The Poles (Not the Nationality)

1. Via skippy:  Some Catholics walking the walk.

   The Catholic leaders are echoing the position of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has advocated for stronger gun restrictions over the past three decades. The USCCB also renewed its call for increased gun safety measures in the aftermath of last month’s Sandy Hook Elementary shooting.
   [...]
   In fact, in several states across the country, it’s easier to get a gun than it is to get an abortion.

2. The archbishop of San Francisco says weird things about same-sex marriage.  I'm shaking my head and laughing.

Winter Loather

• Terrance at Republic of T on the Republican response to President Obama's inaugural address and second term intentions, or "Mom!  He's not bipartisan anymore, even though we've been obstructing him for years!  Mom!  Make him stop that!  Mom!"  (Also, it may just be me, but when I see the name Kevin McCarthy, I think Invasion of the Body Snatchers.)
• Whistleblowers are getting a raw deal (Mills River Progressive channeling Firedoglake, which is raising money for a YouTube ad for greater awareness); they're being treated worse than the people whose crimes they report.  (AlterNet channeling Democracy Now!)

  To Gov-corp, it's not the atrocities that are the problem, it's the people who have the audacity to point them out, or who try to change the system with activism. (MRP)

  Torture, by the way, is immoral.
• Dragging fascism to the mirror and showing it its face.  (Truthout.org via Avedon's Sideshow.)
• Iron Tongue at Midnight posts various versions of Schubert's Der Erlkönig:  Part I.  Part II.

Realization

I may have to put Faith and Fear in Flushing on the blogroll.

After reading a piece at (I think) National Review Online (not remembering what it was about or who sent me there) which engaged threat level "Boggle," I needed some reminder that not all writers are contemptible prats, and Greg Prince provided that reminder with "Saturdays With Willie Mays."

He has plenty of his own anyway. And this year he wasn’t shy about absorbing adoration for any of it. Willie doesn’t actively court worship. He doesn’t have to. But c’mon, he’s Willie Mays. He knows who he is. He knew where he was, too, on Saturday: in the city where it all started for him, from the days when he was the kid, let alone the twilight when he was the wily veteran whose 1973 with the Mets wasn’t altogether dissimilar from his 1951 with the Giants in terms of pennant pressure and fan appreciation. This time, unlike two years earlier, he wasn’t tired. This time he didn’t raise a force field around him to diminish the adoration. This time he was relaxed, engaged…on.

Also, it has become obvious that there is nothing to say about the football championship game that wasn't said in Tank McNamara in the '80s.  (Speaking of Tank, guess who the Sports Jerk of the Year for 2012 is?  Probably too easy.)

Eaten Chicken Lately?

They're germy.

And Not a Minute Too Soon

Pitchers and catchers report two weeks from tomorrow!

A Mark, a Yen, a Buck or a Pound

Via Avedon's Sideshow, The Great Austerity Swindle (at Corrente) with supplemental reading Can the Federal Reserve Really Refuse to Accept... (at New Economic Perspectives), because I need to get a handle on this stuff, too.

Correlation is not Causation

Correlation is not causation.

Nevertheless, this graphic (Mercury Rising) surprised me a bit.  (Originally in The Atlantic in 2011.)

Breaking:

Ban on women in combat lifted.

Conservatives get the vapors in five...four...three...

That's Gotta Sting

"Lawrence O'Donnell Goes Full Driftglass."

Embedded video, no transcript.

Surreal Estate

Yeah, another dream.

A man with some kind of t-shirt over his head grabs my fist as I'm passing and attempts to coerce sex.  I refuse and fight loose.  The man turns out to be a middle-aged clergy person (cross between Geoffrey Rush, John Wood, and Alan Rickman), and we have a meal, walk about and talk (I do not remember any of the conversation), and eventually end up on First Avenue (in Manhattan; teens and 20s), where I leave him.  There are cats lying around, one quite large.  I set off toward home (which meant north) and a largeish bushy gray cat crosses my path.  It gets dark and I remember that it will be getting cold and I didn't bring a jacket.  But it turns out I'm wearing shades, just as I'm trying to cross First Avenue.  (Whew!)  Having crossed, I walk up a couple of blocks, then head crosstown and find myself going through a sanitation yard with odd robotic machines and the sun is quite bright.

