Sunday, December 07, 2014
Saturday, December 06, 2014
PUBLIC DEFENDERS
Add "public prosecutor" to the duties of Public Defenders.
Friday, February 28, 2014
JASON COLLINS
The way in which Jason Collins re-entered the NBA as its first openly gay player illustrates the importance of sexual orientation in team sports:
Zero.
It wasn't, "Let me play even though I'm gay."
It was, "I'm gay and I can play."
Nearing the end of his career, no NBA teams picked him up after his "I'm gay" announcement.
Then, mid-season the Brooklyn Nets had a vacancy in their roster. They looked around, and found that the very best person in the world available to fill that vacancy was Jason Collins.
So they signed him.
Because they needed him.
By the way, there's still a glaring vacancy in pro sports: who will be the first white player to come out?
It's like, Do black folk have to do everything???
-----o-----
Saturday, February 08, 2014
"WORDTINGLE"
Recently responding to a despairing poet, I promulgated a new definition of poetry:
Poetry is wordtingle.
Here is my current view of poetics.
I think you are attached to the words/notions, "poem" and "poet."
I suggest you abandon those terms completely; they are limiting your perspective.
Substitute the term, "wordtingle." (Call me a German, I smash words together.)
Almost nobody who is not a participant in the poetry industry buys poems. (By participant I mean students, teachers, critics, publishers, and would-be poets themselves.)
There is a huge audience for wordtingle.
Let me suggest: "Word combinations so beautiful they make you tingle."
Rather than say, "I'd like to recite a poem I wrote recently," say, "Here are some words that (I hope) will make you tingle."
It's a high bar. It's a very high bar.
People hate "poetry" because most things that are called poems simply don't make them tingle.
(BTW: Viewing a great painting makes me tingle.)
Nobody seeks out haikus. But write a beautiful prose sentence with the haiku-number of syllables and people will like it. They might even repeat it. What is gained by breaking it into three lines except to deem the sentence "precious"?
A poem is an utterance repeated word-for-word for aesthetic purposes. A poem is like a toy--a toy gains life only when a child plays with it, a poem, only when it's repeated.
Abandon verse. Write only prose. Write only sentences that obey the rules of grammar and syntax. Read every sentence aloud many times. Modify each sentence until it sounds really good.
Continue this process until the utterance makes you tingle. If it doesn't make you tingle, why would you foist it on someone else as "poetry"?
Clarity of meaning allows us to relax and enjoy the sound.
Every sentence must make perfect sense, AND sound really good.
Summary: Forget "poetry." Write beautiful sentences instead. Apply/publish them in everyday discourse and media.
People praise beauty all the time.
Willie
BTW: This email is written in what I call "e-verse." People hate (and won't read through) paragraphs on computer screens that are any longer than those above.
(c) Copyright 2014 William Morrissey All Rights Reserved.
----- o -----
Saturday, January 04, 2014
DON'T BUY OBAMA'S BOOK
If Barack Obama has anything interesting to tell us about his administration he should tell us now, for no charge, as part of his duties as president.
I would bet it all the Barry is already negotiating a series of books, memoirs, about his presidency, and what he really thinks about things.
This is part of his post-presidency income plan.
Another thought. Do you own, or do you know anyone else who owns a copy of Obama's previous two books? I don't.
How many copies has Penny Pritzker bought?
You know Penny... she's US Secretary of Commerce. In our blockaded congress Penny's nomination sailed through the Senate almost unopposed and almost unreported.
She's Barry's billionaire. Every politician needs a billionaire. Plutocracy!
Has Penny been storing all those copies of her princess' books? Or has she already pulped them?
Note: Barry is as yet just a "Penny's Princess." Their deal is he becomes a Prince only when he cuts Social Security.
If nobody buys Obama's post-presidential books, maybe somebody will notice when Penny has to buy them all.
----- o -----
Friday, November 22, 2013
A PATSY IS A CONSPIRATOR
If Lee Harvey Oswald had claimed responsibility for killing JFK, such a claim would have been considered strong evidence of guilt.
