War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
Quiet and kind of warm here this early Tuesday morning on California’s northern coast, a disarming false front to the hushed riot building all over the world. As US peoples go ga-ga over gay rights — who gives a fat-rat’s-ass who the couple is next door when the neighborhood is on the brink of a…
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.…
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…
Creatures of the future in the hardcore words from the dangerous mind of Dick Mourdock, who whipped Dick Lugar in Indiana on Tuesday: “What I’ve said about compromise and bipartisanship is I hope to build a conservative majority in the United States Senate so that bipartisanship becomes Democrats joining Republicans to roll back the size…
One of the bedrocks of being alive and being anywhere near ‘successful,’ is having a job — working a wage. And although job openings in the U.S. rose in March to the highest level in more than three years, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker noted yesterday unemployment remains at “a very elevated…
In a most-personal and open manner, Rick Santorum endorsed Mitt Romney for president — the broadcast via e-mail at about 11 o’clock last night. Who’s the wiser? Reportedly, last Friday Romney visited Pittsburgh where he and Santorum clinched together for “an over-hour long one-on-one meeting,” and three days later, the endorsement came in the middle…
Moist weather here early this morning along California’s northern coast — a seemingly continuous drizzle which turns into a deep, wet fog and then back again. Fairly normal, though, for this region, but it still gets old, and everyone appears jolted with a zest for life at each sliver of sunshine, which comes infrequently. Rare…
Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. — George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946 (h/t Juan Cole) Politics is weird. And creepy.…
One item that’s fallen off the news radar the past few weeks is gas prices — no more the hand-wringing stories of people going without food to fuel their vehicles and all is well. Out of sight, out of mind? You betcha. Yesterday, I put another $20 worth of gas in my Jeep with the…
Mitt Romney waxing eloquent Friday at Otterbein University in Ohio: “The impact of gathering facts, gathering information, learning about the reality behind the words, has proven to me, in the business sector, that facts are more important than words and that results are more important than words,” he said. “So as you look at the…