Friday, April 30, 2010

That War, At 35

Today is Friday, 30 April 2010.

On this date in 1975, the Indochina Wars "ended".

However, wars cannot be ended, only never begun.

35 years, and I'm not sure how to grieve, nor make amends. Yes, I was a draft resister, and did my tiny part to halt the killings of 6,000,000 plus, and failed. And, payed taxes, that funded the killings.

So, herewith, an ironic Euro-Centric mourning.

"When will we ever learn?"

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Lyntl, A Week After

Today is Thursday, 29 April 2010.

On this day, a week ago, our dog daughter Lyntl departed at my hand.

She would have enjoyed this.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Vote Labour!

Today remains Wednesday, 28 April 2010.

I’m, for all intents and porpoises, a Brit. My mother’s birth name was Wood, and more English, one cannot be.

So this crap when a person questioned PM Brown about “immigration from Eastern Europe”, and he was heard calling her “bigoted”, and it’s turned into an uproar …

Well, questioner, Ms. Duffy, that is bigotry.

FYI, Ms. Duffy: there is only one “race”, and it’s human or foot.

So that’s two. Sue me.

“Oh, THOSE PEOPLE are taking OUR jobs.”

The Museum of the Bourgeois proudly casts support to Labour, however flawed.

Grrr!

As we say here in The Colonies: vote early, and often!

Ukes for Lyntl

Today is Wednesday, 28 April 2010.

You could be in for a long night.

A full dance card today, so substantive comment on S&P downgrading the sovereign debt of Spain, etc., may take several hours.

Short version: S&P and Moody's ... my lawyer says, "Don't use the word "lied"". [Note the use of the double parenthesis, beloved of lawyers and novelists everywhere. For the record, I'm writing a novel, and am only a "lawyer" in sense of pro se, which is why I gave a dollar retainer to my attorney of record many years ago, as watching Perry Mason taught me.]

Well, let's just say, were those rating dudes to have it f-uped got on their sub-prime mortage bond ratings, so, now, we're supposed to trust them on Spain. ???

"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"

Now, the music.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Again, For Lyntl

Today remains Tuesday, 27 April 2010.

Wished to post a fav Beatles song, but it's denied by The Corporate Gods. However, found this, and can this guy for sure play the ukulele, an instrument for which I've long had unexplained affection. And it's at Strawberry Fields in Central Park, a place I know well.

"Can [s]he play the [ukulele]? It's a gift!"

Who knows the movie reference?

We have brought

Today is Tuesday, 27 April 2010.

We have brought the ashes of our daughter home.



Monday, April 26, 2010

More Lyntl

Today remains.

Our friends at the VCA Veterinary Medical Center, in Tulsa, may find this an odd tribute, but the hearts of Mary and I, go out to you, for all you did, that Lyntl remained with us so long. (Not that we like these people, but it's a nice song. And, Lyntl liked it when i played it. Go figure.)

Another for Lyntl

Today remains.

Another for Lyntl.

More Lyntl, Returning Home Tomrrow

Today is ... whatever.

Just received news, ashes of our daughter Lyntl, we'll bring home tomorrow.

I'll be dressed in full kit, and this song will be in my heart.

More Memory of Lyntl

Today remains Monday, 26 April 2010.

I have no shame, having worked for nonprofits, since high school, volunteer and "professionally", which latter, I think, is a tacky word meaning I made a pittance.

Should anyone wish to donate, however small, in memory of our Lyntl, or Lyntl and your loved one, to the Humane Society of Tulsa, to which we have given, go to http://tulsapets.com/.

Thanks in advance.

And, for sure, feel free to donate to another organization, and hit on moi for same.

And, I have at least one more poem in me about her.

In Memory: Guernica

Today is Monday, 26 April 2010.

On this date in 1937, ironically also a Monday, Nazi bombers of the Condor Legion ravaged the small Spanish village of Guernica, in the first truly-successful air raid.

(And don’t our societies honour “firsts”!)

Ironically also, this afternoon, just as I chose to write something about Guernica, planes of the Oklahoma Air National Guard flew at low altitude over our house, as they often do, since we’re in a convenient traffic pattern for the often-prevailing winds, as related to our local international airport.

What can I say? Repeat myself, and repeat many others who denounced war crimes, and how much was listened?

This following is brought to my attention in an article by Rachel Galvin:

"The politician wants people to know how to die courageously; the poet wants people to live courageously."

—Italian poet Salvatore Quasimodo, Nobel lecture, 1959

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Memo to Obama

Today remains Saturday, 24 April 2010.

If you need to appoint a white guy to the Supreme Court, one could do a hell of a lot worse than Moi.

But you might also wish to consider Mike, or even Richard, who actually has a law degree, and is as left as Moi.

However, I urge you to consider some chicks, as they enjoy calling themselves. Call Moi, I’ve got a long list.

And, you know whom you are, ladies.

"This is How I Love You"

Today is Saturday, 24 April 2010.

“This is How I Love You”

For the first time in 41 years,
I didn’t tear immediately open the trademark blue bag,
Onto my porch thrown,
That bears to me The New York Times.

The Thursday and Friday editions sat, on the floor,
In their blue mourning wrappers,
Ignorant of your death.

And I just stared at them.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Today remains Friday, 22 April 2010.

I like this song.



"Let the dreamers, dream".

yet another poem for Lyntl

Today remains Friday, 22 april 2010.

"How quiet it is around the house today. "

The three surviving dogs
Know their sister is gone,

They are grieving also,
Great mournful eyes,
Lean their sweet heads against me,

And walk, with such quiet,
Kitty-cat toes
to honour her.

Another poem for Lyntl

Today is Friday, 23 April 2010.

Never Google “grief”

Am first to admit,
I don’t well deal with grief.

As in
Our eldest dog died yesterday. and I haven’t been to sleep in 48 hours or whatever,
So, I’m sitting here,]
In front of the oracle,
Well, I would have gone to Delphi, but the wife doesn’t like plane travel,
So, I’m stuck with the web.

My advice to you?
Never Google “grief”.

