Cecile Richards, head of Planned Parenthood, was mistreated in Congressional hearings today. Republicans want to defund the organization. Their rhetoric centers on the abortion issue. A trade in "dead baby parts" supposedly profits Planned Parenthood. Tissue from aborted fetuses get used for research purposes, but people like Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina, and the hostile Republicans facing Richards, make it seem as if Planned Parenthood is a government-sponsored murder factory, paid for by taxpayers. They might want to apply the same notion to the Defense Department.
Huckabee, interviewed on CNN by Wolf Blitzer, suggested we live in a dictatorship--one, I guess, in which murdering babies for profit sits well with the Babykiller-in-Chief, President Obama. I admit, I lost my temper listening to this pseudo-pious con artist from Arkansas, whose schtick for years has been to set himself up as an amiable, wise, homespun I-know-what's-best-for-you politician-preacher, but who really acts more like a power-hungry theocrat listening mostly to the demon on his shoulder.
Blitzer, in his braying, abrupt way, did me a favor when he changed topics from abortion and Planned Parenthood to Huckabee's current two percent standing in the polls. I don't know what Wolf Blitzer thinks of the abortion issue, but it seemed almost like a hard flick of the middle finger at Huckabee's nose when he brought up such a humiliating situation for the former governor and Fox News talk show host. Huckabee, politician that he is, doesn't appear concerned about being slightly more popular with voters than hearing loss.
Cecile Richards handled herself well with the committee, but her face showed the strain of dealing with mean-spirited idiots who have no qualms browbeating a woman heading an organization that prevents cancer deaths through early detection, provides health care for millions, and keeps down the number of unwanted pregnancies, which by extension lowers the overall number of abortions.
Huckabee and Fiorina support the views of the Congressional idiots who attacked Richards today. Why not? She's a woman. Unintentionally revealing the weakness of their overall argument, they resorted to bringing up her salary, around half a million dollars per year. This amount offends them, seems much too large, I guess, for a woman who gives a shit about people and helps them in a practical and effective way.
Huckabee, meanwhile, accepts donations for a presidential campaign he must realize is hopeless. Why carry on with it? Does he have backers who believe he'll become president? What kind of person wants such a smooth-tongued scoundrel running America? The same kind of person who wants to defund Planned Parenthood? The kind of person who doesn't give a shit about women's health? Are the Saudi Arabian men who oppress women any worse than our shits?
Vic Neptune
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Monday, September 28, 2015
Lynn Anderson, singer of the 1971 megahit, "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden," died last August at the age of sixty-seven. Her best known song was a crossover hit, the biggest seller until Shania Twain came along a quarter of a century later.
Blonde and beautiful, with an excellent alto voice, Anderson ran into resistance getting the song recorded. Male producers were reluctant to have her sing the line about men promising diamond rings to women, a way of snatching their hearts and gaining control of their bodies, I suppose. Eighteen years before, Marilyn Monroe sang "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in the film, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. That song's message has the singer/narrator welcoming diamonds regardless of the man's intentions. The relevant time bridge between 1953 and 1971 is the women's movement.
Marilyn Monroe, in spite of 1950's cultural and societal restrictions, expressed female sexuality, even if it seemed parodied in many of her movies. Monroe herself liked walking around the house naked and found hangups about sex in her society unfortunate. She chose to celebrate what Kate Bush later called "the sensual world," Marilyn as modern devotee of Aphrodite, whether she knew it or not.
By the 1970s, Lynn Anderson's musical use of the gift of diamonds expressed the idea of coercion on a man's part, rather than self-unquestioning material wants on a woman's. The money-making music industry of that time, run by men with patriarchal ideas, didn't want a pleasant-looking lady suggesting in a verse that men, from their own purposes, impress women with shiny expensive objects. Yet, the public bought the record in millions of copies.
The degree of lyric analysis applied by early 1970s listeners to the song is unknowable, but it's obvious to me that Lynn Anderson's honesty, and persistence in recording the song, make her stand out: a crossover hitmaker paving the way for Shania Twain, and a current freakishly talented blonde success named Taylor Swift.
Vic Neptune
Blonde and beautiful, with an excellent alto voice, Anderson ran into resistance getting the song recorded. Male producers were reluctant to have her sing the line about men promising diamond rings to women, a way of snatching their hearts and gaining control of their bodies, I suppose. Eighteen years before, Marilyn Monroe sang "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in the film, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. That song's message has the singer/narrator welcoming diamonds regardless of the man's intentions. The relevant time bridge between 1953 and 1971 is the women's movement.
Marilyn Monroe, in spite of 1950's cultural and societal restrictions, expressed female sexuality, even if it seemed parodied in many of her movies. Monroe herself liked walking around the house naked and found hangups about sex in her society unfortunate. She chose to celebrate what Kate Bush later called "the sensual world," Marilyn as modern devotee of Aphrodite, whether she knew it or not.
