MJS's blog

The following entries were found in a diary left behind in a Progressive Cave near the Whaddaguy Gorge dig in North America, unearthed after being hidden for almost ten days. A remarkable discovery, by any stretch. Perhaps even a miracle.

Day 161: Obama came over late. I made dinner, but it was cold by the time he got to it and he threw it against the wall. Told me "social security is in trouble" and I bit my lip. He makes up stories, and if I contradict him he out awesome's me, and then I feel unloved and abused. I did tell him that Krugman called, just to piss him off. Read below the fold...

I pretend to hold the night
I pretend to hold the sky
light suspended above my life
a thing to grasp before I die

we are together in the darkness
we fell down deep inside
ain't no dollar bills in heaven
ain't no place to let it ride Read below the fold...

Would Shock
(apologies to Joni Mitchell, artist and poet and angel)

I came upon a child of Ron
He was looking to make private a road
And I asked him, what's with the tolls
And this he told me
I'm bowing down to Friedman's charm
I'm going to touch the invisible hand
I'm going to make private the land
I'm going to try a southern strategy
We are bloodlust
We are beholden
And we've got to go bulldoze
All of the garden Read below the fold...

The story of Amahl and the Night Visitors held a unique place in my childhood. Raised with television, and the nascent slew of 1960s holiday television specials, I was used to the bright colors and cue-the-commercial rhythms of what passed for holiday entertainment in our semi-secular-cum-neo-Judeo/Christian culture.

In the early 1970s I was exposed to something different: a Christmas story (the version I saw of Amahl and the Night Visitors aired on KCET, our local public broadcasting station) with darker hues and more plaintive cries, sung in an operatic fashion that I had not before witnessed. That production was in color, but muted colors at that, and if memory serves seemed to air later in the evening, after the jingles and Rudolph's had all gone to bed. The sets weren't fancy, there were no special effects, and what laughs were there to be found had to do with one special box a wise man sang about, and a hidden treasure of delicious licorice. Read below the fold...

May the myth of democracy yet live!

Happy Holidays!

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Shorter CNN:

If you're really lucky, Bush's vanity will force him to not destroy what's left of America.

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Shorter format via busybusybusy who got said format idea from somewhere else, though I cannot recall any names.

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As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
Carl Jung, "Memories, Dreams, Reflections"

if you wish to kill a christ
make of him a plot device
force him in the public square
make him play your truth or dare
take the nails from off the cross
but do not sell them at a loss
invoke the suffering, the passion
make them your own as is the fashion
and tell the children in the street
the truth, the light, the way is sweet
no god can live but in a dream
the sleep of reason, asleep it seems
will never hammer in the nails
that hang a god upon the rails Read below the fold...

A spam email arrived in my inbox with the following text:

Edwyn, a pallid, slender man with a pinched nose and lank dark hair. Under a blue lambswool Do you have a horse? A mule? You do not know his strength. Hes been gathering men on Pyke. Orkwood of Orkmont brought ourselves for winter.red priest, and now this woman Stoneheart . . . how do you propose to find them, when I cannot?The day had been cold and grey and wet. It had poured all morning, and even when the rain stopped

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Fire Your Sixguns, Elvis

Jesus marched with Elvis
and Martin Luther King
they hit some bars and crashed their cars
and kissed each others' rings

they ran into Muhammad
somewhere out in space
they didn't recognize him
'cuz they could not see his face

it was then that they decided
one for all and all for one
they headed off to Tulsa
and took to wearing guns Read below the fold...

Henry Waxman (Actual Member in Good Standing of the Democratic Party, representing the Golden State) is interested in how the EPA arrived at a decision to not protect California's environment as much as Californians would like to...

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., sent a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson demanding "all documents relating to the California waiver request, other than those that are available on the public record." Read below the fold...

HOW TO BEAT A CONSERVATIVE

1. Grasp one bottle of refreshing Orangina

2. Hit the conservative with the bottle

Oh, no, wait: that didn't happen. Never mind. Just drink the bottle and we shall speak of this no more.

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Tell Me More, Digby
(sung to the tune Eleanor Rigby)

Tell me more, Digby, pick at the lies in the lurch where a nation has gone off the bean
Give us a scheme
Fate is a widow, daring your grace to resolve all the crap at the core
Powers galore

All the blogging people
Where are they coming from?
All the blogging people
What are they getting done? Read below the fold...

CNN has a story up about a soldier who killed himself after unsuccessful attempts to quit his slot machine habit...a habit he picked up with the aid of the military. Welcome to Support the Troops Central: risk the lives of soldiers so multinationals can control Middle Eastern oil and gas, and then take those same soldiers' money in the bargain via military slot machines.

Hey, Joe, you play me real good. Pull my arm. I will love you long time now.

Seriously. Read below the fold...

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