. . .
Bumper sticker of the week:
Free. Assange. Free.
. . .
K “I slide into the conversation that ‘everything is a fight today’ and elicit quick deep-seated and long simmering responses. And nods of frightened understanding.”
J “Because everything is a fight today.”
. . .
K “The populace is anesthetized. Zombieified. Unable to act and unwilling, unless provoked, even to respond.”
J “And they do not know what it is. But on a primal level, they know it is coming.”
. . .
J “Require a license akin to the shortwave radio technicians license to access the Internet. Limit ‘anti-social media’ usage to 15 minutes a day. What promised to bring the world together has blown it to smithereens.”
K “Worth a try. As long as there are no other restrictions or limitations on content.”
. . .
J “I get it. But when?”
K “Moi aussi. The uncertainty is the most debilitating impact.”
. . .
[See Edward Hopper: The Mirror For Our Age (January 22, 2024), The Other Sabot To Drop (April 18, 2022) and The Residue of Unrelenting Fear: PTSD Afflicts The Populace (August 28, 2006).]
Everything is a fight today.
What promised to bring the world together has blown it to smithereens.
Répondez s’il vous plaît
. . .
Bumper sticker of the week:
“Men have chosen the precious metals gold and silver for the money service on account of their mineralogical, physical, and chemical features. The use of money in a market economy is a praxeologically necessary fact. That gold–and not something else–is used as money is merely a historical fact and as such cannot be conceived by catallactics. In monetary history too, as in all other branches of history, one must resort to historical understanding. If one takes pleasure in calling the gold standard a “barbarous relic,”[*] one cannot object to the application of the same term to every historically determined institution. Then the fact that the British speak English–and not Danish, German, or French–is a barbarous relic too, and every Briton who opposes the substitution of Esperanto for English is no less dogmatic and orthodox than those who do not wax rapturous about the plans for a managed currency.” Ludwig von Mises, Human Action
[*]“Lord Keynes in the speech delivered before the House of Lords, May 23, 1944.”
“Fiat currency always eventually returns to its intrinsic value – zero.” Voltaire
The Petrodollar Pact: June 6, 1974 – June 9, 2024. ?
We live in a country with many, many, many rules and many, many, many laws, but we do not live in a country that believes in or adheres to the rule of law.
Bumper sticker of the week:
. . .
K “The envelope please. . . . This year, the ‘Cameo In Courage’ Award is awarded to . . . David McBride who disclosed war crimes committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan including the killing of 39 unarmed Afghan prisoners, farmers, and civilians in 2012. And for his courageous and commendable efforts, the Australian government is sending him to prison.”
J “He has my vote and support.”
K “The Australian government fails to protect some Australian citizens such as Julian Assange and persecutes and prosecutes other Australian citizens. Emulating the United States is obscene.”
. . .
[See “The Heroism of David McBride” by John Kiriakou in “Consortium News” dated May 16, 2024.]
Bumper sticker of the week:
Dissent remains patriotic, but perilous
. . .
K “Plant a garden.”
. . .
K “Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’24 . . . plant a garden. . . . If I could offer you only one tip for the future . . . plant a garden. You have been studying and partying and extracurricularing at a frantic and frenetic pace. Now is the time to . . . plant a garden.”
. . .
K “Wear sunscreen. Wear hearing protection; listen attentively. Wear chainsaw safety chaps; cut with care. Eat dessert: First. Learn to tie a bowline (and a bow tie). Stop, pause, think. Eschew fear. Transcend: Maintain FL 44; Make A Few Discrete Dives And Diversions To TPA (Traffic Pattern Altitude). Find the First Amendment. And plant a garden.”
. . .
J “Go East, young person. Go to Rome, D.C. and get in on the looting before it is too late.”
. . .
[See the original “Sunscreen Column”, the Wikipedia article “Wear Sunscreen” and listen to “Everbody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)”.]
Bumper stickers of the week:
Wear sunscreen. Wear hearing protection; listen attentively. Wear chainsaw safety chaps; cut with care. Eat dessert: First. Learn to tie a bowline (and a bow tie). Stop, pause, think. Eschew fear. Transcend: Maintain FL 44; Make A Few Discrete Dives And Diversions To TPA (Traffic Pattern Altitude). Find the First Amendment. And plant a garden.
Bumper stickers of the week:
“And as for him who lacks the courage to defend even his own soul: Let him not brag of his progressive views, boast of his status as an academician or a recognized artist, a distinguished citizen or general. Let him say to himself plainly: I am cattle, I am a coward, I seek only warmth and to eat my fill.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “Live Not by Lies” written before he was arrested on February 12, 1974.
We live in a country with many, many, many rules and many, many, many laws, but we do not live in a country that believes in or adheres to the rule of law.
