. . .
I “The local welcome wagon may have contributed maize to the cornucopia.”
P “The menu was discarded, yet historians suggest that they ate oysters, mussels, seafood, ducks and geese.”
I “We need to give thanks and take care of the sea.”
. . .
[See the “e-ssays” titled Plastic Pirates (August 6, 2012) and Playa Plastica / Plastic Beach (September 13, 2010).]
Bumper sticker of the week:
An ocean is a terrible thing to waste
. . .
C1 “Or should the headline read ‘Black And Browns Outwit Whites And Green (Paper).’”
C2 “Or ‘Ascetic Triumphs Over Bully.’ The election was a ‘campaign’ conducted in ‘battleground’ states by ‘operatives’ operating in a ‘war room’ who unwittingly are continuing to prosecute the ‘Great American Civil War.’”
C1 “The ‘Republican Southern Strategy’ is the ‘Republican National Strategy’, yet the Republicans were not able to conquer more than the ‘Contemporary Confederacy.’”
C2 “For two score or perhaps two score and four years since Nixon patented the policy, the ‘Southern Strategy’ was the go to play in the Republican playbook but may now need to be revisited.”
C1 “America is divided between the ‘Educated States’ that vote Blue and the ‘Uneducated States’ that vote Red. States such as Massachusetts, Maryland, Colorado, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, Virginia, New Hampshire, New York and Minnesota are the ‘Educated States’ that vote Blue. States such as West Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama, Nevada, Indiana, Tennessee and Oklahoma are the ‘Uneducated States’ that vote Red. Those who are less educated are motivated by and respond to fear.”
C2 “Nevada is the only exception in that group. The citizens may not sport as much formal education, but Nevadans are a spunky group of transplants.”
C1 “And O’Bama and Reid also ran a great ground game in Nevada and in all the other battleground states.”
C2 “The residents of the upper Midwestern states such as Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Illinois and the pivotal Ohio do not sport as many sheep skins, but they exercise horse sense in abundance.”
C1 “Wherever you find oil and gas, you find racism and corruption. Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, North Dakota and Alaska. With the discovery of oil, Alaska transitioned from Minnesota to Mississippi. Astute pollsters note that these states tend to vote Red. And then along comes North Dakota that elects to elect Heidi Heitkamp as a Senator. Dead dinosaurs are destiny.”
C2 “Demographics are destiny. Demo-graphics versus Republica-graphics. And the outcome is graphic. The Last Great White Hope is hopeless. The rich White boys who want power are facing a reality that even the Red States are becoming Browner and Blacker.”
C1 “A strategic planner who seeks to locate a business that exploits the workers and despoils the land migrates to a Red State. An enterprise that requires an educated populace searching for a sustainable quality of life migrates to a Blue State. There are exceptions in pockets like Austin and a thousand other havens and oases, yet the general rule is true.”
C2 “Virginia’s senatorial contest between the Klan and Confederate Party candidate George Allen and the Centrist Party candidate Tim Kaine reveals the schism in many states that are described as Purple. North Virginia went with Kaine and South Virginia went with Allen in a state where there are now more North Virginians than South Virginians.”
C1 “The educated electorate in North Carolina did not do it this year because it is so desperately small. Curious that Bank of America’s decision to locate in Charlotte years before the 2008 election may have provided enough additional voters to provide the margin for O’Bama in the state in 2008 but not in 2012.”
C2 “South Florida is populated by transplanted Northerners who voted for O’Bama and North Florida is an appendage of Georgia and voted for Romney, but there are more Northern voters in South Florida than South voters in North Florida.”
C1 “And a few Browns.”
C2 “And a few Browns. In an election that looked like it would be bought by a few faceless billionaires showering money from above and using Anger Mongering radio, billions of ordinary citizens on the ground really did made the difference for O’Bama.”
C1 “And two candidates shot themselves in the foot and then put the foot in their mouths and proclaimed that rape is akin to a sprained ankle or a trick knee. New Hampshire was in play until Tuesday night and after the smoke and mirrors cleared on Wednesday morning, the smarter gender is in control in the first all-women delegation. And the neighboring Bay Staters are banking on Elizabeth Warren.”