By the 1970s, Lynn Anderson's musical use of the gift of diamonds expressed the idea of coercion on a man's part, rather than self-unquestioning material wants on a woman's. The money-making music industry of that time, run by men with patriarchal ideas, didn't want a pleasant-looking lady suggesting in a verse that men, from their own purposes, impress women with shiny expensive objects. Yet, the public bought the record in millions of copies.
The degree of lyric analysis applied by early 1970s listeners to the song is unknowable, but it's obvious to me that Lynn Anderson's honesty, and persistence in recording the song, make her stand out: a crossover hitmaker paving the way for Shania Twain, and a current freakishly talented blonde success named Taylor Swift.
Vic Neptune
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Two days ago I heard a winged insect buzzing in the bathroom. The brief sound didn't make me do anything about it. This morning I heard the sound again. Clearly, it was a bug spending a lot of bad boring hours between the shade and the window. I lifted the shade a little, saw a fly on the glass. Flies don't live a long time if they die of natural causes. This one had spent at least two days trapped in the house, staying close to the window, which offered a maddening view of the free air world--an unreachable place, the open three dimensional space where rotten smells mean continuation of the species. The fly's purpose, thwarted, would have ended were it not for me.
I had that six-legged animal's life in whatever I did or didn't do with my hands. The fly didn't know this, wasn't aware of me. Only the feel of barriers, the plastic shade, the glass, registered in the fly's experience of two days in torment.
A typical reaction from many people would be to roll up a magazine or newspaper, or take a swatter, and kill it. A sudden all-body blow, so jarring to the exoskeleton the whitish guts spring forth and stay with the corpse, resembling fungi on a tree trunk.
I chose a different fate for the fly. I went to the kitchen, got a small glass, found a manila folder lying around, and returned to the bathroom. I moved the shade back from the window, put the glass over the fly, slid the folder under the glass's rim, and trapped the now very freaked out prisoner. I opened the inner and screen doors, stood on the porch, and lifted the glass. The fly flew, going on to do I know not what, although I suspect water and food were on the immediate agenda.
Vic Neptune
I had that six-legged animal's life in whatever I did or didn't do with my hands. The fly didn't know this, wasn't aware of me. Only the feel of barriers, the plastic shade, the glass, registered in the fly's experience of two days in torment.
A typical reaction from many people would be to roll up a magazine or newspaper, or take a swatter, and kill it. A sudden all-body blow, so jarring to the exoskeleton the whitish guts spring forth and stay with the corpse, resembling fungi on a tree trunk.
I chose a different fate for the fly. I went to the kitchen, got a small glass, found a manila folder lying around, and returned to the bathroom. I moved the shade back from the window, put the glass over the fly, slid the folder under the glass's rim, and trapped the now very freaked out prisoner. I opened the inner and screen doors, stood on the porch, and lifted the glass. The fly flew, going on to do I know not what, although I suspect water and food were on the immediate agenda.
Vic Neptune
Monday, September 21, 2015
A farewell to Scott Walker's presidential bid:
When I saw the caption, "Scott Walker drops out," on MSNBC, I felt glad, and then it occurred to me that he will now resume occupying space in Wisconsin, the state he's governed from a distance ever since Charles and David Koch employed their sorcerous spells to convince Walker he had what it takes to run the America Corporation.
Do Wisconsinites want Walker back? I remember the recall election of 2012, when Democrat Tom Barrett ineffectually challenged the sitting governor, losing to superior organization and monied interests. It didn't matter, finally, that thousands of protestors attracted worldwide notice in Madison, the state's capitol, during a time when the Arab Spring showed people power crying out against oppression supported by status quo policies and armed might supported for decades by first world mentalities.
Lawn signs in 2012 read We Stand With Walker. They were blue (color of the Democratic Party), not red (color of the Republican Party). Co-opting an enemy's color is an old propaganda trick. Hitler, when he designed the Nazi Party's flag in the early 1920s, chose red as the dominant color partly because that was the color associated with Communists, his enemies.
Wisconsin has been equally divided between those who support Walker, and those who despise him. That enmity is never talked about by the New York-Washington news commentators, because they don't live in Wisconsin; they haven't heard the bilious remarks coming from the mouths of otherwise nice people, who hate Scott Walker's guts.
One of Walker's strengths as presidential contender originated in that recall election. Elected in 2010, he beat the recall in 2012, and then was reelected in 2014. Wisconsin is stuck with him until early 2019 at the earliest. He will characterize Wisconsin's 2010s like Reagan characterized America's 1980s.
What is he, politically, but a servant of corporatism? He makes it easier for fat cats to do their damage. Wisconsin, once a Democratic haven, became under Walker a free zone for capitalistic cutthroats. His success at representing plutocratic outsiders (the Kochs), combined with simple-minded Christian values (excluding true compassion), made him a seemingly ideal presidential candidate for these times so characterized by fascination with wealth and surging nationalism.
