Tell Tom Tildrum, Tim Toldrum’s dead.
Kali should be pleased: her little diatribe is currently no. 9 with a bullet when you google up “What is modern conservatism?”
“...Okay then. I'll need three tomatoes, a size nine-and-a-half shoehorn, a bit of string, and a small wooden spoon.”
Paul Kelleher
Yes, I’m calling to inform you that my mom died on the 24th of January.
Bank of America Estates representative
I’m sorry. Oh, it looks like she never even missed a payment. That’s too bad. Well, how are you planning to take care of her balance?
Kelleher
I’m not going to. She has no estate to speak of, but you should feel free to just go through the standard probate procedure. I’m certainly not legally obligated to pay for her.
Bank of America
You mean you’re not going to help her out?
Kelleher
I wouldn’t be helping her out—she’s dead. I’d be helping you out.
Bank of America
Oh, that’s really not the way to look at it. I know that if it were my mother, I’d pay it. That’s why we’re in the banking crisis we’re in: banks having to write off defaulted loans.
Over at Alternet, Joshua Holland wants to know why we aren’t rioting yet. Good question.
That plus twenty-six bits will get you a cup of coffee.
Ten years ago, Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a book on the effects of Clintonian welfare reform on the working poor, working a series of entry-level jobs to demonstrate that it is impossible to support yourself in this country with that work. Over at BoingBoing, Charles Platt worked at Walmart for “a limited period” to prove Ehrenreich wrong. —Turns out she was silly to insist on supporting herself with an entry-level job, because no one who works at that level attempts to be self-sufficient! It’s an unrealistic expectation!
More, please.
So what we’ve done here is do an apples to apples comparison of current unemployment numbers to the stimulus spending number using the Thune Stacking Formula as a basis of comparison. Here we have dollars stacked on top of each other versus current number of unemployed Americans stacked on top of each other.
If they’re going to try to tear it all down with the same old bullshit arguments, counter with more and better and bedazzling bullshit. Point and laugh; point, and laugh, most balefully.
Without food speedily on a platter,
Without a cow’s milk whereon a calf thrives,
Without a man’s habitation after the staying of darkness,
Be that the luck of the Thune of Dakota.
Doughty theep.
Does the fact I’m driving around with my windows down in February give me a free pass to sneer and point and hoot and laugh at global warming denialists?
Everything old is new again.
Earthworm-ennabled pundit Doug TenNapel seems to think he’s got something with this whole “conservatives are the new punks” meme. At least he’s admitting that “lefty politics are no longer the fringe.” —D. Aristophanes sets him up with a Mondale joke; Dsquared pushes him down the stairs.
Nossir, don’t like it.
When did they start having Super Bowls in February? I mean, it fucks up “Cubs in Five” when you do that.
Else.
Okay, I’m haunted:
HENRY lemon CREAM.
Put it all together and at this rate, the government—that is, taxpayers—will own much of the housing, auto, and financial sectors of the economy, those sectors that are failing fastest.
Consider too that the government already finances much of the aerospace industry, which is still doing reasonably well but depends on a foreign policy that itself has been a dismal failure. And a large portion of the pharmaceutical industry and health care sector (through the Medicare and Medicaid, the Medicare drug benefit, and support of basic research). These are in bad shape as well, and it seems likely the Obama administration will try to reorganize much of them.
What’s left? Most of high-tech, entertainment, hospitality, retail, and commodities. So far, at least, we taxpayers are not propping them up. And when the economy turns up—perhaps as soon as next year, most likely later—these sectors have a good chance of rebounding.
But the others—the ones the government is coming to own or manage—are less likely to rebound as quickly, if ever. If anyone has a good argument for why the shareholders of these losers should not be cleaned out first, and their creditors and executives and directors second—before taxpayers get stuck with the astonishingly-large bill—I would like to hear it.
It’s called Lemon Socialism. Taxpayers support the lemons. Capitalism is reserved for the winners.
So one might say that we are seeing not the tender creep of socialist possibilities into the national discourse, but their further erasure. Every time that we agree that the word “socialism” might refer to something other than, at a minimum, worker ownership if not indeed the end of surplus value extraction; every time that we misrecognize state corporatism as something other than a moment in capital’s “equilibrium in motion,” we “turn the wheel of discursive normativity a click” away from socialism. We forget what that word promises. Perhaps the most optimistic memory, as Jasper reminded us, is that the corporatist regimes have arisen historically in the fact of popular socialist challenges—but that in no way guarantees the motion will summon forth such a movement via some blind mechanism of counterweights.
