Photo of today

There she goes, again

Fascist fascism

Did you know that Leo Strauss, the infamous Godfather of Neo-Conservatism, coined the term Reductio ad Hitlerum, which is Latin for “Jonah Goldberg.” Sorry, that’s not entirely fair. To be a bit more precise, Reductio ad Hitlerum describes the logical fallacy which posits that Hitler (or the Nazis) supported X, therefore X must be evil/undesirable/bad. For Goldberg, it should be modified to read ascistsfay oughtthay xay andway iberalslay inkthay xay
ereforethay iberalslay areway ascistsfay, since he is a pig.

We all know that Goldberg is a colossal buffoon and maybe some day he’ll get his own pithy Latin saying to deride his “thought,”, but in the meantime it’s just a bit funny that such a fatuous asshole-buddy of the Neo-Conservative cause is the foremost practitioner of Strauss’s logical fallacy. It makes one kind of hope there’s a hell so that Strauss can contemplate the real world shambles his brain dead followers have made of his thought as he roasts in it. The Nazi’s, you know, picked on stupid fat kids and liberals pick on Jonah Goldberg, so, you know...

But Goldberg notwithstanding, Fascism is typically defined as an extremely nationalistic political philosophy that advocates an autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader and suppression of opposition. Fascist tendencies include a belief in some combination of national, racial, and/or religious exceptionalism, political violence, arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture, race-based expulsions and brutal invasions and occupations of other countries. Much like the Republican platform.

For the past 65 years or so all we’ve heard about Nazis and Fascists is that those people and their ideology are bad, bad, very very bad. These days one simply cannot describe oneself as a Nazi or a Fascist and run for office or become part of the serious media.

What to do? What to do? This social condemnation of Fascism is a great hindrance to people who otherwise could accurately describe themselves as Fascists. It’s not like Fascist thinking has ever gone away. As you know, extreme nationalism, “executive privilege,” brutal police state tactics, racist roundups and deportations, insane foreign wars and many other trappings of Fascism have become mainstream. Its would-be practitioners simply recognized the need to re-brand.

So what could they call themselves? “Authoritarian” worked okay for our Fascist allies abroad, but wouldn’t play well at home. “Neo-Authoritarian” never had a chance. “Neo-Liberal” didn’t work out for rather obvious reasons. “Neo-Conservative” had a much nicer ring to the Fascist ear, but contained too many syllables for the average Jonah to wrap his little brain around. “Christian Conservative,” even with all those syllables, works for a lot of our Neo-Fascists, but doesn’t include a lot of the more economic focused volk. In the end it seems the best word they could co-opt as the new “Fascist” was just plain old “Conservative.” Extreme nationalism, “executive privilege,” brutal police state tactics, racist roundups and deportations, insane foreign wars, and torture are unquestionably Conservative values these days. Don’t believe me? Just read the Washington Post’s editorial page.

Anyway, I think Strauss recognized the danger that people might call his Fascist crap Fascist crap, and being a very smart man realized that simply not referring to one’s beliefs as Fascist or Nazi-like was not enough, that it would be necessary to take the possibility of calling a Fascist a Fascist off the table entirely. Thus he gives Fascists Reductio ad Hitlerum as a shield which is followed by Godwin’s Law which also keeps the word Fascist at bay, and the linguistic legerdemain eventually degenerates into Goldberg’s fart of a thesis ascistsfay oughtthay xay andway iberalslay inkthay xay
ereforethay iberalslay areway ascistsfay, which essentially says that those who oppose Fascism are Fascists.

So here we are. The stink of Fascism fills the air and it’s considered extremely bad form to call a fart a fart, much less point out who farted.

Part of the problem with calling a Fascist a Fascist is that the Nazis, in addition to being Fascists, were genuinely pathological racist nut cases on a historic scale. Few American Conservatives would advocate, even in the privacy of their empty skulls, killing all the Jews. Many are racists, obviously, but for the most part they’ve learned to keep that shit to themselves and would be happy with separate and unequal rather than gassed and dumped in mass graves.