False confessions in famous cases are common, but Oswald's proximity alone would have lent credibility.
However, the media almost completely ignores the statements that Oswald did make.
On film, we hear Oswald's two assertions:
1. I didn't shoot anybody.
2. I am a patsy.
The newsfilm clips are the only records of Oswald's post-arrest statements.
Oswald was interviewed by more than one law enforcement official, but there was no record made of any of these interviews.
At the time, there would have been two methods of recording Oswald's statements that were routinely available in the Dallas PD headquarters: audiotape and stenography.
Neither of these methods was employed.
Much less reliable, but still better than nothing would have been contemporaneous notes taken by the agents interviewing Oswald.
The agents state that no such notes were ever taken.
One popular hypothesis regarding Oswald's motive was that Oswald was a little-guy who preferred infamy to insignificance. If that were the case Oswald might have admitted, even bragged about the assassination.
But, no.
Oswald didn't say, "Yes, I did it." And...
He didn't say, "I had nothing to do with it."
He did say, "I am just a patsy."
A "patsy" is a participant in a conspiracy, whose unwitting roll is to take the blame.
Oswald was the original conspiracy theorist.
Oswald died in police custody before his claims could be further elucidated.
----- o -----
Monday, October 14, 2013
TEA PARTY = SLA?
A group of radicals gathered in a basement drinking beer, talk about the intense security surrounding the president.
The general theme: thieves need protection from those they rip off.
When, out of nowhere, one of them points out an obvious hole in security procedures regarding members of the first family.
They can, if they want, kidnap the First Lady.
After a lot of excited discussion about how exactly they could pull it off, one of them asks the question, "What will we do after we kidnap her?"
"We'll talk about that later."
In the following meetings, many potential ransom demands were discussed, some of them half-ass agreed to, but the main focus of the group was pulling off the kidnapping itself.
Amazingly, they succeed in the kidnapping. Negotiations begin, and the kidnappers don't know what the fuck to do or say.
It doesn't look good.
----- o -----
Thursday, August 01, 2013
THOMAS JEFFERSON, RAPIST
Wall to wall today was the sentencing of Ariel Castro, the monster who held three girls captive for ten or more years, serially raped them, and otherwise mistreated them.
Thomas Jefferson held many girls and boys and men and women captive, serially raped some of them, and otherwise mistreated them.
I fail to see any moral difference between the acts of Ariel Castro and the similar acts of Thomas Jefferson.
Slavery is slavery.
Hypocrisy is hypocrisy.
----- o -----
Saturday, July 20, 2013
BREAKING NEWS: OBAMA GIVES A SPEECH
The one thing we all know about president Obama is that he can and will give speeches.
Those of us who pay attention have learned that Barry's speeches have nothing to do with his intended policies or actions. Media still go gaga over his pretty words.
Barry's latest speech concerned the racist slaying of a black highschool kid and subsequent acquittal of the gunman by an all-white jury after a sweetheart prosecution.
Praised for revealing his own personal experiences such as clerks following him around in department stores and motorists locking there car doors when he approaches.
"Context," he called it.
Here are some "context" words Barry left out:
Slavery
Jim Crow
Segregation
Lynching
Ku Klux Klan
Driving While Black.
And of course, Barry wouldn't mention efforts-in-progress in Republican controlled states to keep Black people from voting.
Nor would he mention New York's stop and frisk policy--operating full bore as we speak.
He suggests training police to not profile black people. And maybe look at some state laws regarding self defense.
Otherwise, he can't think of anything except maybe have a party, uh, a convening of people to talk about the issue.
This from the highly praised speech
But I do recognize that as President, I've got some convening power, and there are a lot of good programs that are being done across the country on this front. And for us to be able to gather together business leaders and local elected officials and clergy and celebrities and athletes, and figure out how are we doing a better job helping young African American men feel that they're a full part of this society and that they've got pathways and avenues to succeed -- I think that would be a pretty good outcome from what was obviously a tragic situation.