C2 “Brown did not do well in Massachusetts. Tammy Baldwin, an openly gay female Senator-elect from Wisconsin, and Krysten Sinema, an openly bisexual Representative-elect from Arizona of all places, were not the pick of the billionaires.”
C1 “Tammy Duckworth, a wounded veteran from Illinois, finally made it. Unfortunate that Pete Stark, the lone atheist, lost his seat.”
C2 “The first Hindu member of Congress, Tulsi Gabbard, and a combat veteran.”
C1 “With Pete Stark gone, someone else must take up the Carbon Tax effort. God voted under the name ‘Sandy’ as a single issue voter this year.”
C2 “Without showing any photo id. The place is going to look like America. Blue States such as Washington and Colorado have declared peace in the war on drugs and legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Chalk up another win for freedom and liberty.”
C1 “And Washington, Maine and Maryland now allow an individual to decide if he or she wants to get married.”
C2 “Another win for freedom and liberty. And Minnesota voters rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality.”
C1 “Washington state is awfully pushy. All the talented folks will migrate there.”
C2 “When the Nobel Committee signals that it will reward the conclusion, someone will connect the dots between freedom and liberty in a state and clean and green growth and development. The Blue States vote for freedom and liberty.”
C1 “In 2004, O’Bama came to national attention aspiring for one United States of America, but only a little more than half of America will ever give him a chance.”
C2 “And now that petty pernicious pol Mitch McConnell is committed to making O’Bama a two-term President.”
C1 “We are the Red States of America and the Blue States of America. There is no shame in candid self-awareness.”
C2 “And yet the two countries confront many common concerns. Iran is still Iran, China is still China, Russia is still Russia, and the fiscal fiasco is straight out of Wile E. Coyote.”
C1 “Europe may implode; the Middle East may explode. Someone may want to take a look at the numbers that underpin entitlements and unnecessary defense/offense spending. They still don’t add up.”
C2 “For decades, the Blue States have subsidized the Red States, yet we may see Illinois, California and/or New York, three small Blue countries in America, in need of major subsidies.”
C1 “Someone will say something about immigration.”
. . .
[See the “e-ssay” titled America Recycles Day, November 15 (November 15, 2010).]
Bumper stickers of the week:
Women are people too.
The odds for the election of the first gay Buddhist Brown woman to the White House should be available soon.
George Will: Romney: 331; Obama: 217
Michael Barone: Romney: 315; Obama: 223
Glenn Beck: Romney: 321; Obama: 217
Dick Morris: Romney: 325
Carl Rove: Romney: 279
“I have been assured that everything is in place for a Romney sweep of the Electoral College and the popular vote. Talk is cheap. Are you man enough to put your money where your mouth is. $100 that Romney takes it.” “I don’t have any assurances. There is $1000 where my mouth is. If you are man enough.”
“I have been assured that everything is in place for a Romney sweep of the Electoral College and the popular vote. Talk is cheap. Are you man enough to put your money where your mouth is. $100 that Romney takes it.” “I don’t have any assurances. There is $1000 where my mouth is. If you are man enough.”
. . .
A “In the land of the red, white and blue, a White man is striving to turn states red and a Black man is striving to turn them blue.”
B “Some of the ads have left the citizens red-faced and feeling blue.”
A “Just turn on the television in a battleground state or listen to Anger Mongering (AM) radio. Strip the thin veneer of reluctant tolerance in America and we are a vicious people who manage to restrain our violent tendencies most of the time.”
B “Romney does not do it. He is the candidate who is still part of the problem, yet he suggests that he has a solution.”
A “A careful tally of comments leads one to the clear conclusion that O’Bama tells fewer lies than Romney.”
. . .
Bumper sticker of the week:
Vote. This election is about one party trying to get out the vote and the other party trying to suppress the vote.
. . .
3 “If we experience a one hundred year storm every two years, is it still a one hundred year storm.”
4 “Frankenstorm. What a name. A monster of our own creation.”
3 “From Bangladesh to Manhattan, somethin’ is happenin’ out there.”
4 “God insisted on introducing a campaign issue that is still disregarded by all the candidates.”
3 “God has such a diabolical sense of humor.”
. . .
Bumper stickers of the week:
Price The Poop; Tax The Trash; Support A Carbon Fee
God voted
“Don’t know your stand on climate change. If you are against a woman’s right to choose and are in favor of the death penalty, then you are against climate change. Legislation, that is. It’s that simple.”
