Year: 2011
Insert a Trite Metaphor for a Corral #105
Posted on July 10, 2011 in Roundup
Who says that the GOP doesn’t tolerate dissent?
The Talent of Depression
Posted on July 9, 2011 in Depression
I’m surrounded by people who tell me that everyone has a talent. Years of aptitude testing followed by generous explorations into various careers and skills have led me to the conclusion that my special genius is for being depressed about 10% to 90% of the day, depending on whether I have taken my medications, exercised, and beaten myself up. I know the slough with all its sinks and murky places well. The leeches who live here find their way into every crevice, drawing not happiness but energy from me. I seek relief by reading, walking the dog, or tweeting. Sustained effort is required to pound the quivering mudflats into stillness. Every now and then, when I believe that I have bested it, an gray egret pierces me in my sleep and I wake to despond.
I tell you. It’s a gift.
An open letter to Ed Schultz
Posted on July 7, 2011 in Accountability Civic Responsibility Class
We would not be in this place if it hadn’t been for you telling people to stay home in 2010.
Beyond Stigma Education: Life or Death Politics for the Bipolar
Posted on July 5, 2011 in Bipolar Disorder Civic Responsibility Class Stigma Taxes
Stand up for your right to be human and to contribute to this society of ours.
Insert a Trite Metaphor for a Corral #104
Posted on July 3, 2011 in Roundup
I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. –Bill Cosby
Dirty tricks. It has finally sunk into the Democratic leadership what progressives and liberals on Twitter has known for two years: that when the Republicans are not the leading power in our country, they do everything they can to sabotage the Democrats. Their blackmail and obstruction strategy goes against the oath they take as representatives, which is to preserve and to protect these United States.
I think we have lost sight of what representation is for. First, there’s the matter of who to blame for our government’s policies. We forget that most of the things that we fault the president for are really the fault of the Congress which passes the budget and enacts the laws. We can’t turn to the president for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, for example, because he cannot overturn it by himself. Obama is right for saying that the people must lead on this issue and pressure their legislatures for change. The same is true of jobs, net neutrality, the two wars, Guantamano Bay, etc.
Second, are our expectations. We take positions and then insist on no way except our way. Now the Democrats have been willing to compromise — more willing than many progressives wish. The tactic in this last Congress has been to begin with past Republican issues in order to seize a quick compromise. But the Republicans are out to avoid compromise at all costs so that they might bring the Democrats down. Other governments with political parties such as Germany do not fall into this trap. They agree on a series of principles — including jobs and social services — that they attempt to protect while devising solutions and balancing the budgets.
The Germans have a country of which to be proud. My friends over there are shocked that the fascism of the Tea Party has been allowed to thrive here.
The Republicans have become obsessed with ever lower taxes despite evidence that shows that the tax cuts have not produced employment. It is clear that they represent only 2% of the population, that they have become the equivalents of reactionary parties in the banana republics. Do we really want to allow ourselves to be the world’s largest third world country?
- The Debt Limit Option President Obama Can Use — This piece by a Republican economist came out several weeks ago, but only now is getting notice. Best quote: “Preventing default is no less justified than using American military power to protect against an armed invasion without a congressional declaration of war.”
- The Single Greatest Threat to America — With eradication on their lips and corruption driving their elections, there can be no doubt who it is. Also see this Salon story on Eric Cantor’s conflict of interest. And then there is this bit about whether the president can be bipartisan in times when, frankly, one of the parties refuses to do anything except pander to the rich. Finally, see what the Republicans have done aside from creating jobs.
- Countries where you could go to jail for calling the president a dick — And I am glad that this is not one of them. Still, Mark Halperin deserves the scorn he’s been getting. Haven’t we had enough penis in the news lately?
- 14 Propaganda Techniques Fox “News” Uses to Brainwash America — As the person who gave me this said, most of the people reading this probably already know….
- A Dirty Business: New York City’s top prosecutor takes on Wall Street crime — It’s not so easy to nail a dirty stock market billionaire.
- Flooding of Ancient Salton Sea Linked to San Andreas Earthquakes — And now for a little local reporting….
- Why I’m Not a Long-Term Traveler — A friend explains why home makes you appreciate what you see on a trip more
- Why Do These Cost So Much? — An artist lays out the facts about the price of his work
- Is Facebook the Right Place to Report a Crime? — A story that the media misreported gets its fact check
- Expert on Mental Illness Reveals Her Own Fight — Given the stigma surrounding borderline disorder, this is brave indeed.
