The Unkindest Cut of All

Last night the three lead dogs of the Republican slog pack spent half their time insulting each other while jabbering over each other like kids on a playground.

On each end of the field, two dignified leaders found it difficult to enter into the A Tu Brutay fray that was was playing out, back and forth over the fifty-yard line, where mister haughty master of ceremonies held court.

The saddest fact of all is that the man best qualified to fulfill the office of the President of the United States is Gov. John Kasich.

But that will never happen because by this time next year that office will be occupied by the guy who thinks he knows how to fix everything.

Trump will be like a Roosevelt, but without the benevolence. FDR was, like the Donald, a take-charge kind of guy, which is certainly what we need now, but. . .

Whereas Roosevelt's arrogance was to some extent tempered by his polio disability, there is apparently no veiled vulnerability to impose a humility cap upon Trump's hubris. Trump as President will be like having an Il Duce in the White House. He will make the trains run on time; he will make the great Mexican wall get built; there will be something for every Tom Dick and Harry to take home when he gets to the end of the breadline, and Trumpcare will take the tricks that Obamacare had bid on. But there will be no joy in Mudville when the cows come home.

Which is to say, more like a Caesar than a Roosevelt or a Reagan.

Whereas Trump displays some admirable plain-speaking qualities, his unceasing projection of what is referred to in Psalm 101 as the "haughty look" will ultimately be his downfall; and the cold hard truth is it will ultimately be our downfall too.

America, if you want to hookup with this guy there is nothing I can do to stop you, but be sure you got some Trojan-enz to slip over the projection before it enters into the sacred Oval orifice, because you are about to be violated.

Smoke

The Narrative of the Ancient !con

In this episode

we find PMUnicomm inquiring among the projection heads as to what is going to happen next and how should we proceed from this point and what strategy should we devise to beat the numbers because they be indicating correction ahead and NIRPy deadends between buyin dips and sellin peaks and rockofdebt and hardplace of reality, so Arioch chiefofstaff say to PMUniCom:

BLS-BS say UnEmp be way down and thats good but LabrPart don't match up to historical precedental expectations so we brought in DaProphit to make recommendation for FEd shells to be moved thus and such so game can go on and broncos can beat panthers and bulls chase bears off into sunset. So here be DaProphit and he say:

You, O PMUnicomm, were dreaming and behold there was a single great !con on your !phone, which was large and of extraordinary splendor and it was standing in front of you and its number of followers was awesome, like in datrillions.

And you saw, O PMUnicomm, the head of the !con was made of silvergold, its breast and arms of ironsteel, its belly ass and thighs of assets, its legs of stokbond, and its feet partly made of toxi and partly made of asset.

You were like this is awesome what the hell is it and while you were grokking it a rock was cut but not with human hands because the hand was busy writing on the wall and the rock suddenly smashed the feet of the !con to smithereens and the tox and the assets and the stokbond and the ironsteel and the silvergold came tumblin down and humpty couldn't put the dumpty back together again. But the rock that struck the !con became a great mountain and filled the earth.

And as you watched, PMUnicomm, the credits began to roll on your !device and it was time to find another fluffup.



Glass Chimera

Perfect Constitutional Ambiguity

Eleven score and nine years ago, our forefathers brought forth upon this nation an original Constitution, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that people can govern themselves.

Now we are engaged in a great political debate, testing whether our nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.

We are met now on a great battlefield of that nation's politics, a battle-boulevard that stretches from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other.

We have come to this crossroads to dedicate a vacant seat to that great cause for which many of us have labored, and for which many of us have given our strength, our endurance, our political partisanship, our blood sweat and fears and in some cases our very lives.

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this--that we should dedicate this vacant chair.

It is for us, the living, to be now dedicated to the task remaining before us--that from this honored dead Justice we take increased devotion to that cause for which he gave the last full measure of his jurisprudence--that we now highly resolve that this dead Justice shall not have served in vain, and that that timeless Constitution upon which our freedom and liberty has been laid shall not now itself be sacrificed upon the battlefield of partisanship, but that, accordingly, the President "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate," a Justice of the supreme Court, and that:

Our Constitution's prescribed procedure, set forth in perfect ambiguity so that neither one Branch of our government, the Executive, shall presume to dominate the other Branch, the Legislative, nor shall the Legislative obliterate the the Executive. . .

Therefore do we resolve that this embattled chair--our untimely and inconvenient ninth-chair vacancy--can, and should be, and will be, determined and thus fulfilled by us, the living, in this our 21st-century circumstance as it exists here and now, and still yet through the Constitutional protocol that was set before us, lo, these many scores of years ago. . . and furthermore that:

Our government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.



Glass half-Full

February

Little woodpecker out my window pane

why you have on you spotty self that little red mane?

Did you flitter by the bird store for that sporty red hat

or did your mama give you that?

It's pretty good though; you got that little red spot;

makes me appreciate just what you got,

a lively color to brighten this wintry scene,

so by this weary human you now be seen.

Thanks for stopping by, oh little friend of mine;

come, display you red spot any time.

And you, you little sparrow with stripy breast;

I hope you know we've given you the best

of bird seed that human money can buy;

we put it out so you'd stop by.