. . .
1 “Some lawyer named Fidel questioned why his fellow Cubans were being exploited by outsiders. The political and economic system did not offer any recourse, so he and others personally took action. Those who had property taken by the people were not pleased that their takings were taken.”
2 “America was patient allowing him to sit in an Adirondack chair on America’s back deck, smoke a cigar and blow smoke at us.”
1 “Monroe rolled over in his grave, although even James realized that the Doctrine was more aspiration than doctrine.”
2 “A problem arose when he smoked a cigar and sat atop a keg of gunpowder.”
1 “Many reasonable Americans understandably felt a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) response, but we applied the patented policy of Containment that emerged to confront Fidel’s benefactor after the Second War To End All Wars.”
2 “Either side could have pointed to an act of war. When the U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down, America could have shot up the place.”
1 “Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay wanted to blow up the world.”
2 “There is always one in every crowd. America had subs wandering the waters with tactical nuclear weapons and the Russians had subs wandering the waters with tactical nuclear weapons.”
1 “Kennedy and Khrushchev communicated via lines of communication that were not much more sophisticated than smoke signals. Kennedy gave up some missiles in Turkey that induced a NIMBY reaction among the Russians and Khrushchev cleaned up the dynamite in our back yard without publicly making it look like a sell-out.”
2 “Finding out what really went on is problematic and a problem. Those who dislike Kennedy for other reasons dislike what he did even if they do not know what he did; those who like Kennedy for other reasons like what he did even if they do not know what he did.”
1 “It was a prudent resolution. Awarding both of them the Nobel Peace Prize would not have been inappropriate.”
. . .
[George McGovern – 1922 – 2012. A great war hero and a greater peace hero. America would be a profoundly more peaceful and prosperous place today if the populace had picked decent men such as McGovern and Stevenson in the past.]
Bumper sticker of the week:
What is effortless to start is often impossible to stop.
. . .
CL1 “So the Supremes are going after affirmative action again.”
CL2 “Hostile Rich White Boys are not the most neutral arbitrators of opportunity.”
CL1 “In the American selection process, their kids can get into any college and law school just by calling up and then showing up. ‘Justice Jerry’s son here. See ya’ in September.’”
CL2 “The dispute comes down to the one last spot between the White kid from an unconnected family who does not otherwise appear to be a profitable prospect for the academic institution versus a Black kid who may be 43 SAT points short yet has attained in the face of limited opportunity.”
CL1 “Too many Americans refuse to acknowledge the impact of slavery and the Great Hundred Year War Of Terror in America from 1865 to 1965. The epicenter was in the South but touched all of America with lasting effects today.”
CL2 “In 2003, Justice O’Connor and friends suggested an awkward but workable solution that is working awkwardly but solubly. And gave it twenty-five years. A shelf life on an exception to address what hopefully was an exceptional time in our history that was not exceptional.”
CL1 “Between you and me, I understand the anxiety spawned when the country’s highest court interprets the country’s most important document to allow for a remedy such as affirmative action which is at odds with the very right that is at issue.”
CL2 “Business, academia and other institutions have accommodated to the awkward modus vivendi without too much fuss in the last nine years.”
CL1 “The Supreme Rich White Boys, a gang that includes Thomas, have no business messing with precedent, tradition and settled practice.”
. . .
Bumper sticker of the week:
“White is right, Brown can stay around, but Black better get back.” United States Supreme Court, June, 2013
. . .
$ “They say that something is ‘money in the bank’ if it is a sure thing, but you must wonder whether ‘money in the bank’ is really ‘money in the bank.’”
C “Or money in the credit union. The Federal Reserve can create electrons but it cannot quickly create hard dollars. The time will come when enough citizens simultaneously conclude that the financial system is a rigged chimera with a false facade.”
$ “Like the week of September 15, 2008.”
C “Exactly. With so few physical dollars in the bank to respond to demands for dollars, a financial institution will need to limit withdrawals to a small sum per depositor, perhaps $100. Assurances that the funds are insured will not be reassuring. The typical depositor does not want to hear that the account is insured when he or she wants to withdraw money from the account. That event either will be the Big Jolt or will be caused by the Big Jolt that will lead to a collective loss of faith.”
