Robin Williams

I decided to wait a while before saying: "So long, Robin Williams, and thanks for all the insight!" I'm really going to miss him, miss him already. Not because I found him the FUNNIEST comic, either. He was frequently funny, true. But he was also so damn INTERESTING. Robin had some things to actually teach people, acting out in a plethora of effective roles. "Patch Adams" was another good example of this. I think many of us in the audience "feel his pain," though we wouldn't do what he finally did, trying to escape. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM-gZintWDc

Madison's interminable psycho-political inquisition

Been hanging out on the outskirts of Madison - lots of coffee, lots of stops at PDQ stores, abandoned parking lots - great bike paths that cut a swath through lonely wood lots, especially at night. Meadow and marshland, even a few decent-size hills. You can see where the great glaciers stopped, 11, 10 thousand years ago. PDQ has coffee that's even better than several considerably-more-expensive coffee houses on ever-more exorbitant State St. Going Downtown has all the charm in store for me as visiting an assembly plant that churns out Humanoid Androids. Damn straight: I'm intensely enjoying going back to some of the flagrantly apolitical activities that made me feel alive in former years - studying foreign languages, painting and drawing. Made me feel GOOD - quite unlike immersing myself in "to-the-death arguments" regarding geo-political considerations, War in Gaza or Iraq, US domestic policy, and all that other cursed domain that turns ones intellectual life into a F_cking emotional sewer. Particularly as an influential minority of the people on one's own side are worthy of contempt at best! That's just Human Nature at work - it's my own damn fault if I've romanticized what SOME people, including those "in my camp," are really LIKE. "ALLES KLAR, Herr Kommisar!" Can't bring myself to play music, at least not yet. But this hanging at the periphery has been a big boost for my morale - vastly superior to another goddamn lecture by some figure I don't care HOW damn lauded he or she is by the Madison cognoscenti. I reiterate - I don't care that you don't care that I don't care. For the first time in years, I feel some relief from those Madison Elites who populate the Left side of the dial. Don't take it personally, you individual leftists; most of the rank and file are actually exceptionally DECENT Folk. Those of you not actively promulgating Madison's interminable psychopolitical inquisition get all the free passes you could ever desire. It's the Commissars, the Arbiters of liberal public sensibility, that annoy me so. Up to a few weeks, month, years ago I was "of them," in the sense I thought I bore them some allegiance or affinity. Not so, never again, but then I only refer to the Higher-ups in the pecking order. I have moved on; my favorite people are now (always have been in fact!) the typically "apolitical" blue collar residents of the urban outskirts or inner suburbs. They don't try to slay me with "Veganism!" They are a joy to behold, a sight for sore eyes, something wondrously different to listen to! We've enjoyed many meat-intensive dinners together! Now I KNOW Familiarity Breeds Contempt, and I could surely write a lot more vicious critique than this declaration. This is just a basic acknowledgment that I HATE "THE MADISON ISTHMUS POLITICAL CULTURE," to the extent that it rises to that level. It's true this place encompasses me geographically and historically. I will not sit in some damn UW lecture hall again. EVER. Maybe it's not the Elite's fault - they're no doubt suffering the slings and arrows of political futility - and I sympathize - I'll always be a leftist, even if can't stand so many of the local left's cultural attributes. That I can't help; I'm not an IDIOT. I could never become a right-winger. But certain Madison Elites high-up in the "Progressive" order often evince a level of arrogance that could make a green monkey blanch. There are far better alternatives, in human terms. One especially outstanding abandoned feed mill over on the East Side - everybody loves that spot, even the artisti who wanted to make of it an "Arts Incubator." In all fairness, the building will have to be renovated soon, or turned directly over to the youth who tag it in glorious profusion of spray-paint. Bestowed totally into the custody of those youth who care enough to decorate it. That WOULD be best, but the sickening, yuppie-beholden, busy-body, cop-calling Neighborhood Organization would piss beet red if that ever happened. Still, good luck to the YOUTH, they're gonna need it, inheriting this fracked up world. And what the F-ck, I'll just say it; I strongly believe in the Second Amendment - within the bounds of reason, of course. So, as a group, I really don't give a rat's ass what Vegans think. You Isthmus-Veggie-fanatikos can put your sacrosanct Veganism where the F-cking sun don't shine. (The scapegoating of those unfortunate vegans, is of course, a semi-humorous parody. But when the "bastards" insist on defining a person based on stuff he said, she said.... it all becomes so superficial, so inadequate as an indicator of the WHOLE Human being, whichever way he or she is seeking to change, to bust out of all that damn claptrap from before. I'm not drunk, I'm just writing as if I were, ahem.)

