Opera Glasses and Popcorn
A carpet of Brunsvigia bosmaniae at Hantam National Botanic Garden, South Africa. This spectacular autumn display occurs after late summer rain. [Sanbi/NH]
I could live in a world carpeted in a ground cover that looks like miniature pink trees…
******
An Opera Glasses and Popcorn view of Politics and the Assembled Multitude...
Marisacat -
- Real independent observations on current events with a particular fondness for the follies of the Big Box Blahgers.
Deflates bloated egos like a champion fencer in a balloon warehouse.
- Alan Smithee
Marisacat -
"...polish on a mud wallow"
- Meteor Blades [May 24 at Mcat]
Marisacat -
"... doyenne of donkle deconstruction"
- Who is IOZ [January 2 2007]
Marisacat -
"... hardened professionals and their primary strength lies in their being completely unconflicted."
"... the primary difference is that on the level of criticizing other blogs and bloggers, they can actually do some damage."
"... Not what I look for in a liberal blog product."
- peeder - MLW, Daily Rant [3.24.07]
Democracy NOW! / Amy Goodman Electronic Intifada / General Content Press TV / Middle East News Press TV McClatchy Headlines The Real News Reuters / Politics
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on one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.
If you click on La Louche the picture or the words, it leads to the Amazon PayPage, a way to ... oh let's say help with the cat can deliveries.
Thanks to all who made the very kind suggestion.
Left this after you added the link to the new thread:
Oops. Just switched over to CNN and there’s Bachman. Who the fuck is she looking at??
you have a stronger stomach than I do.
It’s Robbie Burns Day. Bring out your haggis!
only if I can go commando in my kilt
Is there any other way to go?
where, there’s always a nice tartan thong …
Or Scotch tape, I guess.
What the Hell is going on here?
And why is there a KILT draped over the sofa?!?
And WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING with that steaming organ meat and a piece of Scotch tape on the Dining Room table?
Not to mention the haggis!
WTF IS THIS? SOME kinda Post SOTU ORGY NIGHT?
And With a Buffet?!??
WTF!
Oh I dunno,
Kinda perfect on State of the Union Night:
The whole BraveHeart / Eyes Wide Shut thing.
With plenty of haggis to go around.
Police fear ‘war on cops’
At least 11 shot in 24 hours; death toll apace with 2010 uptick
The “justice” system is incredibly draconian, defense attorneys for all intents and purposes nearly impossible to get, second chances (or even first chances) after any kind of charge are almost impossible to get … people are getting pushed further and further, and once you start rapidly expanding a hopeless underclass it’s only a matter of time before they push back … usually violently.
well the 2010 “uptick” was weighted by the death of 4 cops in Oakland… and while it is never talked about, the after event analysis, carried out independently, not done by OPD, indicated they did every thing wrong. 2 died in a traffic stop and then 2 more died in a hunting party sent out to where they thought the shooter had fled to.
From the Department of WTF Are You Talking About??
Bachmann:
Barf, drewl… Vomit!
rinse… ok… it wasn’t that bad…
Repeat… because we realize it will only get worse, we get used to the nightmare of our life.
America reminds me of the famous rape scene from ‘Last Exit to Brooklyn’. [If you haven't seen that movie, netflix it, or something...]
This is probably the only Greek tragedy I’ve watched on film.
one movie that did not screw the book…
I admit, I heard 10 words of the Obama Will Teach You speech and I dropped out.
Went back to MI-5/Spooks Season 8.
Skipped all the post touchdown analysis too..
hmm from the Bachmann speechola… and I do kind of wonder how Ob survives these three things.
(This is not a Bachmann endorsement)
(This is not a Bachmann endorsement)
broken clock…right…2x a day…
Everybody face Wall St and Bow Down.
Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:
The Dow Trades Above 12,000 Points for the First Time Since June, 2008 [10:18 a.m. ET]
AND face Houston and genuflect: St Gabby was moved to the rehab this am.
(are we anything BUT a joke?)
What a sick Bankster’s trick, all of it.
From its levitation by the Fed, thru their daily looting leaving people desperate for 10 bucks of food wondering whether they have enough in the swipe card to cover the racketeers and their ATM fee. Which is 20 to 30% on a five minute run thru the bread and milk aisle.
Which the Pols all protect for a cut.
Oh, somebody start shootin.the.right.people.already.