$ “The news outlets will be forced to take a short break from the stories about rescuing kittens from trees to relay stories of angry depositors.”
C “And the populace will come to realize that money does not grow on trees. So your money is only money in the bank if it is under your mattress.”
$ “The alternative is to leave the money in the bank and get .0000001 percent interest on the funds that you may never see again.”
C “Seems that a few dollars in the pocket are not a bad idea. After a Big Jolt, inertia and habit will incline others to accept dollars in the transition for some time.”
$ “Both paper dollars and gold may lose their luster at the same time. The stuff does not offer much heat whether measured by calories or B.T.U.s.”
. . .
[See the “e-ssays” titled “Is The Gold Standard Really The Gold Standard? (January 18, 2010)” and “Fiat Gold” / Fool’s Gold (May 2, 2011).]
Bumper stickers of the week:
“I will use my Fe [guns] and my Pb [bullets] to protect my Au and my ETOH.”
“I will use my skills and resources to develop a sustainable supply of clean H2O and to provide enough cals. [heat inside the body] and B.T.U.s [heat outside the body] to sustain me, my family and my community.”
. . .
C1 “What else can you say. A series of individual decisions have spawned an unrepresentative and illegitimate institution. Nine bureaucrats and technicians with limited life and work experience plucked from the two most profitable law schools (Harvard or Yale (or Columbia)) and practicing one of the two most powerful religions (Catholicism or Judaism) in America are too provincial and too parochial for a county as varied and diverse as the United States.”
C2 “And all hail from or are products of the parochial Province of WaNeBos (Washington/New York/Boston). A solution is at hand. The three Justices drawn randomly from a hat containing all nine names take senior status with a suspension or waiver of the “Rule of 80” if necessary so that they can retire comfortably. For the good of the cause. For the good of the Court. For the good of the country.”
C1 “Greater care and concern for the common good is paramount. At least one should be a Buddhist intellectual with Northwestern, Midwestern or Western roots and branches who has actually practiced law and lived life.”
. . .
C1/C2 “No one ever gives up power. Didn’t a few of them tell a few fibs to the Senate?”
. . .
[C1 = Court Watcher 1, C2 = . . . ]
[Fifty years ago today, James Meredith enrolled at the University of Mississippi, with a little help from his friends. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/us/university-of-mississippi-commemorates-integration.html]
Bumper stickers of the week:
The boys (and girls) are back in town
And the usual other traits that one rarely finds. Intelligence, tutored intelligence, emotional intelligence, intellectual integrity, integrity, character, grit, courage, wisdom, humility, perspective, life experience, etc., etc., etc.
. . .
J1 “Awards shape behavior.”
J2 “The palette of Pulitzers runs the spectrum from purple prose to yellow journalism.”
J1 “And the Pulitzers for black and white journalism run the route from The New York Times group of writers to The Washington Post Writers Group, with a few side shows. The trophy could be transported on the Eastern Airlines shuttle between the New York and Washington airports named for political types, with a few side trips.”
J2 “I concede that the Pulitzers generally reward solid work, yet they only consider conventional and narrowly defined writing drawn from an exclusive clique of writers.”
J1 “They are an exclusive group because they exclude not because of excellence. Then the Online News Association Awards emerged to emphasize ‘high-tech bells and whistles’ rather than quality and integrity. The corporate sponsors call the shots. The Googles and the Facebooks buy the beer and balloons and make the party possible. Gobs of gaudy high-tech gadgets on a screen define journalism.”
J2 “But in the end that is what the readership wants. Journalists cannot lose sight of the legitimate needs and concerns of the reader. We need to sell the product without selling out.”
J1 “Journalism needs a new way of thinking and a new award. Awards shape behavior.”
. . .
[J1 = Journalist 1; J2 = . . . ]
Bumper stickers of the week:
Here today, gone today
Where’s the tofu?
Too much sizzle, not enough tofu
. . .
H1 “One hundred and fifty years ago today, Northern immigrants battled Southern serfs in Western Maryland.”
H2 “And they could not even agree on the name of the skirmish. The Northerners named battles after nearby bodies of water and Southerners after nearby towns. Antietam versus Sharpsburg.”
H1 “Given the outcome, the United States refer to it as Antietam. They still don’t agree on the name of the Great Campaign. The War of Northern Aggression or the War of Southern Terrorism.”