Barry defines the problem as the "feeling" of not being a full part of society. For most young black guys being excluded from society is not a feeling, it's a fact.
Barry, you can save the airfare, hotel, meals, and meeting facility expenses; here's the answer:
Jobs!
Decent paying employment for the young men, and for their parents, would go a long way.
Of course Obama's performance on the jobs front has been terrible, and, despite his protestations, it's clear that he doesn't give a fuck about jobs, or Black people, or much of anything except pleasing the Penny Pritzkers of the world.
By the way, this let'stalkaboutrace gala Barry wants to throw for "...celebrities and athletes," is NOT a "pretty good outcome," of the Trayvon Martin slaying.
Maybe for Barry it is.
----- o -----
Wednesday, July 03, 2013
PHOTO OOPS!
His visit to South Africa ended in disaster when Obama was denied a photo-op with dying statesman Nelson Mandela.
With his programs and popularity sagging at home Obama wanted to share some spotlight with Mandela as "two Black World Leaders."
But the Mandela's family denied Obama the visit, and Obama didn't get his photo-op.
"Mandela was too sick," was the excuse, but, heck, how healthy does Mandela have to be to get his picture taken?
They take pictures of dead people all the time.
No, Obama was rejected because his politics are antithetical to Mandela's and such a photo op could only smirch Mandela's image.
Besides, Obama is a mere politician, whose main strategy is compromise with evil.
The only African American possibly on Mandela's level is this world-beloved hero:
So Obama repeated the lame medical excuse and declared that he, Obama, "didn't need a photo-op."
From a Guardian article on this visit:
The other reaction in South Africa has been one of apathy, partly because all attention is on Mandela, partly because excitement about Obama in Africa has waned since the heady days of 2008. "He's now 'only' an American to us," said Eusebius McKaiser, a political commentator and radio talkshow host. "His blackness is no longer of interest."
Having been disrespected by Nelson Mandela, Obama received a much warmer welcome on his next African stop.
Unfortunately, the warm welcome came from an internationally wanted war criminal named George W. Bush.
Barry got a photo-op with Bush, in Tanzania.
Apparently Barry and George are cooking up some good capitalist experiences for electricity-starved Central Africans.
What a come-down for Barry! He thought of himself as a Nelson Mandela, and found out he was just another George Bush.
History may even remember Obama as part of the Bush Team, like this other African American:
----- o -----
Saturday, June 29, 2013
GAYS YES, NEGROES NO
The Supreme Court this week expressed the collective feelings or our nation as a whole on two important topics.
First Ruling: We still don't like Black people.
Second Ruling: We like Gay people.
Many Gay people are celebrating like crazy while some Gay Liberationists are dismayed.
Liberationists see Gay eagerness to join mainstream USA culture as a defeat, which for some was sadly unexpected.
The rulings make perfect sense. America's innate racism, now mostly closeted, survives in the Gay community as in the USA as a whole.
I have heard many Gay white people express disgustingly racist opinions regarding Black folk.
Liberationists saw the oppression of Gay people as a symptom of a diseased national mind-set, along with the oppression of women, the oppression of other racial minorities, and the military pursuit of world domination.
Turns out, many Gay people saw their own oppression as the only flaw in the Great American
Enterprise. This was perfectly expressed in a featured comment in the online SF Chronicle story about the pro-Gay decisions:
Only one thing to say ... my faith in my country is back on track. Hooray!
Too bad Black folk can't say the same thing.
Exactly!
Too bad for them.
Some history*:
In 1750, in Charleston, SC, some uptight Christian ministers led a movement to forbid notorious homosexuals from purchasing slaves at the thriving local slave market. This was based on feared "immoral purposes."
One of Charleston's "notorious," whose name is lost to history, fought the ban and eventually succeeded in getting homosexuals re-admitted to the slave market once again.
The argument was fairness, but the tactic was blackmail.
Nonetheless, a great victory for Gay people!
Little steps.
* or, I'm sure this could have happened.
----- o -----
Sunday, June 23, 2013
BARRY/SYLVESTER: COOL CAT?
