War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
Once again, and I couldn’t help, another post on Bob Woodward and the state of journalism as it covers national politics and war. As a nit-wit young reporter, in the original viewing of “All the President’s Men” in 1976, I was much-more captivated by Dustin Hoffman playing Carl Bernstein than Robert Redford as Woodward —…
UPDATE BELOW The hard life of a modern journalist. (Illustration found here). In 1976, when the movie, “All the President’s Men,” was released, I’d been on the job about 18 months as a police reporter — a newbie nearly in the world of newspapers — and had discovered I was a natural at it, taking…
Odd is history. What little of history I’ve seen, one truism for sure is that history does repeat itself — what comes around goes around. People who’ve had a strong hand in developing parts-and-parcel the world’s current shit-storm also enjoyed a role in events past — revealing a character study in nasty, carry-a-big-stick-and-use-it warmongering. Even…
As anyone gifted should know, a cigarette and a cup of coffee is the maximus-a-mode in a perfect remedial coupling — no matter the clock face. And then, take that coupling, couple it with an environment of other like peoples and stuff, and faster-than-you-can-say-Kafka-three-times — innovative/enlightened speech and thought develops. (However, in these more-than enlightened,…
Beyond peak oil, climate change, the financial meltdown, peak soil, the GOP’s “Pledge to America,” the death of Eddie Fisher, the population bomb, etc., etc. — what else could possibly disrupt my golden years? From NASA: “The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see…
In all the hullabaloo this week about Bob Woodward’s new book, “Obama’s Wars,” seemingly no one took notice of the big lies that led to that horrible, incoherent inheritance. According to documents released yesterday by the National Security Archive, in January 2001, in one of the first meetings of George Jr.’s administration, the newly-minted, nit-wit…
(Added stuff below) News this morning that one of the great assholes of our time (on the rock-face with Dick Cheney), damn-dumb Don Rumsfeld, will release his “autobiography” early next year and will tell the tale straight — as if the sonofabitch could say anything with a straight face. The book’s working title? “Known and…
Famous, mega-rich person, Marie Antoinette, has been credited, though not so in reality, with the ugly phrase, “Let them eat cake” when observing the starving poor — a similar asshole stance from GOP wag, US Sen. Mitch McConnell: “…that no one in this country will pay higher income taxes next year than they are right…
One nefarious up-tick of a shit-bad economy is an increase in cannon fodder. The New York Times reported in January 2009: “When the economy slackens and unemployment rises and jobs become more scarce in civilian society, recruiting is less challenging,†said Curtis Gilroy, the director of accession policy for the Department of Defense. And a…
Everybody everywhere always tries to put a little positive spin on nasty, unsettling or just plain dangerous shit, especially in connection with the two biggest influence-disasters facing mankind — peak oil and global warming (excuse me, “global climate disruption“). Do these spin doctors and nurses have any regard for their children or grandchildren? Can they…