The Curmudgeon

The Curmudgeon offers his thanks to the inimitable Tild~, who graciously created a Crate Label for his blog:

Thanks also goes to T. Hussein Mississippifarian, who came up with the glowing-red eye Ganesha idea.

In case you are wondering, that difficult produce is a durian. Indeed and in fact, the durian is a difficult piece of business, especially for the western palette. Very, very appropos, especially so long as this curmudgeon finds himself in the Twin Cities metro.

It seems that it is not just your Curmudgeon who is noticing the deflating aspirations of "Rollover" Al Franken. T. Hussein Mississippifarian points to a story from the NY Observer which compares the Franken campaign to that of Oliver North in his '94 run in Virginia.

While the similarities certainly exist, a couple of key differences should be noted:

1. The power of the internet had not even begun to find the level of expression in 1994 that it exercises now. Kos, and scads of other out-of-staters, certainly set a tone of coronation for Franken.
2. The GOP lined up gladly and uniformly- just like the lemmings they are- behind North. For all its faults (and don't kid yourself, sunshine, the DFL has plenty of faults), the DFL at least in part paused and considered before stepping, not jumping, on the Frankenwagon. The NY Observer article misses this point entirely, and moreover gives the impression that Al really has the hearts of the DFL faithful. Bull- Franken won the travishamockery that is the endorsement process because he has a huge campaign warchest. It wasn't so much a wooing as a high-dollar mugging with a compliant, cowardly victim.

The point is still well-made that the DFL has in Franken a candidate uniquely capable of failing utterly in a contest that could have (and, let's be blunt- SHOULD HAVE) been a laugher in the other direction.

My neighborhood got an infrastructure downgrade yesterday. It must be another manifestation of Pawlenty's Minnesota zeitgeist (along with bridges falling apart) that road surfaces go from cracked blacktop to loose gravel. If this is some intermediate step prior to further blacktop/resealing, the Curmudgeon reckons that the phenomenon could be called infrastructure maintenance, but there have been no signs of such thus far. Nope, in this day, it's all about moving backwards- which is the only direction conservatives can really travel. So while observing all manner of vehicle skid, spin, and sometimes flat wipe out on our 21st century gravel streets, several thoughts occur.

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Oh, no- hell no- the Curmudgeon is not about to bullshit you into thinking he's saying anything that hasn't been said previously, that he's breaking some deep hot juicy story of intrigue. I am just saying that for all the bunched bloomers and the hand-wringing that's going on- what with the New Yorker cover and the tanking economy- we're just coming on to the cutting edge of a blade that will likely run us through several times.

In fact, the pain really hasn't even started to register yet. Sure, the little shit is getting more and more expensive, while the big stuff seems to be worth less and less. Besides Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (let's not forget that combined, we're talking about half the mortgage market in the nation) teetering on insolvency, there's a list of banks in danger of failing. And just because a bank isn't necessarily on that list doesn't mean it won't go tits up.

The talking head newsreaders, and their corporate masters are quick to point out that the events in this last week are nowhere wear as dire as the Savings&Loan crisis of George Herbert Walker Bush's reign. (The Curmudgeon advises against any harboring any illusion that it is a coincidence that when the Bush Crime Family gets the reins of power that the finances of the country suffer.) While technically true, just keep in mind that things are just getting things warmed up with this episode.

In the end, it will be the taxpayers, you and me, who will bail out the big rich fucks who've fucked themselves up buggering us. That's a given, and with that comes a tacit and silent acknowledgment that there is a class conflict ongoing, and the idle rich are gonna keep marching.

Ah, but there I went and said it. Oh well, fortunately, there's some nice hot distraction available.

The Obama-as-Warlord cover cartoon on The New Yorker was a master stroke of promotional marketing-cum-propaganda, cleverly (oh, yes, preciously clever, we're talking The New Yorker, after all) disguised as what could be called 'satire' (yeah yeah yeah, The Curmudgeon knows the cover doesn't actually meet the definition). If it were otherwise, the cover would have addressed some esoteric topic with a similar level of wit. The New Yorker patronage would have perused the cover, chuckled that clucking elitist chuckle of getting the funny, and the summer would have rolled on.

No, this was a conscious decision to lead with this, and that decision had to have considered that the cover cartoon would reach a far greater audience, an audience which does not do clucking elitist chuckles. In so doing, this move also handed a truckful of coal to the right wing noise machine to stoke the furnace of racism that has kept the nation simmering along.

To deny, as The New Yorker has attempted, that the cover decision was about nothing more than satire really falls flat, primarily because to accept their protestations would imply necessarily that The New Yorker is not smart enough to consider consequences for actions. Nope- "preciously clever", "witty", and "elitist" form the triune bulwark upon which the image of The New Yorker rests.

Perhaps, because it could be considered preciously clever, the subterranean intent was to spark, via the outrage, another urgently-needed national discussion, about, obviously race. The efficacy of that possible intent may be questionable, though, since it is just as likely that the right wing noise machine will start a duplicitous chorus of "Oh, Is it Okay to be Racist in America Again?", like they ever took even one pause.

Race is another one of those topics which this country will take great lengths to avoid, but it grows much more difficult when the most viable candidate for President is *gasp* black. This conversation will be long, and it will speak some very hard truths, and it won't get better quickly, or easily, or painlessly. The really scary bit here is that once we really engage the topic of race in this country, it will be impossible to avoid discussing class.