Dream
Posted on July 2, 2011 in Dreams
I’m cooking dinner with my mother. She is working on one dish and I am creating the other while concentrating on an online game. When it is time to serve it, I discover that she has added large charcoal briquettes to my part of the meal. She insists that this is what the recipe calls for over my protests. I check a calendar and discover that I should be back at school. Why hasn’t she told me?
Amazon Affiliate Program Discontinued
Posted on June 30, 2011 in Class Site News
The Amazon affiliate program that you never bothered to buy from here at Pax Nortona has been discontinued due to the fact that I am a California resident. Once again, the effort to punish the small businessman to protect the big businessman has been successful. If things go as they have been, trust that this site will be prevented from publishing at all due to the defunding of net neutrality.
This class warfare against you and me has got to stop.
A Ragged Shape
Posted on June 30, 2011 in Bipolar Disorder Neighborhood
One of those things that worry me flitted into consciousness the other night. Lynn had just turned off of Saddleback Ranch Road onto Ridgeline when I spied it off to the left: a dark gray-brown form, ragged at the edges and possessing four legs. It looked to me that Lynn was about to hit it so I cried out. She stopped about ten feet past the beast. I looked back. No creature, no bloody tracks where the car had dragged a dead body. Just the parked cars on our right.
Had I seen something or was it one of my hallucinations?
“Did you see it? Did you see it?” I repeated to Lynn.
“No,” she said. “But just because I didn’t doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.”
I held my silence as she made the left toward our home. What was it? I thought “cat” at the glance. “Raccoon” or “skunk” could also have fit the outline. What worried me most was the possibility that my anti-psychotic had stopped working. I didn’t need to suffer a relapse into the strange world of the seen but nonexistent.
I hope that somewhere out there, there is a cat or a raccoon or a skunk that has been scared into a lesson.
Why There Haven’t Been Any Wall Street Prosecutions
Posted on June 26, 2011 in Justice Scoundrels
I have to admit that it has bugged me, too. For eight years, Wall Street ran rampant over America. We gave them a bailout and they gave themselves bonuses. Their hedge funds and their mortgage manipulations led to the collapse of our economy in December 2007. So why haven’t we done anything about it?
The latest issue of The New Yorker has a long and interesting article about the largest insider trading prosecution in U.S. history. In the middle of it, there is this bit of information:
Fraud abetted the financial crisis, from the marketing of deceitful financial products to the banks’ concealment of losses after the housing market collapsed. Then why are no executives in jail? One reason is that criminal law often founders in what prosecutors call a “dead-body case.” During the mortgage bubble, the possible crimes were committed before any investigations had begun. By the time the government could have gathered enough evidence to obtain wiretaps, any incriminating conversations would have long since taken place.
The Department of Justice also played a role in inhibiting vigorous prosecutions. In 2008, the department, under President George W. Bush’s Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, distributed the major new investigations across different offices. Countrywide went to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles; Washington Mutual was claimed by Seattle; A.I.G. was pursued out of Washington, D.C., with the coöperation of New York’s Eastern District, in Brooklyn. Lehman Brothers was split among New Jersey and the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York. The Southern District, with its superior experience and expertise in accounting fraud, was largely cut out. Neil Barofsky, a former Southern District prosecutor who left the office in December, 2008, to become the first inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, considers this a mistake. “The Department of Justice made a decision that decreased the probability that those cases are going to get made,” he said. He suggested that the attorneys in the Southern District weren’t happy about missing the chance. “Getting the C.E.O. of a major bank is not a career killer,” he said. “It’s a career maker.”
So the investigations didn’t take place because when prosecutors were hobbled at the very time when their investigations could have proved decisive. We blame Obama for not taking action, but The New Yorker article suggests that the opportunity had long passed by the time he got in office. So agents concentrated on the frauds that they could nail down. Their activity now serves as a deterrent.
Which leaves the question: if we punish Obama for not trying Wall Street (and probably failing giving the standard of proof) by handing over power to the likes of [[Eric Cantor]] — whose investments are poised to collect in the event of the failure of U.S. Treasury Bonds — and the Tea Party, does it make any sense? Is Wall Street going to be better controlled or allowed to run even more rampant? Evidence suggests that Obama is being blamed for another Bush transgression. If we turn him out, we will return to the merry, malevolent chaos of the Bush years. My advice is not to buy the line of certain Tea Party-friendly progressives and vote to reelect our president. Even Lincoln and Jimmy Carter were misapprehended in their times. Let’s not allow the mistakes of 1980, 2000, and 2010 to repeat themselves because we don’t understand the law.