Still, the success the Conservatives have had taking the word “Fascist” off the table is yet another indication of just how pathetically weak our so called Liberals and Democrats have become. Conservative policies are, by common definition in popular dictionaries and encyclopedias, Fascist. Either intelligent, educated people need to start using the word accurately and educating others to the existence of things such as dictionaries and encyclopedias, or we need to find or create another word with the same meaning. The specific, individual acts of Bush and the Conservatives -- brutal invasions and occupations, war crimes, torture, etc. etc. etc. -- are too numerous to get into a sentence or even a paragraph. That’s why we end up sputtering when we try to list them all. But there is a word that describes Conservative policies accurately. The word is Fascist. It’s in the dictionary. You can look it up.

Ticker tape

After the Giants won the super bowl all of the old photos and newsreel clips I've seen over the years started talking to me saying that I had to go to the ticker tape parade and take some photos. Frankly, I wasn't that enthused, but a New York ticker tape parade is such a hokey over-hyped piece of americana that I couldn't come up with a compelling argument not to go.

Funhouse mirrors

The news tells me that yet another gumman went on a shooting spree, this time at a small college in Illinois. That makes like what, three mass murders in a week? We're becoming like Iraq. Is there some kind of rule that you become what you conquer? Of course our mass murderers are typically white Christian conservatives and their jihads tend to be more personal than their radical Islamic brethren. But still. Blow yourself up in a crowded market or go out in a hail of bullets while shooting as many people as you can. What's the dif? Ain't no dif. Not as much as people think, if they think at all.

Africain american

Photo of today

Writing's becoming difficult. Here's a photo for now. Nothing special, but not without some interest formal elements. Click on it for a larger view.

Bad week at the end of the world

Poor Atrios seems to be having a hard time lately.

He goes to great lengths to inform you that he doesn't give a shit about what you think, cause, you must understand, it's not about you, it's about him.

Kind of humorous coming from someone who makes a living telling other people what he thinks, eh? Of course plenty of people really do care to know his opinion, so perhaps that gives him license to tell other, lesser mortals, to shut up? No, of course it doesn't. That's the kind of info one should keep to oneself. To act otherwise is simply bad manners. And I'd hazard a guess that all but a few of the filthiest, most vile wingnut losers have at least a few people who care about their opinions, or at least care enough to pretend. Who is Atrios to try to burst their bubbles?

But hey, I can sympathize with the feeling. I've been a bad guy. A bubble burster. I'm not proud of it, but shit has happened. And I'm sure it sucks being bombarded with other people's unsolicited opinions on a scale that most people probably can't imagine. Still, I can't condone the behavior. Not by me. Not by anyone. When opinion writers bitch about people writing about their opinions, it appears a bit hypocritical, to put it mildly.

I don't mean to attack. As I've mentioned before, I like the Atrios blog and read it daily. And I've a short fuse myself when it comes to people telling me what I should do. So I'm not angry with Atrios. Just concerned. He seems to be a bit down.

As further evidence, we see him complaining earlier in the week that he doesn't make enough money, then asks those little people he doesn't give a shit about to send him money, and then brags (defensively) about how much money he makes. It's a very weird sequence.

Well, here's hoping he gets a lot of money for his work and it cheers him up! I won't be sending any, of course, but if I ever run into him in a bar or a green room, I'd happily offer to buy him a drink in appreciation for all the entertainment and information he provides. But here's also hoping the celebrity crap doesn't get to him. I don't wanna see no paparazzi shot out front the Betty Ford clinic. But if he wants to date Jessica Simpson, I guess that would be okay. Anything to take his mind off all those terrible nobodies with their worthless opinions.

Swish swash

Just got my 8-year-old's report card. It's not your typical report card. His school doesn't give grades. It's more like an essay.

The teacher included one of his poems:

Why do Dragons Go To Sea

Dragons soar across the sea thinking
"The ocean is scaly like me when the
Waves go swish swash.
Maybe it's another dragon."

Dragons soar across the sea.
"Perhaps I'm seeing things,
But I'm going to dive in
To eat fish. I roast them
With my sun level fire
Breath."

