Danny Cardwell's picture

    Guy Buys A Phone And Takes Pictures

    Are you tired of the existential angst that comes with trying to survive in a world dominated by empire building, global capitalism, xenophobia, racism, patriarchy and homophobia?

    Do you want to go 3 minutes without thinking about Pedophilia, sexual assault, or the Orange Emperor?

    If so, click the link below to look at some pictures I took around Bath County. For 3 minutes our world will seem like a place worth saving...

     

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    Orion's picture

    The 1970s, 2010s: Who Programmed the Simulation?

    The world does seem in dire straits indeed and has for roughly the last five years or so. The seeming progress of Barack Obama's election cascading in to regular civil strife and civil war in the United States, where racial and gender harmony, worked on for so many decades, appears torn to shreds. Cities are on fire, under fire or being torn apart. A rivalry with Russia, which is held responsible for the election of Donald Trump has been stoked again between America and the rest of the west. China is on the ascent, as is intolerance, cultural malaise, fear, despair and disappointment.

    All of this seems horrible and is until a thought comes in. We've been here before. A friend of mine, Larry Bernard (who can be seen commenting on comic book movies) told me that "all Obama and Trump did was take us back to the 1970s." During his election, Barack Obama was compared to Kennedy for many reasons, from his charisma to his minority status. According to Roger Stone's book, Donald Trump was personally told by Richard Nixon during the 1980s that he would make a "fine president" and Trump's tacit support of Roy Moore in Alabama reflects Nixon tacit support of segregationist George Wallace.

    Michael Maiello's picture

    When You're Adorable to Deplorables

    Our friend Josh has been making the point that public revelations of predatory behavior only matter to people and entities who have to serve constituencies that care about such things. This seems an obvious point. The bachelor party at Scores is not going to get worked up about people objectifying the dancers, at least not on that particular night.  It does mean, however, that the political/social consequences of engaging in such behavior will differ more based on who you are or what you serve than what you did.

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    Battle of the Sexes: On Bonsai Trees & Suburban Myths

    A quote recently about men's role in the changing state of affairs (pardon the pun) struck me as rather bitchy and dismissive: "Oh, how fragile is the ego of a man. We must never let him feel like a bonsai in a grove of California redwoods..." The same article goes on to note men's time spent with children nearing women's (ignoring any Roy Moore jokes there). So why the insult and calumny? It's not like men aren't evolving to meet the changing societal situation, whatever the headlines. It's also not like men aren't on the brutal receiving end of many of these changes.

    Trump Fires 42,000 FBI Agents, Threatens Parks in California

    President Trump has fired 42,000 FBI agents after tweeting "the FBI is in tatters." He is assigning Kellyanne Conway, recently appointed as Opioid Czar, as Acting FBI director, with the power to temporarily appoint Trump campaign contributors and unemployed alt-right gang members as agents.

    Trump has issued an executive order that the main mission of the FBI will be to investigate and imprison Hillary Clinton

    Trump's lawyers maintain he has the power to do whatever he wants as he is President and a Republican.  A Republican's only sworn duty is to pass tax cuts for the rich, exploit women seeking control of their bodies, and further loosen gun laws.

    Richard Day's picture

    MATT LAUER AND O'REILLY

    There are home video presentations on cable that primarily focus on people falling down.

    And the audiences laugh.

    People falling down make people laugh because people have awful tendencies at times.

    This video involves Matt Lauer cross examining Bill O'Reilly is just hilarious at first blush.

    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    The New York Times Wants You to Know How Normal Everyone Is Here at the Applebee's

    Here in bucolic Fairfield, California, amidst rolling vineyards and struggling big-box stores, unassuming souls like Norman Bates go largely unremarked. While most Americans would instinctively recoil from his habit of brutal murder and the uses to which he puts his victims’ bodies, here in Middle America he is Norman Next Door, a soft-spoken young man whose manners nearly any mother would applaud, working to keep open a family motel that serves both as symptom and as symbol of the economic anxieties roiling the heartland. Norman has heard murmurs advocating radical change, from Wal-Mart’s gun aisle to the local church’s pork-and-beans supper, and seems guardedly optimistic. Perhaps it will become easier for him to date. “Most girls don’t want to hear about being violently stabbed to death and having selected portions of their remains repurposed,” he says, browsing the knives at the dollar store. Now, he feels, things may be about to go his way.

    tmccarthy0's picture

    The Anger They Carried

    It was and is a daily burden made worse with the onslaught of daily acknowledgment by a large variety of men who have committed acts of aggression and harassment against women and children. I hear the cries of both sides screaming, "our side is not as bad as the other side" but I just don't know if that's true. Sure there are degrees of bad and evil, Roy Moore is one evil human being so used to gaslighting his victims he continues to use those methods to gaslight all of Alabama. He preys on children, and there is no doubt that he is the most toxic of males who uses his position in society to prey on those who cannot protect themselves.