The escape of Edward Snowden from Hong Kong is unexpected good news.
Stateside consensus was that Snowden would be quickly hunted down and tortured, just like Bradley Manning.
We assumed that the CIA and Seal Team Six would catch him easily, which for progressives is just another no-fun scenario.
Now it has become a highly entertaining chase story.
Rather than extradite him Hong Kong helped Snowden escape and, just for fun, asked Barry to explain why he's been spying on the entire population of China.
The story is so big-picture it's like a cartoon, with Snowden as Tweety Bird and Barry as Sylvester.
Or maybe more like Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote.
Duncan Black (Exchaton) asserts that NSA-type surveillance programs are mostly grift, with little benefit to anyone but the payees. This would make the NSA more like Acme Products, on which Mr Coyote (card-carrying genius) continues to rely.
Every day that Eric Snowden remains free makes Barry and his spyguys look like a cartoonish fools.
Well, Barry is a fool... with a teleprompter, and a billionairess.
Barry says he believes in "secret laws." Can't get more foolish than that.
My guess is that of most people in the world who are aware of this story are rooting for Edward Snowden.
I would also guess that the combined net-worth of those rooting for Barry the Cat is many kajillion times the net-worth of those rooting for Tweety Bird Snowden.
This caper is the best news for actual progressives (which excludes members of the Democratic party) since...
Well, the demonstrations in Brazil are also encouraging.
Just because all goodness has been driven out of the USA by the Bankster/Military thugocracy doesn't mean all hope is lost.
Cheneybushobama doesn't rule the the entire planet yet.
And world population is such that they can't kill us all at once. As Hitler discovered, the disposal of bodies is itself a huge headache.
----- o -----
Saturday, June 15, 2013
OBAMA'S BIG LIE
He's repeated it so many times, he may even believe it himself. This lie is the root-evil of his national security policies.
Obama says, over and over, that he "took an oath to defend the American people."
Like his main duty is to protect American life-and-limb.
While this is a noble thought,
IT IS NOT THE PRESIDENTIAL OATH OF OFFICE.
Here is the presidential oath of office as prescribed in the Constitution of the United States:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Barry uses this "false oath" canard to justify violating the Constitution, what he calls "balancing."
But his oath of office does not allow any balancing of the Constitution against other duties. Defending the Constitution is his only sworn duty (besides showing up for work)--even if it costs American lives.
I have never heard anyone call him on this gross distortion of his mission as president, with which he can justify damn near anything.
----- o -----
Thursday, May 30, 2013
BUPKIS RE-WOOS F'ING RETARDS
Rahm Emmanuel when White House chief of staff famously called the left wing of his own party
A bunch of fucking retards!
That would include me.
Rahm's gone and Barry Bupkis is in trouble. He has pissed off a bunch of people, including centrists and rightwingers and now it seems that nobody likes him anymore... except MSNBC apologists.
And even the MSNBC apologists have forsaken him over his attacks on Fox News and AP.
The three scandals are successively more serious.
1) Obama sent Susan Rice to lie on national news programs about the events in Benghazi. The lies are exposed, Susan Rice's ambitions are dashed, and Barry Bystander claims nothing to do with it.
2) IRS irregularities that seem to target right wing political groups. Probably not too big a deal, but Barry's bunch handle it with successive lies making it look more suspicious. Again, Barry had nothing to do with it.
3) Attorney General Barney Fife steals confidential files from two international news organizations and lies to Congress about it. Again, Barry was completely ignorant of any such goings on.
When it comes to Barry versus Rupert on the issue of press freedom, Barry's entire constituency sides with Rupert.
Heck, even I side with Rupert. I guess you could call that an Obama achievement.
So Barry feels unloved so he gives a major speech. That's one thing he actually can do.
About drones--he's for them and against them.
About indefinite detention and torture--he's for it and against it.
About press freedom--he's for it and against it.
He wants us to know that these things weigh heavily on him and that he hopes change will come some day.
In the meantime, drones, detentions, and press-attacks will continue as usual.
