Sum It Up
The Sum It Up question from Sunday was: Will North Carolina’s conservative trend last?
I’m afraid it’ll last for at least another generation, until our young people realize the bankrupt philosophy for what it is: one driven by selfishness and fear.
It’s one thing to want to be fiscally conservative. It’s one thing to want to be reverent and reserved. It’s another to try to destroy our education system, our social safety net, mental health services, etc., all in the name of God and lower taxes.
Conservatives don’t seem to realize that they live in a society with other people; they want to get theirs and say the hell with everyone else. That kind of attitude always winds up biting you in the long run.
JANE FREEMONT GIBSON
Politically speaking, the GOP will be in power for a while or at least until the next redistricting comes around. The GOP had gerrymandered the redistricting to their advantage. Even when the next redistricting arrives, the political landscape will not change much if the GOP is still in control. Remember we just entered the Art Pope era, and money power will stay in dominance for some time.
BOON T. LEE
Only as long as more citizens value fiscal responsibility, economic growth and constitutionally protected freedoms.
DEB PHILLIPS
It will last for at least four more years. I would never have chosen Pat McCrory had I known he would select the far-right cabinet he has chosen, especially Art Pope of all people. I think North Carolina is preparing to be one of the most backward states in the country.
NAOMI J. DAVIS
The takers are outpacing the makers, and in this past election, we escaped the former by a hair. One can hope that the hairless can be set back further if only in North Carolina.
LLOYD V. EVANS II
North Carolina has always been a conservative state. The core values have not changed over time. Political party affiliation, however, swings like a pendulum.
The conservative trend attracts the populace as budget reality sets in. The people know the Democrats can’t and won’t fix spending, just add taxes. So the Republicans get their turn.
One of two things will happen. If they fail to fix the problem quickly, they will be shown the door quickly. If they fix the problem and there is money to spend and votes to be bought, the hogs will quickly be back at the trough, and the Democrats do a better job of vote-buying than anyone else.
KEN HOGLUND
By “conservative trend” you must be referring to the recent election of large numbers of nut-job Republicans to the N.C. General Assembly and the passage of the same-sex marriage amendment in 2012, both accomplished by unprecedented massive voter manipulation and bald-faced gerrymandering. (Republicans won 77 percent of assembly seats in 2012 with just 51.1 percent of the popular vote.) We are a center/right state with a very strong libertarian vein. With hope, sensible North Carolinians can soon return us to that position before the right-wing bullies and tea party wingnuts now in charge ruin our state.
KAM BENFIELD
I contend the conservative (i.e. Art Pope/ALEC) trend will last until the damage done affects and awakens a majority of North Carolina’s voters.
Sadly, after scandalous redistricting, voters were hoodwinked into electing a reckless bunch of Pope-picked politicians who are determined to control our public schools, including our university system, control women’s bodies, control the ballot box, control our health care (or the lack of it), control the expansion of Medicaid, control by decreasing unemployment benefits, control those allowed to purchase lottery tickets, control our court system, control and privatize our water systems (note what is happening in Asheville). The one thing they do not want to control is guns.
Personally speaking, I find our state government disturbing and downright frightening. It would behoove voters to begin paying attention and to become concerned and aware of our shrinking democracy. We the people deserve better.
ANNE GRIFFIS WILSON
"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." --Voltaire
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGood AM, folks!
ReplyDeleteI doubt that Boon and Kam complained about gerrymandering during the decades of Dem rule.
How bad was the gerrymandering under democrats? Did 51.1% of the vote garner any where near 77% of the representation? I don't know, but I suspect that it was not nearly as bad as it is now. For example the democrats made sure Ham Horton still had a reasonable chance of retaining his seat, while the republicans this cycle purposefully drew Linda Garrou out of her district making the line just outside her residence. I think the same thing was done to Dr. Eric Mansfield M.D. in Fayetteville. It may have been unfair before, but in my opinion it is very unfair now. Humans generally can live with a little unfairness, but the situation now is very sad for our state. Privatize, voucherize, punish people for being poor and deregulate everything except lady parts.