Thought, what could I lose,
If I googled “grief”.

You’re 58 and can’t figure that out?

I do recall,
Ca. 3am today, i guess it was,
I was watching TV,
And pretending it was a Perry Mason re-run,
Which took mucho pretending,
Because it was a creepy-to-the-max white guy,
The sort of religious guy you wouldn’t want around children,
With a bouffant hairdo,
Wearing a suit that,
Frankly,
Were I about to abducted by a Salvadoran death squad, and to death slowly tortured, for, say a week,
Involving things that I wouldn’t wish on Nixon,
Which is saying a lot,
Well, I would NOT be caught dead, as it were, in that suit.

Do what you wish with my fingernails,
Just, don’t put me in a suit like that,
Even were I dead.

(Hint: the plaid was TOO LARGE.)
(Among other things,
and don't get me going on the tie.
you can see, i'm trying to avoid
the fact my dog is dea.
i can't even complete the world.
word.)

Oh: and he was yelling at me
To mail him a couple thousand
So he could give it to Jesus.

Good luck with that, asshat.

So, I googled “grief”
And the lord of the web said to me:
“Coach says,
WTF?
Are you a pansy or what?
You could lose some weight!
Walk it off!
A mile – no two!”

Duh.

Well, maybe coach was right.

I’m still full of grief,
But, I just walked two miles,
And,
Every step,
I mourned for you.

Not that i feel any better.

Another Poem for Lyntl

Today remains Friday, whatever the hell day it is.

and i've writ another poem.

"Poem upon the death of our Dog, Lyntl”

It’s 1.19am, and

It’s 4.44am, the next morning,
And I’m editing your poem

I’ve turned on all the lights in the house,

As if that beacon will bring you back alive.

As if that beacon, might bring you back alive.

From your death yesterday.

I’ve looked in the frig, at the last meal,
That you couldn’t eat, remains
Uneaten.

I’ve looked again in the frig, at
Your Last Meal Not,

See how much I love yo;u:
Even grammar
My oldest, trusted friend
Next to you
deserts me.

in you honour.

In your honour.

I “did the deed” myself.
Helped by the vet’s steady hand
I gave you the final
“mercy Shot”
Myself,

Everything you’ve given me,
Life, Love, Hope,
The Least I could do.

And you live,
In the eyes of your sister Weimaraner,
The poet Shelley,
Who into my eyes looks,
With puzzled loss,
And says,
As Stephen Spender said,
In a greater poem than this
“Is it all we have?”

Poem upon, the death of our dog, Lyntl

Today is Friday, 23 April 2010.

"Poem upon the death of our Dog, Lyntl”

It’s 1.19am, and
I’ve turned on all the lights in the house,

As if that will bring you back alive.

From your death yesterday.

I’ve looked in the frig, at the last meal,
That you couldn’t eat, remains
Uneaten.

See how much I love yo;u:
Even grammar
My oldest, trusted friend
Next to you

deserts me.

in your honour.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

In Memory

Today is Thursday, 22 April 2010.

At 8.04 AM, CST, died our Weimaraner, Lyntl, in our arms.

Love bug.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

In Memory: Mingus

Today is Thursday, 21 April 2010.

Mingus died, this date, 1979.

I love Mary

Today is Wednesday, whatever April 2010.



If, you ... to my wife.

Life! Dance! Hope!

Today is Wednesday, 21 April 2010.

A lovely moment for my friends and readers. Thank youse.



HH isn't only about anger against evil. He can dance!

(Of course, in those long-ago days of yesteryear, before the joint disease at age 20, when HH danced, he was known as "Zorba the Geek".)

Friends: Dance!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

I'm a Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey, and Proud of It!

Today is Tuesday, 20 April 2010.




OUI!

But I've Been to Oklahoma

Today is Tuesday, 20 April 2010.

Good morning, “Anonymous”!

This is in ref to your comment yesterday, even if I didn't totally understand. And, thanks, I'm sorta enough happy as one might be, in the circumstances of Life As Is It. Thanks for being in the dialogue.

Well, “I’ve never been to heaven, but I’ve been to Oklahoma”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm6qw_yeo6o

And I was once, in May 1972, minorly waterboarded by deputy sheriffs, Oklahoma County representing, in the lobby of the Oklahoma County courthouse.

Does that sorta kinda fit the V for Vendetta thang? (A movie I own, but fell asleep half thorough.)

“How’s that hopey-changey waterboardy kick-the-crap-outta-ya thing workin’ out for ya? You betcha!”

This after they kicked and stomped the crap out of moi, for the crime of free speech and petitioning the government for the redress of grievances, and bounced moi down a marble staircase.

Well, at least it was marble, and not crappy concrete.

‘Twas ca. 9pm on a lovely spring night, (by my troth: was “Nine o’clock on a Saturday”), twilight, and we were vigiling outside the Courthouse for peace in Vietnam.

“All we are saying, is give peace a chance.”

An riot, as it were. NOT!

The deputies swarmed us, ordering us, “Git off our Courthouse”.

As if the Courthouse were their Private Property, and not owned, free and clear, by We, The People.

Moi: “The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees us the right to ---“

First chief principle in-charge deputy: “Fuck the First Amendment! Take him, boys!”

[Apologies to my Friend, who finds the “f” word ugly, but that’s what they said. Localism: “That’s what I said: Bunny Bread.”]

Guess they didn’t have a black bag handy to over my head put.

“I” – punch – “object” – kick – “oof” – spit upon moi – “object to your fucking of the First Amendment” was what moi said, as bounced down the marble staircase was he.

Moi was released without charges, after a couple of hours detention, since the sheriffs, upon advice of the District Attorney, Hamilton Burger, could not discover a crime of Disrespecting Law Officers Who Disrespect the First Amendment.

And, orderly conduct was still not a Crime.

Kindly post, Anonymouse, at this space, time and place of next Tea Party event in Tulsa. I will try to B there, or B square.

Monday, April 19, 2010

In Memory: 19 April 1995

Today is Monday, 19 April 2010.

