April, 2009 archive
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
This is a drop:
Bloomberg tries to find a cause for optimism in this report, but there is still this: employers are running out of persons to lay off.
Signs of Spring 0
Some dude driving around in a convertible with the top down.
And it was a balmy 47 Fahrenheits. Or he was balmy. Or something.
The Devolution of Republicanism 0
In some ways, the atmosphere among yesterday’s Teapot Gnomes reminded me of ’60s radical groups. They were generally in good spirits, courteous, and happy to be surrounded by three or four hundred of their fellow travelers.
Now, I was never a 60’s radical, but I knew persons who fancied themselves as such. I wasn’t even particularly liberal, except on questions of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (I have detailed my path to that position elsewhere in these pages). If I am much more liberal today than I was even eight years ago, it’s from watching Republicanism come close to destroying my country through greed and unjust war.
(I was also quite opposed to the Viet Namese War, but those who know their history know that that was not a “liberal” position, despite the efforts of the wingnuts to refashion it as one. A moderate Republican (Eisenhower) laid the groundwork for it, two liberal Democrats (Kennedy and Johnson) expanded it, and a cynical manipulator (Nixon) was ultimately forced to recognize that it was “lost,” though it could never have been won, not from when the American war started with the collapse of French colonialism in Viet Nam in 1954.)
Even then, I knew that the idea that American workers and peasants might unite to overthrow the state was so far on the other side of Fantasy Land was to put stupid to shame.
For one thing, no American will admit to being a peasant, even if, by any rational definition, he is–even if, were he to meet his double in some foreign land, he would describe that double as a “peasant.” And the workers (known as “hardhats” in the slang of the day) distrusted and disliked anything labelled “radical,” even if, in truth, it may not have been radical in any sense.
I also knew who had the guns. And, despite gun nut wankery, a bunch of rag-tags in A&N store camos with basements full of canned goods won’t do much against an Abrams.
But those “radical” groups would meet quite happily, be in good spirits, enjoy the camaraderie, spread their fliers and hold their little demonstrations, while managing to convince themselves that they were going to Change the World. In the end, they changed nothing. What positive stuff came out of that era came from and through the mainsteam of American politics.
Dylan Loewe in the Guardian:
On closer inspection, however, there is little good news for Republicans, tea party or not.
The Republican party has retracted so dramatically in the last two years that the only base it has left to mobilise is a group of voters with vastly different viewpoints than the rest of the country. According to the latest opinion polls, 71% of the country trusts the president on the economy. Half the country believes their taxes are just right where they are. And 95% of Americans just got a tax cut, which started showing up in their payslips this month. But at the same time, the right is dumping tea bags on tarps, demanding an end to high taxes, surrounded by people demanding Obama’s birth certificate, surrounded by people who have misspelled “End Socialism” on their t-shirts. This is the kind of marginalisation that is the product of Republican organising efforts. And it helps underscore why the party is in so much trouble.
One can only hope.
Also posted at the Great Orange Satan.
The Technological Divide 0
Nothing is still nothing. “Socially networked” nothing is nothing announced to the cyberworld.
Via Mithras.
Twits on Twitter 0
Katie Couric (by the way, I’ve never watched her show and have no intention to do so; I’m a print kind of guy):
Via the Huffington Post.
In a Pit over a Pitbull 0
On first look, one wonders why, then one remembers, pets are family.
Just as if they were children, one runs after them first and thinks later. And, just as if they were children, one sometimes hopes that they run away, but, then, if they do, one looks for them frantically.
Well, usually.
On second look, one realizes that, if the dog had been any other breed, the story would have read, “dog,” not “pitbull.” Thus have the Michael Vicks of the world trashed the reputation of pitbulls.
Returns 0
A library book looted in the American Civil War is returned:
(snip)
The school was looted and the neighboring Virginia Military Institute was burned down by Gen. David Hunter and his troops on June 11, 1864. A note written in the book and signed by C.S. Gates reads: “This book was taken from the Military Institute at Lexington Virginia in June 1864 when General Hunter was on his Lynchburg raid. The Institution was burned by the order of Gen Hunter. The remains of Gen. Stonewall Jackson rest in the cemetery at this place.”
Aside: Persons sometimes wonder why Southerners still remember the Civil War so vividly.
Putting aside the moral issues, on the wrong side of which the South clearly was (diagram that, grammar nerds!), this illustrates it.
Where I grew up, persons still tell stories of Union soldiers stabling their horses in a local church. Whether or not the stories are true I do not know. The point is simply that they are.
Memories like that do not respect greater moral rights and wrongs, and they die hard.
Oh, yeah: Note to Texas. The South lost.
Colbert 0
It was quite a gas to watch a Law and Order: CI episode with Stephen Colbert as the killer.
Greater Wingnuttery XV 0
As a trained and sporadically practicing historian, I understand that persons of good will can look at the same sequence of events and interpret it differently.
Persons of good will, however, do not ignore facts and make stuff up.
That’s a wingnut thing.
Steven D reports.
Tortuous Question 0
From the Booman.
Teabagged at the Wilmington Riverfront (Updated) (Updated Again) 6
I braved the inclement wind and rain to attend the MadHattery in Wilmington today. No, I couldn’t bring myself to go inside. The WNQ* was too high.
I was reminded of the words of a friend of mine when Cowboy Bob played my college during midterms:
Dozens thronged the stage . . . .
Some pictures.
Here is the gathering hordette:
Banding Together 1
Lemonade out of lemons: two laid off workers find a new product:
A wristband that almost 6 million Americans could legitimately wear.
It reads: “Laid off. Need a Job.”
(snip)
The women ordered 500 of the wristbands from a manufacturer in Texas and did a marketing blitz by handing some of them out for free.
They sell them online for $3 apiece through a Web site Aucoin designed at www.laidoffneedajob.com.
Visit their website here.
When Zombie Banks Walked the Earth 0
UBS:
UBS remains in a “precarious situation” after clients withdrew 23 billion Swiss francs ($20.1 billion) from the main wealth management unit and the bank posted a first-quarter net loss of almost 2 billion francs, Chairman Peter Kurer, who steps down today, told shareholders today in Zurich.
Aside: Whenever I hear a report about UBS, I remember “Fernwood 2night,” which was brought to you by “UBS: The Network that puts you before the BS.”
Prescient, eh?
