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Showing posts from March, 2023

Is Trump beginning to be held accountable?

Once again the north must be the moral authority, the south doesn't stand up to mendacity. The biggest case against Trump is in Georgia, where he's on tape saying, "get me votes." But no, New York has to hold him accountable. Not sure about the laws he broke. I want to see him get a gag order, and break that and see what they do.  The norm in the USA is that former presidents aren't prosecuted. Mayors and governors, sure, but not presidents. But when you're a president who breaks norms, well, you can't complain when norms are broken.  With the indictment, the flip is switched. He's not special and he's not getting away with anything. He's being held accountable in a democracy. Whatever the outcome, whatever wrinkles and complications come up. A giant step has been taken for those who feel like he was wrong for america when he made fun of a disabled reporter or said you should just grab women by the pussy. That right there told you all you neede

Nashville

So I would say gun control is a priority for the USA. 9990 people have died this year, according to gun violence archive . The government could ban and buy back automatic rifles often used in these mass slaughter events. This would be my first move to remove the nonsense and dysfunction in America. I once calculated that about 35 children die every year from gun violence, but this year we're at 39 already. The people who are against doing anything about that find that number acceptable. They are OK with sacrificing 35 children every year for the freedom around guns, the way they are OK with people dying for many other various reason. The freedom not to wear masks or get vaccines. The freedom to be a spreader. The reason why we haven't done this common sense action is money in politics. Corporations get together and buy politicians. Mitt Romney has taken over 12 million from the NRA. Then there is a movement against being empathetic towards others. Responding as a community. All

In The Zone

Section 3 of Gravity's Rainbow is called In The Zone . P. 279-616, the biggest section of the 4. There are a million and one references I have to look up to grok the book, but I just list the ones I enjoyed learning.  Jungians will like this German word: Schattensaft: shadow juice. This is supposedly Pynchon behind the door. Badger game: an extortion racket in which a man is lured by a woman into a compromising position and is then confronted with and blackmailed by the woman's accomplice posing as her husband or brother. (p. 292) Links on recent articles: Pynchon’s Prophecy by Gus Mitchell: "Gravity’s Rainbow is a visionary work, as prophetic in its own way as Dante or Blake. However far Blake or Dante saw, however, they still speak to us from times before the secular apocalypse bearing down on us. Pynchon was the first great writer to see it, and to see it completely, in all its manifestations. He knew that the impulse toward control, toward totalizing systems—the impu

The Book of Taliesin

I'm really afraid to buy books again because I read so little these days. I feel bad about it. Pynchon doesn't really excite me consistently, I have to look things up, and I'm clogged up on other books I'm not really into. I need a non-grinding book, a page turner, or a popular book that was written to be smooth going down, a lite beer of reading. My pop says Wodehouse for those occasions but I'm not as fond of him as he is. As I get older I follow my interests and don't always grind through classics, and that is both good and bad. You need some determination to get through some bits to find the nuggets.  One book that excites me, maybe because it's not at my library is The Book of Taliesin . Here is a tantalizing snippet: And another

Feeling political

When I was growing up the Republicans were shady, but they seemed to have some integrity. Nixon, Reagan, Bushs.  Trump proved that people with a conservative orientation in their psychology and personality don't actually care about ethics, and the country over their ideology and culture war crap. Party over country. They align with Russia sometimes. The NY Post hates an autocratic young female actress, but not for a leader of the country. So they don't like misbehavior, they just don't like it when it goes against their prejudices.  Woke turns out to be a one size fit all space to put your shameful ideas: racism, fascism, sexism, selfishness. Woke is the forces that fight injustice, destroying the planet, thinking about others. The people I actually like who vote republican aren't racist, sexist, undemocratic, but they feel the right to vote against others and their future. Selfish. Maybe humans are psychologically selfish, and the factors that make them less selfish a

Squalidozzi

"Squalidozzi wants to say: We of all magical precipitates out of Europe's groaning, clouded alembic, we are the thinnest, the most dangerous, the handiest to secular uses. ..We tried to exterminate our Indians, like you: we wanted the closed white version of reality we got-but even into the smokiest labyrinths, the furthest stacked density of midday balcony or courtyard and gate, the land has never let us forget." (P264 GR) Further down he writes that Slothrop is, "gobblin' away". Supposedly gobblin mode is the phrase of the year, 50 years later.

two ways of seeing things

Both parties in America over reach when they gain power.  Conservatives in Florida and Texas make laws when usually conservatives feel like most situations are carried under the current laws. You don't need to make special laws to protect minorities, they argue, because if you murder someone because they're a minority, it's murder. You don't need a special law to say that's wrong.  The same would go for trying to ban books, and ban the democrat party or all the grimey stuff they're doing. If you don't like a book, then don't check it out from the library, or indeed if libraries are closed to pinch a penny, don't buy the book. That's capitalism. If you don't like the idea of transgender, then bury your head in the sand and say it's not a thing. If you don't like immigration in your state, just ship the people off to other states, no matter how illegal that is.  The New Deal created a lot of governmental projects that were successful. T