On this date in 1995, 168 persons were assassinated and some 700 injured in an extreme-right-wing terrorist bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

While the immediate motivation of Timothy McVeigh seems to have been revenge for the 76 persons killed by ATF in an incompetent terror assault on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas on 19 April 1993, the roots go much deeper.

McVeigh believed that the USA/USE was controlled by the Zionist Occupation Government, an instrument of “World Jewry”. The ZOG terminology seems to have originated in American extreme-right circles in the early 1970s. It was simply a new coinage for an idea which had begun to gain real traction about a century before in Europe: that the world was secretly controlled by “The Jew”, acting through their control of global financial institutions, thus enabling them to command all governments.

While Jewish conspiracies had always bulked large in much of Christendom, they were originally limited to such things as allegations that Jews killed Christian babies and used their blood in celebrating Passover. It wasn’t really until about 1880, in Austria, that the idea of a global Jewish financial-political plot took hold, when the interconnections of global finance began to exist on a serious level and be obvious in their effects to the general public.

After the Russian Revolutions of 1917, the terms “Jew Communism” and “Communism is Jewish” began to gain currency. The ideas behind them entered the USA/USE during the First Great Red Scare of 1919-1920, and really took off when the Great Depression commenced. (E.g., many believed that the original name of the Roosevelt family in Holland was “Rosenfelt”.) After World War Two and the Holocaust, overt anti-Semitism on the political level in the USA/USE became less acceptable, and mutated into McCarthyism, the Second Great Red Scare.

McCarthyism was, in essence, classic political anti-Semitism scrubbed of the actual words “Jew” and “Jewry”. The core remained the same: a vast, sinister, hidden force of evil which controlled much of the world, and was waging a covert battle for complete domination. In the words of Joe McCarthy: “… a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous venture in the history of man”. In many circles, until ca. 1960, it was still acceptable to note publicly the ethnic Jewish nature of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, and other Bolshevik leaders, thus implying that “Communism is Jewish”. Such frankness then largely disappeared, save for very marginalized groups and individuals.

Unfortunately, vast numbers of gullible Americans fell for the larger fraud. McCarthy had cleverly employed Hitler’s technique: there’s so little actual evidence of this conspiracy because the Jew/Commie conspiracy is so powerful it expunges almost all traces of itself. In other words, the lack of proof is the perfect proof. McCarthy was assisted by a general atmosphere of fear-mongering and falsehoods, portraying the USA/USE as a pitiful giant threatened by the world-historical colossus of Communism.

In truth, from 1950 to 1991, the core Soviet bloc (the USSR and Eastern Europe) was steadily only 20% as economically powerful as the core USA/USE bloc (USA/USE, UK, Western Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand). Some pitiful giant! (I made this calculation as early as 1968, after wondering how Khrushchev could boast that the Soviet Union was producing missiles “like sausages”, when it couldn’t even produce enough sausages!)

And then along came, in 1964, the white supremacist Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, then the “Mr. Con-servative”, then the “Great White Hope”. “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue”.

Did McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Senator Robert Taft, Goldwater, and other Republican leaders actually believe in such a conspiracy, or was it simply a vicious, cynical, and dangerous strategy for monopolizing political power? I believe the evidence fits the latter. As Taft once said to McCarthy, “Just keep slinging mud. Someday some of it will stick”.

I doubt any of those Republican leaders meant for a Murrah bombing to happen. However, the ethical Law of Unintended Consequences is ironclad: who plays with fire is responsible for those who are burned.

McVeigh issued from the militia movement. The militia movement was McCarthyism militarized, frequently with the overt anti-Semitism restored.

In a very true sense, McVeigh was as much a victim of the ideology of McCarthyism and its mutations as were those who died that day. And paid with his life for the sins of McCarthy, Nixon, Taft, Goldwater, etc., a price they didn't pay. "Extremism is no vice."

The Tea Party movement exhibits many parallels to the militia movement: rabid suspicion of and hatred for “outsiders”, a nihilistic hatred of government and all but the most primitive social structures (cf. Margaret Thatcher: “There are men, and women, and families. There is no such thing as society”), a fetishistic appetite for weaponry of all kinds, violent longings for an idealized nativist past that never existed, the preening “victimhood” of relatively well-off white folks, grandiose and morbidly narcissistic rhetoric, and the Second Amendment belief (cf. Mao!) that “political power flows from the gun barrel”.

Despite the "patriotic" veneer on its rhetoric, the Tea Party movement is essentially anti-American.

I fear we’ve not seen the last of extreme-right violence, cynically aided and abetted by allegedly “more responsible” con-servative elements who lust after riding the Tea Party movement into power.

The Museum of the Bourgeois remembers with great sorrow those who died on this day, and hopes those who love them have found comfort.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

In Memory: Thornton Wilder

Today is Saturday, 17 April 2010.

Today is the birthday of my favourite American playwright (even more than myself!), and tied for the greatest, Thornton Wilder, born in 1897, in Madison, Wisconsin.

"I am not interested in ... such subjects as the adulteries of dentists. I am interested in those things that repeat and repeat and repeat in the lives of the millions."

Were I to have the responsibility to preserve for prosperity [foreshadowing, for those keeping score] only one American play, it might well be Our Town (1938).

(Of course, I’d run a con, and preserve at least a baker’s dozen. Old habits die hard.)

Many consider Our Town an antiquated exercise in nostalgia.

Edward Albee (also tied for greatest) knows better: "Why do people persist in trying to make this tragedy into hearts and flowers?"

It’s not a play about nostalgia: the whole point is in Emily's anguished question: "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it, every, every moment?" Stage Manager: "No ... saints and poets, they do some."

So many moments of “ordinary” life, as if such a thing existed, are infused with such … grandeur, eternity, poignancy … and then, so many times, it’s cut short, death, finis, as in the untimely death of Emily.

Life is such so precious, there is no “ordinary”.

Lillian Hellman is also tied for greatest, as is Eugene O'Neill.

Tomorrow night, the HH’s attend a dinner and talk by another playwright tied for American greatest, Tony Kushner, who wrote Angels in America.
___________________________________________________

SPECIAL NOTE

Commenting on yesterday’s column, “Tom Coburn’s Social Diseases”, “Anonymous” wrote, “Ever heard of slander?”