Yet, Walker failed. His strength at winning elections (small scale) should've translated to the big 2016 win, and a president more ultimately mediocre than Calvin Coolidge. What we've seen over this summer, however, is the power of personality. Trump exploded over his Republican competitors. Walker, covered like the rest of them in Trump's goo, couldn't get noticed. Jeb Bush, like Walker, is just a step above quitting, but the campaign finance obscenities made legal by the Citizens United decision make it possible for dead campaigns to linger beyond relevancy. (It may seem incorrect of me to suggest that Jeb Bush isn't going to be the Republican nominee, but what keeps him alive is the money supporting him. His name is a haunt).
Anyone watching this year's political process should realize that success at gaining the nomination, and possibly the presidency, is based entirely on the manipulation of information--on how well the candidates can direct their bullshit. There's nothing noble or moral about it. If Scott Walker has done anything smart in the last few months, it's stepping out of a toxic river he couldn't navigate to resume his familiar job: wrecking Wisconsin.
Vic Neptune
When I saw the caption, "Scott Walker drops out," on MSNBC, I felt glad, and then it occurred to me that he will now resume occupying space in Wisconsin, the state he's governed from a distance ever since Charles and David Koch employed their sorcerous spells to convince Walker he had what it takes to run the America Corporation.
Do Wisconsinites want Walker back? I remember the recall election of 2012, when Democrat Tom Barrett ineffectually challenged the sitting governor, losing to superior organization and monied interests. It didn't matter, finally, that thousands of protestors attracted worldwide notice in Madison, the state's capitol, during a time when the Arab Spring showed people power crying out against oppression supported by status quo policies and armed might supported for decades by first world mentalities.
Lawn signs in 2012 read We Stand With Walker. They were blue (color of the Democratic Party), not red (color of the Republican Party). Co-opting an enemy's color is an old propaganda trick. Hitler, when he designed the Nazi Party's flag in the early 1920s, chose red as the dominant color partly because that was the color associated with Communists, his enemies.
Wisconsin has been equally divided between those who support Walker, and those who despise him. That enmity is never talked about by the New York-Washington news commentators, because they don't live in Wisconsin; they haven't heard the bilious remarks coming from the mouths of otherwise nice people, who hate Scott Walker's guts.
One of Walker's strengths as presidential contender originated in that recall election. Elected in 2010, he beat the recall in 2012, and then was reelected in 2014. Wisconsin is stuck with him until early 2019 at the earliest. He will characterize Wisconsin's 2010s like Reagan characterized America's 1980s.
What is he, politically, but a servant of corporatism? He makes it easier for fat cats to do their damage. Wisconsin, once a Democratic haven, became under Walker a free zone for capitalistic cutthroats. His success at representing plutocratic outsiders (the Kochs), combined with simple-minded Christian values (excluding true compassion), made him a seemingly ideal presidential candidate for these times so characterized by fascination with wealth and surging nationalism.
Yet, Walker failed. His strength at winning elections (small scale) should've translated to the big 2016 win, and a president more ultimately mediocre than Calvin Coolidge. What we've seen over this summer, however, is the power of personality. Trump exploded over his Republican competitors. Walker, covered like the rest of them in Trump's goo, couldn't get noticed. Jeb Bush, like Walker, is just a step above quitting, but the campaign finance obscenities made legal by the Citizens United decision make it possible for dead campaigns to linger beyond relevancy. (It may seem incorrect of me to suggest that Jeb Bush isn't going to be the Republican nominee, but what keeps him alive is the money supporting him. His name is a haunt).
Anyone watching this year's political process should realize that success at gaining the nomination, and possibly the presidency, is based entirely on the manipulation of information--on how well the candidates can direct their bullshit. There's nothing noble or moral about it. If Scott Walker has done anything smart in the last few months, it's stepping out of a toxic river he couldn't navigate to resume his familiar job: wrecking Wisconsin.
Vic Neptune
Friday, September 18, 2015
When a political candidate has little of practical substance to offer, he can rely on racial and religious prejudices to make his message sparkle. Donald Trump, German in origin--his grandfather's last name was Drumpf--took questions from voters in New Hampshire. One very white man in the audience declared that President Obama is a Muslim, prompting no disagreement from Trump. The white man also brought up the subject of ISIS training camps in the continental U.S.
There are Americans who believe ISIS training camps exist here, and also those who believe Obama prays facing Mecca. Trump, in 2012, spent a lot of his airtime questioning Obama's citizenship. He put himself in the position of an INS official, determining birth certificate legitimacy. The pest of that year is now the king dick of 2015.