Capitol Hill Dems on their knees!

Just for the record. This in my inbox. Have Capitol Hill Democrats lost their collective MIND? Any public relations pro could tell them they lose what tiny bit of esteem they MIGHT conceivably have left, by taking this pitiable approach. Just for the record.... I am NOT one of their RICH BENEFACTORS. So tell it to George Soros, Oh Ye Corporate Dems! "Listen, we're BEGGING. We're out of people to email you. In the last two days, you should have received an email from: -- President Obama -- Vice President Biden -- Nancy Pelosi That's how important this is! We're getting massively outspent by Republican groups. And we're fighting desperately to turn it around. We need 14,731 more donations in the next 24 hours if we want any shot at giving President Obama a Democratic House for his final two years. record.... "

Ferguson MO, USA

Interesting, the situation in Ferguson, MO. For one thing, the protests keep going on day after day! Bravo! Though I've gotten wind of no other "disturbances" breaking out around the USA. JUST Ferguson. Also, the reports from the mainstream are interesting in terms of what they DON'T say, as well as what IS talked about. To wit: it took until Yesterday, when I saw a pic of a burnt-out convenience store to realize the situation is "For Real," and that the looting and burning aren't just a media-driven concoction. I'm serious about this - I had no real way of knowing just what are the facts on the ground - for all I knew the general state of mayhem might have been made up out of whole cloth. Thearbiters of public opinion are THAT hesitant to describe what's going on, lest the contagion spread, I guess! I also listened to some radio reports, particularly on the Thom Hartmann show, almost always a good source. The police repression has been pretty severe. The cops are using CS gas, which is notoriously disabling and tossing highly incendiary outdoor flash bombs. One man had his clothes on fire; whether he was an actual rioter, that wasn't entirely clear. If the police and their overrseers what this to stop, they need to stop shooting and killing unarmed youth, in a disproportionately LARGE percentage of such cases, black youth. http://www.stltoday.com/news/special-reports/michael-brown/#utm_source=stltoday.com&utm_campaign=hot-topics-2&utm_medium=direct

Mr Brian Eno Speaks Out on Gaza, Israel, West Bank. Peter Schwartz replies.

Just because Brian Eno wrote this piece, which is highly critical of Israel, it doesn't lend it any special credence. There's also no reason to disparage the piece, just because Brian Eno wrote it. Especially in terms of describing facts on the ground, this letter DOES have the ring of truth about it, IMO. The piece also contains a response by Mr. Eno's friend, Peter Schwartz. Peter seems to be trying to stake out a "moderate" position. "Gaza and the Loss of Civilization by Brian Eno, July 28, 2014" http://davidbyrne.com/gaza-and-the-loss-of-civilization I was pleased Peter Schwart's response was included. Personally, I think Peter's trying too hard, considering the asymmetrical nature of this war's human toll - to enunciate a position that takes the "Middle Ground." Israel's arsenal dwarfs anything Hamas can hope to assemble, thanks to your tax dollars at work. During the latest invasion, Israel has killed and destroyed vastly more than Israelis have been killed or their homes destroyed, a fact you can't just gloss over. And Peter erroneously presupposes that those of us who've been passionately critical of Israel haven't been sufficiently critical of Obama, Putin, Syria's al-Assad, and sundry other war criminals. (Though it bears noting that the USA doesn't send Syria's al-Assad $3-4 billion annually.) For my part, I haven't let their atrocities pass without condemnation. OK, perhaps I've not been SUFFICIENTLY critical, mind you. But I've had my say, right here on Monologue Mountain! So let me be perfectly clear: I am not going to attempt to "justify" Hamas' actions, across the board. But when Israel turns Gaza into the worlds largest open-air prison, Israelis should expect at least a few (hundred? thousand?) rockets fired at them in anger. No people interested in its own self-defense would do otherwise; even if these rocket strikes against Israel habitually result in the kind of Israeli Blitz the world is bearing witness to as I write. Being continually under the most inhumane kind of siege, having one's hospitals, mosques and schools blown up, and 1400+ Palestinian bodies blown apart - that will tend to make a man act out in frustration.