I believe “Anonymous” meant “libel”, since my column was written.

(Perusal of the classic, Black’s Law Dictionary (special thanks to You Know Whom for my copy), which is a wonderful read, will help you avoid such errors in the future. Lex Anglia non patitur absurdum. “The law of England does not suffer an absurdity”.)

American jurisprudence holds that truthful statements are a sufficient and perfect defense against slander and libel.

Sin-ator Coburn proudly and publicly parades his perversion, preaching predatory homophobia and patriarchal fascism on the public airwaves. [A little alliteration for Spiro Agnew aficionados in the audience. “Nattering nabobs of negativism”, indeed. Of course, William Safir ghost-wrote most of it.] Sin-ator Coburn is therefore responsible for the vicious actions of those who purchase into his hate crap.

(Please note that I didn’t ask Sin-ator Coburn if he’d stopped beating his wife, let alone assert that he has. Please note that I didn’t assert Sin-ator Coburn enjoys the closeted homoeroticism of male poledancing.)
_______________________________________

APOLOGY

Just realized I'd posted this column without a title and italics. Unlike some authors, I never change substance once a column has been posted. I only rectify housekeeping errors.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Tom Coburn's Social Diseases

Today is Friday, 16 April 2010.

Yesterday, Obama signed into law an extension of unemployment benefits, over the strenuous objections of Senator Tom Coburn (Sex-Crazed, Christ-Hating Republican - OK), who longed to snatch food from the mouths of babes and spend the money killing civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Mucho macho Tom is no bleeding-hearted, do-gooding, “More gruel, sir?” liberal.

Anywho, thinking of Tom Coburn naturally led to thinking about social diseases.

Now, when most folks think of social diseases, they think of the likes of gonorrhea.

But there are social diseases that are rife in the cesspools of many so-called “conservative”, “Bible-believing” “churches”. I’m speaking of patriarchal fascism and homophobia.

Patriarchal fascism is the lie that females are inherently and necessarily inferior to males. Patriarchal fascism results in the familiar “Christian Family” hierarchy scheme: command in families flows from God to the male to the children to dogs and cats to fish, birds, lizards, and gerbils. The female is at the end of a dotted line extending from the male, indicating she is mere staff/support personnel, with no right of command.

In the United Kingdom, where they speak actual English, this attitude is known as “willie-waving”.

Patriarchal fascism results in rape, other violence against women, lower wages, etc.

Homophobia is the hatred of lesbians and gay males. It’s particularly pandemic among allegedly hetero-males who believe it’s very macho to whip it out and put it on display to other males in public urinals. This type also frequently enjoys watching sweaty, steroidally-enhanced, nearly-nude males groping one another in the sex entertainment known as professional wrestling, male poledancing, or closeted homoeroticism.

Homophobia results in violence against lesbians and gay males, discrimination, etc.

May soon dawn the day when deviants such as Coburn zip it back in their pants and shut the hell up with preaching perversion!
_____________________________________

On this date in 1947, in a speech in South Carolina, Bernard Baruch used the term “cold war”. His speechwriter, Herbert Bayard Swope, pilfered the phrase from George Orwell, who coined it in an essay in October 1945. Later in 1947, Walter Lippman popularized the phrase in a book, Cold War.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Sacco and Vanzetti, Judicially Assassinated

Today is Thursday, 15 April 2010.

It’s accurate to say that some 47% of Americans don’t pay federal income tax, due to low income, high deductions and credits, etc.

It’s a deliberate and nefarious lie to say, as do many TV/radio white-wing propagandists, that 47% don’t pay federal taxes, or are freeloaders who don’t pay any taxes at all.

Most of those 47% pay federal taxes for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. (Most of those 47% also pay state and local taxes of many kinds. The entire division of taxation into jurisdictions is irrational, a result of accidents of history.) Most of those 47% pay an average of 14.2% in federal payroll taxes, excise taxes, and corporate taxes.

True: the wealthiest, say, 20% of Americans pay more federal income taxes than they did 30 years ago, but that’s because their incomes, overall, have ballooned much more than the incomes of the middle and lower classes have.

Since the wealthier receive more government services, they must pay a higher percentage as their fair share.

Per usual: the wealthiest are the freeloaders.
__________________________________________________

All this is common knowledge to anyone who’s actually studied the question. More in this The New York Times article from yesterday:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/business/economy/14leonhardt.html
__________________________________________________

On this date in 1920, Italian-Americans Sacco and Vanzetti didn’t rob a shoe store and thus didn’t kill two security guards. Nevertheless, they were framed and judicially murdered by state terrorism in 1927. An excellent book on the case is Katherine Anne Porter, The Never-Ending Wrong.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Poem for *

Today remains Wednesday, 14 April 2010.

“Poem for *”

My name is Joe
Black cat of the Bradleys:
Down the street and round the corner.

Mayhap you saw my happy flicking tail
Once upon a morning.

Surely, they loved me in their way.
And always let me wander in and out the dog door,
In midst of the busy traffic city.

Week ago,
They left me with a dogsitter.

The dogsitter last noticed me Monday last,
According to testimony true,
And the Bradleys have returned from vacation
Today, Wednesday, 14 April 2010,
And just now, 8.39pm, noticed me gone.

They loved me in their way, surely.

No tag nor collar
Did ever they buy me.

Slivers of vacation they bought instead.

I assume,
they imagine,
in their “Lost Cat” e-mail to the ‘hood association,
(In poet’s inbox just arrived)
That to write, “No tag or collar :-(”
As if the emoticon
Justifies
These last 14 years
When they let me wander out the dog door
And I,
(With no idea the mortal peril to which they condemned me,
As if emoticons justify cruelty,)
Walked,
Lovingly,
Trustingly,
A final time,
Out into that world.

Microcredit in Crisis

Today is Wednesday, 14 April 2010.

The “invisible hand of the market” fails again.