And just so no one would miss his intent to suck up the the Fucking Retards, Barry said that people should listen to voices like heckler Medea Benjamin's.
What a guy! If Barry is willing to listen to two minutes of Medea's rant as she's hustled out of the hall, well, all is forgiven.
Not!
So Barry busts another lame 'uck move.
He bestows a symbolic honor on the four black schoolgirl Birmingham bombing victims from fifty years ago.
This was to show the Black community that Barry likes them. So they should cut him slack on the black youth unemployment thing, the crappy schools thing , and the massive Black incarceration thing.
And, of course, the Black American community still must understand that Barry is president of all the people and his creds with white folk depend on him not giving special treatment to Black folk (except any Wall Street crooks who happen to be Black).
Barry has become such a villain that I look forward to seeing his demise.
Fox is seeking immediate revenge. AP will serve it much colder, almost unobserved.
In the end it's a simple story: wanting to be liked by all, he becomes universally despised.
Barry and George W. will be linked in history: a particularly low trough from which America had to recover.
----- o -----
Thursday, May 02, 2013
Saturday, April 27, 2013
TOAST AND WELFARE CUTS
Obama will sign the restoration of full funding for air traffic controllers. The Sequester is being repealed, one line item at a time.
Airport delays inconvenience non-poor white people so FAA funding is the first budget to be restored.
Remember Five Easy Pieces?
Let's divide the Federal Budget into two categories:
1) Social programs, and
2) Everything else.
Right-wingers, which these days includes the entire Republican Party, hate spending on Social Programs, especially those that benefit poor and non-white people.
Republicans want to reduce social programs for these folks to zero.
But the Democrats resist cutting social programs in any obvious way... just as:
The diner doesn't have sides of toast on the lunch menu.
So the Dems and Repubs get together and pull a Jack Nicholson.
They do a Sequester on all spending which is like Jack ordering the Chicken Salad Sandwich on toast.
Jack holds one thing at a time until there's nothing left but the toast.
Dem/Rebubs gradually restore the budgets of everything but the social programs.
In the end it's the same result: targeted cuts to social programs, piece of toast.
In summary:
Sequester = Chicken Salad on Toast,
Social program cuts = Toast.
They think they're being slick.
----- o -----
Saturday, April 20, 2013
NOT SMART, NOT LIKEABLE
Seems like everyone but me thinks that Barack Obama, whatever else, is a smart guy.
-He's Harvard Law, Review Editor;
-He wrote two best selling books;
-He's a professor of constitutional law,
-Blah blah.
I contend that he's not very smart at all.
Please, someone, tell me one interesting thing Barry has ever said.
Who can forget Bill Clinton's convention performance as "Explainer in Chief." Isn't that Barry's job?
Putting current events into greater historical context is a prime function of any president. I think of fireside chats.
Obama can't explain anything except that:
In negotiations, neither side can expect to get 100%.
Well, duh. What he doesn't explain is his willingness to give away 99%.
Plus, conclusive proof that Obama is a dumbshit was his preposterous assertion, his guiding principle, that:
Congressional Republicans are good-faith negotiating partners who will put common sense and the welfare of the nation ahead of partisan interests.
Skipping through the woods, everything a big bad wolf could want.
Say "Grandma," I see this guy's face.
Don't pull back the covers, please.
And as for likeability. I don't like mass murder, torture, or imperial aggression.
I don't like the trashing of Magna Carta, Common Law, and the Bill of Rights.
And I don't like malefactors of great wealth, who seem to be Barry's best friends.
So I don't like Barry. Not at all.
----- o -----
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
HECTOR'S BODY
A great thing about my classical Jesuit high school education is that while avowing Roman Catholic ideology we mostly studied the pagan roots (classical Greece and Rome) of European culture.
First year Latin (Sweet) was taught using "basic sentences." The first basic sentence was Vestis virum facit. Clothes make the man.
I think number 2 was, Manus manum lavat. One hand washes the other.
Neither of which was uttered by Christ.
We were taught that some of the most basic European concepts and values were demonstrated in the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer.