DeleteGood AM, Wordly, you may well have a point, but the argument is over degree. Yes, it is unfair, but it was unfair before, so arguing that it was a little unfair may a "little bit pregnant" kind of argument.
DeleteThat said, I stand by my comment re Boon and Kam, but also note that I am not pleased with the beneficiaries of the gerrymandering, either. But, when the Dems retake the GA, as they inevitably will, I will be watching for howls of indignation from the left as the Dems work their will.
So long as Democrats are doing the screwing, everything is fine. Don't you understand liberals Stab?
DeleteWomen want to be able to kill as many people as they want through abortions, but they don't want people to be able to defend themselves, with assault weapons, from criminals and the violent, mentally ill.
DeleteMakes perfect sense to a liberal.
Don't speak for women: you understand women less than anyone I have ever met in my life.
DeleteHas anyone told you lately that you deserve to be a Democrat?
DeleteGG's drone question from yesterday: Let 'em fly. If they hit traitorous Americans plotting and fighting alongside other AQ members, well, you reap what you sow. If an American is so engaged, he or she should be regarded as an enemy combatant.
ReplyDeleteAs far as drone surveillance in the US is concerned, I do not see a problem. We have surveillance from vehicles operated and occupied by humans. We wiretap, eavesdrop on radio (including cell phone) transmissions, use thermal imagers at night (even seeing inside structures), and security cams are everywhere. One more way to see doesn't bother.
As for domestic weapons delivery, that is another matter. I would prefer for humans to physically pull triggers, or better, serve warrants. But, if a subterranean drone were to have stealthily bored into that AL bunker and shot the kidnapper, I doubt many would have complained.
SEATTLE Seattle's mayor on Thursday ordered the police department to abandon its plan to use drones after residents and privacy advocates protested.
DeleteMayor Mike McGinn said the department will not use two small drones it obtained through a federal grant. The unmanned aerial vehicles will be returned to the vendor, he said.
CBS
____________
'Liberty' to liberals is having the government protect them 24/7. I don't understand why they would object. They don't seem to care much about 'peepers' in other areas of their lives.
I don't have any problems with drones either. The "American" in question had risen to a top post within the al-Qaida ranks and had admitted to be waging war against the US. I see drones as intelligent cruise missles that can be delivered to any desired target, but with the added benefit of observing whether civilians are present before striking to minimize innocent casualties.
DeleteAs for domestic use of drones, it's a tough call, but I do see benefits to using drones to locate missing individuals, spot wildfires, capture fugitives, etc. Privacy is a legitimate concern, but in the era of Google maps which can almost display your license plate to the world, how much privacy is left?
DeleteHi Staballoy and Dotnet:
DeleteInteresting thoughts.
The talk show on the radio yesterday seemed to indicate that "the left" was adamently against drones. I would be curious to see some scientific poll numbers on that. Not so sure I agree.
Thoughts on drones:
1) I agree they are fantastic for gathering information, spotting and reaching targets with minimal loss of innocent life.
2) I guess the "minimal" loss of life, from our perspective as the owners of the drones, seems indeed minimal. I'm not so sure the innocent people in Pakistan, for example would agree.
3) I genuinely hope the technology gets more precise.
4) Not sure I'd like another country's drones in my air space. As a matter of fact I wouldn't like it. Just read a report saying China now has a handful of armed drones. Hm. Changes the perspective a bit.
5) Am fine with US drones in US airspace.
6) Rules of engagement in war will continue to be rewritten in our lifetimes. Al Quaida wages war without following international war standards: not wearing uniforms, attacking amongst civilians in non-war zones, etc., so I think drones are a necessary and obvious first step in the new playbook. Buckle up, I think it will get more and more interesting.
I look forward to reading more thoughts on the matter.