Microcredit, as originally conceived, has had many beneficial effects. The practice consists of making very small loans (often no more than US$100) to previously “unbankable” poor persons, who use the capital to develop micro-businesses which supplement other income, often significantly improving their quality of life. The interest rates charged were kept purposely low, covering only actual operating costs and re-lending of repaid loans.

Then for-profit financial institutions discovered that many of the “unbankable” were actually “prebankable”, and entered the field. Since their only concern was making profits for themselves, and not helping the very poor improve their lives, they quickly began to charge predatory rates (as high as 125% APR).

This was possible since there is no global regulation of financial institutions, and, in individual countries (including the USA/USE), regulation is frequently lax due to the large sums of money which can be funneled to elected and other government employees. (One prime example is the odious Senator Mitch McConnell (Republican – Kentucky), a major opponent of sanely regulating Wall Street and other financial institutions.)

In a decent world, microcredit would be rehabilitated by restricting its operations to not-for-profit organizations.
_____________________________________

(For more information, see today’s The New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/world/14microfinance.html?hpw)

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Chuck Connors Remembered

Today remains Tuesday, 13 April 2010.

I didn't realize it at the time, but ... perhaps the most phallic TV intro ever.



He also had fine successes with Branded, and Soylent Green.

And he played with the Celtics, Brooklyn Dodgers, and the Cubs. Who knew?

Mrs. HH and I met him, ca. 1983, at a Chuck Connors Film Festival in Tulsa.

Very gracious.

Slavery Ain't Diddly

Today is Tuesday, 13 April 2010.

Spewing hate yesterday on CNN, Haley Barbour, Republican Governor of Mississippi since 2004, said, in regard to the Virginia Republican governor’s proclamation of Confederate History Month, which ignored slavery: “To me, it's a sort of feeling that it's a nit. That it is not significant, that it's not a – it's trying to make a big deal out of something doesn't amount to diddly.”

Well, Hatey Barber is just promoting and marketing to his fellow neo-Nazis, and, besides, he hasn’t said anything outrageous enough in a while to get on TV, so his ego addiction is out of control.

I’m so tired of pointing this out: mass theft, mass rape, and mass murder do amount to “diddly”, unless one is a white supremacist, with values deriving from the Ninth Circle of Hell.

For those who, like Barboor and the anti-Semite Patrick Buchanan, claim the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, dig this excerpt from the Mississippi declaration of secession:

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization."

Or how about the “Cornerstone Speech” of “C.S.A.” “Vice President” Alexander Stephens, who proclaimed that the “cornerstone” of the treasonous “government” "rest[ed] upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth”.

‘Tis fitting to mention this on the birth date of the man who, when he wrote “…all men are created equal …”, actually meant “all Aryan males with net worths substantially above average”. _______________________________________________

DUH!

Yet another study finds that children who are spanked are more likely to be aggressive toward other children than children who aren’t spanked.

If parents teach by their behaviour that child abuse is “a good thing”, then naturally their children will tend to believe that abuse of others is a proper life perspective and practice.

As adults, they project those “traditional family values” into action in the wider world, resulting in drive-bys, wife-beating, My Lais, and affirming the propriety of nuclear genocide.

Monday, April 12, 2010

70% Right?

Today is Monday, 12 April 2010.

Testifying last week before a special committee investigating the recent financial crisis, disgraced former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan claimed that he’d got 70% of his decisions right, and 30% wrong.

As if a heart surgeon demanded praise for getting 70% of an operation right, although the 30% he got wrong, alas, killed the patient.

Frank Rich, writing yesterday in The New York Times, compared Greenspan to the captain of the Titanic, had the latter claimed he was on the correct course 70% of the time.

Would that Greenspan (acolyte of sociopath-"writer" Ayn Rand) were liable to a claw-back provision, so that every cent of taxpayer money paid to him could be recovered, with interest and penalties.

Both Greenspan and disgraced former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin falsely testified that “no one” could have foreseen the crisis, when both know that many publicly warned against it. Even if “no one” had, the most cursory study of economic history since, say, 1500 would have tipped them off about the perils of "bubbles". And both are keen students of economic history.

Were Greenspan, Rubin, and their ilk mere blind fools, brainwashed by their false ideologies, and refusing to be blinded by reality? Or were they venal thugs, willing to betray and impoverish their country, while they lined their pockets with profits and power?

Given that both are devout monopoly capitalists, obviously the latter.
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On this date in date in 1633, the trial by the Inquisition began against Galileo Galilei.

On this date in 1861, the traitors of the racist crime family known as the “Confederate States of America” began the American Civil War.

On this date in 1864, at the Battle of Fort Pillow in Tennessee, “Confederate” traitors massacred, in cold blood, more than 300 Black American soldiers who had surrendered. The traitors were led by “Major General” Nathan B. Forrest, who would later become a founder and first “Grand Wizard” of the white terrorist Ku Klux Klan.

On this date in 1945, Franklin Delano Roosevelt died.

On this date in 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

The New "Intolerance"

Today is Sunday, 11 April 2010.

You will recall … a rhetorical device … the Republican governor of Virginia, Robert F. McDonnell, and his Confederate-worshipping proclamation which conveniently forgot that the Civil War was about slavery.

“Well”, as Jack Benny said …

The only good thing I can say about Patrick Buchanan is: he’s master of The Limbo – How Low Can He Go.

“Slavery was not the cause of this [the Civil] war. Secession was – that and Lincoln’s determination to drown the nation in blood if necessary to make the Union whole again”.

This from his sad excuse for a column, logically incoherent, published yesterday in the Tulsa World, under the title, “The new intolerance for the South”.

[Which, mirabile dictu, is about intolerance for … honkies!]

“Secession was –“ What? The happenin’ thing? Flavour of the Day? “It feels good – let’s do it”?

“Secession was” an attempt to ensure that slavery … and let’s stop the presses here and hit the nail on the head one more time, in case you’re Just Tuning In … slavery was, is, and always will be mass theft, mass rape, mass murder … “Secession was” an attempt to ensure that slavery at the South should be eternal: eternal theft, eternal rape, eternal mass murder.