His debate performance on September 16 was reduced in duration by ten other people who want to run the world, but will suck at it if they make it that far. Placed once again in the center of the thin red line of would-be war chiefs, Trump failed to impress me as anything but an embodiment of America satirizing itself. His usually reliable strength using unscripted verbal assaults slipped when Carly Fiorina was asked to comment about his past contemptuous dismissal of her appearance. When she replied that women knew very well what he meant, Trump, the magnanimous gentleman, said, "She's a beautiful woman!"
Did single women across the country sigh, disappointed that Trump is married?
What stood out for me, suffering for you, the reader, as I endured the length of the debate and pomposities of the debaters, was the majority view--Rand Paul an exception--that the U.S. military must be stronger. Fiorina, especially belligerent and specific with areas and fleets needing beefing up, made it seem as if the military has become anemic, when it fact it already is the strongest in the world, has been for decades.
Dwight Eisenhower said in 1953 that every bomb we make takes bread from a child's mouth. He was a Republican in the days when they had hearts. He also knew war firsthand. He had to make the launching time decision for D-Day, and many other real life and death decisions that the clowns standing before Reagan's Air Force One plane wouldn't have the slightest idea how to make with any competence or compassion.
The time from now to November 2016 will pass quickly--time always does the older you get--but as we feel sicker and sicker of Trump, his face, his voice, his insistence that he's great when he isn't even admirable, his exploitation of stupidity and hatred as revealed by his his tacit assent of the New Hampshire white man's bigoted remarks, the other candidates will also become sickening when paid more attention by news media using pornographic techniques: supply images, tease adrenal glands, supply more images.
Vic Neptune
There are Americans who believe ISIS training camps exist here, and also those who believe Obama prays facing Mecca. Trump, in 2012, spent a lot of his airtime questioning Obama's citizenship. He put himself in the position of an INS official, determining birth certificate legitimacy. The pest of that year is now the king dick of 2015.
His debate performance on September 16 was reduced in duration by ten other people who want to run the world, but will suck at it if they make it that far. Placed once again in the center of the thin red line of would-be war chiefs, Trump failed to impress me as anything but an embodiment of America satirizing itself. His usually reliable strength using unscripted verbal assaults slipped when Carly Fiorina was asked to comment about his past contemptuous dismissal of her appearance. When she replied that women knew very well what he meant, Trump, the magnanimous gentleman, said, "She's a beautiful woman!"
Did single women across the country sigh, disappointed that Trump is married?
What stood out for me, suffering for you, the reader, as I endured the length of the debate and pomposities of the debaters, was the majority view--Rand Paul an exception--that the U.S. military must be stronger. Fiorina, especially belligerent and specific with areas and fleets needing beefing up, made it seem as if the military has become anemic, when it fact it already is the strongest in the world, has been for decades.
Dwight Eisenhower said in 1953 that every bomb we make takes bread from a child's mouth. He was a Republican in the days when they had hearts. He also knew war firsthand. He had to make the launching time decision for D-Day, and many other real life and death decisions that the clowns standing before Reagan's Air Force One plane wouldn't have the slightest idea how to make with any competence or compassion.
The time from now to November 2016 will pass quickly--time always does the older you get--but as we feel sicker and sicker of Trump, his face, his voice, his insistence that he's great when he isn't even admirable, his exploitation of stupidity and hatred as revealed by his his tacit assent of the New Hampshire white man's bigoted remarks, the other candidates will also become sickening when paid more attention by news media using pornographic techniques: supply images, tease adrenal glands, supply more images.
Vic Neptune
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
The NFL season opening game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots stands out in my memory for one reason: the deification of Tom Brady.
The Patriots beat the Steelers, not a surprise. The Steelers head coach complained of Patriot radio broadcasts in the Steelers coaches' headsets during the first half. This complaint of audio interference in the Patriots home stadium is not new. The Patriots have cheated in the past, it's common knowledge, or, if you're a Patriot fan, it's how the great ones deal, fuck everybody else.
As with Deflategate, it's been wondered why such a team, strong and talented in so many ways, needs to "bend the rules." They can't seem to resist gaining every possible advantage over opponents, and they've gotten away with so much, they know that punishment is hard to enforce against such a special organization characterized by unscrupulous winning strategies and a quarterback who looks like Achilles.
Shifting the Greek reference to a German one, a striking advertisement aired during the game's second half. I can't remember the corporation advertised. Whatever it was, the ad's imagery swallowed the basic commercial intent. We see Tom Brady working out, then another Tom Brady, and another, and another. Multiple Tom Bradys in a square of athletic man-meat in motion. Pulling back and back, we see more squares of Bradys working out, until the view becomes an ordered CGI mass of Tom Bradys in militaristic formations. I've never seen anything like this, except in Leni Riefenstahl's 1934 Triumph des Willens, a propaganda film commissioned by the Nazi Party, documenting that year's Nuremberg Rally. In Riefenstahl's film, massed formations of human beings gather before the platform where Nazi Party officials, Hitler foremost among them, make their speeches.