China has more than a "handful" of armed drones. They only began developing drones about five years ago but already have developed several models that are as good as or better than any that we have. The Japanese, of course, are already locked in a "drone race" with China. Both countries have highly efficient models in production. Of course, the Japanese ones are for sale to anyone who needs them.
DeleteThe Chinese focus is currently on Russia, where a conflict may be brewing along the Amur River in Siberia, where Chinese citizens have crossed into Russian territory, established farms and trading centers as far as 100 miles into Russia.
That being said, I do not expect to see Chinese or Mexican drones circling BB&T Ballpark during Dash games anytime soon. But the Pentagon takes these matters seriously:
'Israel, Britain and the United States have pretty much had a corner on the global drone market, but the recent Chinese air show and a Pentagon report have exploded that notion.
“In a worrisome trend, China has ramped up research in recent years faster than any other country,” said the unclassified analysis published in July by the Defense Science Board. “It displayed its first unmanned system model at the Zhuhai air show five years ago, and now every major manufacturer for the Chinese military has a research center devoted to unmanned systems.”
The report, which said “the military significance of China’s move into unmanned systems is alarming,” suggested that China could “easily match or outpace U.S. spending on unmanned systems, rapidly close the technology gaps and become a formidable global competitor in unmanned systems.”
Two Chinese models on display at the Zhuhai show — the CH-4 and the Wing Loong, or Pterodactyl — appeared to be clones of the Reaper and Predator drones that are fixtures in the U.S. arsenal. A larger drone, the Xianglong, or Soaring Dragon, is a long-range, high-altitude model that would seem to be a cousin of the RQ-4 Global Hawk.
Huang Wei, the director of the CH-4 program at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, told the state-run newspaper Global Times that his lightweight drone can carry cameras, ground-searching radar, missiles and smart bombs.
“As the Americans say,” Mr. Huang said, “the U.A.V. is fit for missions that are dirty, dangerous and dull.” '
___New York Times, November 27, 2012
Where was Hillary?
ReplyDelete____________
"Why didn't you put forces in place to be ready to respond?," Senator John McCain asked the general.
Dempsey started, "Because we never received a request to do so, number one. And number two, we --"
McCain iterrupted, "You never heard of Ambassador Stevens's repeated warnings?"
"I had, through General Ham," responded Dempsey, referring to the commander of AFRICOM. "But we never received a request for support from the State Department, which would have allowed us to put forces--"
"So it's the State Department's fault?"
"I'm not blaming the State Department," Dempsey responded.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/general-benghazi-we-never-received-request-support-state-department_700403.html
__________
Hillary was probably out getting her nails done.
Benghazi is a tempest in a teapot, stirred up by political nonsense and perpetuated by fools. Since Benghazi was a CIA operation, at this moment, no one knows what really happened there, and no one will until the CIA completes a long and thorough investigation. Even then, we will only know what the CIA allows us to know.
DeleteBefore the late 1960s, attacks on US diplomatic targets overseas were rare. The first serious attacks occurred in 1926 in Uruguay and Argentina in response to the Sacco and Vanzetti trial. Attacks became common in the late 1960s in response to the Vietnamese conflict and Nixon's secret bombing in Cambodia and Laos. Attacks peaked in 1991 under GHW Bush and have dropped off sharply ever since.
During the 2012 presidential campaign, Paul Ryan tried to cash in on American deaths by claiming that foreign diplomats are only safe when Republicans are in office. Of course, like much else said by Ryan and his pal Mitt, that is bullshxt. Here are the facts, the average number of annual attacks on US diplomats by presidential administration since 1970, courtesy of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism:
Nixon/Ford 13.7
Carter 13.8
Reagan/Bush I 19.8
Clinton 10.1
Bush II 5.8
Obama 3.0
The lowest number in any year since 1970 is zero, in 2011, Obama's 3rd year in office. The second lowest is one, in 2000, Clinton's last year.
The highest number is 33 in 1991, GHW Bush's next to last year. The second highest is 31 in 1986 in the middle of Reagan's two terms.
