I Miss Doghouse Riley

You deserve a rant today. The sun's out. It's a Saturday in January. It rained hard again last night. I hope the driveway's still there.

I'll start with this, from a blog called Gin and Tacos:

In an entirely different course we read Anthem, selected because it is the shortest and thus least painful Ayn Rand piece and because it is one of the finest works of comedy ever penned. How can you do anything but adore a story that ends with a man drafting an ode to individualism in a house someone else built and that he broke into. Anyway, the real money scene is where the protagonist heads out into the forest and, in the space of a few hours before dinnertime, he makes a bow and arrows and shoots plenty of birds out of the sky to feed himself. He also gets a few by throwing rocks at them. This is a minor detail in the story but, in my view, is a great litmus test of a fundamental personality characteristic. The kind of person who thinks, "Yeah that seems plausible" believes that some people, namely themselves, are simply Great and therefore can solve any and every problem on their own through the force of their own Greatness. The other kind of person looks at a man running off into the woods with no supplies, food, clothing, or tools of any kind and thinks, "Well he's gonna be dead in about a week."

You'd think, well, this is some ditzy writer from the '50s, when things seemed a lot simpler than they are, and anyways she's long deceased and not only that, died somewhat disgraced, even if you only learned much more recently (relatively) that the exalted Alan Greenspan was a devotee, which might actually explain a lot about the sorry mess the American economy is in. But then you look around. There's a bunch of guys in Carhartt shirts and cowboy hats occupying a Federal bird sanctuary in the the eastern Oregon high desert who are there because they want to get the Federal government out of the wide open spaces. I'm all for the Burns, OR, sheriff's plan. He went out there and talked to them gently, and said he didn't want anyone to get hurt, and he'd escort them out no questions asked. But it's been over a week since that happened, and the Bundy mom has called for folks to send them supplies, and I read yesterday one of the lads was arrested in Burns at a convenience store, driving a stolen Federal truck.

It's just sad when people don't have a clue. I have a neighbor who runs a trucking firm with a big sign out front that says everyday I drive past it on the way to my job, "We built this, not the Government." Big American flag. It's a trucking company, captain. They exist because of, ermmmm, roads. The boys in Oregon may be surprised one morning when some choppers show up sporting that great old insignia, First Cav.

Ahhh, the smell of napalm in the morning, Robert Duvall says. These Bundys aren't there to take the land back from the people the cavalry stole it from after the Civil War was over and we had built a well-oiled killing machine itching for more action. They ought to change their names: the Bunnie Militia is more like it. Just leave off the "d" and you got it.

I've said too frequently that perhaps the most terrible event of the Reagan Presidency was the little noticed act of removing the Fairness Doctrine from the burden of responsibility that came with leasing a patch of public air waves. With that came Murdoch, one of the world-class oligarchs, who built the Fox Networks. With that all possibility of objective appraisal of events was lost for all but the most determined, the little few who care enough to go look and look again. Most people don't have the interest or the time or the intelligence. They're the ones cheering for Trump and Cruz. Edroso says it's still very hard for him to believe that Trump will win the nomination, because he's too dangerous to the real power: money. There's a logic there. There is the question of whether the particular mechanism we've been using for over a century to pick a government is moribund. If the machinery doesn't work, the money might not work either, particularly in the short run, which would be some 8 months or so, between March and November.

This is not to say money isn't damned effective. I ran into this bit of news today:

Fiorina is just doing the job Ted Cruz hired her to do

by digby

Last night in the GOP debate, Carly Fiorina opened with a truly nasty line:

"Unlike another woman in this race, I actually love spending time with my husband."


I don't even know what that means but it's a creepy thing to say.

Today she doubled down on the Clinton marriage brouhaha:

"If my husband had done some of the things that Bill Clinton had done, I would have left him long ago," Fiorina said during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

"I think if you're running for the presidency of the United States, everything is an issue," Fiorina added when pressed about why it was a campaign issue, saying that "leaders need to be trusted."