Slavery was the cause of Secession, and thus of the Civil War.

Bu-cannon claims that “Virginia seceded rather than provide soldiers or militia to participate in a war on their brethren”. Their brethren being Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas. (That is, racist white brethren.) Their brethren not being the other states of the United States of America.

Bu-cannon, who never served in the military, being 4-F due to “reactive arthritis”, and so is sort of a poop-out as a cannon, begins his whole pathetic “argument” with a quote:

“This was a recognition of American terrorists”.

“That is CNN's Roland Martin's”…

And yes, Martin is what Bu-cannon would call “colored”.

“…summary judgment of the 258,000 men and boys who fell fighting for the Confederacy in a war that cost as many American lives as World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq combined.”

Which means defending mass theft, mass rape, and mass murder, and which is relevant and advances your “argument” how? (The more sympathetic and humane are sad those men and boys died, not in vain, but for vile.)

And many Southern white women died also, but, hey, why count the bitches?

“Martin reflects the hysteria”

…you know, that “female complaint”, which is why the bitches don’t count.

… “that seized Obamaville”

… located in triangular equidistance from Hooterville and Our Town

… “on hearing that Gov. Bob McDonnell had declared Confederate History Month in the Old Dominion. Virginia leads the nation in Civil War battlefields”.

…Yes, “Virginia is for lovers”. And slavery re-enactors. But those pesky darkies … so damn hard to get them to join in. And it’s sorta like boasting: “Germany leads the world in Nazi battlefields”. Niche products, definitely.

“So loud was the howling”

Not an Old Yeller ref. More likely the dogs used to hunt escaped slaves. Or the fact that white racists often refer to Blacks as “dogs”.

“that in 24 hours McDonnell had backpedaled and issued an apology that he had not mentioned slavery.”

Then Bu-cannon rambles about The Great Terrorist, General William Tecumseh Sherman, who not only annoyed Scarlett O’Hara and spoiled her dinner party plans, o fiddle dee-dee, but burned Atlanta, etc.

(EVERYONE knows Sherman was really a Black Muslim, setting in train the events which led to 9-11.]

Bu-cannon is really agitated … wait, that’s what Coloreds become, when influenced by outside Commies …gets his innards in an uproar because the organization which asked for the McDonnell proclamation was the Sons of Confederate Veterans, who’ve been vilified and ungiven a fair shake in this.

[Why am I not surprised that Patsy is a card-carrying member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans?]

“Because they are Southern white Christian men — none of whom defends slavery, but all of whom are defiantly proud of the South, its ancient faith and their forefathers who fell in the Lost Cause.”

And this “ancient faith” would be … theft-rape-murder? TRM?

Reminds me of Wichita, Kansas, and “BTK” – Bind-Torture-Kill.

And here’s the final paragraph, the Hit-It-Outta-the-Park Not:

“Consider closely this latest skirmish in a culture war”

Sorry, Patsy, the judges have ruled: neither BTK nor Theft-Rape-Murder qualifies as a culture, unless Pat’s thinking of the kind one finds in a petri dish at the Centers for Disease Control, growing increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

“that may yet make an end to any idea of nationhood,”

Disqualifying buzzer sounds: incomprehensible phrase.

“and you will see whence the real hate is coming. It is not from Gov. McDonnell or the Sons of Confederate Veterans.”

The Immoral of the Story.

Hate is from n-----s, Bu-cannonized males are from Mars.

Whence.

QED.
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Kurt Vonnegut died on this date in 2007.

Primo Levi died on this date in 1987.

“So it goes”.
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Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Appropriate, since Pat Buchanan is a long-time anti-Semite.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Bigotry at Augusta "National"

Today is Saturday, 10 April 2010.

William Porter “Billy” Payne is an unnotable lawyer from Athens, Georgia, and Chairman of Centennial Holding Company, a real estate venture. He was President and CEO of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. “Billy” is now chairman of the Augusta National Golf Club, in Augusta, Georgia, site of the Masters Tournament.

In the latter capacity, “Billy” peeped out from under his sheet this past week, preening before the opening of the Tournament, while trashing Tiger Woods.

“His future will never again be measured only by his performance against par, but measured by the sincerity of his effort to change. I hope he now realizes that every kid he passes on the course wants this swing, but would settle for his smile … He forgot in the process to remember that with fame and fortune comes responsibility, not invisibility. It is not simply the degree of his conduct that is so egregious here, it is the fact that he disappointed all of us.”

Pardon moi, “Billy” boy, but have you ever made such egregious remarks about a white golfer, many of whom lead lives not precisely squeaky-clean? I thought not. And didn’t Augusta National refuse to admit Black members until 1990? I thought so. And doesn’t Augusta National still promote a homoerotic atmosphere, refusing to admit females to membership? Thought so again.

So you’re at least two types of bigot. Shall I say “Jew” and see if you can make it three?

Isn’t the subtext here your anger and resentment that a “big black buck”* (in the words of Dwight Eisenhower, an Augusta National member) has been received with open arms by white women?

Joining “Billy” among the prominent male organs who support sexist bigotry at Augusta National (which, despite the pretentious name, isn’t really “national”, but just a good-ol’-boy cracker shack in eastern Georgia; Augusta town motto: “We Feel Good!”, a reference to the city’s medical business) are Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and T. Boone Pickens, Jr., who should all be ashamed of themselves, had they at long last some sense of decency.
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* Eisenhower responding to news of Brown v. Board, the U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing public school segregation: "Do you really want some big black buck sitting next to your little Susie"?
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One of these days, MoB will begin podcasting, so you’ll be able to hear me deliver this column with a Southern-fried accent!
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PERSONAL NOTE

To: Jon Ensign, sex-crazed adulterous Republican senator from Nevada.

I know the jackals and hyenas are baying for your blood. They believe you’re hurting the electoral chances of Nevada Republicans this November.

Just because you “pleasured” the wife of one of your top aides, then used your senatorial influence to steer consulting and lobbying business to the unhappy husband. Illegally. And had your parents gift him with $96,000, which I’m certain wasn’t hush money, or anything tacky and desperate like that.

