News Broke

Francesca Fiorentini

"Knowledge makes people question power, so it's no wonder politicians try to defund public schools, raise college costs, keep people working too much to educate themselves and stigmatize higher education as elitist. Knowledge is power to us, but to the people who rule us it's a liability."

Yes, it's Al-Jazeera. (bring your own grains of salt)

But here's the thing: I'll try to think through my own haze of ideological purity and see if there might be tiny kernels of reality outside my own little bubble.

Chris Hedges

People are not moved by fact or reason.  They are moved by skillful manipulation of their emotions.



And so, what is Hedges doing?  
And so, both sides...  
And so, we remain paralyzed.


Manufacturing Consent

Haves And Soon-To-Haves

Try not to think about Logan's Run or The Island or Roller Ball or whatever.

Justice Delayed

Monica Marie Goodling, the key figure in the controversy about the political hiring and firing of U.S. Attorneys during the Bush Administration, has received a public reprimand from the Virginia State Bar.

A VSB subcommittee concluded that Goodling, a member of the VSB since 1999, had violated ethics rules by committing “a criminal or deliberately wrongful act” that reflected adversely on her “honesty, trustworthiness or fitness to practice law.”

Read the full decision.

But, hey - she was a douchebag for Jesus, so we're not gonna lift her license; and after all, she didn't really mean to break the law.

At a certain level, the power and the money and the position make it impossible for anybody to be guilty or to be held to account for anything.  The best we can hope for is that "nobility has the good grace to die by its own hand in matters of honor."  This is just all pretty fucked up right here.