So I was highly disturbed by Barack Obama's treatment of Osama Bin Laden's corpse. Why?
Because Zeus finds it offensive.
Wikipedia synopsizes the final book (chapter) of the Iliad thusly:
(24) Dismayed by Achilles' continued abuse of Hector's body, Zeus decides that it must be returned to Priam. Led by Hermes, Priam takes a wagon out of Troy, across the plains, and enters the Greek camp unnoticed. He grasps Achilles by the knees and begs to have his son's body. Achilles is moved to tears, and the two lament their losses in the war. After a meal, Priam carries Hector's body back into Troy. Hector is buried, and the city mourns.
So, the final event of European "sacred scripture" is Greek hero Achilles returning the corpse of his mortal enemy, Hector, to Hector's people. This was Zeus' decision.
Failing to return Osama Bin Laden's body, for what his people would determine to be fitting disposition, is an offense against Zeus.
The Jesuits made it very clear: it's not wise to offend Zeus.
What if some victims of Maggie Thatcher's economic thuggery had managed to steal her corpse, and then announced that her body had been buried at sea?
Enormous outrage, no?
----- o -----
Saturday, April 13, 2013
DING DONG
What percentage of Americans know that since the death of Maggie Thacher,
Ding Dong the Witch is Dead
has been the the best-selling song in England?
The BBC has had to censor its play.
And huge protests are expected today in Trafalgar Square. Security will be tight for the funeral.
The US press doesn't say much about this public disrespect. Such disrespect for the recently deceased, taboo in most English-speaking countries, is reserved for the vilest of human beings.
The common wisdom being pushed is that Margaret Thacher was a great leader, just like Ronald Reagan.
Another political death barely mentioned has been the death of the Jesse Jackson brand.
I'm old enough to remember this Jesse Jackson.
Jesse Sr. went on to make a living advocating for black aspirations but accomplishing almost nothing except to establish the right of corrupt black officials to hide in posh hospitals just like white corrupt officials.
His namesake offspring was given a Chicago congressional seat for life and he stole a bunch of money to buy bling.
Then he claimed mental illness. Mayo Clinic, the most expensive hospital in the region, said he had a kind of depression with a weird Latin name which translates roughly:
"Sad because caught red handed."
He was not too bummed out to run for reelection in the midst of all this because, "Heck, the constituents don't care."
To say that JJ Junior disrespected the legacy of Martin Luther King is trite.
Somewhat more subtle is Barack Obama's concerted disrespect for MLK. It's almost like Khrushchev's de-Stalinization.
First, Obama accepts a Nobel Prize and says King's pacifism was "well intentioned, but stupid."
Then he somehow approves the abominable MLK monument in DC, which is all about artistic gesture and seems dedicated to the notion that a black man can wear a business suit.
Heck, even if you like the gesture, even if you like the stern, unsympathetic, pose, the face looks nothing like MLK.
Oprah, Jesse, Jesse Jr., Barack demonstrate a basic premise of the civil rights movement: that blacks are equal to whites. What painful irony!
Like, what's the difference between Junior ripping off his black constituents, and Strom Thurmond's long term affair with a black women?
Save your breath, Jesse.
----- o -----
Sunday, April 07, 2013
RUTGERS: RECRUITING FRAUD?
According to the New York Times this morning, Rutgers officials had known for some time about the abusive, assaultive, homophobic behavior of now-disgraced basketball coach Mike Rice.
Coach Rice's behavior constituted an ongoing defect in the Rutgers basketball program. We know this because school officials took steps to correct it.
Have Rutgers basketball recruiters been selling a defective product?
Simple question: during the last recruiting season, was this program defect revealed to prospective recruits?
Before committing to a college basketball program, it seems you'd want to know if it was run by a homophobic, psycho-bully.
Important: in cases where the prospective recruits were minors, was this program defect revealed to the parents?
If this crucial defect was not revealed, the recruits and/or their parents should have a cause of action against the university.
Will Barchi be signing those checks?
Or will it be New Jersey's top bully?
----- o -----