Dragons soar across the sea.
"I go to my island.
I am marooned on my island.
People come with torches but
I can breathe the sun."

Not bad for a third grader, huh? Don't get me wrong. My purpose is not to brag about my kid, more to lament the state of education in this poor world. I'm sure that he wouldn't be much of a poet if he didn't go to a progressive school where they start teaching serious poetry in kindergarten. He also takes dance, two music classes, and art in addition to the regular academic subjects. It's not like he's the best in the class or anything. They all know how to use anaphora and I'm happy for them. What saddens me is that more kids don't get that kind of education. It's really not that difficult.

Yet the trend is away from quality education. A lot of kids do nothing but reading, writing and rithmatic and that creativity-stifling limited curriculum is pretty much limited to test preparation. Passing the test is the be all and the end all.

There's some push back against quality education even in our school. There was a funny scene with the math teacher at a recent parent/teacher night. She was explaining what the children did in class, which is pretty much all games and puzzles. As she went on about how much fun the kids had and how it was important for them to see the higher beauty of math, many of the parents grew uncomfortable. One of them asked if they did any typical math like multiplication, long division or fractions. The poor teacher misunderstood the nature of the question and went to great lengths to assure us that she didn't waste the kids time with that crap.

I know, I know. Would that kind of thing work in the worst schools? Me? I think yes. Would it take a lot of money? No doubt. But we get what we pay for. Bush's new budget contains 515 billion for "defense" and the interest we'll pay on the resulting deficit is far more than he proposes for education. We pay for war and inequality and that's what we get. We'd be better off well-educated.

Another day at the races

In personal news, the chuckling household recently got cable tv. The last time we had it was about 18 years ago. The signal from the antennae had become so weak that we finally gave in. It was painful to watch the boy try to figure out what was happening to Jackie Chan beneath all of that video noise and horizontal wiggling.

We did without for all those years for a variety of reasons. Mostly it was out of a belief that if watching tv were not so difficult on the eyes we would watch a lot more of it, thus making us fatter and less intelligent. But more specifically, I was afraid that I would watch the news. Particularly cable news. I read a lot, and that's bad enough, but television news tends to make me angry (as well as stupid), not only at the content of the news, but at the terrible incompetence of the news organizations. It's not like the major print media is all that great, but tv is infinitely worse.

I've done pretty well for the most part. Outside of the regular broadcast channels we mostly watch Monk and Comedy Central, as well as the near daily re-runs of Overboard and Ghostbusters. On the negative side, there have been several occasions when we've watched CNN and CNBC to see election news. As predictable as it was, we were still a bit surprised at the staggering incompetence of the tv news creatures and we quickly got angry and turned them off.

The news media's offenses against intelligence and basic competence are many, but what stands out is their sickening obsession with race. The election night coverages we saw were all stupid race shit all the time. Given how much I read and the fact that the print media has the same unhealthy preoccupation, I can't say I was particularly surprised. My wife, however, doesn't read the New York Times and the Washington Post every day, much less any blogs, so the utter depth of the media's racial obsession like totally freaked her out. She was shocked, disgusted and ultimately angry. What is wrong with these people? she asked. After a few minutes, we changed the channel back to Overboard.

Normally, we cluck and nod our heads in agreement. Yep, them media creatures sure are stupid. Yep, they really suck. But do they? All the way up the organization? I don't doubt that the talking hairstyles really are that vapid, but what about their bosses, and their bosses' bosses, and the top executives?

Think about it. As the graphic above from Nielsen Media Research (used under the jurisdiction of the Fair Use doctrine) demonstrates, television news viewership is tanking and has been for the last twenty five years or so.

I'd wager that if it were possible to quantify quality, the quality graph would track the viewership graph pretty much peak for valley. The news department staffing chart is similar:



And anecdotal evidence also supports the point:



So why, given the significant financial stakes involved in news ratings, does quality continue to decline? Why do the talking hairpieces babble on and on about subjects that literally make millions of people change the channel? And more importantly, why do the executives in the boardroom continue to let the talking hair pieces destroy the product? The executives have something more than air beneath the hair. They understand the bottom line.

