A Great Comfort

“When the [church] service, which lasted nearly all morning, was finally over, the Ingersoll children were allowed to go home, and ‘if we had been good boys, and the weather was warm, sometimes they would take us out to the graveyard to cheer us up a little. It did cheer me. When I looked at the sunken tombs and the leaning stones, and read the half-effaced inscriptions through the moss of silence and forgetfulness, it was a great comfort.

‘The reflection came to my mind that the observance of the Sabbath could not last always.'”

(Robert Ingersoll, as recounted by Susan Jacoby in “The Great Agnostic”)

This guy could have written for Louis C.K.

The Ice Is Breaking Under My Feet

It all started at Christmas.

I may have mentioned that I bought sort of a family gift. Record Archive carries these grab bags; 10 CDs for five bucks or something along those lines. I thought it’d be a fun thing to do for Christmas, as a bunch, to listen to new music and to see what we liked, what we hated, and what we just had to have.

It was a suprisingly rich trove. Maybe two out of the whole bunch were coasters. Was some really good indie jazz in there.

Then there was Castanets.

When I was younger and chasing bands in North Carolina, The Ray Mason Band woulda been tired of me stealing their set lists.

Let me show you why, courtesy of Ray’s YouTube channel:

Mailbox Blue, my friends:

Not to mention the title track:

This album is so well-conceived and wonderful, with witty writing and a delivery that never fails to engage. I immediately grabbed this CD, and, sorry, but it ain’t ever going back.

So I tracked down ol’ Ray on the Internet and sent him a mash note.

I told him the whole story, the grab bag, how much I love his CD and, mainly, I wanted to let this local Massachusetts musician how far his music had reached and how.

And, lookie what was in my mailbox today.

Music is the best.


Meanwhile, this happened today.

It was a day perfect for calling in to work. Not an option. Not on launch day.

(Except that we didn’t do squat today, you know…due to the snow… #catch22)


She: How much [snow] do you think you got? Me: All of it.

Detour

Am trying to shop more these days at the Aldi store.

Took a leap of faith today and purchased a roast from there, and it resides currently in my slow cooker with a stick of butter, one envelope of ranch dressing mix, five pepperocinis, and one envelope of gravy mix. Easiest recipe in the known universe.

Now Aldi is over on State Street. I drove over and had to take a bit of a detour because Rochester Police had taped off an entire block. I assumed they were investigating a murder.

I sure do hate to be correct about such things.

Oh well. What can I tell you about a shopping trip that cost me $60? And that included a roast. Did I mention the roast? Smells good in here.

So I thought I’d talk a little bit about speeches.

Before I was sent out the door with my box at a previous job, I’ve seen some of these speeches they give. I’ve seen Condoleezza Rice speak. Al Franken. Bill Bradley. Bill Clinton. One of them astronauts. The Capital Gang. Freddy Mercury. Just kidding.

And what I can tell yinz about those speeches is that they’re rather unremarkable. Their purpose is to put butts in seats. They are not particularly informative nor educational. Most of them are canned speeches the person tells at dozens of events all over the country.

Except for Bill Clinton. When he speaks, they turn off the teleprompter.

For the most part, though, these speeches are pablum. They are crafted to fill up an hour so that the event’s attendees can say they saw so-and-so at the whatsit convention or meeting. So they can, for example, say they shook Bill Clinton’s hand. Wait. That’s my story.

My point: Those of you who are losing CTRL over your bowels because you are dying to see the transcripts of Hillary Clinton’s speeches to various groups are going to be incredibly bored. There will be nothing there. I rush to mention that these speeches are not part of the public record and that the Secretary may have no legal claim to actually release these transcripts, of course.

Besides, here’s my real problem with the “speech-gate” nonsense: Hillary Clinton may have spoken to Goldman Sachs, but she also spoke to my former employer, the nation’s premiere trade association for the scrap recycling industry. (You may remember it. A lady threw a shoe at her.)

Does that mean that our nation’s for-profit recyclers are in Hillary’s pocket too?

