Sonny and Cher

I hate "Amerika" because it is the least interesting of Franz Kafka's three novels. Just kidding. My favorite is The Castle, then The Trial and Amerika comes in third. Just didn't have quite the level of curious explicitness (Thomas Mann's description) of the first two. Oh, America? I love the guy who rode his lawnmower from Anderson Indiana to Green River Wyoming, but I hated Amber and Jason when they ate Denibian Slime Worms on "Fear Factor." I love the guy who shot his TV set because Bristol Palin sucked on "Dancing With The Stars," but I hate the two young Cops who intercepted Bob Dylan when he was strolling down the street in suburban Long Island; those policemen, probably born after I was already 25, took Bob to the station-house, 'cause he "looked suspicious" and they didn't know who the hell he was! I hated Sonny and Cher, but love Milky Way bars. I hate Hillary Clinton, but thought Chelsea ran an admirable campaign. I love the rich taste, it's the Mountain Dew I can dew without, and last weekend I picked a terrible time to quit amphetamines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmW-ScmGRMA

Obie Wan Kenobe

I'm not an enthusiastic Obama supporter - Barack has a lot to explain in terms of how he betrayed those of us on the "Left" who supported him in 2008. Hell, I HAVE a lot to explain as to why I voted for him. I guess it boils down to: "Me, vote for McCain!?!" That would've been insane. "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb Iran..." Cute. Plus, McCain would have escalated in Iraq, just as Rick Perry still wanted to, in 2011!Obie's escalation of Bush's Afghan war and his trampling on the human rights of American citizens on his "Kill List" are just two of many terrible deeds. But some of the Repub accusations are patently disingenuous, and laughable at best. As if Obama were singularly guilty of running up the national debt through his inadequate "Stimulus!" Face it, Repubs, Obama inherited much of that debt, in the form of the continuing effects of George W. Bush's notorious tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, which further drained the treasury. Republicans invariably spend like drunken sailors. They start unjustified wars that they finance "off the books." They pass Medicare prescription drug bills that only benefit Big Pharma, and cost a fortune. And they insist on giving the One Percenters yet more and more tax breaks, even as their claims that such tactics will create more jobs fall flat. Of course, Obie's consistently maintained those manifestly unfair subsidies for the Richie Richers. Obama continues to commit big "fiscal errors," by pandering to the Wall Street crowd who supported his 2008 campaign to the tune of $600 million. Obama basically gives the plutocrats everything they demand. Now, with his Super PAC, Obama is barely distinguishable from the Repubs in terms of fundraising. But if I ever expected anything different... that's MY folly! Still, In the final analysis... if I were religious, I'd say: "Thank god I'm not a Republican!" I'm still strongly considering writing-in Bernie Sanders in November, unless someone can convince me there's a better candidate.

Jesus was a nice JEWISH Boy

I've been meaning to be fair about all this anti-religion rant and rave I've been promulgating. So it's time to go after Judaism. Now, I need to be careful, given the notorious historical fact of Anti-Semitism. Don't want to get tagged as a self-hating Jew. Even though it's only my NAME, not ME, who is Jewish. Hey, there's a place to begin right there - my mama ain't Jewish, but my papa is, yet I'm a sheggitz! I'm goddamn Goyim, even though Grandpa and Grandma were respectable, if not devout, Jewish Folk. So I feel rejected, Wah! Well, I've got the solution: I despise the Hebrews who penned Old Testament, and here's why: Any group of MEN who could write such a phony, primitive, sick, sadistic, genocidal, perverted book as the Old Testament sure as fork cannot be "All Good." On the other hand, if you examine the New Testament, it would appear that the morbidly-fixated Jews who wrote that compendium of fables must have been.... masochists. "Get me down off that cross, PLEASE!"

Remember Antelope Valley!