    Battle of the Sexes: War's not the absence of Peace

    Once upon a time in a land far away, we had big people and smaller people, and the bigger people largely took care of the smaller people and the smaller people largely did what the bigger people wanted, and this comic-book characterization carried on for a few millennia. Beneath the cartoonist's rendition, there was a lot of smudgy tawdry goings-on, but in a regular newspaper, you can only get so much detail.

    Eventually people discovered tools, which went from simple stuff like big sticks used as clubs on to more subtle stuff like x-ray spectrometry and online marketing, which confused the hell out of early caveman/woman, but is slowly becoming comprehensible to their descendants.

    Danny Cardwell's picture

    Let's Talk About Sexual Assault

    It was as normal a morning as you get in the Department of Corrections. The caffeinated buzz inside the chow hall was interrupted by the sound of trays hitting the floor and shouts too, “kill that baby raping b*tch”. Less than fifteen feet from me, an older white man was getting stomped out as he curled in a fetal position wedged between two stools at the rectangular table he was eating at. It took close to a minute before correctional officers intervened on his behalf.

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    Ramona's picture

    Al Franken Shouldn't Resign

     Yes, I'll say it, and I hope it's not too late: Al Franken should not resign. He shouldn't be forced to resign, either by the Democrats who (rightly) can't abide double standards or the Republicans who would love to see a Democratic knock-down. I can agree that what he did to Leann Tweeden was stupid, gross, and as close to sexual predation as it gets, and still want him to stay where he is.

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    Michael Maiello's picture

    Then They Came for Bill Clinton (Again)

    Really, liberals?  Really?  More than seventeen years after we movedon.orged this issue, we're going to turn on Bill Clinton? As with most progressive mistakes, this seems to come from a well-meaning place.  We lefties like to be intellectually and ethically consistent and we are trying to make the world a better, more inclusive place, after all.

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    Richard Day's picture

    NYT v. SULLIVAN

    The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states:

    Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

    The Bird, the Bear, and the Elephant in the Room

    Above the dissonance the people sigh

    The Russians hacked the right wing’s foul deceit

    The Elephant inside the power lines

    Retorts to post his glower’d circus tweet

    A Pelosi/Raskin Townhall

    A raucous standing room only crowd greeted House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-8) at Rockville's Luxmanor Elementary School cafeteria early Saturday (Nov 4) morning. The Democratic representatives along with several Montgomery County residents came to discuss the dangers to Maryland and the nation that they see in the Republican House tax bill.

    Speaking first at the town hall he had organized, Raskin attacked the plan for being largely composed of corporate giveaways. These include a drop in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 12% on income currently stashed overseas and 10% on profits from transnational activities. Deriding the bill as the “billionaire tax break and job cutting plan,” Raskin noted also that the Republican plan slashes $1.5 trillion from Medicare and Medicaid over a decade.

    librewolf's picture

    Stratofrog Passes

    Dear Friends and Acquaintances, My partner of 20 + years and spouse, Kelly (aka Stratofrog), finally laid down her burdens early this morning at 2:30am. She went through an heroic end on her own terms after fighting a brief but bitter battle with an inoperable brain cancer. She shared her love and warmth with many and those who called her friend almost always formed a deep and lasting bond. She loved the best in each of us without judgment.

    Kelly was a musician, poet, and artist and what she loved the most was her family and most particularly, her children Josh and Cory. She will be missed but not forgotten as she has left her imprint on our hearts.

    Many of you already expressed beautiful sentiments in my earlier post and I shared them all with her several times. To say she was touched would be an understatement.

    Victory for 3rd Way Democrats?

    Well, it's Monday morning, figuratively speaking, and victory has many fathers & mothers while losing's an orphan, as JFK noted. So putting a stake in the ground...

    Has the centrist Democrat revived over the last year? Let's see how this went - Wilmont Collins won as a black Liberian immigrant in Helena - and a member of Child Protection Services and the Naval Reserves - focused on support for the homeless and increased funding for police and fire departments. Can we split that baby any nicer?

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    Michael Maiello's picture

    On Donna Brazile...

    ...yeah, no, I just can't.

    Except to say that I really don't believe that Bernie Sanders ever expected a warm embrace from the party establishment that he was explicitly running against.

    Also, the warm embrace of the party establishment does not seem to translate automatically into winning the general election, so there's that.

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    Week in Rear View: All the Kingsmen

    Lost almost an hour's worth of link collecting last night trying to summarize the shape we're in, so here's a quick stab as the news keeps piling up.

    Big news last week was Manafort & Gates being indicted last week & finding out Papodopolous had pled and talked some months ago - Rick Gates being key as he stayed on with Trump's campaign to the end, while Manafort slid out earlier to avoid controversy (but never cut connections), while more of Manafort's ties to Russian mafia/power brokers became public. Judge found this week Manafort's release from home confinement denied as risky. But that quickly led to a slew of other revelations.

    Remember, Trump himself notes he hires all the smart people, the rich people. What you're smelling is the stench of burning braincells and crime cells - ain't it grand?

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