H2 “The war was always about slavery not state’s rights in the South. The stalemate in Miller’s cornfield and on Burnside’s Bridge was enough to cover for Lincoln to expand the endeavor from saving the Union to starting the abolition of slavery in the South and new states in the West.”
H1 “As they always say, tactically inconclusive but strategically significant.”
. . .
H1 “A person and a society are measured by whether property rights are protected or human rights are cherished. In the South, property rights were exalted; human rights were actively and systematically violated.”
H2 “Humans want to be free with perhaps some societal restraints to guide behavior, yet humans instinctively desire to colonize property and to enslave others. True to form, the colonists stole property from the Red man and denied liberty to the Black man. Civilization emerges when those impulses are restrained by mutual consent.”
H1 “You mean government. The colonists in America rebelled and obtained independence, yet slavery in many incarnations continued unabated.”
H2 “The caste system and class condescension continued in the South. The descendants of the English continued the subtle oppression of the descendants of the Irish and the Scots. Southern society was an extension of the rigid social and economic hierarchy in the British Isles.”
H1 “Blacks were slaves and three fifths of a human, the most perverse mathematical formula in the history of humankind. Most Whites in the south were indentured servants, share croppers, peasants and serfs. Servitude served up along a continuum. Despite their lower-class status, poor Whites could take comfort in their legal superiority over Blacks. That was a great palliative and motivator.”
H2 “From its adoption in 1791, the Bill of Rights rarely protected lower class Whites south of the Mason-Dixon line. The Thirteenth Amendment changed the laws on the books, but the Hundred Year War of Terror raged in the South from 1865 to 1965. Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 changed the legal landscape somewhat, although events on the ground changed slowly.”
H1 “Americans have tolerated Made In The U.S.A. terrorism on her soil for over two centuries. The South ante bellum and post bellum was and perhaps less so today is an aristocracy and oligarchy operated by and for a small elite.”
H2 “And nothing threatens ignorance like education. High schools and higher education in the South were reserved for wealthy white males. By contrast, in the North education is exalted. At the bequest and behest of Benjamin Franklin and others, the University of Pennsylvania was open to all citizens.”
H1 “Religiosity is provided to supplant free thought and ratiocination. Religion provides pat answers and precludes probing questions.”
H2 “The South also reveres the military because of the need to maintain internal discipline by force and fear and to repel threats and challenges to its medieval system.”
H1 “Lincoln and his fellow Republicans sought to maintain the Union over any other goal. For both strategic and humanitarian motives, he emancipated the slaves in two phases. His conviction and efforts maintained the Union. Now the Republicans campaign in the South and exploit anti-African American racism and fears of lawlessness among White voters.”
H2 “If the South had won the rebellion, the United States of America would have fewer stars and perhaps fewer stripes for the departed former colonies on its flag. The United States of America Sans The South would be a Blue Nation. Without all the government subsidies from the Blue States to the Red South States, the United States S.T.S. would have a less unbalanced budget. The South would be a White Mexico today.”
H1 “Funny how life turns out. The ‘Southern Strategy’ is an ironic development. The old Republicans freed the slaves and the new Republicans play on the fear of the freed slaves. In this election, the Southern Strategy is now the National Strategy.”
H2 “And look at wage rates. The public relations guys have a clever slogan – the ‘right to work.’ What they should say is the ‘right to work for a pittance.’ Keep them enslaved in subtle ways.”
H1 “Leaves you wondering whether anything really has changed.”
H2 “Demographics are destiny. Black and Brown are slowly trumping White.”
H1 “Old times there are not forgotten.”
H2 “Look away.”
. . .
[H1 = Historian 1; H2 = . . . ]
[September 17 is the one year anniversary of the Occupy movement and the four year anniversary to the day (Monday, September 15, 2008) when even those in power had to acknowledge the economic charade and chimera that was on the verge of collapse.]
[See the “e-ssay” titled “The Great National Dissolution: Resolving The Great Civil War (April 18, 2011)“]
Bumper stickers of the week:
Old times there are not forgotten; look away!
Mankind’s Motto: To Colonize And To Enslave
How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb? Five. One to call an electrician, two to mix drinks, and two to talk about how good the old bulb was.
e-commentary 