If so, why did she shift on TPP? I guarantee they would not like that.

Reckon they wasted they money, eh?

Eh?


So, here’s a hint from Abelard.

I have a folder on my desktop called “Instant Trash.”

See in the olden days, I’d see a picture or a meme or something I wanted to share on the FacedBook. And I would need a place to save it first. And generally, I would save it on my desktop. Which made my desktop messy.

Now, those files go into “Instant Trash,” which I know I can delete the contents of which any time because those are files I did not mean to keep long, just long enough to put up to FacedBook. Thus: “Instant Trash.”

Desktop looks like this now.

(Background by Simple Desktops.)

You are welcome.


One day, humans will evolve to possess exoskeletons impervious to bullets. Which will leave some damned frustrated rednecks in more ways than one.

Lip Up Fatty

When the English ska band Bad Manners played Italian television, they were told the Pope might be watching.

During the performance, front man Buster Bloodvessel showed the cameras his ass.

They never played Italian television again.

I always knew I liked that band.

Hope He Drives an Automatic

A 15-year-old Pakistani boy cut off his own hand believing he had committed blasphemy, only to be celebrated by his parents and neighbours for the act, police told AFP Friday.

Local police chief Nausher Ahmed described how an imam told a gathering at a village mosque that those who love the Prophet Mohammad always say their prayers, then asked who among the crowd had stopped praying.

Mohammad Anwar, 15, raised his hand by mistake after apparently mishearing the question.

The crowd swiftly accused him of blasphemy so he went to his house and cut off the hand he had raised, put it on a plate, and presented it to the cleric, the police chief said.


In Other News

“A thoughtful, serious argument about why single-payer isn’t the best path forward would have won Clinton more fans than this kind of obvious pandering.”

What follows is one of the finest deconstructions of Hillary Clinton’s bizarre recent attack on Bernie Sanders’ position on healthcare policy. It is a mightily clarifying piece, and you should read it.

Hillary Clinton doesn’t trust you (Vox, by Ezra Klein)


Ah, so that explains it. Thanks, Gizmodo. Why We Become Such Assholes When We’re Behind the Wheel

…and…Simpsons tattoos

That Seems Like A Pretty Good Idea To Me

I’ve been sitting on this stuff a while. Here. Go see funny and interesting things on the Internet.

New blog I done found called Adequate Man sez

“After that meltdown, did the Bengals just “out-Browns” the Browns and take the throne as the “Brownsiest” team in Ohio?

No, that’s not possible. The Browns would have to win a title before the Bengals could truly usurp their THRONE OF MISERY…”


“The only reason why we ask other people how their weekend was is so we can tell them about our own weekend.” (Chuck Pahlaniuk)

Note to self: Find “The Way” by Jill Scott MUST HAVE THAT TRACK

Steelers-Bengals

Bengals: Oh, hey, Steelers, how are you?
Steelers: Not good.
Bengals: How come?
Steelers: Well, see, we were beating you guys the whole game pretty much and then you guys scored and now you’re like totally gonna win the game.
Bengals: Oh, that’s terrible!
Steelers: Indeed.
Bengals: Well, I wish there was something we could do to help you out with that.
Steelers: Well…
Bengals: What? Don’t be shy. Just ask.
Steelers: Well, you could commit a flagrant foul in the last minute of the game.
Bengals: Hey! There’s an idea! Say if we…hmmm…popped one of your guys in the head after the play ended?
Steelers: Yeah! That’d be good for at least 15 yards and a first down!
Bengals: Okay! We’ll do it!
Steelers: Sigh.
Bengals: Now what?
Steelers: It’s just that…that’s a mighty long ways away for a field goals, still.
Bengals: Oh, right. I see what you mean…Okay. I have an idea.
Steelers: What?
Bengals: How about after we commit the flagrant foul, four or five of us will ARGUE WITH THE REFS ABOUT THE FLAG!
Steelers: Oh, wow! You’d do that for us? Could one of you really get in the ref’s face? Maybe even a little bit of touching?
Bengals: Why not?
Steelers: Wow, that would really put us in range for a field goal! That would be great, thank you!
Bengals: No, Steelers. Thank you!

