July, 2012 archive
Scene on the Philly Streets 0
Ectoplasm in the hotel elevator*:
A sloop on auxiliary power passes under the Ben Franklin Bridge:
Romney’s Bain 0
Door number one? Or door number two?
The Galt and the Lamers, Dog Whistles Dept. 0
In a typically long, tighly-reasonsed post, Chauncey Devega suggests a strategic rationale for Randian rhetoric. Here are a couple of nuggets, but, really, read the whole thing:
Attitudes about the State, “big government,” and taxes are closely tied to racial animus and hostility. These are dog whistles and code words for white conservatives which enable them to talk about “lazy” black and brown people. Without exception, these appeals are rarely, if ever, centered on how the white middle class is subsidized by the submerged state.
(major snippage)
Since the 1960s, the face of poverty in America has been African American. As such, “black” poverty and “black” degeneracy will be repeated themes in Romney’s Ayn Rand-like campaign language of “productive citizens,” “job creators,” and “lazy” “parasites.”
Facebook Frolics, Lotus Call You Back 0
At the San Jose Mercury-News, Mike Cassidy considers the case of a yoga instructor contracted to Facebook who was fired for giving someone a dirty look for using a cell phone during yoga class. According to her boss, she had been warned that cell phones are sacrosanct in Silicon Valley.
Cassidy comments:
Whether you view yoga as an integral aspect of a spiritual experience, as in its Hindu roots, or as a form of fitness regimen to release the “relaxation response,” as in the Western spin, it is difficult to see how cell phones contribute to mindfulness and meditation.
Click to read the rest.
The (Job) Creationism Myth 0
Noz nails it.
Whenever I hear a member of the punditocracy use the phrase “job creators” (with Capital Letters in the Pronunciation, awe and reverence in the tone), I can tell you exactly what will come next, word for word before I hear it.
I can, but I don’t. Because you also have heard it all before.
Copywrongs 0
The United States Olympic Committee has issued a cease and desist order to Olympic Gyro in Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market (where we nearly ate last Sunday, by the way, but we went to the Indian place instead).
The restaurant has used that name for three decades (that is, more than seven Olympiads).
A Greek restaurant can’t name itself after the mountain that was home to the Greek gods and has been a symbol of Greece for three millenia (as if someone is likely to confuse a sandwich shop in the corner of a converted railroad terminal with the quadrennial athletic carnival and sideshow).
This is stupid and evil.
I’m done with the Olympics.
They have turned into a marketing scam that makes a NASCAR driver’s suit look like a model of tasteful restraint.
As Harry Shearer says whenever he reports on news of the Olympics:
The Olympics.
It’s a movement.
And everyone needs one, every day.
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
Job prospects for process servers are looking up:
Another 6,952 homes started the foreclosure process in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will counties, RealtyTrac data showed. That’s a 27 percent increase from June 2011 when initial filings of foreclosure in the seven counties totaled 5,485. The number declined from May 2012, when 7,595 homes entered foreclosure.
The Entitlement Society 1
Ably represented by Mitt the Flip, as Robin Wells comments at the Guardian. A nugget (emphasis added):
If this research is accurate (as it seems to be, replicated in various ways by several researches), the synergies between it, the increasing concentration of wealth and the Citizens United ruling, have striking implications for the future of the Republican party. As Newt Gingrich, the uber-southern politician, plaintively explained how he lost the Republican primary: “Romney had 16 billionaires. I had only one.” The domination by the super-wealthy means that Republicans not only have no interest in the welfare of the rest of the 99.9%, they have no understanding of why this is a problem. The noblesse oblige days of the old money, such as the Bushes, the Kennedys and the Roosevelts are long gone, replaced by the new mega-money of hedge funds, corporate raiders and global industrialists.
Insiders uber Alles (Updated) 2
The findings of the Freeh investigation into Penn State comes as no surprise.
The powerful tend to protect their own (see “Church, Catholic” and “Bankster, Wall Street”). An excerpt from Freeh’s public statement:
Addendum, Later that Same Day:
What Shaun Mullen said.
SOPA/PIPA, the Return 0
Like shape-shifters, SOPA and PIPA regenerate themselves in new forms to subordinate your internet freedom to Hollywood’s inability to come up with anything more creative than yet more comic book remakes.
Restricted Boots–Sign the Petition Now (Sticky)
7
I’ve moved the bulk of this post over to a page. Read it for more information. Or just go sign the petition now.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
A little brighter this week. Bloomberg:
(snip)
The number of people continuing to collect jobless benefits fell by 14,000 in the week ended June 30 to 3.3 million. The continuing claims figure does not include the number of workers receiving extended benefits under federal programs.
Those who’ve used up their traditional benefits and are now collecting emergency and extended payments decreased by about 13,300 to 2.65 million in the week ended June 23.
In a continuing trend, Bloomberg’s experts were even wronger than usual.
Random Shots from the Road 0
Some pictures from the road to Philadelphia.
At the renovated Pa. Welcome Center, I-95 N., just before I hit the seven-mile backup from the accident at the Blue Route:
