War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
In the wake of last weekend’s big NATO Afghan pow-wow, the war in Afghanistan has to be considered finished, kaput, wiping-hands-clean, get-the-shit-out-of-Dodge over with and a debacle for history scholars. Except for the Afghan people: Aleema, a sad-eyed girl in ragged clothes, is one of the 447,547 “internally displaced persons†who have fled their homes,…
In these pre-dog days of pre-summer, the days are getting longer, and to me anyway, the nights are also getting longer — I suffer from a mild dose of insomnia on occasion, a pain in the ass that effects the eyes and head. And the environment continues to suffer a kind of insomniac problem, too…
In the midst of all the damaging news out there, this from Gallup was indeed sad — a point for the poor in not only in cash-on-hand, but the poor in heart: Stay-at-home moms also lag behind employed moms in terms of their daily positive emotions: They are less likely to say they smiled or…
As if on cue late yesterday afternoon, a thick, moist portion of coastal fog descended upon my little stretch of northern California coastline and eliminated any view of the rare annular solar eclipse which swiped across these parts on its course from Asia. In the quick descending fog, which filled a sunlight sky in a…
One headline yesterday that just screamed bullshit was atop stories of THC found in Trayvon Martin’s bloodstream — a medical examiner’s report also revealed traces of cannabinoids in his urine. All the MSM news stories carried that in its lede — and the problem? Instead of having an actual impact on what happened the night…
Up earlier this morning than normal, but even much surfing through online news nothing seems to strike an emotional chord — most of the shit is so depressing, each click seems just like the last one. Apparently, the whole world is going to shit in a wire basket. And it’s getting frustrating because I have…
After years of the worse president in US history has mostly been under cover. Few know the guy’s even still alive, much less still walking around, acting like a dumb-ass — George Jr. maintains a low profile. Even in throwing a quick, by-the-way-endorsement of the latest GOP noodle: “I’m for Mitt Romney,†Bush told ABC…
In the neurotic groundswell last week of the absorption of gay people and the bullies that define the genre, the wars overseas have lost a lot of its news flavor with American audiences, despite the fact young GIs are still killing and dying over there — now they’re being made dead by their Afghan comrade-at-arms.…
Chump change: A trivial sum of money, a trivial matter. For example, Dave was sick of working for chump change, he wanted a decent salary, or, ‘Don’t put that on the agenda, it’s chump change.’ This expression uses chump in the sense of “a fool or sucker who should be ignored.” [Slang; 1960s] Also see…
Beyond the gay rights issue and Mitt Romney’s memory problems about being a bullying-asshole, the preposterous-incompetence of the war on terror is near blinding. Hard to fathom, but the frightful state of mind is enormous: Eighteen-month-old Riyanna has been called a lot of things: cute, adorable and now … a suspected terrorist. The US TSA…