Clinton had 28 in 1993, his first year. After that, his average fell to 7.7.
I don't think I could assemble a group of more loony, liberal people than CNN has unless I got Rush and a group of his friends together.
ReplyDeleteAnderson Cooper, in the below report, says that he and his colleagues think that 1 M.O.A. means 'Imagine a More Open America.' The story is a about a fired cop killer.
And people wonder why CNN doesn't have a clue about anything.
Skip to the 4:00 mark to get to the core of the lunacy.
Note: I have reviewed the video and Anderson Cooper is not in a Speedo for those that might be offended.
http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t1#/video/bestoftv/2013/02/08/ac-bill-bratton-dorner-package.cnn
Good afternoon folks! One more week of winter gone (although the NE is getting a month's worth today), 6 to go.
ReplyDeleteSum it up: If true conservatives had been elected to office, then possibly so as Mr. Bamfield correctly stated NC is a center right state. However, the legislatures elected to office have shown themselves to be class A right-wing nut jobs who want to turn NC into a TB utopia under the rule of the church, ALEC and Duke Energy. Hopefully, NC voters will soon long for the days of Democratic white collar malfeasance with strong educational support, support for the most needy and little interference in personal decisions after seeing NC turn into a 3rd world, theocratic state.
You have a natural gift with expressing ideas very well.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteJust to survive, North Carolinians had to vote for Republicans this recent time around. Bev. and her bunch of backward, hillbilly Democrats really did a number on N.C. during the last four years.
DeleteBev. was so busy spending that 'free' Obama stimulus money, she didn't have time to develop logical ideas to propel N.C. into the 21st century.
So much for the phrase-if only we had a woman in charge.
References to dotnet's social life are now prohibited, except those made by dotnet.
DeleteOT is not a juvenile lawyer. I do not think he has a law degree but I don't know for sure, but we can dispense with references to his nonexistent juvenile court appearances.
Speaking of juvenile, these personal references have become very old, Bucky. If you terminate them, along with your fixation, the comments regarding your psychology will no doubt desist. If you do not terminate the insults, the psychological analyses will be unnecessary. Get back to real news.
That should be "if you do NOT terminate them . . ."
DeleteRush has made clear inferences to being a lawyer and going to court. I don't miss much Stab.
DeleteAs far psychoanalysis goes, you might want to direct some your disdain to some of the budding psychoanalysts in here that have me, so called, figured out.
It seems that when I make some comments in here that make people feel uncomfortable with their absurd positions on things, they like to attack. I merely respond in kind, which I think is fair.
Rush has never made "clear inferences" or anything else about being a lawyer or going to court.
DeleteHe has frequently made references to his actual profession. He holds an MD in Psychiatry from the University of Chicago and a PhD in Philosophy from Johns Hopkins. He specializes in the philosophical areas of psychiatric diagnostics.
He is a volunteer in the local juvenile justice system, which does not involve appearing in court.
Recommended reading: Painless Reading Comprehension by Darolyn Jones, MS.
Wow, no wonder you could explain projection so well. So you know Baltimore too. Impressive cv OT.
DeleteWhile I was at UNC, the dook students I met were total snobs, but basically harmless. Within the last week, however, there's been reports of a dook fraternity being suspended for a party mocking Asians (who no doubt comprise a significant pct of the student population) and now some attendees at the game last night asking NC State player Tyler Lewis who lost his beloved grandmother last week "How's your grandma?". Very poor PR week.
ReplyDeleteYears ago, NCSU had a player who had fathered 2-3 children sans wedlock. When State played at Duke, the Cameron Crazies threw condums at him.
DeleteAsian-Americans and Asian citizens make up about 28% of Duke's undergrad enrollment and about 30% of the grad school. Those percentages can go even higher in other top American universities.
DeleteI remember that NC State incident. Since I have no dog in the ACC hunt, I can safely say that the fans at all ACC schools are mostly jackasses.