Multiplying a Patriot, the night before Patriot Day (September 11), and putting him into military parade square formations, shows a new stage in twenty-first century America: put the cheater with the chiseled face in the ad showing him duplicated into a familiar mass-think ideology. Patriots forever--get ready to march to new battlegrounds.
Vic Neptune
The Patriots beat the Steelers, not a surprise. The Steelers head coach complained of Patriot radio broadcasts in the Steelers coaches' headsets during the first half. This complaint of audio interference in the Patriots home stadium is not new. The Patriots have cheated in the past, it's common knowledge, or, if you're a Patriot fan, it's how the great ones deal, fuck everybody else.
As with Deflategate, it's been wondered why such a team, strong and talented in so many ways, needs to "bend the rules." They can't seem to resist gaining every possible advantage over opponents, and they've gotten away with so much, they know that punishment is hard to enforce against such a special organization characterized by unscrupulous winning strategies and a quarterback who looks like Achilles.
Shifting the Greek reference to a German one, a striking advertisement aired during the game's second half. I can't remember the corporation advertised. Whatever it was, the ad's imagery swallowed the basic commercial intent. We see Tom Brady working out, then another Tom Brady, and another, and another. Multiple Tom Bradys in a square of athletic man-meat in motion. Pulling back and back, we see more squares of Bradys working out, until the view becomes an ordered CGI mass of Tom Bradys in militaristic formations. I've never seen anything like this, except in Leni Riefenstahl's 1934 Triumph des Willens, a propaganda film commissioned by the Nazi Party, documenting that year's Nuremberg Rally. In Riefenstahl's film, massed formations of human beings gather before the platform where Nazi Party officials, Hitler foremost among them, make their speeches.
Multiplying a Patriot, the night before Patriot Day (September 11), and putting him into military parade square formations, shows a new stage in twenty-first century America: put the cheater with the chiseled face in the ad showing him duplicated into a familiar mass-think ideology. Patriots forever--get ready to march to new battlegrounds.
Vic Neptune
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Until yesterday I hadn't seen Sarah Palin (former Governor of Alaska, Fox News opinion maker, MILF) for a long enough period that I forgot about her. Yesterday I felt the lost contentment I'd lived through, not hearing her alarm clock voice for so many months, her viewpoints mashed together into lumpy balls of colorful mixed metaphors, pandering to the lowest common denominator of political thinkers, pandering even to herself.
The event was organized by purveyor of paranoia, Senator Ted Cruz, who invited Donald Trump to speak as well, adding kitschy New York golden glamor to a humid brightly lit Tea Party gathering in front of the scaffold-covered Capitol dome in Washington.
The main subject, the recently concluded Iran nuclear deal, headed the grievance list, with speakers tossing other dripping meats to the listeners.
Palin's speech showed the enthusiasm we've been used to from 2008 onward. She's a comfortable millionaire, her private contentment with life in Obama's America hasn't lapsed. She didn't get the power, as did the McCain administration still fucking things up in an alternate universe; however, guns here are readily available, some Americans (including Ted Cruz) still think she's worth listening to, and griping about Obama, the news media (on which she often relies), and foreigners fits with the rising bile of isolationistic racist attitudes from those who once rooted for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq but now ignore the Afghan and Arab civilians affected by the consequences.
On U.S. cable news lately, we're seeing migrations of people from conflict zones. The image of the dead little boy washed up on shore has been played a great deal in the U.S. If American viewers would take the time in their imaginations to multiply that tragedy by millions, they might begin to make a connection between the snarling mouth of Dick Cheney and his neoconservative friends now warning about Iran waging nuclear war, as Iraq allegedly would have done. Cheney's diabolical mind, and lobbying by like-minded men who have never been shot at, brought war and its damages in this century to the Middle East and Afghanistan, with resultant movements of innocent people who leave unbearable environments generated in the first place by first world powers.
Sarah Palin, though, wouldn't agree with me.
"Iran," she declared, "[is] the braggadocious number one state sponsor of terrorism."
Someone shouted objections, the great lady paused while the obstacle to free speech (a dark brown man) was removed by uniformed cops.
"Oh," she said, apparently off the cuff, "and you know, since our president won't say it, since he still hasn't called off the dogs, we'll say, police officers and first responders all across this great land, we've got your back, we salute you! Thank you, police officers!"
If Black (i.e. "dog") lives don't matter to this woman, then Iranian lives really don't. Amid the Palinesque hard to follow clumped together word-putty, she spoke of Iraq and the "neighboring crazy-land Iran." Her glib willingness to dehumanize tens of millions of Iranians puts her among those demagogues (like Trump, and some other dead foreign politicians America used to be at war with) who influence gullible listeners seeking reasons for economic and other troubles by latching onto hatred of massed enemies.
