"Shame On You"

Posted on by

I used to have respect for police work. It was hard not to after so many officers died on 9/11. But the police in many US cities this year have defiled that memory of self-sacrifice and desecrated their own uniforms. They have been callous and brutal and insensate. I want to see cops put in jail for what they've done to peacefully protesting citizens. I don't know who the hell they think they work for, who they're supposed to serve, but they're wrong.

The Dingle-Dangle

Posted on by

If you’re thinking of deep frying your bird this Thanksgiving, you need to watch this dramatic video starring William Shatner. If you’re not, you need to watch it anyway, ‘cause it’s funny.

Thanks to Mike Elgan, on Google+, for this highly important public service message.

sic semper tyrannis

Posted on by

I received an email from a friend, expressing his dismay over the governance of our country. I have to agree. Again and again, lines of poetry come to mind; lines of the very poem from which this blog takes its epigraph:

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

– W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming

Read the last 2 lines again to yourself, aloud.
Oh yes, so it goes in America these days.

next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims and so forth

A Metaphor merit badge if you know the source of that quote off the tops of your tri-corner hat.

Anyway, I’ll share the thought with which I responded to my friend: to hell with governance. It has done us very little good, ever. Governance is good for building roads and starting wars. Meaningful, systemic, sustainable change doesn’t come from the top. And we should never doubt the talent of a few honest, committed people to bring change to life. Because that’s the only thing that ever has.

What we need now is leadership, not governance. If only we can get governance to stop brutally evicting leadership from the public parks, we’ll be on our way.

Actually, it’s better for the cause of progress if the police keep right on attacking and evicting, beating, teargasing, etc. As always in history, tyranny is the symbol and catalyst of the restoration of freedom.

Here’s a great short video to watch: A special comment from Keith Olbermann, 11.15.2011.

Frosty the Mad Man

Posted on by

Yesterday I posted about making a list of advertisers with the temerity to jump the gun on Christmas, before Thanksgiving.

See, it was funny, with the compiling and the boycotting and the phreaking sugarplums.

… ‘Cause I was ranting about it being too early for Chrsitmas, but I used a line from Santa Claus is Coming …

Ho ho ho?

… These are the jokes, folks.

The Bad List

Posted on by

I have decided to compile a list of all business entities which have the incalculable bad taste to present themselves or their products in any medium, prior to Thanksgiving, with a Christmas theme advertisement.

In the unlikely case that I would be otherwise inclined to patronize such a concern, said transgression of decency will result in my boycotting it until at least Memorial Day, 2012.

The reason for my abhorrence of this tacky practice, which seems to lurch forth from Madison Avenue earlier each year, should be self-evident.

My list will be circumspect, comprehensive, and you can bet your sweet sugarplums, I’m checking it twice.