This wintry scene is dreary and cold,

and this man inside be weary and old,

but so glad to share a seed or two

with stripy little critter like you.

Yes, we be so happy to provide

for critters who on the wind can ride,

One day my soul will glide away from here;

will you be there to help me steer?



Glass half-Full

Reminds me of the kids' whisper game

Honestly, I think we can do better this this, but maybe not.

The horserace groupthink has taken control of our TV people this year. It happens every election year, but this year worse than ever.

A perfectly deplorable example of how tribal infighting trivia has taken over vid-journalism has been dissected by Michael Brown, writer for Townhall.com.

I'll not explain the whole ridiculous chain of events; his exposition is quite sufficient:

http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbrown/2016/02/05/draft-n2115304

Now what I'm thinking is this: It would seem appropriate that the voting citizens of our nation would be considering, in this election year:

~ why our .gov owes so much more money than it can repay to its creditors,

~ and what can be done about it,

~ how we can minimize pollution without being ruled by climate-banging control freaks,

~ how we can reconstruct a manufacturing sector that is relevant to 21-century needs and economics,

~ how our great, unprecedented military capability and its supportive infrastructure cannot be put to good use in making the world a better place for our people and for the nations,

~ how to help men and women stay married so they can raise their children together,

~ why we cannot effectively educate all our children and prepare them for life-well-lived in the 21-century

~ how to judiciously keep the golden door of opportunity open to the homeless huddled masses of this strife-torn world

~ how to get people fed and housed without castrating nor sterilizing their personal independence and initiative,

~ how to encourage, by our policies, personal and collective responsibility instead of systemic dependency,

~ how to make peace, and encourage constructive cooperation, between cops and citizens in our cities,

~ how to enrich, through our common efforts, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all our people who care to make an effort to improve themselves and their children and neighbors,

~ how to select a President and Vice President without all this fluff and bullshit.

So it would seem appropriate that we would build and patronize a communication system that would enable us to talk about these problems in the context of national politics, instead of:

why one candidate tried to take a few days off from the rat race and how it has no effect on what's happening in Iowa or New Hampshire or Peoria or Pennsylvania or even Pennsylvania Ave.

Maybe some of you hyped-up vid-journalists need a break. Take some time off, go home, like Ben did. If you need someone to replace you in the interim, give me a call. I'm currently unemployed, and gladly will I take your mic and your twitter feed and show you it could be done better. Besides, I've never been to New Hampshire.

King of Soul

Between Jerusalem and Damascus

Along the regions of the Jordan River valley, about three thousand and twenty year ago, there was a war going on between two descendants of King David. Asa king of Judah, and Baasha king of Israel, were contending for two different regions within the land that had formerly been, in one brief, shining moment of history, Solomon's united domain. This situation might have been, then between two Hebrew monarchs, a little bit like what they have today in Israeli domains between, say, Likud and Labor. Or maybe not, anyway. . .

The dispute was more about bloodshed then, more about politics today.

So in the course of Israeli history about three thousand and twenty years ago, Baasha king of Israel (based in Shechem) went up against Judah (based in Jerusalem). Towards that end, Baasha built a fort in Ramah, just a little ways northwest of Jerusalem, in order to prevent anyone from going out or coming in to collaborate with Asa king of Judah.

Then Asa took all the silver and the gold which were left in the treasuries of the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, and the treasuries of the king's house, and put them into the hands of his servants, so that they could deliver those precious goods to Benhadad, king of Aram, who lived in Damascus.

Thus King Asa of Judah was was proposing a treaty between himself and Benhadad, that is--between Judah and Aram, or as we might think of it today--between the Jews and the Syrians.

Asa was saying to the Syrian king, hey look, I have sent you a present of silver and gold; go, break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel so that he will get the hell out of my face and leave us alone over here in Jerusalem.

Well guess what, Benhadad listened to King Asa, and so he sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of northern Israel.

When Baasha heard about it, he withdrew from his southern position at Ramah, and ceased fortifying it.

Then King Asa made a proclamation to all Judah, and they carried away the stones and timbers that Baasha had used to fortify Ramah. And King Asa used the building materials to build Geba and Mizpah.

Thus we see that not much has changed in the last three thousand years, pertaining to how peoples settle their disputes, except nowadays it's more about concrete and steel than about stones and timbers. And nowadays how likely would it be that the Judean entity, lead by Benjamin (Netanyahu) would ally itself with a Damascus-based warlord such as Assad?

As for the other events of Israeli/Palestinian territories, are they not written in the annals of Semitic history?

Smoke

An English Lesson for Birdbrains

In the English language, appending an "s" at the end of a common noun renders the word plural, as in:

Birds eat.

Example:

The other side of the story in English is this: appending an "s" at the end of a verb designates the present tense:

Bird eats.

Example:

In the Faith language, appending a statement of faith to an event renders it more meaningful.

Example:

"Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them."

In Economics language, appending a bird pic and a statement of faith to an unemployed birdbrain's idle musings renders the event an experience of faith instead of foolishness.

That's today's lesson.

Go in peace.

Glass half-Full