In the meantime we see Goldman , JP , and a regatta of Hedgeholios doing what? Chumming waters with paper tuna? For what?? That unsuspecting minnows may still be out there and possibly bite?
A Stock Market ~rally.
What a privileged game of ping pong with all that loot beat out of everyone compelled by deposit to have skin in the game.
Oh take aim people, take aim.
The rich do it. Why miss?
I ahve no idea when it hits but we sure seem headed for some big big bubble bursting in air, rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air
Etc.
Especially after the love of the ever bleating pre-game music selection wears off.
So I’m thinkin the near-term PreFuture should be a blast: The Senate is werkin’ on a plan™ how to let the States go bankrupt thereby allowing – what else – them to renegotiate pension obligations – allowing the Federales off the Bailout hook and thus insure deliveries hot off the Federal funny money printing presses proceed without lighting any of the precious monetarist’s equipment on fire. Oh, the spectacle of it all: seeing with regularity a series of state retainers come unglued as they can’t even keep the Homeland’s {Drink!} provincial police armored or meet their payroll. And there’s the other Hero’s Sandwich: Vets coming home and finding out how Solemn Pledges work out here in the American Promised Land. Yes, quite the explosive growth, as some of them will have retained a few bits regarding the placement of IEDs.
Yes, quite the explosive growth, as some of them will have retained a few bits regarding the placement of IEDs.
Oh very good point.
The return on the Dow since the 2000 peak has been a whopping 300 points or about 0.02% a year. Pretty much every index that is not the Dow is still about 15% below where it was eleven years ago. S&P 500 was 1500 in 2000 and it’s just below 1300 now.
You’d have been way better off keeping the money in a saving account the last decade. I expect people will feel the same way when the next decade rolls around as well.
It is unreal, it really is, watching them loot commissioned trade by insider peek’d stock bloc transaction : every last dime, every pensioner’s nickel, every state trust fund, everything.
Yeh I don’t think Putin or anybody else will be taking a lecture from our Numbers Runner in Chief.
*Unreal* in the sense of that hatchet bearing flash mobs have yet to set upon them and their fixers.
You’d have been way better off keeping the money in a saving account the last decade. I expect people will feel the same way when the next decade rolls around as well.
Yes, talk about puffery…
Heh.
I’m goin out for a Club Sandwich.
Hopefully with plenty of clubs. LOL.
yum yum.
Maybe time to move to Israel.
Love how the story goes that his service in the IDF was part time lorry repair.
yeah right.
Yes what a surprise… PA, Israelis, UK /MI6, US (check the dates, under ObRama regime) – - – all in it up to their necks. Extra judicial killings, torture, subversion of legitimate resistance… etc.
Electronic Intifada
BTW, I read somewhere or other, that in Tunisia they, those in street demonstrations, battles, revolt, were using the word “intifada” on the streets…
I wonder if its use has spread to the other countries rising up.
I thought it was just the flu, but then I realized that I was really just sick with grief for poor, beleaguered Rahm.
Outside this underpolished mud wallow, I’d say the go-to guy for “war on cops” opinions would be The Drunken Pundit.
Enjoy! And sorry for the poor post placement. I really am fucking ill and need to go lie down in the worst way. :/
oh ms_xeno… go rest! Liquids! Hot teas and various infusions… Feel better!
Take care of you, ms. x!
Thank You, my muddied brethren! (Or sistren. Whatever.)
Yeah, I’m having plenty of liquids. Lotsa’ fruit juice and asceptic-packed chicken broth. I’m pretty sure I sweated out a lake’s worth of water in the last 36 hrs. (approx.) I’m craving solid food actually, but I lack the energy at this point to manage anything other than crackers. Unless fruit sorbet counts as a solid. mr_xeno was kind enough to bring me some last night. Feels great on a sore throat.
What’s new with you, brinn? I usually don’t get to ask, because by the time I’ve checked in here you’re off doing real-world things again…
I’m craving solid food actually
This is a good sign.
Hey thanks for asking, ms. x! I hope you’re on your way to a speedy recovery! …and of course sorbet counts as a solid!
Short version:
Got my teaching certification in December, still don’t have full-time work, boys and I are squeaking by on my two PT jobs (online teaching), still in the house, but unsure for how long….erm. Took a break from smoking for a week at the beginning of the year, but the addiction kicked my butt once again. We’re all healthy, and for the most part happy, things could be a hell of a lot worse, so I just keep on telling myself that that, and applying for jobs in my oh, so copious free time!