I could see sweat on Sarah Palin's chest. The crowd she spoke to, when shown in C-Span pans, looked small; attentive, polite, but also as if they were looking at a curio from a bygone time, like going to see William Jennings Bryan speak a year or two after his final presidential run.
Her crowd appeal has diminished, perhaps--even the right wing faithful have heard her crap many times before and may find it uninspiring--even poetically mad--compared to the fiery blasts of the new Republican volcano god, Trump, who, predictably, shone brighter in news coverage than the event's organizer, Cruz.
Ted Cruz, I think, seems to be positioning himself as Trump's 2016 running mate--does that feel good to think about? Why else would Cruz be acting like Gary Busey trying to please Trump on Celebrity Apprentice?
Trump Cruz 2016: two race-baiting alarmist demagogues with a combined history and diplomacy IQ of 33.
About Carly Fiorina, Trump said in Rolling Stone, "Can you see that as president?"
That, not her.
He keeps insisting he "cherishes" women. Rosie O'Donnell (who imitated his mannerisms), Megyn Kelly (who asked him a cogent question), Huma Abedin (who works for Trump's possible future Democratic political opponent), and now Fiorina (whose polls numbers have been steadily rising).
If Trump feels threatened, he strikes back hard, or strikes preemptively. If the perceived threat is a woman, he uses sexist language and displays misogynistic attitudes typical among alpha male baby boomers who learned those put-downs and attitudes from their greatest generation parents. In spite of what news media journalists and pundits say about Trump's uniqueness, we have seen and heard some of this bullshit before.
Sarah Palin's voice, her sweat, her brain, the elk she shot to death on her TLC reality show, her high school basketball dribbling, her strangely named children, her fans, her screwy foreign policy ideas, all combine in my view, having seen and heard her again for the first time in quite a while.
She still just seems like a dumb housewife.
Vic Neptune
The event was organized by purveyor of paranoia, Senator Ted Cruz, who invited Donald Trump to speak as well, adding kitschy New York golden glamor to a humid brightly lit Tea Party gathering in front of the scaffold-covered Capitol dome in Washington.
The main subject, the recently concluded Iran nuclear deal, headed the grievance list, with speakers tossing other dripping meats to the listeners.
Palin's speech showed the enthusiasm we've been used to from 2008 onward. She's a comfortable millionaire, her private contentment with life in Obama's America hasn't lapsed. She didn't get the power, as did the McCain administration still fucking things up in an alternate universe; however, guns here are readily available, some Americans (including Ted Cruz) still think she's worth listening to, and griping about Obama, the news media (on which she often relies), and foreigners fits with the rising bile of isolationistic racist attitudes from those who once rooted for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq but now ignore the Afghan and Arab civilians affected by the consequences.
On U.S. cable news lately, we're seeing migrations of people from conflict zones. The image of the dead little boy washed up on shore has been played a great deal in the U.S. If American viewers would take the time in their imaginations to multiply that tragedy by millions, they might begin to make a connection between the snarling mouth of Dick Cheney and his neoconservative friends now warning about Iran waging nuclear war, as Iraq allegedly would have done. Cheney's diabolical mind, and lobbying by like-minded men who have never been shot at, brought war and its damages in this century to the Middle East and Afghanistan, with resultant movements of innocent people who leave unbearable environments generated in the first place by first world powers.
Sarah Palin, though, wouldn't agree with me.
"Iran," she declared, "[is] the braggadocious number one state sponsor of terrorism."
Someone shouted objections, the great lady paused while the obstacle to free speech (a dark brown man) was removed by uniformed cops.
"Oh," she said, apparently off the cuff, "and you know, since our president won't say it, since he still hasn't called off the dogs, we'll say, police officers and first responders all across this great land, we've got your back, we salute you! Thank you, police officers!"
If Black (i.e. "dog") lives don't matter to this woman, then Iranian lives really don't. Amid the Palinesque hard to follow clumped together word-putty, she spoke of Iraq and the "neighboring crazy-land Iran." Her glib willingness to dehumanize tens of millions of Iranians puts her among those demagogues (like Trump, and some other dead foreign politicians America used to be at war with) who influence gullible listeners seeking reasons for economic and other troubles by latching onto hatred of massed enemies.
I could see sweat on Sarah Palin's chest. The crowd she spoke to, when shown in C-Span pans, looked small; attentive, polite, but also as if they were looking at a curio from a bygone time, like going to see William Jennings Bryan speak a year or two after his final presidential run.
Her crowd appeal has diminished, perhaps--even the right wing faithful have heard her crap many times before and may find it uninspiring--even poetically mad--compared to the fiery blasts of the new Republican volcano god, Trump, who, predictably, shone brighter in news coverage than the event's organizer, Cruz.