American society's short-term memory affects the national awareness to a surprising extent. How many of USA's people now living remember the 1942 German invasion of southern California? Starting out from their bases in the Bismarck Archipelago, island-hopping across the vast Pacific, the Krauts stormed the beaches of Malibu that July. After secure beachheads were established in LA and Ventura counties, the Jerries fought their way north-east, into Antelope Valley and the San Gabriels. The Wehrmacht very nearly cut off Metro LA from the rest of the country. You probably don't remember any of this if born after 1950. Fortunately, USA's educational system, including instructional TV, was much better during the Great Society. That's how we know the deciding factor in the epic Battle of California was bad screen-writing and the Krauts' inability to withstand Death Valley's relentless heat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgoiDbhff9Q&feature=endscreen&NR=1

God is Dead

I realize I've been treating the psychic and physical crimes of Organized Religion with kid gloves lately; nonetheless, it may be time to move on to less nauseating phenomena. It's like the old saying, "Don't want to flog a dead god..." So allow me to leave my reluctant audience-victims with this bit of fun: http://brucegerencser.net/tag/freedom-from-religion-foundation/

That Dirty Book, the Holey Bible

Yet AGAIN, late last night, I tried to read that Bad, Baddest, Bad-Assed Book, The King James Bible. Love the lurid, licentious language, but the text is generally too psycho-pornographic. Beginning with the geriatric jism of Genesis, and ending with the ergot-induced rascals who rabidly wrote the ribaldry in Revelation, the Holey Bible is just too dirty, even for me. Too much Sodomy in Leviticus, and the erotic imagery of the Song of Songs gets me too hot and bothered to fall asleep without dramatically increasing my valium dosage. Too many women get stoned, not with enjoyable herbs, but with boulders. Too many cities wiped off the map, and hapless wenches transformed to pillars of salt. God is a mean and sadistic old man, and he badly needed an editor. I like Shakespeare, but Old King Jimmy didn't benefit enough from his scribes' abilities: most of the passages are sophomoric, redundant, and redundant. The Bible: Pretty much a real snoozer, fit only for a boozer.

Harry Hopkins had it right!

I saw on a friend's Facebook page the other day that "Economic Stimulus plans are unconstitutional" and "The 'panics' of the 19th Century were short-lived." My response: "It's interesting that you point to the 'Panics' (really Depressions) of the 19th Century as evidence for your claims. Though you maintain they were short-lived (apparently as a result of any and all government intervention in the "Glorious Free Market") let me go back in time to a rather more recent period, and quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Federal Emergency Management Administrator, Harry Hopkins. Regarding the more than 3000 writers and artists helped extensively by the New Deal, Hopkins quipped: "Hell! they've got to eat just like other people." How true! Starving people, of whom there were a surprisingly large number in the 1930s, had to eat right THEN, not a couple years down the road. Indeed, we all have to eat, and recessions/depressions and "panics" as they were called back in 1837 often lead to overall economic downturns lasting for several years:" http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071001164354AApUblEstarted this off with a digression. But what I really want to confront is the unsubstatiated contention that economic stimulus programs are illegitimate. Let's take as our paramount example the most well-known stimulus program of all, the New Deal of (roughly) 1933-1940. First, let's begin by conceding that the USA had been in Depression since 1930 (the agricultural sector, actually suffered through a terrible and prolonged farm crisis throughout most of the 1920s, but that's grist for another argument) when FDR was inaugurated on March 4, 1933. FDR's predecessor Herbert Hoover had displayed a disgracefully inept and callous attitude to the widespread joblessness and suffering across the land. Examples: employing army units under Douglas MacArthur to drive out the "Bonus Marchers" (please google) encamped in Washington, and doing far too little far too late to allieviate the plight of those living in miserable, tar-paper "Hoovervilles." Hoover was so unpopular during that era of official 25-33% unemployment, he had tomatoes thrown at him during a speech in Detroit. The Capitol was surrounded by armed troops, a bit like these days, but that's another digression. Suffice to say, the country was largely overjoyed when the New Dealers moved into the White House. What was the New Dealers' answer? Well, one of an admittedly bewildering array of New Deal programs was the Civil Works Administration, or C.W.A. It ended up employing 4,264,000 people. It built or improved 40,000 schools; laid 12,000,000 feet of sewer pipe; it built 469 airports, and improved another 529; the C.W.A. built or improved 255,000 miles of roadway; employed 50,000 to teach adults or keep open rural schools that would have otherwise been closed; it built or improved 3,700 playgrounds and athletic fields. (see "Roosevelt And Hopkins, by Robert E. Sherwood, Harper & Brothers, P. 57 Copyright 1948): http://books.google.com/books?id=24cGAQAAIAAJ&q=roosevelt+and+hopkins&dq=roosevelt+and+hopkins&source=bl&ots=8DMYcEv1gO&sig=YAoKlgjFf46zI6tHwmjlXM9xUbU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9iQCUMmoJ4rArQG_jbmxDA&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAARoosevelt and Hopkins books.google.com. Meanwhile, all through this period, and especially during the earliest days of the Great Depression, the rich minority stubbornly refused to spend any substantial part of their fortunes in a productive manner. The "Magical Hand" of Private Enterprise remained idle while banks failed, wiping out the life-savings of untold hundreds of thousands. Factories were shuttered, resulting in untold millions of men and women losing jobs. Nobody knows even how many children went hungry. I won't even address in this comment how the Depression itself was brought about by Avaricious American Capitalism, whose stock market encouraged millions to invest irresponsibly on "Margin." But check this out: http://www.amazon.com/The-Pecora-Report-Practices-Commission/dp/1449523226The Pecora Report: The 1934 Report on the Practices of Stock Exchanges from the "Pecora Commission" www.amazon.com

