Jul 17, 2013

Death Penalty

I have to admit I think there are people in the world we can do without - Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Justin Bieber - you know, the worst of the worst.  So it's hard for me to say we should lose the death penalty altogether.

That said, we need to take a good hard look at what we're doing and where we stand relative to the rest of the "civilized" world.



State-Sponsored Barbarism isn't exactly what we want USAmerica to be known for is it?

And when we're the only "free" country that still kills its own citizens on a regular basis, it seems American Exceptionalism is completely ass-over-apricots.

Miles Davis

One of the weirdest cats in the business, and one of the great horn players ever.



Sorry - can't find a good link at Amazon.

Ella Sings Billie






The Marmalade






Jul 16, 2013

Lesson Time



And this from Tim Wise via HuffPo:
You remember, forever and forever, that moment when you first discover the cruelties and injustices of the world, and having been ill-prepared for them, your heart breaks open.
I mean really discover them, and for yourself; not because someone else told you to see the elephant standing, gigantic and unrelenting in the middle of your room, but because yousaw him, and now you know he's there, and will never go away until you attack him, and with a vengeance.
Saturday night, and I am writing it down so that I will not forget -- because I already know she will not -- my oldest daughter, who attained the age of 12 only eleven days ago, became an American. Not in the legal sense. She was already that, born here, and -- as a white child in a nation set up for people just like her -- fully entitled to all the rights and privileges thereof, without much question or drama. But now she is American in the fullest and most horrible sense of that word, by which I mean she has been truly introduced to the workings of the system of which she is both a part, and, at the same time, merely an inheritor. A system that fails -- with a near-unanimity almost incomprehensible to behold -- to render justice to black peoples, the family of Trayvon Martin being only the latest battered by the machinations of American justice, but with all certainty not the last.


And so begins the task.  It's like we have to start all over - or at least we have to back up to about 1985 and go over the whole thing again.

What makes this really hard for me is the (by now) standard pop tune coming from "the right", which goes something like this:  "We have a black guy in the White House, and we have a black guy sittin' on SCOTUS, and a black guy as AG, and black folk all over the damn place - that has to mean that we really are in Post-Racial Happy-Time, which means I'm free to turn loose all this pent up bigotry that's been festering in my soul for 30 years while I pretended not to be the complete asshole I always knew it'd be OK to revert to being once we got past all this racism talk."

Fuck me now, Jesus.

One Last Thing

...on the George Zimmerman cluster fuck.

Zimmerman goes free, and the gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin will be delivered back to him; and his Concealed Carry permit will be reinstated as well.

Nobody knows yet, of course, what he plans on doing - this is America after all and if you can't figure out how to cash in on the notoriety you've gained from murdering a teenager then you're the worst kinda loser - but one thing's for sure: Zimmerman will definitely be packin' his gat because now he has good reason to fear for his safety because of all the haters out there.

The guy with the best justification for his paranoia is the one with the guilty conscience.

Here's hopin' Karma's a real thing.


Civil War II

'Conservatives' are exceedingly fond of prattling about FREEDOM as if the word itself had some kind of magical power.

It's as if the Conservative Handbook has instructions that read: "Never mind the actual concept the word is supposed to represent - that shit's for the pansy-ass eggheads who spend way too much time thinking - just intone the word whenever you're in a debate that you know you're losing because you've brought nothing to the party but bumper stickers and t-shirts to rationalize putting your basest instincts into action.  Don't think, just act; and if anybody calls you on it, they're just a LibTard who's trying to take away your FREEDOM."

Here's a bit from a speech Mr Lincoln delivered in Baltimore almost 150 years ago.
"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name-liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names-liberty and tyranny.
"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the process by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty. Recently, as it seems, the people of Maryland have been doing something to define liberty [abolishing slavery in the state]; and thanks to them that, in what they have done, the wolf's dictionary, has been repudiated."
giant hat tip = Blue Virginia

Jul 15, 2013

The KrugMan Speaks

Generally, I need people to play in their own yards, but if you have something worth saying you should say it.
To fully appreciate what just went down, listen to the rhetoric conservatives often use to justify eliminating safety-net programs. It goes something like this: “You’re personally free to help the poor. But the government has no right to take people’s money” — frequently, at this point, they add the words “at the point of a gun” — “and force them to give it to the poor.”
It is, however, apparently perfectly O.K. to take people’s money at the point of a gun and force them to give it to agribusinesses and the wealthy.
Now, some enemies of food stamps don’t quote libertarian philosophy; they quote the Bible instead. Representative Stephen Fincher of Tennessee, for example, cited the New Testament: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” Sure enough, it turns out that Mr. Fincher has personally received millions in farm subsidies.
 And if it's worth hearing then I'm listening.

Today's Pix