Ted Cruz, I think, seems to be positioning himself as Trump's 2016 running mate--does that feel good to think about? Why else would Cruz be acting like Gary Busey trying to please Trump on Celebrity Apprentice?
Trump Cruz 2016: two race-baiting alarmist demagogues with a combined history and diplomacy IQ of 33.
About Carly Fiorina, Trump said in Rolling Stone, "Can you see that as president?"
That, not her.
He keeps insisting he "cherishes" women. Rosie O'Donnell (who imitated his mannerisms), Megyn Kelly (who asked him a cogent question), Huma Abedin (who works for Trump's possible future Democratic political opponent), and now Fiorina (whose polls numbers have been steadily rising).
If Trump feels threatened, he strikes back hard, or strikes preemptively. If the perceived threat is a woman, he uses sexist language and displays misogynistic attitudes typical among alpha male baby boomers who learned those put-downs and attitudes from their greatest generation parents. In spite of what news media journalists and pundits say about Trump's uniqueness, we have seen and heard some of this bullshit before.
Sarah Palin's voice, her sweat, her brain, the elk she shot to death on her TLC reality show, her high school basketball dribbling, her strangely named children, her fans, her screwy foreign policy ideas, all combine in my view, having seen and heard her again for the first time in quite a while.
She still just seems like a dumb housewife.
Vic Neptune
Monday, September 7, 2015
Z turned on its side is N.
Words and names with Z and N, off the surface of my recall without consulting a dictionary, include Zenobia, zen, Zenna, zone, Zanzibar, zonked, zany, Zephaniah, Zane (as in actor Billy), zinc, Zorn (as in former NFL quarterback Jim), Zealand (as in New), Nazi, and Anasazi.
In one of Henry Miller's books, many years ago, I read a few pages where he makes a list of things or impressions, I can't remember about what. It takes me longer to process this kind of writing than it does to read a more usual series of sentences. A book I read about the 1980s Iran-Iraq War has a multi-page list of items banned in the 1990s by UN sanctions against Iraq. Apart from the astonishing pettiness of putting numerous harmless items on that list (pencils, pencils with erasers), reading it takes far more time than going through five or six pages written in a regular prose style. Lack of flow in lines makes the words seem like a long series of brief images in a film, accompanied by drumbeats.
My father was an English professor, so I probably picked up a lot of my interest in words and language through osmosis. Books have filled the houses of my life. I own about 1,100 of my own; old paperbacks mostly--science fiction, fantasy. I wonder about young people growing up now with little sense or appreciation of actual books, using screens to get stories into their heads. I'm glad stories get into their minds somehow, but last week I was delighted to see a young woman working a slow night at the movie theater, a copy of the last Harry Potter novel in front of her for when there'd be nothing to do but sit and wait for the next stream of moviegoers--an honest to God book made of paper, making rustling sounds when fingertips pass along its surfaces.
The Seattle Seahawks were, along with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, an expansion team in the 1970s, and Jim Zorn, number 10, was their first quarterback.
Sometimes I can't organize (N and Z word) an essay. This is one of those times.
Vic Neptune
Words and names with Z and N, off the surface of my recall without consulting a dictionary, include Zenobia, zen, Zenna, zone, Zanzibar, zonked, zany, Zephaniah, Zane (as in actor Billy), zinc, Zorn (as in former NFL quarterback Jim), Zealand (as in New), Nazi, and Anasazi.
In one of Henry Miller's books, many years ago, I read a few pages where he makes a list of things or impressions, I can't remember about what. It takes me longer to process this kind of writing than it does to read a more usual series of sentences. A book I read about the 1980s Iran-Iraq War has a multi-page list of items banned in the 1990s by UN sanctions against Iraq. Apart from the astonishing pettiness of putting numerous harmless items on that list (pencils, pencils with erasers), reading it takes far more time than going through five or six pages written in a regular prose style. Lack of flow in lines makes the words seem like a long series of brief images in a film, accompanied by drumbeats.
My father was an English professor, so I probably picked up a lot of my interest in words and language through osmosis. Books have filled the houses of my life. I own about 1,100 of my own; old paperbacks mostly--science fiction, fantasy. I wonder about young people growing up now with little sense or appreciation of actual books, using screens to get stories into their heads. I'm glad stories get into their minds somehow, but last week I was delighted to see a young woman working a slow night at the movie theater, a copy of the last Harry Potter novel in front of her for when there'd be nothing to do but sit and wait for the next stream of moviegoers--an honest to God book made of paper, making rustling sounds when fingertips pass along its surfaces.
The Seattle Seahawks were, along with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, an expansion team in the 1970s, and Jim Zorn, number 10, was their first quarterback.
Sometimes I can't organize (N and Z word) an essay. This is one of those times.