Dream
Posted on June 26, 2011 in Dreams
I am in [[Craters of the Moon National Monument]] ((Which I have never visited)). Lynn and I have become separated while hiking, so I go back to the car. I drive to the entrance where I explain to the rangers that I have lost my wife and am looking for her. I drop by a church where they have fashioned statues of martyrs out of lava rock. The landscape is green and I splash through flooded rivers. (Do I find Lynn?) I arrive at the farthest parking lot in the park where I get out of the car and begin hiking towards part of the monument which used to be a nuclear testing ground. I tell my companions that they had allowed a nuclear reactor to meltdown ((True.)) and that I was not going past a certain canyon so that I would not be exposed to radiation. I follow the trail to the point of a hill. I find myself looking down an extremely steep trail and scream as I slide down it.
Insert a Trite Metaphor for a Corral #103
Posted on June 26, 2011 in Roundup
You can’t turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again. – Bonnie Prudden
Same sex marriage. I think the main reason why churches are losing it over the legalization of same sex marriage is that, now, by refusing to perform them they look bad. The congregations that they have steadily built and milked for tithes may be fine with the policies at the present, but eventually the population is going to shift and they won’t be filling the pews like they used to. Gay couples and folks like me and my wife who do not feel our marriage is reduced by same sex marriage will seek other venues. The numbers will be small at first, but as time passes they will grow and the mega-churches will feel the crunch if they don’t adjust.
We gave some thought to not marrying until gay and lesbian couples could do the same, but in 1988, we knew it was going to be a long wait. In the intervening years, our marriage of intense comradeship has been devalued by those who insist that marriage is for procreation. Nonetheless, we have stayed the course and remained committed to each other through financial difficulty and my mental illness. I would call that a real marriage, though I wonder each day why Lynn puts up with me.
I want to state that I agree with President Obama’s assessment: Same sex marriage needs to be taken up as a state issue. This won’t result in a broad stroke of change that many earnestly require for their political excitability, but it does remind us of where the roots of our activism must direct themselves. It is the local governments who are screwing us up. Witness Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Michigan for three. Staying at home in 2010 has meant granting power to a downright evil cluster of organizations. They now control the reins for 2012. We will have to fight harder to defeat them as they try to put the fix in.
- Eric Cantor’s financial disclosures reveal that he bets against U.S. Treasury bonds. — None dare call it treason, but corruption will work just as well. It sure ain’t patriotism!
- My life as a undocumented immigrant — A Pulitzer Prize winning reporter reveals his secret
- How conservatism lost touch with reality — Is Obama the worst president for business? Hardly. Richard Nixon has him beat by miles but you won’t hear the Chamber of Commerce admit that. Also see this article about Mitt Romney’s supposedly unemployed poster boy. And read this about how Germany is neither conservative nor liberal, but both.
- Companies push for Tax Break on Foreign Cash — Did any of it go to jobs or research the last time? Nope. Also see this gem from the Wall Street Journal of all places about how the GOP depends on perpetrating the myth that spending kills jobs.
- Google’s antitrust defense sounds like Microsoft’s — So the main issue seems to be that Google gives its services away for free. So does Yahoo. Um, I don’t see the problem from the consumer standpoint.
- Christian Dominionism or “Welcome to the Theocratic States of America” — A truly anti-Christian movement inside America today. Very dangerous.
- Epidemiologists reveal that black men in America have a better survival rate in prison than outside — Is this surprising to you? It sickens me.
- In-Stream Ads Are Coming To Twitter, Will A User Revolt Follow? — I withhold my opinion until I see the implementation.
- INCOMING! Asteroid to Narrowly Miss Earth on Monday — Wow! 8,000 miles? That’s close!
- Corporal Punishment: Mothers’ Self-Recorded Audio Gives Unique Real-Time View of Spanking — And even with the evidence right in front of them, these abusers continue to insist that it is the right way to bring up a child.
- Shock and recall: Negative emotion may enhance memory — Yes, there is nothing like a baseball bat directed at oneself to engrave a mood on one for life
Personal Choice, Charity, and a Cardboard Box
Posted on June 23, 2011 in Compassion Insurance
Because we recognize that there are others who do not enjoy our relative affluence, we have chosen not to take advantage of the system even when, in poorer days, we could.