18-16, Steelers.

Why I’m On Team Hillary

I don’t often engage in politics here, not directly; I have a whole other Web space for that, but it’s under a pseudonym and it’s a shared space, so I think that writing it here offers some level of clarity. This is me talkin’. Not Brady Bonk.

Now, if you know me, you know I won’t be voting for any Republicans any time soon. So that makes my process easier, especially since the Democratic field has been thinned to three now. I have certainly considered, briefly, the possibility of the fellow from Maryland; he seems like a fine candidate and should be on the short list for running mate, but there’s a gravitas deficit there somehow. No, I think for me as well as for many in my party, it comes down to Bernie v. Hillary.

And most of the folks I know are batting for Bernie. As a regular listener of The Thom Hartmann Program, I can understand why. Bernie Sanders is a fierce, effective, outspoken advocate for vital progressive issues, most specifically correcting America’s insane trade policies, expanding the availability of health care, ceasing insane and never-ending wars, investing solidly in education, getting tough with Wall Street, et-chetera. There is no doubt that Bernie Sanders is correct on a buncha issues and that he’s an effective advocate for them. I’m a fan of his. Big-time.

That doesn’t mean he’s convinced me he’s the best person to run for this office.

In 2008, I was a rabid Obama supporter and in fact a fairly early adopter (I crafted my endorsement of Mr. Obama in February 2008). My logic on this was fairly straightforward: We had just got our asses handed to us running a candidate from the Senate who had voted for the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq. Why, when Iraq was still a hotly contested political issue, why would we do that again?

Now, I can’t tell you the Hillary wouldn’t have won, necessarily. But I can tell you that my political calculus made sense, and that the candidate we nominated has since been one of the most electorally successful people to run for the office in recent history. I know, to paraphrase the man himself, because he won both of them.

He also cleared that political trap for Mrs. Clinton. Iraq is a hot political issue no longer. Her vote, though still unfortunate, is no longer a political liability. And, she has admitted to the error and has apologized. Not that she doesn’t have new political baggage, of course. With Clintons, there’s always baggage. Always. But not like the Iraq vote at that moment in time. Nothing like that, nosiree.

So, let’s do one of those list things that the kids are all reading on the Internet these days. We’ll start with

1. Hillary Clinton is the most qualified candidate for the office, not just among her Democratic counterparts, not just among the whole bag of candidates this year, but than has ever run, certainly in my lifetime. In 2008, when people would level the charge that Barack Obama was not “experienced” enough and that Hillary Clinton had all this “experience” brimming out every pore of her body, I cried bullshit, and I was right. The candidates’ resumes, when objectively compared, were actually quite equivalent, considering that aside from her Senate experience at the time, Mrs. Clinton had never served in elected office.

Since then, though, she’s been kinda busy.

As Secretary of State:

  • Hillary Clinton was the last person to get representatives from Israel and Palestine in the same room together.
  • She was primarily responsible for creating the sanctions that brought Iran to the table.
  • She successfully led an effort to restore the reputation of the United States worldwide after the bufoonery of the Bush years.
  • She helped secure ratification of the START treaty.
  • She influenced President Obama in the decision to end Osama bin Laden.

Was Hillary Clinton’s record at State perfect? No. I have found it to be a bit of a mixed bag. She leaned strongly toward the NATO effort in Libya, which like or not ended disastrously, and she wanted the United States to intervene more strongly in Syria, on which she was thankfully demured.

The best analysis I can find of Mrs. Clinton’s tenure at Foggy Bottom are here, in a piece by Walter Russell Mead. He believes it to have been a fairly mixed result.

Regardless, she is the only Democrat running who has served in such a global capacity. In terms of international issues, Hillary Clinton will be crafting and executing policy where Bernie and Martin will be trying to figure out which fork to use.