"She blinded me with Science!"

has to be fair and admit that, although I favor reason and the scientific method over religion and superstition, Science has gotten us in one hell of a pickle. Chloro-flourocarbons wearing out the Earth's protective ozone layer. Massive increase in greenhouse gas emissions, a result of burning fossil fuels in reckless ways that Eighteenth, Nineteenth and even Twentieth-Century science enabled. At least Science also provides us with the solutions to those grave problems science had much to do with bringing about in the first place. Yet when it comes to the Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, widespread proliferation of nuclear power plants like Three Mile Island and Fukushima Dai'ichi, and the deadly fallout they created, I'm not so sure even Science can save us. "Captain Picard, we need you and your Enterprise, now!" Still, moi, I prefer analysis and the empirical method over prayer, "speaking in tongues" and self-inflicted rattlesnake bite.

What would make me happy?

To begin with, I'd be happy just to see "prayer" and "faith" kept out of the schools and courthouses, off the currency, and don't even get me started on the Pledge of Allegiance.

Willard the Rat Romney

When one considers the total down-side of a rat-like WILLARD Romney presidency... Well, let's just say the "alternative" to Barry Obama looks less and less tolerable. Each and every day Willard denies being with "Bain Capital Punishment" is another day full of Romneyesque lies. If it looks like a document, talks like a document... it probably IS a 2001 document with Willard's signature on it. Yet ...the Mittster claims he was only "visiting" the old office!? And demands apologies from Obie, with a straight face!? Obama has a lot to apologize for, but not for actual truth telling. Wow. If Romney IS "elected" (another presidential fix seems to be in the cards, in Florida yet again) we will ALL soon be shouting: "All hail the OUTSOURCER in CHIEF!" And we'll be yelling such things straight outta the unemployment line.

Irrational Believers ruined my Secular Country

While it's highly likely your average person of faith is a decent fellow or gal, I question the ability of each and every theist or pantheist, be they Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Muslim, or Hindu, to routinely think rationally. I believe they are handicapped from the beginning by adherence to their various irrational faiths. And the hierarchies? UGGGHHHH!

My favorite tongues

likes (the audible impressions of) German for its clarity, Dutch for its gutteral quality, French for its elegance, Spanish for its rapidity, Portuguese for its sensuality, Italian for its romance, Hawaiian for its simplicity, Norwegian for its musicality, Danish for its slurring, Swedish for its melancholy, Czech for its majesty, Polish for its unspeakableness, Russian for its intrinsic poetry, Arabic for its phonetic complexity, English for its ineffability, Finnish for its perfectly phonetic spelling, Persian for its oddness, Hindi for its strangeness, Serbian for its prettiness, Hungarian for its weirdness, and Hebrew for its downright ugliness. What's YOUR favorite language?

Happy Independence Day!

Fourth of July you say? Well then!"I pledge indifference, to the Frag of the Divided Stakes of Americorn. And to the Republic, for which it STOOD, one station, Blunder God, with Servitude and Injustice for Oil!"