Therein lies the rub. If the top executives understand the bottom line and they allow both quality and the resulting ratings to decline so precipitously, then they must believe that they profit by having fewer viewers who are significantly less well-educated on the issues.

My guess is that they make a lot more money by controlling the government than they do by selling soap and to control government so thoroughly requires an ignorant and easily manipulatable electorate. So they propagandize the morons that enjoy being whipped up into a frenzy of hate and stupidity and encourage everyone else to watch Entertainment Tonight, or Overboard.

The ground in winter

Just that.



In case you don't get out enough



in the cold.

Fire up the presses, it's printin time!

The Times reports:

WASHINGTON — House leaders and the White House on Thursday announced a tentative agreement on an economic stimulus package of roughly $150 billion that would pay stipends of $300 to $1,200 per household, and more for families with children, plus provide tax incentives for businesses to encourage spending.

Translation: They're gonna print a lotta money and throw it in the air by the fistful. A lot more money, to put it accurately. It won't be long before we're all carrying around suitcases full of Benjamins to buy groceries. That's already the case if you travel. Funny how you don't hear much about the deficit these days.

Or perhaps the plan is to trick the Arabs and the Asians and the Europeans into going to war with each other over who gets to buy up everything of value in this country? Nah, there is no plan. At least nothing beyond getting a blip in tomorrow's polls. Maybe they'll kick tomorrow?

And of course it could just be another ruse. Last time we learned that the supposedly free money was just an advance on our tax cut, you know, money we would have gotten anyway. Is that trick in the works again? The news stories describe it as a "stipend" or a "rebate," but it'javascript:void(0)s an unfortunate, and very real, possibility that our top flight media don't know what those words mean, or just take dictation without bothering to stop and think about it. We'll see. It'll probably end up being some combination of the two.

Guy knows how to dig a hole

When There Will be Blood first came out, I was enthused to see it and my daughter wanted to go as well. But her schedule is full and the weeks went by and my interest began to wane, as is prone to happen as a movie's initial hype wears off. Then I saw that it was up for a lot of Oscars, and always in the same sentence as No Country for Old Men, a film I truly hated, and I decided not to waste my money, or my time on it, that it was bound to suck like all the other movies. But then my daughter had a free night and wanted to go, so here I am.

If you plan on seeing There Will be Blood, I recommend that you don't read past this paragraph. I will not give the details of what happens, but I will discuss what I thought about some of the major plot elements. You would do better to see it without letting me color your judgment, one way or the other. It's an interesting movie and worth seeing. And if you want a more intelligent review, I trust Roy will provide one soon.

Okay, you were warned. I thought the ending really sucked and it practically ruined the entire movie for me. It felt like one of those tacked-on studio endings where the big shots snatch the film maker's dream at right before release and turn it into crap. Of course it's also possible that the screenwriter just had no idea how to end it and took the easy way out, but I don't think so. The film was intricately plotted and all the pieces were in place for a satisfying ending that was true to the story, but for whatever reason, that just did not happen.

And it's unfortunate because There Will be Blood had the potential to be a truly great movie. The first two thirds of the story arc provided a nearly immaculate example of visual story telling at its finest. The movie began unraveling a bit as it approached the end, but there were still many good moments and the film was entirely salvageable until the next to last scene.

I know that sounds a bit too much like a lot of the complaints about No Country for Old Men. A lot of people thought that was a potentially great movie until the unsatisfying ending. I, however, was not one of them. Although the movies are similar on one level -- interesting leading man, black humor, unsatisfying ending -- the stories are not comparable. No Country is lame-assed kitsch. There Will be Blood came damn close to nailing it.

Beyond commenting on the story, I'd say the cinematography had its moments. There are some interesting images of warm light in late afternoon and during fire scenes and some interesting use of depth of field and a couple incredibly well-framed close-ups, but overall it was not what you'd call spectacular. The acting was good, particularly Tom Selleck, or some guy that looked like him, in the lead role. If that was old Tom, his acting skills have sure improved since Three Men and a Baby.

My name is Glahn

I almost skipped the "Celebrity book club" article in Sunday's Daily News that asked and odd assortment of talent to talk about the book they are currently reading.

You know, anyone could predict that Cassandra Wilson was reading "technical books filled with dense language only Bill Gates could love" or that Shia Labeouf was into "The Definitive Book of Body Language," but I was nicely surprised to learn that Jason Lee was reading Knut Hamsun's "Hunger," one of chuckling's favorite books by one of chuckling's favorite authors.

Lee, who stars in "My Name is Earl" a show I've never seen, had this to say about one of the greatest books of all time:

"It's about how to cross your legs when you're lying. How to scratch your face when you're scared. I want to be a better actor."

Ooops that was Labeouf. What he really said was:

I talk about this book a lot. It makes it seem like the only book I ever read. It's 'Hunger'; I'm on my second pass. I've never been so riveted by something that has nothing going on. It's just absolutely so well-written. Unbelievable. You find yourself going, 'What's going to happen? What's going to happen? What's going to happen?' Oh, my God. And you really feel the pain of the guy. It absolutely makes me look at [homeless] people I see in downtown L.A. in a different light."

Sometimes, karma needs you to show a little humility in order to do its work.

The chuckling character, you may be surprised to learn is loosely based on the narrator of "Hunger" and the main characters in Hamsun's next two books. One of the site's running jokes, the 13 part philosophical treatise on the films of Studio Ghibli, is my little homage to "Hunger."

Wikipedia describes the novel:

It recounts the adventures of a starving young man, whose sense of reality is giving way to a delusionary existence on the darker side of a modern metropolis. While he vainly tries to maintain an outer shell of respectability, his mental and physical decay are recounted in detail. His ordeal, enhanced by his inability or unwillingness to pursue a professional career, which he deems unfit for someone of his abilities, is pictured in a series of encounters, which Hamsun himself has described as 'a series of analyses'.

Yep, that's poor chuckling in a nutshell, though the starving part was a long time ago on the darker side of a modern metropolis far, far away.

But plenty of books by famous authors describe poor chuckling. Hamsun's writing is extraordinary and that's why you should read him. Reading "Hunger," "Mysteries" and "Pan" is an incredible literary experience. "Pan" comes about as close as possible to being a perfect novel.

Changing toons

Frank Rich's column about Hillary Clinton and "change" is particularly inane this morning. I don't know what it is about Clinton that makes the big time journalists start chugging the stupid pills.

It's been a hoot watching all the bigwigs in both politics and media engage in a pissing contest to see who can invoke the word "change" the most. Rich's point, to the extent he has one, seems to be that Clinton is not the candidate of change, and that that's a bad thing. A very bad thing. Change, you see, is good. Clinton, you see, is bad.

But what does he mean by "change?" Probably not the same thing most people mean. To take one example:

This presentation of the liberal catechism reached its apotheosis in a Clinton campaign ad in December. Mrs. Clinton was shown doling out Christmas presents labeled “Universal Health Care” and “Alternative Energy” before delivering the punch line, “Where did I put universal pre-K?”

For Rich, universal health care, alternative energy, and universal pre-K are just the same old, same old. Hillary has been using those terms for years. He's heard it all before. No change there.

Yet for people on the ground, to have a government that ensured decent health care, intelligent energy policy and a better education system, would represent a radical change. And perhaps regular folk have a deeper definition of "change" than "what a person's been saying" as well.

The overall message uniting the small-bore promises, such as it was, remains unchanged today: competence, experience, wonky proficiency.

Hillary's message, you see, is unchanged. She is unchanged. And people want what? People want change!

Rich seems unable to comprehend the fact that competence, experience and wonky proficiency are attributes that represent the greatest possible change from Bush. When he first ran for President, Bush's inexperience and lack of in-depth knowledge about any and all subjects outside of baseball were presented as good things. And although he was presented as competent, he had a long history of failure going in and he's the all-time American champion of miserable failure going out.

So while Rich and the other media nabobs ponder the possibility that "change" means "someone other than Bush," they don't seem to realize that it might have something to do with his staggering incompetence. They seem more inclined to believe that people have grown tired of him because he's been around for eight or nine years and keeps saying the same things.

While it's true, they concede, that Hillary Clinton is not the exact same person as Bush, she is, they insist, part of the Bush/Clinton dynasty. Hillary Clinton, gasp, has been around even longer than Bush! She and Bush have been around forever! They are practically the same person! And they keep saying the same things!

The fact that the things Hillary Clinton keeps saying represent true and significant change doesn't enter into the conversation.

Obama, on the other hand, represents change. He is a uniter, not a divider. Ummmm. No wonky spiels. Ummmm. At least he has a history of competence, not that that counts. Maybe it's because he looks different? That's the kind of "change" we're talking about! Let's give him a few months before he has to change what he says.


The way Rich and the media-politico in crowd keep changing the definition of "change," it's difficult to know what a presidential candidate should do to "change" in a way that suits them. Mitt Romney changes what he says all the time and he doesn't get any love. And as shallow as they are, you'd think that a different hairstyle or wardrobe would represent acceptable change, but a poor politician has to be careful how much he or she pays for that coif. And what to wear? All we know is that you're not allowed to save the earth if you all of a sudden start wearing earth tones.

Wipe out

Just minutes after I declare for Bill Richardson, he quits the race. Now I've got to fight off despondency and cynicism about the direction of this great country of ours. New Mexico is an incredibly beautiful state. I think Richardson could have made the whole country just as beautiful. Too much of the east is flat and boring. More beautiful mountains and fantastic sunsets would have done us good. Oh well. Que sera sera. Insha'Allah baby.

Arizona is even better, so you'd think I'd be for John McCain, but he is much more a creature of Phoenix than a real Arizonan. Phoenix is a crime against the planet. If there were a just God, it wouldn't exist. And that's what McCain offers the rest of the country. He's probably never even seen a mountain or a sunset even though he's surrounded by them at least once or twice a year. All he sees is enemies. It's not that enemies don't exist, but he sees them in all the wrong places.

Which candidate should I support now that Bill has packed it in? McCain, aside from not really representing Arizona, is too submissive. Ever since Bush beat him like a dog in South Carolina he's acted like one. So I'm kinda leaning towards Giuliani. Not, as you might imagine, because of the New York skyline or ecosystem. Sure, it would be nice if more places were like New York -- Indianapolis, St. Louis, Nashville -- all those hellholes in the midwest could use a little New York style, and that's a good reason to vote for Rudolph, but I'm more drawn to the rotten reindeer because he's such a bizarre fucking psychopath. And in so many ways. If he were elected, much hilarity would ensue, at least until he starts fucking up the lives of his critics, say for a year or so. Still, better to have a few laughs in the meantime.

A lot of people are going to suffer and die for oil and misplaced notions of honor no matter who gets elected.

Catching the wave

Took my son up to New Hampshire today to photograph an Obama rally but the line was too long and his flacks too Bush-like, so we ended up at a Richardson rally in a park (see above photo). Now I'm leaning towards Bill. New Mexico is a beautiful state. Maybe he can make the whole country that beautiful.

Sunday funnies

I caught the end of the Democrat's debate last night. They all seemed like decent enough people and any one of them would be a world of improvement over any of the Republican psychopaths.

Only Obama or Richardson would have the remotest chance of being an effective president. Edwards is too direct in his challenge to corporate hegemony and there are just too many idiots out there with an irrational hatred of Hillary. Either Clinton or Edwards would provoke massive opposition that would be as well-funded as it would be vitriolic. We'd get at least four more years of ugliness, no doubt. With Obama or Richardson, at least there'd be a minute possibility that the tenor of the attacks would mellow.

I say minute chance. Does anyone doubt that if Obama is the nominee, the Republicans will go all southern strategy all the time and the news media will support them?

Already we see that our top journalists in both broadcast and print, perceive "race" as central to all Obama stories. Over and over again they note that in Obama's case "race" is not an issue and that Obama himself never mentions it. Yet for these poor stunted souls, our journalistic elite, it is all they can talk about. If Obama continues to do well, you can count on increasingly idiotic histrionics from the beltway pundits. They will be more than happy to amplify the Republican machine's southern strategy, with a tut tut and a wink of course. Today's topic: should Americans hide the white women if Osama, I mean Obama, becomes President? Fashion industry sees potential cash cow in veils. Meanwhile, latest bloodbath in mideast helps Republicans.

Well, if anyone with African heritage can withstand what's coming, he is Barak Obama. Our prejudices are much more related to culture than color and culturally Obama is white. Here's hoping the coming ugliness backfires on the racist Republican shit heads. Beggarman, get on your horse and ride.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post's Sunday editorial page is always good for a few sad laughs.

David Broder, who is the dean of Washington Punditry as long as you consider "dean" a synonym for "senile" writes:

That search becomes more urgent as the major-party politicians come to understand that Obama could be the most electable candidate the Democrats have fielded in many years.

What planet does this guy live on? Of the last four elections, Democrats won the popular vote in three of them and came close in the fourth. I think Broder and most of his beltway brethren have their heads so far up their beltway asses that they really cannot differentiate between their consensus opinions and the actual results of elections. It's truly amazing.

And finally, old sharp-stick-up-the-ass George Will claims that the middle class is only shrinking because the ranks of the rich are expanding.

Economist Stephen Rose, defining the middle class as households with annual incomes between $30,000 and $100,000, says a smaller percentage of Americans are in that category than in 1979 -- because the percentage of Americans earning more than $100,000 has doubled, from 12 to 24, while the percentage earning less than $30,000 is unchanged. "So," Rose says, "the entire 'decline' of the middle class came from people moving up the income ladder."

Well, you know what they say about lies, damned lies, and statistics.

I have neither the time nor wherewithal to go deep into those particular statistics, but using the $30,000 to $100,000 income range to define middle class strikes me as silly. For one thing, those numbers obviously don't mean what they meant in 1979. And even if they are adjusted for inflation, $40,000 in New York is not the same as $40,000 in Bumfuck.

But the open sore that Will tries to band-aid with income statistics isn't poverty or any decline in the percentage of middle class folk. It's the income disparity between the truly wealthy and the other 95 or so percent of us and what that disparity means for our children. It means that if something isn't done to rein in those greedy fucks, most people's character and abilities, their merit, will have nothing whatsoever to do with their chance of success in this life. The semi-retarded scions of the wealthy who could never make it on their own, the George W. Bush's, Hank Steinbrenners, James Dolans, and so many more faceless others, will have it all wrapped up in tax free trust funds and off-shore accounts. If we don't tax these losers back to competitive reality, your grandchildren better hone their ass kissing skills cause that's where just about the only opportunity for advancement that will be left.

Photo of the day

I found about a thousand old photos on a hard drive I was about to throw away. A couple are kind of interesting. This one seems to have some resonance.

Another death knell for democracy

According to the New York Times:

Emily Rocheleau, 22, an independent, said she was weighing her choices between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean that all of their positions are really moderate, but their rhetoric and their approach to politics is more about unifying the country,” said Ms. Rocheleau, who added that she had not yet chosen her candidate.

Honestly. Do these people really exist or do reporters just make them up? If she were five, I could sympathize with her reasoning. But I know a lot of eight year olds that have significantly more intellectual depth. Really, I do.

But at least she's open minded, I guess. Too many oldsters will vote for the party they vote for because that's their party, doesn't matter who the candidate is. For them it's like rooting for the home team. Once a Stealer's fan, always as Stealer's fan.

Just imagine. In this day and age, with all the monumentally important shit going on in the world, we could very well have an election which is decided by simple folk like Ms. Rocheleau, 22, an independent, who will choose between Obama and McCain based on whether she'd prefer the cute guy or the old guy as President, her boyfriend or her grandpa.