2. The next Democratic President needs to be able to go nose to nose with Republican intransigence and needs to be able to whip its ass. In my circle, we have a joke, based on a surreal line from the long-running animated show “The Simpsons.” It is: “I’m not not licking Republicans.”

President Obama has been a vastly effective executive. But only recently has he seemed to come to the realization that the political opposition is nothing but that: Opposition. He has operated much of his administration on the mistaken notion that he would be able to achieve consensus with his political frenemies. This mistaken notion has sometimes led to horrifying disaster, such as his seeming willingness to accept Chained CPI as a policy matter, or his extension of the Bush tax cuts, which he has promised to allow to sunset.

I am a big fan of the Obama years, but we need a cleanup batter now, someone with no illusions about bi-partisan warm fuzzies, somebody who will kick ass and who will take names. If only there were some instance I could point to in order to show that Hillary Clinton is the person who can fulfill this requirement, like, say, 11 hours of testimony in front of the House Benghazi committee in October 2015.

Or, say, her often-pilloried but as it turns out TOTALLY ACCURATE coining of the term “vast right-wing conspiracy” in 1998.

Remember, Obama came to office with a vision of “…one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America…”

Mrs. Clinton won’t come to the office quite nearly as wide-eyed. And she has concretely shown that she is uniquely suited to manage, disorient, and destroy the Republicans’ obstructionist agenda.

3. Nothing would piss off conservatives more than another Clinton administration. Besides maybe another black guy, of course, but that ship has sailed. No, I have witnessed first-hand the burgeoning spiky forehead vein that is created when a “conservative”-minded person refers to a Clinton who is occupying the White House. It cannot be eclipsed by any other visceral experience for a “conservative.” Nothing would cause their eyeballs to boil in blood more readily than at least four more years of somebody named “Clinton” in the Oval. Such a thing makes me giggle like a little girl.

4. Houston, June 2015. One of the first campaign events of Hillary 2016 was a stunning speech given at Texas Southern University, deep in Rick Perry country, in which she declared the really weird idea that Americans should be allowed to vote. In fact, she called for what may ostensibly seem like a radical idea: Universal voting registration for every American adult. You can watch the speech here (you can skip to about 18 minutes to get through all the grip-and-grin bullshit). It is a seminal speech and an impressive campaign kick-off.

5. The Planned Parenthood endorsement. Yes, it’s that important. As an organization, as an issue, as an advocacy group, the Planned Parenthood endorsement is that incredibly important. The political fire PP has taken of late makes its endorsement ring that much more clearly. They cite her stances on family planning, on abortion, and on the vital nature of Planned Parenthood itself and concluded they had to endorse for the first time ever. I for one am not surprised they picked the one with the uterus. Not sure why other folks are. But their endorsement carries more weight in my opinion than any others.

Trust women.

6. Because My Grandma asked me to. My 92-year-old Grandma was a Clinton supporter in 2008 but gladly came around to support Barack Obama despite her misgivings, and she’s become an ardent Obama supporter since. She makes a strong case for Hillary in 2012 as well, and this year, I am right with her.

I mean, if I don’t include among my reasons that I would like for my Grandma to see a woman in the Oval Office in her lifetime, I’d be lying. I would really like that. So yes. That is one of my reasons.

7. You Bernie PUMAs are really pissing me off. It’s odd that the PUMAs are in the Bernie camp this year, and they’re just as annoying as they were in Hillary’s camp in 2008. Generally, they are saying they will write Bernie in if he doesn’t get the nod, which is a terribly destructive stance that I find horrifying. You can believe that if Mr. Sanders garners the nomination, I will be first in line to cast my vote for him in November, but for some reason among Bernie boosters, that courtesy does not extend in the other direction. And specifically, I’ve seen these people source Breitbart hit pieces on Hillary Clinton and go SEE? SEE? SEE? It’s ridiculous. Mainly, though, this threat to write him if Hillary is the candidate? Fine. Don’t come crawling to me when President Trump rounds up all the brown people and frog-marches your ass to church.