Don’t listen to them sirens, Jon. Be a real willie-waving MAN, lash yourself to the manly main mast, and take as many of them down with you as possible.

Sincerely,
Your friends at The Museum of the Bourgeois

P.S. Do you nickname yours “Jonny”, the way “Billy” nicknames his “Billy”?

Friday, April 09, 2010

We Need More Drilling Like a Hole in the Head

Today is Friday, 9 April 2010.

Snoot Gingrich clams that Obama is “the most radical President in American history”. That’s why Obama, like any good creature of the “secular, socialist machine”, is opening vast additional off-shore tracts to exploitation and polluting by giant oil companies.

Humanity (and the planet) doesn’t need “Drill, baby, drill”. Humanity (and the planet) needs “Chill, baby, chill”.

The First World urgently needs to drastically reduce our petro-addiction. Those such as Obama and adulterer Gangrene mouth platitudes about their “concern” for coming generations, as do many First World parents, while, in reality, they wish only to gorge on dwindling, finite resources during their lifetimes, leaving their descendants to starve.

What about finite and posterity do such people not get?
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On this date in 1945, the great German Lutheran theologian and member of the Resistance, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was hanged by the SS for his part in the plots to kill Hitler.

Happy 12th birthday to MoB’s Feline-in-Residence, Prof. Eleanor Roosevelt Calico Cat!

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

"Other Issues"

Today is Thursday, 8 April 2010.

On Friday past, Governor Robert F. McDonnell, Republican of Virginia, proclaimed April 2010 as “CONFEDERATE HISTORY MONTH in our COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA”. He called upon Virginians to “reflect upon our Commonwealth’s shared history, to understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War, and to recognize how our history has led to our present”.

The proclamation didn’t mention slavery.

McDonnell defended himself, saying that “there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia."

Significant for white racist Virginians, is what Pander-in-Chief McDonnell means. “The sacrifices of the [white] Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens” in defense of mass theft, mass rape, and mass murder, is what McDonnell means.

O Lost and Worthy Cause!

Had McDonnell been a German governor, he would have issued the following proclamation.

WHEREAS, Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889; and

WHEREAS, Adolf Hitler was Creator of the Autobahn and Inspiration of the Volkswagen; and

WHEREAS, all good Aryan Germans should reflect upon the sacrifices of Nazi leaders, soldiers, and citizens in the struggle for highway safety;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Robert McDonnell, do hereby recognize April 2010 as ADOLF HITLER MEMORIAL HAPPY MOTORING MONTH.”

After all, didn't the Third Reich really involve other issues than world conquest and the extermination of all Jews?

Zoom zoom.
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UPDATE

In a Tuesday telephone interview with The Hill, Tom Coburn, who has a hold on legislation to continue unemployment benefits, said,
“The easiest thing in the world is to pass this bill unpaid for, but consider the millions of Americans whose financial futures would be damaged, versus the relatively small amount of people who will be affected by this delay".

Apparently Coburn’s New Testament contains the passage, “As long as no more than 212,000 persons are being robbed of unemployment benefits, thou shalt screw 'em”.

Coburn is a sex-crazed, Christ-hating Republican from Oklahoma.

In Memory: Wilma Mankiller

Today is Wednesday, 7 April 2010.

With great sorrow, The Museum of the Bourgeois marks the passing yesterday of Wilma Mankiller, aged 64.

Mankiller was a life-long activist for women’s rights and Native American rights. In 1981, she created the Cherokee Community Development Department, to provide assistance to low-income Cherokees. In 1983, she became the first woman to be elected Deputy Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, and President of the Tribal Council.

In 1985, Mankiller became the first woman to become Principal Chief, when the incumbent resigned. She was elected Chief in her own right in 1987 and 1991. In 1998, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

We thank Wilma Mankiller for a life of integrity and generosity well-lived; were that it were longer.
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Billie Holiday was born on this date in 1915.

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Murder in West Virginia

Today is Tuesday, 6 April 2010.

The Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia, site of Monday’s explosion which killed 25 with 4 missing, has a significant history of safety violations for not properly ventilating methane, the highly combustible gas which caused the tragedy.

The Massey Energy Company, owner of the mine, boasts a poor safety record, and has paid only $168,393 of $897,325 in fines assessed against it for safety violations at Upper Big Branch in 2009 alone. Massey’s CEO is Gerald Blankenship.

According to The New York Times:

“Massey’s commitment to safety has long been questioned in the coalfields,” said Tony Oppegard, a lawyer and mine safety advocate from Kentucky.

Those concerns were heightened in 2006 when an internal memo written by Blankenship, became public. In the memo, Mr. Blankenship instructed the company’s underground mine superintendents to place coal production first.

“This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that the coal pays the bills,” he wrote.”

In other words, profits before people: fines for endangering human life are merely another cost of doing business.

Attempts are currently being made to drill a hole some 1,300 to 1,400 feet to reduce methane levels, making it possible to search for the missing miners. One must ask: why aren’t such holes required by law to be drilled as a preventative before methane reaches explosive levels?

The law must be changed. If a company refuses to provide a safe working environment, it shouldn’t merely be fined: it should be forfeit and sold, the proceeds going to the public treasury. The big stick is the only educative device understood by such malefactors of great wealth.
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Times article at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/us/07westvirginia.html?hp

Monday, April 05, 2010

Hit the Road Jack

Today is Monday, 5 April 2010.

Good riddance to bad rubbish: Jack Bauer and 24 are soon to be history. And, for the sake of all concerned, not a moment too soon.

Does Kiefer Sutherland consider the pile of cash he “earned” popularizing and “legitimating” torture and other criminal acts as anything other than blood money? Is he proud of making a post-SS violence-porn “classic”?

I think the fact that K. Sutherland made this trash answers the questions.
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On a related note.

A Federal court judge recently ruled against the warrantless wire taps of the Bush-Cheney regime, the ones which by law required FISA warrants. Obama ordered taxpayer-funded government lawyers to defend the Bush-Cheney criminality. I can’t imagine any reason Obama would desire the option of recourse to the same lawlessness, unless he shares the Bush-Cheney-Nixon-Reagan appetite for limitless Presidential power, disguising it under the old chestnut of "protecting Presidential prerogative".