You cannot get out of bed in the morning without violating some section of title 18 of the United States Code, the federal criminal code. In fact, and as a matter of law, you cannot stay in bed in the morning without violating some section of title 18 of the United States Code, the federal criminal code. In practice, the United States is a system of men not laws because men and women opt from the panoply of laws that punish all behavior and decide who is and who is not imprisoned.
. . .
K “For two score years, I have followed the Ninth Circuit as closely as some friends follow Major League Baseball or the price of Bitcoin. The first guiding principle is clear: The Niners exult sexy and surreal culture war issues while disregarding the cases and concerns of ordinary citizens.”
. . .
K “The court’s job is to review legislation to ascertain whether it is unconstitutional. A court using a Constitutional Amendment to legislate on questions of public policy is beyond the jurisdiction of the court.”
. . .
J “Talk to a woman in any city who is approached by increasingly aggressive homeless citizens. The treat presented almost always by men against woman from birth is unrelenting. For a woman or other possibly vulnerable person finding a parking spot in the winter at night near a store is often a twenty-minute search. A second-tier of parking spaces beside the handicapped parking spaces may be necessary.”
K “There is a disquieting tableau of individuals wandering around aimlessly all night with an old blanket as a bed roll and no place to unroll it.”
J “I hear you. I see it. Everywhere. All the time.”
. . .
K “They allege that a rising tide lifts all boats. For tens and tens and twenties of millions of Americans who are boatless, a rising tide only drowns them.”
J “If they had a houseboat, they have been foreclosed from it. If they had a life raft, they have been evicted out of it. This situation hits close to home. Even living modestly requires swift and steady paddling. I looked at the credit card statements and the bank statements for just one month and wondered how anyone can afford to stay off the streets.”
. . .
J “A little mental health counseling might help.”
K “Or a lot.”
. . .
K “I have cataloged the cases brought for persons who can be considered ‘individual homeless persons’ or ‘helpless villagers’ in our society. The Ninth Circuit treats a case brought by an ‘individual homeless person’ with indifference or disdain. There is no publicity or acclaim in it.”
. . .
K “One final decision looked like some hen doodles and fundamentally confused ‘personal jurisdiction’ with ‘subject matter jurisdiction’ in a simple case. Three judges and twelve law clerks from profitable law schools did not get it. The explanation is simple. They did not have any interest or incentive to get it right. An above average first year law student at a fifth-tier law school would discern that there is some difference.”
J “I recall that one. Time to appoint non-lawyers to the courts. Lawyers are not capable of handling the task. A new team is our only salvation.”
. . .
J “Another failed institution?”
K “They do not fail to disappoint. The two-tiered review is an essential element of their institutional DNA and explains decades of dubious decisions.”
. . .
K “The Niners are all about show biz and public relations. Smoke and mirrors. Shuck and jive. They should move their headquarters to Hollywood. They really are a profound disappointment.”
J “And then you have the current Fifth Circus Court in NOLA. I’ll take the Niners any day.”
. . .
Bumper stickers of the week:
We live in a country with many, many, many rules and many, many, many laws, but we do not live in a country that believes in or adheres to the rule of law.
There is no law. There is only ideology.
e-commentary 
Ninth Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2024 (May 6, 2024)
Posted in Pushitzer Prize In Commentary on May 6, 2024 by e-commentary.org. . .
“The envelope please. . . . This year’s Pushitzer Prize in Commentary is awarded to . . . John Day, M.D. . . . for his tireless work publishing two to three detailed posts and aggregations of articles a week for some years now with little compensation. A self-described Army brat and Buddhist, he is a courageous physician caught in the middle of the Covid/Coronavirus nightmare who lost his job because of his convictions. For his efforts stirring the pot, asking hard questions, demanding answers, rejecting lies, spotlighting uncomfortable truths, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. And being a model citizen journalist.”
J “I cannot say that I agree with him most of the time. I abstain but live with the decision.”
. . .
[See the e-commentary on the ongoing international crime at The Persecution Of Assange And The Feckless MSM (September 21, 2020).]
[See the e-commentary on the Commentary Award and previous recipients at Eighth Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2023 (May 8, 2023), Seventh Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2022 (May 9, 2022), Sixth Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2021 (June 7, 2021), Fifth Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2020 (May 4, 2020), Fourth Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2019 (April 15, 2019), Third Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2018 (April 16, 2018), Second Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2017 (April 10, 2017), First Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2016 (April 18, 2016) and Pulitzers Are Pro-War? Pressing The Pushitzers (April 22, 2013).]
[Please send your nomination for the Pushitzer Prize in Commentary for 2025 and a supporting letter by January 21, 2025 to e-ssay@gci.net and send the entry fee to your favorite charity.]
Bumper stickers of the week:
Make journalism great again
Make journalism journalism again
Knowledge is not power, but ignorance is powerless
“First they came for the journalists. We don’t know what happened after that.”
“All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.” George Orwell
Leave a comment »