Ah, but I said it again. As needed as it is to address race, addressing the class warfare waged by the rich upon everyone else is just as urgent. However, we can entertain a discussion about race, even if it is largely just a thought experiment; such a discussion about class isn't even viable to that degree.

There's a certain and devastating immaturity in the country that resides in deep denial as regards such immediately evident truths. At least here at the cutting edge, that is. The United States needs to find a greater level of maturity, and quickly.

Yep, I've been silent. Call it a combination of a REALLY bad mood, apathy, and general distraction. Whatever. But Curmudgeonly goodness later this eve.

In the meantime, stay off my goddamn lawn.

So it's the fourth of July, a day in which far too many in the States tell themselves and each other fanciful fairy tales about freedom, liberty, and generally how gawddamn great we have it here. It is an intentionally distracting narrative which keeps folks focused on reinforcing the pollyanna version of what we are and how we came to be that way, rather than, say, examining how far afield our own reality is from the myths mouthed breathlessly today.

The Curmudgeon isn't going to try to make anyone feel bad about cooking out today, or fireworks displays, or anything of the sort. If one has to listen to the marches of Sousa, why not in the middle of summer?

In fact, there will be just a bit more celebration than previously planned in this, and no doubt other backyards today. Jesse Helms, a bane of humanity, has slipped his ghoulish coil and now rots in hell.

A quick reminder, here:
This is a corpse flower- so named because it bloom reeks of rotting death. It blooms very rarely, and only briefly.

This is Jesse Helms, whose death-rot preceded his actual passing by decades. The stench and stain left by Helms will sadly malinger.

Rot in hell, Helms.

It is a fortunate thing that no god-peddlers have found their way to the Curmudgeon's door at his new residence. I am just NOT in the mood for their brand of bullshit. The more organized the religion gets, the more it sprouts a fundamentalist wing, the more fucked that religion gets. Worse than fucked, these lousy ghouls transmogrify into fuckering- just becoming associated with their sleaze and hypocrisy turns the follower into a fucker, too.

And it is hard to get more fuckering than these 'prosperity doctrine' fundie nutbags. God wants such foul creatures not only as prophets but to make personal profit from hawking their watery holy snake-oil. By giving up your 'love offerings' to the Fat Cat in the pulpit, he'll pray real hard for the Big Guy in the clouds to trickle down some wealth to the really faithful. When these sleazebag god-pimps get called to the carpet for fleecing their flocks, though, they'll summon even more chutzpah to claim that their financial records belong to God.

Think I'm kidding you, sunshine? The above is the exact defense offered by Kenneth Copeland when the Senate Finance Committee had some questions about his Mammon-hordes.

No word if Mac 'God doesn't want me to eat cold pancakes' Hammond is one board with this defense or not. Astute readers may recall that ole Mac is bestest buddies with Michele 'The Breeder' Bachmann- buddies enough to let her deliver stump speeches from the pulpit during Sunday services. Maybe Hammond is counting on a different set of hands to deliver him, but he better hurry. November is coming up.

Bastards. Every last damn one of 'em. Here's hoping they all get to be reminded that rendering unto Caesar isn't just an optional activity...


In other events, a burglar managed to liberate some of the flocked relics from an archbishop's house. Or, at least, one of the archbishop's houses. Cool. Maybe that way the loot will actually do some people a lick of good. For far, far too long, the Catholic Church has been way too able to consolidate wealth. The actual scale of this is outright obscene, really, and damn doubly so when these same wads make such twaddling mewls about comforting the afflicted.

If one really wants to find a moral in the story about the burgled archbishop, maybe it's that the Lord helps them who help themselves.

Oh, and finally, Norm 'the Windsock' Coleman's sweetheart deal living in the basement of his buddy and political operative gained an ethics complaint. Now we know at least ONE of the parties with whom Windsock Coleman has been bedding, and it ain't his greenscreened Stepford Wife. The Curmudgeon thinks the time has come for the Windsock to blow outta power.

Back in the time when local television shows had a greater ability to generate their own programming, WHO-TV in Des Moines broadcast The Floppy Show. Kid-oriented and cartoon-intensive, the show revolved around a puppet dog named, yes, Floppy, and Floppy's human, Duane Ellett.

To be sure, The Floppy Show was about kids and for kids. There was no adult content. Floppy would never cease to be delighted by the same damn three riddles asked of him by the kids of his audience- "What's the biggest can in the world?", "What's the biggest pencil in the world?" and "What's tall in the middle and round on its sides?". Toss in a half dozen beeps of his nose, and a cartoon or two, and it was a show.

As a kidlet, the Curmudgeon watched Floppy. Though at that time and in the years since, it did seem as though there was no greater life-lesson to be gleaned through the endless vapid hours of Dixie-cup riddles and b-rate ventriloquism, except perhaps that entertaining children is a laudable avocation.

In recent days, however, the Curmudgeon is thinking there may be one more lesson we can take from Floppy: It may be all very well and good to be entertained as a kid by a man with his hand up the ass of a puppet dog, but heeding the same for political insight is likely not such a hot idea. Using the Floppy model to chide and amuse adults is at once pretentious and condescending, in that Garry Keillor sort of way.