It's very tempting to point out that Fiorina's relationship with her current husband started out when they both were married to other people but I'll refrain because it's irrelevant. Certainly in Fiorina's case it's the least of the reasons people shouldn't trust her --- personally destroying one of America's great companies in record time seems much more to the point.

But the fact is that Fiorina's got a job to do and this time she doesn't want to screw it up. Recall:

The other day when the donor lists to various campaigns were revealed many noticed an odd curiosity about Fiorina’s donations. A pro-Cruz super PAC controlled by millionaire Robert Mercer (who had written checks for 5 million to Cruz’s effort) sent $500,0000 to Carly Fiorina’s super PAC. How often does it happen that a PAC for one candidate helps one of its rivals in a primary campaign? But New York Times reporter Amy Chozick cleared up the mystery when she tweeted:

Fiorina finance chairs told me supporters of other candidates have thrown them $$$ to have a woman in race attacking HRC.


Now that makes sense. (And it also explains why the Koch Brothers invited her to their recent billionaire meet-and-greet.) The Republicans understand the minefield they are going to be walking if Clinton should become the first woman nominee for president of one of the two major parties. It will be helpful to have a woman on the trail making a slash and burn case against her without incurring the wrath of Clinton’s woman supporters. In her closing statement at the Kiddie Table debate that’s exactly what she promised to do:

Hillary Clinton lies about Benghazi, lies about her emails, she’s still defending Planned Parenthood and she is still her party’s frontrunner. 2016 is going to be a fight between conservatism and a Democratic Party that is undermining the very character of this nation. We need a nominee that is going to throw every punch, not pull punches. Someone who cannot stumble before he even gets into the ring.


I don't know what she gets out of this in the end. She will not be president, that's for sure. Maybe she wants to be Commerce Secretary or something although I don't really understand why. She will never be elected to anything. But perhaps it's just as simple as wanting to put some more things on her resume so her massive failure as a business leader will sink to the bottom of the page.

How many people, watching these "debates," realize the extent of kabuki that's in play. This is why Citizens United is such an appalling decision. Money is speech. Our Supreme Court has cut the heart out of democracy. Orwell stirs.

I watched the tremendous film "The End of Summer" this week. It's Yasujiro Ozu's next to last film. It's worth watching many times. It is a worthy substitute for any Republican "debate." Things do come to an end. The central figure in the film is said to have said, upon suffering a fatal heart attack, "Is this it, is this really it?" His sister-in-law, upon hearing these words recounted by his son-in-law, says, "Oh what a silly man."

As terrible as Japan's suffering was, in its loss of World War II, we may have suffered a worse fate. We "won." Turner Classics showed "Hiroshima Mon Amour" this week. When it was released in 1958, the French government would not allow it to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival for fear of upsetting the U.S. Government. In Ozu's final film, "An Autumn Afternoon," the central character says he's glad Japan lost the war.

The future is always a swirling murk isn't it. As far as I know, the driveway is still drive-able this morning. Next week the serious cold returns. If it snows we'll be walking out, a third of a mile to the road. My knees don't like it. The last bit of mainstream media "news" is probably on PBS at 6 pm. Here's a review of what one of their weekly pundits wrote this week in his New York Times column:

http://yastreblyansky.blogspot.com/2016/01/when-beauty-goes-on-strike.html

The comment mentioning Death in Venice is worthy of note. Mr. Brooks advises the thoughtful voters of this mighty land, the ones who think Mr. Trump might indeed be something of a fascist, the ones who've even heard that Mr. Cruz has deep familial connections to Goldman-Sachs and it's "New York values," for all of his Texas swagger.

Maybe we'll just have to enjoy the vision of those Air Cav Apaches coming over the horizon with Wagner's Valkyries on the sound track. It's not as serene as Ozu's pillow shot:

Still. The look in a Bundy eye might make a day in January end on a positive note.