At which point I woke up.  And wrote it down pretty immediately, so that all I lost was the conversation and why I thought I was at Stuyvesant Polyclinic.

The Dismal Crafts

From naked capitalism:

• Inefficient financial markets and implications.
• Bank of America and the foreclosure mess.  Part I.  Part II.  Skullduggery, chicanery, and plain dishonesty.

From Shakesville:

• Criminalizing pregnancy and suicide.  (Also mental illness and being Asian.)

From Toronto's The Globe and Mail, via James Davis Nicoll:

The news network, which is owned by Quebecor Inc. and has made a name for itself by slamming rivals such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. for relying on government subsidies, has asked the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to grant it “mandatory carriage,” which means it would be included in every basic cable package across the country.

I remember the luxury of being able to plan for the future...

Quid Pro Quo

• There are apparently persons who instead of leaving tips leave snooty cards.  That ilk was soundly rebuked by Shea Wong at Customized Compulsory Composite.
• It turns out that a lot of health and food service workers don't get sick time anymore because corporate policy did away with sick leave.  (Truthout article.)
• If I were a secret millionaire who worked in health or food service to investigate abuses undercover or something and someone handed me a card like that, I could smile and clip on the button that would say "I just sneezed in your food/dressing/medication."  (And maybe sniffle a little.)

In Memoriam

Stan Musial, "Stan the Man," St. Louis Cardinals.

In Memoriam

Earl Weaver, manager, Orioles.

Two from The Sideshow

• I haven't talked about the suicide of Aaron Swartz.  I didn't know him, although I've used RSS a time or two.  Other people who did know him were far more eloquent.  Avedon posted a number of links to remembrances of Mr. Swartz, and Arthur Silber addresses depression. 
• And then Avedon thrashes Matt Yglesias, who apparently doesn't understand Social Security.  I would guess he doesn't know very many old people.  He probably thinks we can all be charladies and janitors or something.  Y'know, this is about to turn into a rant.

Nothing Like Baseball

...to get the bad taste of Truther out of one's mind.

Faith and Fear in Flushing suggests honoring Ron Hunt (2B), early Met star.  I like this idea; Mr. Hunt was good enough to be on the All-Star team twice.  (He also got hit by pitches a lot.)

Delusional

"Sandy Hook Truthers."

I think more highly of cockroaches.

Recharging.

And the Ants Are in Town

• Anti-gay attorney convicted on child porn charges.  There's a twist; the attorney is female and she videotaped--a number of times--two men "having sex" with her daughter.  From AlterNet, which got it from Southern Poverty Law Center.
• Talk show host quits.  

  Wow. The guy who never met a tax or regulation he couldn’t slam, who devoted his career to selling free market snake oil, who promoted the Tea Party every chance he got? That guy? He appears completely oblivious to the fact that the very policies he promotes has created an environment of corporate consolidation, which actually suppresses free markets and free speech.

  Southern Beale for the win.
• Also (same source), the hoped-for slow demise of toxic talk:

  ...[I]nflammatory style has driven advertisers away from talk radio programming in general, and it’s hurting smaller players as well as the big guys. I’m not surprised, are you? So much political talk radio is toxic, and no advertiser wants to be the target of boycotts, constantly drawn into one national battle after another, forced to pick a side in the culture wars or debates over climate change. That’s the very stuff advertisers want to stay away from — at least publicly.

Just the post-holiday doldrums in the Horse Latitudes. Nothing to see here.

Yahrzeit

Yahrzeit.

More Grift for the Mill

Yes, I'm alive and thinking.  Just not writing much at the moment.

Meanwhile the fleece goes on (Southern Beale has the links).