reading the paper now?

Hilarious Assets For Sale

Have You Noticed How Some People Know Exactly What They Don’t Want to Know?

by kara on February 24, 2011

from salon.com

Breathing a Vein.

by kara on February 21, 2011

“Breathing a vein”, Bloodletting, Phlebotomy: drawing copious amounts of blood  – that pesky “extra” blood buildup – by having an artery punctured with a lancet, the blood gushing like a geyser into a bowl.

From Rick Ungars Policy Page posted on Forbes, 1/17/11.  Etchings by James Gillray, 1804

The ink was barely dry on the PPACA when the first of many lawsuits to block the mandated health insurance provisions of the law was filed in a Florida District Court. The pleadings, in part, read –

The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty, that all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage.

State of Florida, et al. vs. HHS

It turns out, the Founding Fathers would beg to disagree.

In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed – “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.” The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance. Keep in mind that the 5th Congress did not really need to struggle over the intentions of the drafters of the Constitutions in creating this Act as many of its members were the drafters of the Constitution. And when the Bill came to the desk of President John Adams for signature, I think it’s safe to assume that the man in that chair had a pretty good grasp on what the framers had in mind.

Here’s how it happened.

[click to continue…]

World’s Coolest Horse.

by kara on February 20, 2011

United White Welfare States of America.

by kara on February 18, 2011

Welfare State??

If you’re looking at percentages, the percentage of white folks in the great state of Kentucky (89.6%), stands about equal to that which they receive in federal support over what they earn. It’s not clear whether the good, white people of Kentucky actually understand to what degree their lives are dependent on federal dollars – you know, the same federal dollars they are fighting against? If they do “get it”, they have got to be the most selfless, patriotic people in The Union, God bless ’em. It’s probable that they actually don’t realize that they are living off the fat of other people’s money, that most of their daily needs and comforts are coming at the expense of the rest of the country. If they did, they would most certainly be appalled to learn what a bunch of welfare witches they were!

I’ve often said that these people ought to cut out the middle man and just shoot themselves in the face. Then, we wouldn’t have lawmakers and politicians shrieking at us about how “government” and “entitlements” are ruining everything. The faster these entitlement recipients commit suicide – directly or indirectly – by refusing subsidies from the ‘govmint or by shotgun, the sooner the Nation can get back to the fun news coverage and adorable human interest stories like that grizzly bear that went from hot tub to hut tub every evening in Laguna. You know, the stuff that made us feel good about life, before the news was all junked up with those depressing coots in costumes and all that shit. If you are going to commit suicide anyway, why wait? Every day that goes by is another day that us working stiffs have our paychecks depleted and another day the federal coffers are being raided. Be a true patriot! If you really care about the national debt, DO IT!! I know you have the guns!

Welfare Recipients?

Another fat, white, tax sinkhole is the great state of Alaska, 79% white, a frozen welfare state wrapped in a thick, wolf-pelt fur coat of federal subsidies. Their license-plates may claim them “The Last Frontier, but the areas in which four-fifths of Alaskans live are more Nellie Olson than Laura Ingalls. Alaskans enjoy a well stocked larder of espresso bars, micro breweries and high speed internet connections. On average, Alaskans are richer than those of us in the lower 48, yet historically, Alaska is American taxpayer’s burden, deemed “more dependent on Congress than any other part of the United States outside of the District of Columbia” way back in 1912. Despite oil well production that allows the state to function without levying an income tax, the interest from a $34 billion Permanent Fund in which past oil receipts are stashed, and the inexplicable annual handout given every man, woman and child, the US government spends $1.88 on Alaska for every dollar it collects in Alaskan taxes. Federal spending supports one third of all Alaskan jobs. Alaska’s representatives in Washington have a hard-earned reputation for shoveling federal dollars back home. The $229m “Bridge to Nowhere is only one boondoggle in a state as much coated in pork as ice. Empty high-speed ferries, the half a million dollars the (federally-funded) Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board gave to Alaska Airlines to paint those king salmons on the side of its planes. Why the hell are we so fucking generous to the state that spawned Sarah Palin? Washington should levy a tax on Alaskans, not pipe our tax dollars to them. Talk about a bridge to nowhere!

[click to continue…]

by kara on February 16, 2011

Daily Kos reported that on December 21, 1989, Vice President Dan “You say potato, I say potato” Quayle sent out 30,000 Christmas cards that said:

“May our nation continue to be the beakon of hope to the world.”

My spellchecker didn’t even flag the word when I typed it—I just got a pop-up box that said, “You’re shitting me, right?”

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →