Time
Time magazine gives its invaluable Person of the Year award
to the man who will lead America for the next four years from the
White House’s official John Deere D140 48-inch 22 HP Hydrostatic
Front-Engine Riding Mower, complete with utility cart:
Obama says he long ago decided that he should not compare
himself to Lincoln. But he nonetheless begins his second term with
a better sense of what is possible in his job as well as what is
not, something Lincoln struggled with as well. “You do understand
that as president of the United States, the amount of power you
have is overstated in some ways,” Obama says. “But what you do have
the capacity to do is to set a direction.” He has earned the right
to set that direction and has learned from experience how to move
the country. After four of the most challenging years in the
nation’s history, his chance to leave office as a great president
who was able to face crises and build a new majority coalition
remains within reach.
December 31, 2012/January 7, 2013
CounterPunch.org
Ken Knabb, editor of the Bureau of Public Secrets, muses
nostalgically on the late Occupy movement and endeavors to
explicate a peculiar American fetish, just before the cops sweep
him away on yet another charge of shoplifting and evacuating in
public:
The Occupy movement already had the implicit goal of “reclaiming
the commons”—occupying public squares or parks played on this
theme, since regardless of quibbles about permits it was obvious
that such spaces belong to the public and are, or at least
originally were, intended for public use. But these more recent
actions have the merit of challenging the fetish of private
property in a more direct manner. That fetish has always been
extremely strong in the United States, and the police responses to
its transgression have always been more immediate and brutal. But I
like to hope that these types of actions will eventually weaken the
fetish, just as happened in the days of the civil rights
movement.
November 20, 2012
NPR.org/blogs/thesalt
Gourmand advice offered with a clear conscience in an age
free of D.D.T. by the culinary nuts at National Public
Radio:
Want to eat sustainably? Then eat bugs.
That’s the word from the Dutch, who are doing their best to make
a scientific case for the environmental benefits of insect
proteins. Reduce greenhouse gases? Check. Produce more edible
protein while using less land than more traditional livestock?
Check.
That last one’s an easy target; livestock take up about
three-quarters of the world’s agricultural land. And livestock
production is also a major source of greenhouse gases, accounting
for about 15 percent of emissions caused by human activity….
But no one had run the numbers on bugs as livestock, until
now.
The bugs in question are mealworms, actually larvae of the
mealworm beetle, Tenebrio molitor. Mealworms are no
strangers to Americans; they’re common in nature, often used as
fishing bait, and sold in pet stores as food for reptiles and fish.
But most people don’t consider snacking on the wriggling tan larvae
themselves.
December 19, 2012
New York Times
Zoological observations of the strange American flora and
fauna found on the Acela Express by Frank Bruni, Times columnist
and fellow traveler:
I once took a long train ride with Grover Norquist. This wasn’t
intentional. We found ourselves next to each other on the line to
board an Acela from Washington, D.C., to New York, and we fell into
a conversation, by which I mean that he did a great deal of
talking, in that faintly maniacal way of his, while I presented a
captive audience. He continued to talk as we walked along the
platform and was still talking as we entered the train, so it was
more or less unavoidable that we sit together. Besides which, I was
genuinely fascinated, which is a very different adjective from
amused.
November 27, 2012
Poughkeepsie Journal
On the Howl Page of a leading organ of the MSM in
progressive Poughkeepsie, Eli cries out for help:
Men and male energy are dangerous. Men are violent. They rape
and beat women. (More than one rape a minute in the U.S.) Men take
us to war. Men glorify violence (just watch the NFL). Men run the
government. Men run the corporations. Men run the military.
Religious men oppress and often kill women (look at the Taliban).
The men of Hamas oppress Palestinian women. The men of Israel
oppress all Palestinians (men, women, and children).
Golda Meir brutalized and oppressed Palestinians, Margaret
Thatch [sic] devastated the poor, and Madeleine Albright approved
sanctions in Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi
children. These are women who behave like men.
The Bible, the Koran, and the Constitution were written by men.
Is it any wonder that women have been exploited and abused for
centuries? In the quest for power and profit men have not spared
“mother nature” either—as the result of endless warfare,
deforestation, mining, drilling, and countless other assaults on
our air, water, and soil the stability of our climate is in
jeopardy.
As long as men (and women who act like men) run our governments,
militaries, corporations, religious institutions, media, families,
and schools, we are destined for endless wars and violence. Our
environments will continue to deteriorate and all the creatures on
this planet will face ever increasing threats to their survival.
Are we doomed? Only if we continue to be ruled by men, their male
energy, and women who act like men.
Eli Kassirer
New Paltz
November 7, 2012
South Florida Gay News
Higher education as practiced at Florida Atlantic University
between volleyball classes and hula hoop lectures:
Condom Bingo isn’t your normal, run-of-the-mill bingo game your
grandmother plays on Thursday afternoons at the community center.
Local drag queen Misty Eyez was on hand to be the guest bingo
caller. Students were handed a playing card upon entering the hall.
Instead of the usual BINGO and numbers on the card, it was covered
in sexual organs and jargon. Everything from penis and blue whales
to “splooge” and cunnilingus was listed on the bingo cards. Eyez
didn’t just call out answers. Question and definitions were
randomly drawn, and their corresponding answers were marked on the
bingo cards. Students were enticed to come play with prizes,
including FAU gear, movies and an iPod shuffle if they stuck around
for the fifth and final game. Student Health Services also provided
Papa John’s pizza.
November 22, 2012
MarketWatch.com
Exigent market research for the age of the Internet and the
Peeping Tom:
It’s no secret that more and more holiday shopping is now done
online, but apparently many Americans buy loved ones gifts while on
the toilet. Some 16% of mobile-device owners do their holiday
shopping in the bathroom, according to a recent survey by CashStar,
a digital gifting company. The survey of 2,000 adults, which was
taken by polling company Harris Interactive last month, found that
the shop-til-you-plop approach was more prevalent among men than
women. “Smartphones and tablets have enabled consumers to shop and
gift on the go in more ways and places than ever before,” says
David Stone, co-founder and CEO of CashStar. Other odd places
consumers have done their online gift-buying, according to the
survey: during business meetings and, despite the safety warnings
about texting and driving, while stuck in traffic.
December 5, 2012
Washington Post
Thus begins another E.J. Dionne Jr. column of giddy
sophistries to which the magnanimous conservative may respond,
“E.J., you are not psychotic but there are other
problems”:
I try to be hopeful about things. I long for a time when people
on the left and the right might exchange opinions without assuming
the very worst of each other. I don’t view conservatism as a form
of psychosis and would like conservatives to harbor the same
attitude toward progressives. Happy warriors are better than grim
antagonists.
December 13, 2012