Vic Neptune
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Andrea Mitchell's interview with Hillary Clinton last week did an important thing for me: after watching it for fifteen minutes I knew I'll never vote for her. I won't vote for the Republican nominee, either, so that'll put me in the position I was in back in 1996 and 2000 when I voted for Ralph Nader. I was criticized by some, including family members, for "throwing my vote away." Somehow, voting for a candidate, rather than settling on someone because they're less horrible than the other major party alternative, is a bad thing to do if the preferred candidate, Nader in those years, will draw votes away from the Democrat.
Nader was blamed for supposedly sucking votes from Al Gore in 2000, giving us Bush and Cheney, the Iraq War, Abu Ghraib, and other foul characteristics of recent history. Blamed for the Bush administration's existence, I pointed out that the key culprits in making that shitstorm happen were Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, Governor Jeb Bush, and five Conservative members of the U.S. Supreme Court. Let's blame Al Gore, too, for not being a stronger candidate, and not pressing the counting of Florida votes after Harris ordered stoppage of that tally, in effect handing the election to George W. Bush.
As was said a lot in the 1990s: "Whatever."
Andrea Mitchell spent a good deal of her interview asking Clinton about the e-mail scandal.
Clinton's pseudo-apology ran like this: "I'm sorry for the confusion this has caused."
When someone isn't really sorry, but feels more contempt for those getting on her case than anything else, she'll say something with the low sincerity value of "I'm sorry you feel that way." It's a lame, insulting way to apologize--it illuminates what this politician is like as a person.
Mitchell brought up Donald Trump's castigation of Clinton's top aide, Huma Abedin. Clinton said that Trump has attacked "many people, including myself." This, more than anything else in the interview, really showed her character. Abedin has been Clinton's aide for a long time. She's married to Anthony Weiner, whose embarrassing scandal Trump exploited recently, questioning Abedin's judgment in marrying the "perv" and "sleazebag," an indirect but obvious hit on Hillary Clinton, guilt by association-wise. Instead of speaking like a decent human being, Hillary Clinton didn't defend Huma Abedin in her vague answer to Mitchell's Abedin-specific question about Trump's shitty slanderous tendencies. She could've said, "Mr. Trump should be ashamed of himself for going after my aide in an unprovoked slander, but then, he's proven his modus operandi is to demean people, focusing with particular viciousness on women."
Trump would loudly, and twitteringly, object to that, of course, but so what? Bullies don't respect those who curl up on the ground and receive the kicks. I don't want to see the political race turn into candidates verbally attacking each other on a personal level all the time, but this cycle, with an uncivilized rich creep leading the pack, calls for verbal viciousness directed his way. Hillary Clinton's method, so far, is to be frosty and dignified--an indication she doesn't know which century she's in.
Vic Neptune
Nader was blamed for supposedly sucking votes from Al Gore in 2000, giving us Bush and Cheney, the Iraq War, Abu Ghraib, and other foul characteristics of recent history. Blamed for the Bush administration's existence, I pointed out that the key culprits in making that shitstorm happen were Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, Governor Jeb Bush, and five Conservative members of the U.S. Supreme Court. Let's blame Al Gore, too, for not being a stronger candidate, and not pressing the counting of Florida votes after Harris ordered stoppage of that tally, in effect handing the election to George W. Bush.
As was said a lot in the 1990s: "Whatever."
Andrea Mitchell spent a good deal of her interview asking Clinton about the e-mail scandal.
Clinton's pseudo-apology ran like this: "I'm sorry for the confusion this has caused."
When someone isn't really sorry, but feels more contempt for those getting on her case than anything else, she'll say something with the low sincerity value of "I'm sorry you feel that way." It's a lame, insulting way to apologize--it illuminates what this politician is like as a person.
Mitchell brought up Donald Trump's castigation of Clinton's top aide, Huma Abedin. Clinton said that Trump has attacked "many people, including myself." This, more than anything else in the interview, really showed her character. Abedin has been Clinton's aide for a long time. She's married to Anthony Weiner, whose embarrassing scandal Trump exploited recently, questioning Abedin's judgment in marrying the "perv" and "sleazebag," an indirect but obvious hit on Hillary Clinton, guilt by association-wise. Instead of speaking like a decent human being, Hillary Clinton didn't defend Huma Abedin in her vague answer to Mitchell's Abedin-specific question about Trump's shitty slanderous tendencies. She could've said, "Mr. Trump should be ashamed of himself for going after my aide in an unprovoked slander, but then, he's proven his modus operandi is to demean people, focusing with particular viciousness on women."
Trump would loudly, and twitteringly, object to that, of course, but so what? Bullies don't respect those who curl up on the ground and receive the kicks. I don't want to see the political race turn into candidates verbally attacking each other on a personal level all the time, but this cycle, with an uncivilized rich creep leading the pack, calls for verbal viciousness directed his way. Hillary Clinton's method, so far, is to be frosty and dignified--an indication she doesn't know which century she's in.
Vic Neptune
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