As a Nation We Put People to Death

In which Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's sentencing hearing touched off another round of America searching its soul or searching for a soul, whatever

I live in a state where our penitentiary's death-row was grandfathered in as future ones were proscribed. I can't tell you if New Mexico may yet execute because emotions run high around cop killings, and the timing of some prosecutions may yet allow a closure-seeking family and the bloodlust of a pissed-off mob to prevail. (If I were David Sirota, this paragraph would be 10 times longer and a hundred times more informative.)

Lest I hyperspazz out on the keyboard without proper who, what, etc., I should predicate.

All Gone to Look for America

 

Patakinomics Tomorrow, Photography Tonight

In a corner of America not known for subtlety nor wise dietary decisions, the accomodation to natural resource businesses in the immediate neighborhood can be greeted with an almost patriotic fervor.

(Did you see the flag?)

I believe in American steel. I believe in American welding skills. Stake my life on it.

PS: America - fck yeah!

The enterprising have sought to pan some of that Main Street gold, as it were, by hanging out shingles the tourists are said to be looking for.

 Mmmm: fine ants.

The Subliminal Making of the President - 2016

Who does that candidate consider as equals? 

I'm asking because there's a back side to those placards demanding freedom and liberty which escapes our attention by not facing the news cameras. Would that etymology had steered the word "freedom" to standing for without constraints etc. and "liberty" to that freedom which is tempered like a sub-atomic particle by force fields from other people's freedom to make a molecule, as it were. Our language, as the savvy reader has no doubt bemoaned aplenty, has put the two in a blender and assigned bare differences in the final product for either.

The lexicon would rather have us veer toward "equality" to express that tempered freedom/liberty, and that brings us around to something French, nudge, nudge, say no more.

We Americans never did adopt the égalité of their sloganeering but latched onto the liberté part big time. Equality here has been diluted by the co-option of words and our practice of politics.

Why Regular People Can't Be President

Because making mistakes, admitting them and doing better next time is made out to be a disqualifying weakness.

Because a normal "gut" is aware of its need to rely on experts to form opinions and make decisions, but the president America wants has a "gut" that knows only truth.

Because eschewing social media is the only proof of sanity and its reinforcement amplifies inelectability.

Because inability to do anything about it until the next election cycle is a suitably tight rein on a regular person, while freedom untempered by other people's freedom is better suited to the political class.

Because the regular person is impaired just by the nomenclature.

Lying Liars and the Lazy Press Who Love Lies

 

The president was handed faulty intelligence

Lundergan Grimes not nearly as disqualified

How many hit parades of quotes and clips does it take to break through the obstinate denial by the fourth estate of its complicity in a chain of lies and its reprehensible trading future access and "exclusives" for backing off tough reporting? Chuck Todd admitted it in so many words on his Sunday program a while back as though he saw nothing wrong with defining himself as a relayer of press releases and an access John.

What a good reporter would want to flesh out for today's reader/viewer/listener is why we've gone into rewrite history mode? At least in some quarters. Is there a phase two looming? What are we spreading this time?

Lookin' For Grahamentum

Art in Public Places

 

Art can make
The Tri-Met wait
Turn minutes into seconds

Think I'll wait for the next one

Rick Perry: Post Rancho Embarrassohead

Untimely Death Be Not Toxic Shellfish

 

Untimely Death Be Not Toxic Shellfish

 

 

 

Tide Chart Denial Has Consequences