Yeah, that’s the short version!
Feel better, lady!
Sorry about the smoking thing, b. :/
Yeah, I got up and went out to get some food earlier. So doing much better. Thanks.
Meringues! Stat!
Oops. Or is it macaroons? I can never get those straight…
Either way: sweet sustenance! stat!
Any port in a storm.
We were at an Indian restaurant earlier, so I got a little rice pudding. That was nice.
Indian food was a good choice…
There was a great little study in the past couple of years about how useful hot food (even just “hot”, as in ”cooked”), spicy food, even cofee and tea are -if hot, it naturally cleanses the throat.
I think c.f. oxtrot was on to something in the comments to an IOZ post:
Charles F. Oxtrot said…
I was saying it before He Who Measures Radiation, but no matter. It’s true. The shift from “peace officer” to “law enforcer” is a huge one, perspective-wise… but a subtle one, culturally.
Peace officers see residents and transients as fellow humans, see their role as keeping peace among human equals. Equals.
Law enforcers see residents and transients as beneath those who make and enforce laws. Subjects, in other words.
It started in the 1970s with the deification of SWAT teams in a TV show dedicated to that notion.
http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2011/01/hyrda-lacy.html
yeah very true… and it has been discussed that as various traffic infractions are carrying higher and higher cash penalties and thre are more and more “lifestyle” and Nanny laws… there is a ton if friction between cops, various enforcers and just plain old ”people”.
And then … they gots the guns. The cops I mean.
Oakland, San Jose AND San Francisco have all had slews of murders in just the first month of htis year. San Jose hit 12 … I am sure Oakland is at 12 or 13 by now and we were at 9 a few days ago… and there has been one since in SF
So, I would say the year is popping. And bleeding.
I noticed an old quote from Hunter S. Thompson the other day that seemed apropos:
“We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws.”
feel better!
Thanks, Madman.
If I still have a temp job to drag myself to tomorrow morning, I’ll consider myself the luckiest drone/drudge alive.
oh I just saw film of the Hidden, The Secret Saint, St Gabby. Coming out of the ambulance … they have a box of some sort over her head and a towel or sheet over that.
I say worship at that shrine at your peril.
I’m having flashbacks of the Unknown Comic…
Like this?
A big box… over her head.
It really was very odd.
I know what it was like, what they place over a burned leg, to keep the linens from touching it…. Not small at all.
Well sooner or later she’ll have to think outside the box.
made me laugh..
Bowers gets predictable weasel-words from Axelrod on SS. Bottom line: everything is on the table except maybe, sorta privatization.
There is a slew of reporting today, goosed by congressional budget office ”numbers”, that SS is in Deeper Trouble Than the Wingers and Handmaiden Dems were telling us.
I am so tired of this crew. And the previous crew. And the crew next time.
NYT Editor Bill Keller, feeling the need to vent now….on their dealings with Julian Assange.
I just started it, but it already whiffs of that journo diaper creme for U.S. Intelligence agencies..
Their Sunday Mag FEATURE.
Yeya Baby.
L’il ‘splainin to do.
Oh I wonder what. Overkill? Sorry, Hosni?
Oh ya,
Bill Keller wants out of the relationship now. Baad.
Apparently he’s got another family.
Keller is such a useless nothing.
Yah, apparently
Keller’s just a flirt with journalism.
Well. Once you get past the schmeers, really 6 web pages of painstakingly assembled, cookie cutter hit piece narrative-building; Keller eventually characterizes that silly, goofy lad Julian of his from down under murky lagoon way : as outright crazy paranoid .
Yep, who could think it, (the underlying offer way oversold by Keller) – that Assange might be concerned about his security when dealing with U.S. Warring now… You’d think that Keller would be ecstatic to find, ya know, that SOME people STILL DO READ PAPERS.
But no, he moves to the whole Tarzan tone, too:
Assange : source.
New York Times : Journalists.
Nah, Bill’s got another family with the Sulzbergers, the shareholders, and the US Government.