“My bonus is ‘shameful’ — but I worked hard to get it,” said John Konstantinidis, a wholesale insurance broker, lunching Friday at Harry’s at Hanover Square.
“I’m a HENRY,” Mr. Konstantinidis added. “High Earner but Not Rich Yet.”
Nonetheless, it was rather remarkable on Friday how many white shirts denied getting a bonus altogether when they were asked. Indeed, if the data obtained by reporters in the district was any measure, there is no telling where that $18 billion really went.
What can be told, however, is that President Obama is substantially less popular on Wall Street this week than he was last week. Words like “outrageous,” “shameful” and “the height of irresponsibility” — especially when applied to a man’s paycheck — tend not to make you many friends.
“I think President Obama painted everyone with a broad stroke,” said Brian McCaffrey, 55, a Wall Street lawyer who was on his way to see a client. “The way we pay our taxes is bonuses. The only way that we’ll get any of our bailout money back is from taxes on bonuses. I think bonuses should be looked at on a case by case basis, or you turn into a socialist.”
That, indeed, was a recurring equation: Broad strokes + bonuses = socialist.
—”It’s Theirs and They’re Not Apologizing”
And I want to take that acronym, HENRY, and set it on fire and wrap it around his neck, but it’s still too goddamn bland; it just doesn’t sneer yet, not like YUPPIE or BOBO or CREAM. High Earner but Not Rich Yet. Fuck you, you silver-spooned Masters of the Universe.
Say you’re a banker and you flushed $30 million down the toilet, which is the actual scenario we’re looking at. When can we expect you to pay a part of that back?
You know what, Henry? That guy walking ahead of us, down the street? Too out of it to spaynge like the ghettopunks and anyway if he ever stopped walking the cops would roust him in an instant under sit/lie? Travel-stained, in the euphemism of fantasy novels, hasn’t seen the inside of a shelter in months in spite of the cold? No coat on his back but that sleeping bag clutched around his shoulders to draggle down the sidewalk? Not to pull a cliché trump, Henry, but he ain’t rich yet, neither. —And you know what else? He’s too big to fail, Henry.
We’re all too big to fail.
Race fail 2009.
This past Monday, on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, on the eve of Barack Obama’s inauguration, I discovered that the casting of the four leading characters for the upcoming live-action movie, The Last Airbender (based on the TV show, Avatar: The Last Airbender) had gone entirely to white actors. I want—no, need—to say something about this.
Following Jackson Rathbone’s footstep in addressing fans’ criticism over The Last Airbender casting, pop singer Jesse McCartney comes to MTV to share his response towards fans’ protest of the “all Caucasian” [sic] casting. The 21-year-old who is tapped for Prince Zuko part tries to assure hard core fans of the animated TV series that he will do his best to do justice for his character.
“I heard a lot about this online,” the singer who fills the voice of Theodore in Alvin and the Chipmunks explains. “There’s a lot of hard-core fans out there [who] probably know more about it… I’m still learning. This is M. Night’s vision and this is what he wants. To all the fans, I can tell you I’m putting my best foot forward.” He further adds, “I’ve been in kung-fu training for the last month and half-learning all the moves. I’m looking forward to it.”
The casting controversy came out after reports surfaced that karate-trained Texan Noah Ringer, Twilight actor Jackson Rathbone, Deck the Halls actress Nicola Peltz and singer Jesse McCartney have been offered the roles of Aang, Sokka, Katara and Zuko respectively. The casting of the four Caucasian actors brought out negative reaction from fans with accusations of racism.
Earlier, Rathbone has responded to the complaints, stating that it is his chance to show his range of acting. Speaking to MTV, he added on what he will need to do for Sokka’s transformation, “I think it’s one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan. It’s one of those things where, hopefully, the audience will suspend disbelief a little bit.”
—“Jesse McCartney Answers The Last Airbender Casting Criticism,” ACESHOWBIZ.com
“And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ and walking out. And friends they may thinks it’s a movement.”
Since getting angry doesn’t help my daughter, though, I took a breath and tried to do damage control.
I told her that love makes a family, not size or gender or anything else. She wanted to know, then, why other families aren’t the same.
“There are some like ours, honey. Like Austin’s family—”
“Austin has a dad. He just lives somewhere else.”