Yeah, I think groups of people can get insulated and depersonalize their behavior. Even when the group is comprised of "nice" people. Entitled frat boys are prone to being a special kind of sh*t head.
DeleteMust keep in mind that the word "fan" is short for fanatic.
DeleteAnd then there is the "unfan", who goes to games in all sports solely to scream abuse at the officials, just as our resident negativist does about almost everything.
Now Now Rushie. Don't get testy. How was juvie court today? Did anybody go to detention?
DeleteAsians have have always thought they were better students than 'whities' or the 'Americans' as they call them. Some of them deserve what they get.
DeleteDook = rich kids who couldn't get into Princeton.
DeleteUNJ-Durham
DeleteTrenton is a bigger dump than Durham.
DeleteTrenton is not all of New Jersey.
DeleteTrenton makes the world takes, baby.
DeleteHaters gonna hate.
Besides, Princeton's another world.
DeleteGg makes a good point...New Jersey's nickname, "The Garden State", puzzled me until my friends and I started attending the Newport Jazz festival in the 1960s. Preferring back roads, we drove through the "back" part of Jersey and were astonished at what we saw. Princeton and other Jersey towns and cities are quite beautiful places. Also some great beach towns.
DeleteAnd indeed, as Arthur says, Princeton is another world, a place that someone like Tiny would instinctively dislike.
"Trenton is a bigger dump than Durham." says the noted world traveler and expert on demographics, urban planning and places like Asia and Trenton and Durham that he has never been to. Where to begin?
Delete1. According to the book Intelligence and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations by Richard Lynn, Asians and western Europeans do dominate the IQ race. The average IQ for the top eleven:
Hong Kong 107
South Korea 106
Japan 105
Taiwan 104
Singapore 103
Austria 102
Germany 102
Italy 102
Netherlands 102
Sweden 101
Switzerland 101
The US is tied for 19th at an average of 98, two points below the median, and behind such nations as Mongolia, Poland and Hungary. Within the US, Asian-Americans are the top demographic in IQ, well above WASP men, who rank behind WASP women.
And in terms of income, the number one demographic is Asian-American men, followed by Asian-American women. WASP men, despite their built-in "good old boy" advantage, come a poor third.
Our top scientific grad schools, such as MIT, Cal Tech, Cal Berkeley, Cal San Diego, U. Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, etc, are dominated by Asian-American and Asian students.
2. My Asian-American and Asian friends do not use such terms as "whitey" (the correct spelling) or "Americans", because the first group are Americans and the second group are far too polite and civilized to use any derogatory terms.
People like Tiny, who use such terms, are the lowest common denominator, losers all. Of course, they "project" their own lowness onto others of much higher accomplishment…that's the way of losers.
3. Trenton has many nice areas, but it is far from paradise. Of course, Tiny has never been there, so his opinion is irrelevant, as it is for places like Baltimore, which he recently referred to as a "dump". Since I spend time in Baltimore every year, I know that Baltimore is one of the more delightful cities in the country, as is Milwaukee, which Tiny no doubt hates, since Tiny hates everything that he is ignorant of, which pretty much covers all the bases.
Durham, despite the presence of the University of New Jersey-Durham, is also a delightful city, as are Raleigh, Greensboro, Asheville and others. Tiny would be equally unhappy in Charlotte or Fayetteville, other places where he has never been.
US senators propose assassination court to screen drone targets
ReplyDeleteRead more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/08/us-senators-propose-assassination-court-to-screen-drone-targets/#ixzz2KKb2YkJO
____________
Right now, Obama is the judge, jury, and executioner with drone use. I say take away his 'assault weapons'.
A REVOLVER by Carl Sandburg-recently discovered poem.
ReplyDeleteTimely for gun and even drone topics of today.
A REVOLVER
Here is a revolver.
It has an amazing language all its own.
It delivers unmistakable ultimatums.
It is the last word.
A simple, little human forefinger can tell a terrible story with it.