8. Bernie Sanders is not a Jedi Knight. I’m not sure what Bernie boosters think he will be able to accomplish in office that Mrs. Clinton won’t. He will still face an obstructionist legislative body unless we can turn some results around there. He will still face the same inevitable political pressure every President faces from the inside. He will still be bound by law and precedent. As powerful as the Presidency is, it still has its limits and its powerful challenges. Bernie boosters act like the man has a magic wand he’ll wave at 1 p.m. January 20 and then peace and love and free vasectomies for everyone. SO besotted are they of this notion that they’re willing to mount a write-in effort and derail a nominee’s chances?

Yep. I’m Team Hillary ATW now. Do yer wurst. If she can take it, I sure can.

Hippy New Year

So last night I spent most of my dreaming writing a treatment for Star Wars VIII. Then I dreamt I accidentally drove my car into an ocean. So it was kind of a mixed bag. The treatment is pretty good, though, I think.

    But first:
  • Happy New Year, which is always an odd greeting as you are wishing a person future happiness. I ran over to the Farm after the workday and we ate steak and I was in bed by 10. Very exciting.
  • I heard the word “festooned” used twice on NPR this morning. Methinks Steve Inskeep got a thesaurus for Christmas.


So, now I’m going to write about my treatment for Star Wars VIII. It should go without saying that there be spoilers ahead. K?

My story is essentially about the attempted redemption of Ben Solo.

Dig it: Kylo Ren is a villain motivated strongly by his intense faith in the Dark Side of The Force and what that power can accomplish. He dedicates his life to this. He serves masters for it. He sacrifices family for it, committing the ultimate Oedipal act, mainly to convince himself and others of his conviction.

Then, he meets Rey in battle. And this has to inform him greatly about what she is. Has to tell him that this person is the most pure person ever to have been in The Force, that she is yet untrained and yet mightily powerful, and that she has found more power in the un-Dark Side than he could ever imagine having in his widdle finger. This is a unique experience for Ben Solo to this point; none of his minions have experienced Rey’s place in The Force.

I imagine that, for him, this encounter with Rey might be nothing short of revelation.

Ren has after all labored under the Dark Side’s influence for a many years, having been seduced to it as a youngster. He must think of the Light Side as a weakling stance, and then this person humiliates him in the field, and she’s not even trained, and she’s not even been Force Aware for like five minutes. However, she demonstrates that she is powerful strong in the Light Side.

So, in my story, this encounter drastically changes Ben Solo. It drives him to want to defect.

And this is something we’ve never seen in the Star Wars universe. Vader was redeemed, of course, but only briefly before he stopped refusing to die. You’ve not seen a character yet who gets indoctrinated to the Dark Side and then comes back. This is significant because so far, we’ve been led to assume that the dominant side to The Force is the Dark Side, that those who go there stay there and never return. An attempt at redemption for Ben Solo would be something we’ve not seen before.

It would also present the character with a significant challenge. He is, after all, pretty much neck-deep in with the First Order. Action based on his new thinking would be bound to get him killed or jailed. Which is where I think we take up Ben Solo’s story in VIII. Ben Solo has attempted to help the resistance and has been jailed and is being question by Captain Phasma. We can wonder about his motivation until he inevitably escapes and is driven to find Rey. Perhaps he’ll beg to once again become Luke’s Padawan, a difficult sell considering.

This also begins to resolve some problems with the Kylo Ren character. Ren does not resonate as powerfully as his inspiration, so much that the Emo Kylo Ren Twitter feed just had to be created. I mean, it could nearly be argued that Adam Driver’s character in HBO’s Girls is more awe-inspiring than is Kylo Ren. So why not turn this mensch to the other side?

I like it, considering that the most embiggened criticism of the movie is that it’s heavily derivative. My theory on that is that what’s in theaters right now is just the setup, necessary as a palate cleanser for the horrible no-good awful Lucas prequels and re-masters. Now that we’ve been reminded of the old story and its majesty, they can now tell us a new story.

I like mine. Though I’m sure Rian Johnson will do an adequate job.