I froze. I don’t want to say that the same is true of her. It’s not. She doesn’t have a dad, she has a biological father who doesn’t even take our phone calls anymore, who either doesn’t tell his girlfriends that she exists, or lies and tells them that I cheated on him and he doubts he’s really her father. (The Missouri and Pennsylvania courts would be surprised to hear that, considering they ran three paternity tests and garnish his wages every week, none of which he even contested.) I don’t want to lie and say he loves her and misses her and thinks of her all the time, that the only reason he doesn’t see her is because he lives so far away and doesn’t have enough money to travel. It would end this argument in a heartbeat, it would make her feel better, but it would still be a lie. And it’d be a lie I’d have to answer for ten years down the line, when she becomes a teenager and he starts building his replacement family without her.
I froze for too long. She started to cry.
“Sweetheart, there are other families like ours.”
“Then where are they?” she demanded. “Where are they?”
I dropped the ball on this one, you guys. I dropped it so hard it rolled away down the street and off a cliff.
Help 
darlas_mom pick it back up and more. She’s looking for photos “of you with your actual families. Straights with kids, gays and lesbians with kids, single parents (both moms and dads), blended families, families of different ethnicities or multiple ethnicities.” She wants ’em all. —Get yourselves into her book.
Cordwainer Bush.
Look on his works, ye mighty, and despair—
Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
I can’t believe they missed the obvious snark.
I mean, Katee Sackhoff is available, right?
A final complaint.
I do wish the young men of today wouldn’t refer to our people as “mamma” and “poppa.” It’s demeaning, and degrading to family values.
This is Kali’s last post.
hello my name is thurber and this post is where i say goodbye
poppa is disappointed
he says we havent written anything since he got home
but youre home youre home we say
and also more food
and anyway rabbit day is over i say
but he says it isnt
its dark outside though
yes but rabbit day ends at midnight he says
and beezel says its just as well because he never knew i had such a crush on abbie the cat
and beezel also says kali is at best a rarely well done lobster but i dont know what that means
so i jump him and poppa yells and mamma says stop it stop it and beezel hides under the stairs
he never got the newspaper job
or the tuna
but kali got some email shes been gloating ever since
and very mysterious and if you ask she pretends to be angry
she says meh a lot
meh meh
poppa says shes the only cat that quacks
anyway poppa said somebody had to say something
because he couldnt since it was still rabbit day
and beezel is still hiding under the stairs
and kali is saying meh
so
goodbye
ISO newspaper columnist.
Thurber doesn’t think we’re strong enough to turn a house upside-down.
“Forget about that,” I tell him. “Real estate is a chump’s game. We’re getting into journalism.”
“But you don’t keep a journal,” says Thurber.
“What do you think we’re doing today?” I say. “Besides, not that kind of journalism. Opinion journalism. Ops and eds. It’s a lot like journal journalism except everybody has to read you and they pay you lots of money.”
“Lots of money?” says Thurber. “Enough for tuna?”
“Enough for tuna and poppa’s office and mamma’s office too, I bet.”
“But we’d have to be very careful to only ever tell the truth unless we’re wrong unless we know we’re wrong,” says Thurber.
“No we don’t,” I said. “I’ve been studying this stuff. It’s great. You don’t have to be right or tell the truth or anything. You just make stuff up and write it down and go play golf and eat lots of banquet dinners of fish with powerful people who tell you anyway what you ought to be writing down.”
“I suppose that’s one way of making sure you don’t know you’re wrong. So that way you can’t lie.”
“Don’t worry about lying! I’m telling you, there’s no accountability for this stuff!”
“Don’t say that,” says Thurber, and he does the thing where he lies down and looks the other way like I’m not there.
“Thurber,” I say.
“Take it back,” he says. “Take it back.”
“Fine,” I tell him. “One day, yes, they will all be held accountable for what they’ve done.”
“Okay,” says Thurber, and just like that he’s happy again.
“Anyway, the Times is looking for somebody. They say it’s good to have some experience, or at least a father who wrote there once in the past or something, but I figure purring is just as good. We just listen to what Kali says when she thinks we aren’t looking and write it down every week and send it in, at least until they invite us to play golf and eat fish and tell us what to write.”
“I can’t play golf,” says Thurber.
“Don’t worry about it! We just have to drive liberals crazy. How hard can that be?”