Especially, Funny: Keller recounting the NSA story AS IF Cheney, Bush and Co DIDN’t want the reminder of Big Brother poked right up everybody’s ass – while at the same time either undermines the credibility of the NSA’s Big Bro Nefarious Awesomeness story or discredits his present gaslighting of Assange over security concerns regarding the handling of leaked material. Ah well, never mind. Time for Keller to plug Obby to the NYT sheepleship:
Oh Go on Bill. Shall we?
{ The aide then held up a finger, mouthing “One minute” , reaching for the phonel:
‘ Why YES! Mr Blankenfein! How Are YOU?!’}
Hillary and Gates, on the other hand, according to Keller, had nothing but crickets. Which sounds about right to me, frankly, given the reflection the leaks cast on them. Let it die Bill, seems to be the vibe.
And I don’t know whether to be shocked or laugh as he forgets to mention Holder, (yeh Bill, he’s the guy that brings Lanny Breuer coffee at DoJ), regarding threats of prosecution….I’ll go with the chuckle:
So it’s not gonna work out.
I find the take away in Keller’s All The News That’s Fit to Print (or Not) is that “there is no serious desire to prosecute Assange”.
Which I suppose means that Assange and his merry band did indeed score the keys to the vaults.
The NYT was fully Bush/Cheney’s partner in the push for war, both wars, all wars. And so on.
It wasn’t ”just” Judith Miller (who ws clearly, imo, a government operative)… it was all of them.
snicker.
I was so fuckin dumb.
Just fuckin Liberalish brain dead.
I held out HOPE with every revelation
It’s right there! There!
The Democrats will will will will
~DO Something!
What a rube. They were all in it, just like Nader and the Communists said.
But I’ve come a long way, it taking me 50 years to learn how to read.
oh yeah it is all of them.
Just snipped this from something at Cpunch (and the Cockburns are waaaaay too cosy with the Democratic party, even tho I do find “stuff” there… LOL)
I still go in for the shows now and then, Bernie’s talk-a-thon recently, the occasional sign of life from Denny…
I’m a simple man, it’s either that or Jackalopey.
LOL I am pinning a thinner-than-a-dime’s-worth of hope on the new mayor of Oakland.
But still breathing and not going to be shocked if it goes the way of all flesh.
The Maureen Murphy article at CP is a must read…
as the harrassment of anti Israeli Occupation and anti U.S. War activists continues.
::
BTW, They DID NOT testify for Mr. Fitzmas, seein as how They blew off the Grand Jury entirely, yesterday.
And yes, from Neurology News Today,
Researchers Find Breakthrough in
Cardboard Box Over The Head Therapy
For Traumatic Brain Injuries
No sympathy for either of them… but I do think Sanford got a severe beating in jail… tho I am sure there are things various and sundry are glad won’t come out (the Bidens)
Neurology News… very funny.
… 
Soon to be in Popular Mechanics too…
We’re gonna make stuff!
Whatever you do,
don’t stop when surfing by Hardball.
Gahd, Matthews REALLY humping Ob’s speech with pals Howard Fineman…
and Affirmative-Test-for-Polio, Bob Shrum.
I think there are two things that signal the beginning of the end for a police state.
One obviously is when police themselves stand down, I never thought I’d see it, but locally here, the police all but did so a year ago for shoplifting calls to the big chain stores. Of course it resulted in a big haul for the Mob shoplifting rings, it’s Jersey, go figure.
But when you see this, I think general insurrection might not be far away.
Woman Accused Of Threatening Cop With Dildo Speaks
God Daaamn, I say: Screaming and with arms raised overhead, Fall in with the Dildo Brigades!
the funniest thing is that the cop, wearing a gun and a taser, apparently felt threatened. They SO need to start wearing pale pink. That dark blue is false advertising.
Well
I coulda sworn I heard last night in the soaring rhetoric:
We can Future Stuff.
Yes We Can.
While Protecting Our Heroes.
From Dildoes.
Which rhymes, Heroes and Dildoes,
{Applause}
IF YA pronounce Dildoes like DEELdoes.
{More Applause, Pan to Hillbilly Critter}
Thank You. Please.
Protecting our Heroes From Dildoes and the Kind of Dildo-wielding Banshees that have no respect for the rule of Law…
ETC.
Early am news out here in the Wild West… gas likely going to 4.00, in about a month.
They credit a combination of factors…
Oh what a hoot…
Apparently, ‘Winning the Future’ was the title of a 2005 book by Newt Gingrich.
via corrente
New
LINK
……………