Today's Haiku

Then I blamed it on youth.
Now my excuse is age.
As a summer night's heat fades at dawn,
Memory's detail frays
Though the image still is clear.

Sandwichman Commands ...

Tom Walker

Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence AS YOUR STATUS. AND POST these instructions in a comment to this status.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST book.

July 12 at 7:32am

Jan De Hartog: "The Capitan", page 56, fifth sentence:

"It was a grey windless day with low hanging cloud: darkness would fall soon with that sky."

That sums it up.
--ml

Herd Vision

Digby concludes:

But there might be a few stragglers who have only recently become convinced of my cowardice who would be surprised at what they see.

That would assume they could see past the beam in their own eyes that prevents them seeing how very brave it is to maintain one's convictions despite the herd's roars.
--ml

Hear him! Hear him!

"Behind all the new movements of this age - nationalistic, fascistic, communistic - has been more than a suspicion of the mental attitude of a gang of small-town louts ready to throw a brick at the nearest stranger."

--J. B. Priestly

That about sums it up.
Except to add the other bully still going strong: Corporatism.
--ml

S.A.T.S.Q.* MMCXXVII

Paul Krugman asks:

The question is, what is that higher truth? What do these people really believe in?

Pharaoh.
Glad to help Paul.
--ml
*simple answers etc. ^tm Duncan Black

Ponderable Imponderable

Is there any credible scientific evidence that preventative medical care prevents anything other than:

• Physician penury
• Pharma corporations profit hunger
• Insurers aquisitivitis

?

--ml

Simple Answers to Simple Questions

Digby asks:

Is the US even a nation state anymore?

The US is a wholly owned subsidiary of Global Capital, Inc.

This has been an homage to Duncan Black who is the originator of "Simple Questions ..etc."
--ml

A Quarter for a Truism

Dday at Digby's quotes Russ Finegold speaking about Somalia.

Moreover, until a functioning economy can be established, piracy will remain the most lucrative business in the region.

Replace "Somalia" with any polity and Bob's your curiouser strange not related personage.
Or:
As Mark Twain might have observed: "Go thou and do likewise."
--ml

More Beer!

The filtering vat, which makes
a pleasant sound,
You place appropriately on [top of]
a large collector vat.
Ninkasi, the filtering vat,
which makes a pleasant sound,
you place appropriately on [top of]
a large collector vat.

Rinse and repeat 4,ooo years ago. Then go out and create ... civilization?
--ml

Simple Definitions

Outlaw: What most of are forced to do one time or another by ignorance, stupidity, greed, or in response to coercion.

Criminal: Those who break laws as a profession or career to satisfy their ignorance, stupidity, greed, or in response to coercion.

Pirate: The power elite who plunder everyone.

--ml