Hunger, fear, revenge, robbery, hide behind it.
It is the claw of the jungle made quick and powerful.
It is the club of the savage turned to magnificent precision.
It is more rapid than any judge or court of law.
It is less subtle and treacherous than any one lawyer or ten.
When it has spoken, the case can not be appealed to the supreme
court, nor any mandamus nor any injunction nor any stay of ex-
ecution come in and interfere with the original purpose.
And nothing in human philosophy persists more strangely than the
old belief that God is always on the side of those who have the
most revolvers.
Astounding. Wow.
DeleteI believe drones were attacking AQ targets before President Obama was inaugurated, so the judge, jury, and executioner title goes back further than 01/20/2009. I believe there is a bit more consultation that just Obama snapping his fingers, including legal consultation. Military targets tend to be fleeting, however, so I oppose anything that drags out the decision process past what is in place now.
DeleteDrones were introduced into the US military arsenal in 1995 during the Clinton administration and have been used for combat missions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia. But 99.9% of drone use is for surveillance, at which they are superb, both overseas and here at home, where they are used for border patrol and many other jobs, including scientific study.
DeleteTheir current use in Pakistan would be a clear violation of the air space of a sovereign nation, so there is a secret agreement with the Pakis to allow the flights. Ordinary citizens in Pakistan see them as weapons of terror, no different from anything employed by Al Qaeda.
Because of design limitations and the fact that most attack drones are flown by CIA "pilots" in the US, there is often a delay of up to several seconds between what the "pilot" sees on his screen and what the drone actually "sees". The targets of drones were quick to realize this, so if an attack drone appears in an open area, their tactic is to run or drive away at a 90 degree angle as fast as they can, so drones are truly effective only against stationary targets. Because of this risk, drones are handed over to line of sight "pilots" for takeoff and landing.
Several hundred deaths of innocent civilians have been documented…there have probably been many more. Since they are merely foreign rag heads, Americans don't care. If the same thing happened to American citizens, the reaction would be quite different. For this reason alone, armed drones will probably never fly in the US except under extraordinary conditions.
The presidential last word on drone attacks dates from the Clinton administration. It is primarily meant to prevent or limit civilian casualties, as well as ensure that the reason for the attack is appropriate. The President is a very busy man…the decision to make the attack is actually made by intelligence people…the President is given a quick briefing and says yea or nay.
As Stab points out, military targets are fleeting. The idea of some sort of court is preposterous…even if such an entity was extremely efficient, drone targeting is a matter of seconds, not minutes or hours.
The truth is, because of the extreme secrecy surrounding drone operations, ordinary Americans are not really qualified to make decisions on drone use. The New York Times and a few other news agencies and the ACLU have spent years trying to force the government to become more transparent as to drone operations. Don't hold your breath.
BTW, the idea of judicial oversight of American drones originated in China...what a surprise.
DeleteI wonder if you can hear a drone? Does anyone know?
DeleteWith regards to the secrecy surrounding drone operations, I think it would counteract the advantage to them right? I mean we shouldn't share the best secret we have, right?
Yes, you can hear a drone. But it is engineered for as close as we can get to silence…new innovations coming every day. It's not like a Cessna 150 or a Beech Baron, which the whole town hears, but if things are relatively quiet, you can definitely hear it.
DeleteThe secrecy business is not about the technology and the actual operations. Believe me, the Pakis know far more about drones than you or I do, and every time they hear or see one, they start worrying about their own personal safety, because they are aware that far more of them have died in drone attacks than leaders of Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
The issue raised by the New York Times and many others is about that very same matter. What is the cost-benefit ratio? How many innocent people have died for the handful of enemy leaders killed? That is a major issue because every time civilians are killed, the Taliban and Al Qaeda benefit recruiting and funding wise.
The main problem with drones is the main problem with all high tech warfare…without boots on the ground, how do we really know who we are shooting at?