Do the right thing, Obama: no appeal.
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On this date in 1992, Serbian neo-fascists assassinated the first 2 of some 10,000 who would be murdered in the Siege of Sarajevo, which ended on 29 February 1996. The siege was carried out by gunmen from the “Republika Srpska” and the Yugoslav People’s Army, who committed numerous atrocities during the Bosnian War.
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Herewith, a response to comments 3, 4, and 5.

Whew! Curiouser and Curiouser, as it were. Perhaps you’re actually a split personality?

As to the acting part, I find a smart-ass, wink-and-nod element in the work of Willis, which I enjoy, which I don’t find in Sutherland’s work. I am, by the way, a big fan of the former’s Last Man Standing (1996; directed by Walter Hill).

I also find Sutherland’s work far too limited and repetitive, as I do Kate Hepburn’s: they seem to me only able to play themselves. But this may simply be the subjective judgment of a fellow thespian.

I don’t view 24 as true because it’s a TV show. On the contrary, that it’s a TV show makes it more likely to be untrue. I object to pro-torture and pro-crime propaganda being insidiously broadcast in the guise of entertainment.

Sunday, April 04, 2010

In Memory: The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today is Sunday, 4 April 2010.

On this date in 1968, 42 years ago, was assassinated the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Whoever was behind the killing must have been very disappointed to discover that killing one leader didn’t kill The Movement.

Not, of course, that the conclusion of the process has been reached. As noted before, much of the Tea Party foolishness is founded in conventional white racism.

White racists worship atavistic superstitions about “blood”: that there are such things as “races”, and that each “race” has a different “blood”. The white “race” and “blood” being supposedly superior, white racists can fancy no greater sin that sexual intercourse between “races”, believing that “blood-mingling” weakens the white “race” and strengthens other “races”. Most heinous of all to them are the offspring of such intercourse, such as Barack Obama; they find it particularly galling that a “white” nation is being led by a product of “miscegenation” (who electorally kicked the butt of a “pure Aryan”).

As also noted before, Tea Partiers seldom objected to the soaring national debt when it bore the “white” face of Reagan and the Bushes. Only when they could paint it in the “blackface” of Obama did they become suddenly aware and galvanized.

All honour to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his achievements.
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Today is the fourth anniversary of the posting of the first MoB column. My great thanks to my friend Hari Seldon, who built this site. The only people I’ve known longer than Hari are my parents and sister.
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For the culinary minded, today is also the third anniversary of HH’s appearance in the local newspaper, discussing the fabled U.S. Senate Restaurant Bean Soup, which had a most marvelous consequence.

Friday, April 02, 2010

Not a Good Friday

Today is Friday, 2 April 2010.

"Reverend" Raniero Cantalmessa is gainfully employed as Preacher of the Papal Household, and spoke today at the Good Friday service at St. Peter’s.

Cantalmessa read, with Joe Ratzinger present and not objecting, from what he claimed was a letter from a "Jewish friend": “I am following the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful by the whole world. The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt, remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.”

This alleged letter is absurd and false on its face. “All the faithful”? “The whole world”? “Collective guilt”?

First, Cantalmessa, habeas corpus. “Produce the body”. Prove this "friend" exists.

Second, anti-Semitism is the creation of Christianists. What has this to do with Ratzinger’s encouragement of child raping?

Third, six million popes were not exterminated. However, the anti-Semite Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli, AKA "Pope Pius XII", looked the other way when more than six million Jews were exterminated by his Nazi friends.

Why did not Ratzinger immediately denounce and discipline his anti-Semitic employee? Is this another instance of "protecting the brand", or agreement?
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On this Good Friday, sex-crazed Senator Tom Coburn (Republican – Oklahoma; Deacon - Southern Baptist) continues his hold on the extension of unemployment benefits, denying many the money they desperately need to feed, clothe, house, etc. themselves and their families, as the direct result of the Republican Great Recession.

Callous Coburn is, of course, employed, and gorges on a luxurious salary, plus healthcare and pension plans, all paid by us, the taxpayers. (Are you paid $174,000 per year?)

$9 billion dollars (the cost of the proposed extension of unemployment benefits) is .003% of $3 trillion dollars (the minimum cost of the Coburn-approved Oil War in Iraq).

In orthodox Christian theology, which Coburn has either not studied or rejects, Jesus died for all. Jesus said, “That which you have done to the least of mine, you’ve done to me”. Christianists such as Coburn imagine that “mine” refers only to bigots of their own stripe. The genuinely Christian and humane, noting that Jesus died for all, understand that “all” means “all”. In orthodox Christian theology, when one harms humans, one harms Christ.

Crusader Coburn’s Easter gift to the unemployed, and the actual and potential poor, those who were a most special concern of Jesus: “I’ll crucify you for .003%!”

For all intents and purposes, Christ-Hating Coburn is forever on that hill in Jerusalem, on that Friday, eternally nailing Jesus to the Cross.

Thursday, April 01, 2010

Homophobes Say the Darndest Things

Today is Thursday, 1 April 2010.

Tuesday last on Larry King Live, William A. Donohue said, of the 200+ male child victims of a rapist priest: “The vast majority of the victims are post-pubescent. That’s not pedophilia, buddy. That’s homosexuality."

Would Donohue also claim that raping girls over the age of 12 isn’t child molesting, but heterosexuality? Donohue’s claim is absurd and fascistic on its face. Larry King and CNN should be ashamed of donating air time to a rabid homophobic bigot such as Donohue.

Donohue is president of a fringe extremist group, The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, and a vocal, practicing anti-Semite.

On 8 December 2004, on Scarborough Country, Donohue defended Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic movie, The Passion of the Christ: "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? And I'm not afraid to say it. That's why they hate this movie. It's about Jesus Christ, and it's about truth. It's about the Messiah".

Donohue loves the smell of Auschwitz in the morning. It smells like … victory.