Philosophy, politics, and religion from behind the bar.

Just a collection of some classic Christopher Hitchens. I particularly liked the first one on death and afterlife. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/dec/16/christopher-hitchens-debate-highlights-video

All of this in one 24 hour news cycle: Suggestion that the "mentally retarded" should work for $2/hr. Post State of the Union interview with Rachel Maddow goes off the rails for one Kansas US Representative. Teabagger walks out on the SOTU, citing irrational, hypocritical, and paranoid extremists views. Representative threatens reporter on camera after SOTU. Didn't like the question. Disregard that the GOP tried four separate rebuttals to the State of the Union speech last night, the official one being incomprehensible, off topic, and devoid of substance (I missed the other ones) . This is a party on its last legs, with no moral compass, and no message, running scared. This just in from the garbled wasteland that is the mind of Sarah Palin: What would GOP rancor be without the Quittah from Wassilla weighing in. Jon Stewart calls out the Republicans on lies about "bi-partisanship".

  Nice sentiment. But for most of the poor, the powerless, the dispossessed, the unwanted minorities, the majority of humanity, one time being wrong can make the difference of eating, or not, having a place to live, or not, being free, or not, breathing anymore, or not. Wealth and privilege gives you the ability to make mistakes.   Often the cost of these "mistakes" the wealthy and powerful experiment with (like "trickle down economics", cutting regulation at the behest of corporations, etc...) redound on the poor, and have little cost, often great benefit, to the experimenter.  

  http://www.liberalamerica.org/2014/01/25/dow-falls-300-points/   President Obama is giving his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, and the pundits are saying that income inequality is going to be a large theme in the speech. So what happens to the stock market on Friday? Both the Dow and the NASDAQ tumble about two percent. We can argue cause and effect here. My thought? Manipulation. Terrorism. Theft. Again. The markets aren't nervous.   I know it's an easy sell to say that all this talk of "socialism" is bad for business. That's the point, or one of them. The market manipulators have a chance to send a message somewhat less subtle than a dead fish wrapped in the business section of the Wall Street Journal. This is just another huge chance to raid retirement accounts  and pension funds, and steal more of the assets of millions of people. And to tell the President, "You got a nice economic recovery happening here. Be a shame if something happened to ...

  Suziema has her final checkup for the hip tomorrow, and we're hoping she gets the "all clear" for everything as far as the hip is involved. Next, a checkup from the neck up. She drank an entire bottle of wine and passed out early, and I hear her muttering in her room...

http://wildassguesses.blogspot.com/2014/01/bridges-rethought-and-gop-in-16.html From that other blog of mine.

   Zero affect on the 2016 race. Here's why: http://wildassguesses.blogspot.com/2014/01/christies-bridge.html

  This is turning into more of an op/ed page, but it's a piece (or at least intended as a piece) of personal journal as well. A slice of time and place. That being said...It's the coldest night of the year.   How cold? I took an outside break for a smoke...It's snot freezing in the nose cold. It's footsteps on snow exploding like artillery. It's wind cutting through a winter coat like it's tissue. A moment to smoke in what to a lot of the country is balmy Ohio. We have a day or two of sub-zero temps, while our northern brethren are seeing cold 20 or 30 or more degrees colder, and for a week or more longer...   It's mostly mid-sixties in my world, because in my world, I rarely step outside. The other side of these walls is a hell-scape. Stay safe and warm, America. Spring is just a breath away. Randy Newman:   Won't somebody help the naked man?

  Nope. On watching the series through a second time, I've changed my mind. The trappings of the series make you think you're watching a smart, almost dirtier, grittier version of The West Wing. It shares the rapid talking/walking scripts, a character actor, and the trappings of White House power, but all told, it has no heart and no point. It has a few interesting characters, the interplay between the  scheming Chief of Staff and his husband, and the rapacious ambitions of the first lady to note, but the whole thing is just porn. There is hope that you might be watching something better, but it turns out just to be manipulative violence.   I'll probably keep watching to see if it turns any corners, but the payoff is always just, "So what?"

May become my new TV addiction. It's a little over the top as violence/torture/conspiracy porn, but it has a lot to say about where we are today. All the characters, repeat, ALL the characters are "good guys", or at least not as bad as they act, in their own minds. And nobody has a total grasp on all of the real facets of what's going on. (Including the viewers, which keeps it interesting.)

Experience from following current events, politics, and religion for the past 45 years, and working in restaurants, shows that there is nothing more dangerous than arrogance and ignorance in positions of authority. Unfortunately, it's the American tradition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiicluGPFZI&feature=youtu.be Candy confections created to cover-up and sell inferior products.

One of the gutsiest lps ever. An opera to the downtrodden, released right when Reagan was declaring "Morning in America" and the theft began in earnest. NEBRASKA, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN   The country went batshit nuts, and never recovered. I remember taking a train from Hartford to New York in early 1980, and there was a girl with some sort of pin on that said she was from Boston. I was leaning toward Ted Kennedy at the time, and assumed she was for him as well. She got very pissy with me and gave me some screed about killing babies. She was all Reagan. It was before the primaries.... I remember thinking..."uh oh"... At that moment, I knew we were all fucked. The album was released in 1982. We were all expecting another great rock 'n roll epic. What we got was so much more powerful, considering the zeitgeist of the times. For that one shining moment, Bruce was the Woody Guthrie of the modern age. He's returned to the themes since, (consider, for inst...