The poem Wordly posted makes an impressive statement. For no reason other than I am not poetic, it reminded me of an unrelated poem that I, being somewhat impatient in nature, can relate to. This has no relationship to any discussion, just wanted to share:
ReplyDeleteThe Shoelace
a woman, a
tire that’s flat, a
disease, a
desire: fears in front of you,
fears that hold so still
you can study them
like pieces on a
chessboard…
it’s not the large things that
send a man to the
madhouse. death he’s ready for, or
murder, incest, robbery, fire, flood…
no, it’s the continuing series of small tragedies
that send a man to the
madhouse…
not the death of his love
but a shoelace that snaps
with no time left …
The dread of life
is that swarm of trivialities
that can kill quicker than cancer
and which are always there -
license plates or taxes
or expired driver’s license,
or hiring or firing,
doing it or having it done to you, or
roaches or flies or a
broken hook on a
screen, or out of gas
or too much gas,
the sink’s stopped-up, the landlord’s drunk,
the president doesn’t care and the governor’s
crazy.
light switch broken, mattress like a
porcupine;
$105 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at
sears roebuck;
and the phone bill’s up and the market’s
down
and the toilet chain is
broken,
and the light has burned out -
the hall light, the front light, the back light,
the inner light; it’s
darker than hell
and twice as
expensive.
then there’s always crabs and ingrown toenails
and people who insist they’re
your friends;
there’s always that and worse;
leaky faucet, christ and christmas;
blue salami, 9 day rains,
50 cent avocados
and purple
liverwurst.
or making it
as a waitress at norm’s on the split shift,
or as an emptier of
bedpans,
or as a carwash or a busboy
or a stealer of old lady’s purses
leaving them screaming on the sidewalks
with broken arms at the age of 80.
suddenly
2 red lights in your rear view mirror
and blood in your
underwear;
toothache, and $979 for a bridge
$300 for a gold
tooth,
and china and russia and america, and
long hair and short hair and no
hair, and beards and no
faces, and plenty of zigzag but no
pot, except maybe one to piss in
and the other one around your
gut.
with each broken shoelace
out of one hundred broken shoelaces,
one man, one woman, one
thing
enters a
madhouse.
so be careful
when you
bend over.
Charles Bukowski
And yes, the prices and technology (carburetor) are out of date.
DeleteBukowski is one of the great things that happened to the world. If you ever get to hear Wish read one of his poems, there will be an eery echo.
DeleteSome people think that poetry itself is out of date. For years, the city of New York sponsored an advertising placard in each subway car that had a short poem on it. It cost the city some money, so somebody asked "Why do we do this? Does anyone actually read this stuff?" The placards were removed.
The result was astonishing. City Hall was bombarded by thousands of complaints saying, in effect, we want our poetry back. The complaints came from every layer of the spectrum, from Wall Street brokers to mid-town lawyers to business owners to garbage men to cooks and dishwashers and waitresses, and yes, transit cops.
The placards went back up. Poetry, like music and painting and sculpture and architecture and prose fiction and all of the other arts, is an indivisible part of civilization.
Sounds like my week, thankfully without the crabs or purple liverwurst.
Delete4 years ago when this kind of thing was popular on Facebook, I took a quiz called "Which Alcoholic American Writer Are You?"
DeleteI was Bukowski...was hoping for Faulkner. What it actually says about my personality, I have no clue.
Don't bend over, Arthur.
DeleteHa, ha. Never seen purple liverwurst, but have seen blue salami…what a disappointment…at the time I was dying for a salami sandwich, but it looked like a scientific experiment in a Johns Hopkins lab.
DeleteAnd yeah, Arthur, we'd all like to be Faulkner, but if we actually knew how Faulkner lived we probably wouldn't. Bukowski was a great original thinker, the highest calling any of us could aspire to.
As to bending over, one of Tiny's favorite themes, one wonders if he is aware that a few years back one of the top stars in porn was a guy called Ben Dover. Kind of fits.
Hi Phargo:
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if your goat had it's kid yet?