Built a Ferris Wheel in My Mind, Bolt by Bolt, Then It Broke Just as It Spun Me to the Top

I'm a third of the way though Jeff Madrick's Age of Greed. I read that review then saw the book on the new book shelf, picked it up. So far it's a who's who of motherfucking pigs who've devoted their lives to revoking all laws that keep world class assholes from ratfucking their way to unlimited wealth, starting with motherfucking Hayek. You and me worry about freedom from. World class assholes worry about freedom to.

My friend L of Thursday Night Pints is a generation older than me, she's seventy-four now. I've written before how the Progressive apostasy towards Team Democrat in general and Obamadick in particular radiates out in ripples from the younger to the older. L remembers the fights for Civil Rights and Women's Rights, she remembers when all the safety nets and consumer protections the assholes in Madrick's book want to eliminate didn't exist or had only just been won.

The top two and below photos are from yesterday's hike, a sweet little three mile loop just over the American Legion, Scott's Run Park immediately off the beltway on VA 193. I can't go into details but Earthgirl and I have had another week of a child-free home as we prepare for this Fall, so we're taking to the woods again, getting our hiking legs back under us so we can occupy our weekends with long circuits and decent day through-hikes. We also both assume there's no way we'll be able to retire when we hoped, that the pensions we've paid into will be lost, the money we've contributed into 401Ks each paycheck the past twenty years doesn't really exist, and that health insurance as we now know it won't exist by the time we get old and start to die, so dropping some pounds each seems a prudent step for our future in first British then Serbian America.

Sue us, we're maudlin. Unlike you youngsters we remember when it was stupid and roobish but wasn't motherfucking quaint to think incremental ticks on a progressive ratchet were not only possible but inevitable by dint of reality in negotiations between assholes and their herds. We were young, dopes.

• Krugman almost has his obamapostasy.
• Obamadick.
• Frank Rich's obamapostasy isn't an obamapostasy at all.
• On the above, and more.
• Motherfucking crackers.
• Zombie liberalism.
• The deadliest word.
• Vote for Paulie Kukucinich.
• There are no isolationists.
• Not just Fox.
• Legitimacy is illegitimate.
• Fuckface ain't gonna be POTUS.
• The most hated corporations in America.
• Reflections on fascism and coups.
• Nihilism and mostly inevitable hope.
• Long meditation on Josipivici and modernism.

MAN OF THE HOUSE

Bill Hicok

It was a misunderstanding.

I got into bed, made love

with the woman I found there,

called her honey, mowed the lawn,

had three children, painted

the house twice, fixed the furnace,

overcame an addiction to blue pills,

read Spinoza every night

without once meeting his God,

buried one child, ate my share

of Jell-o and meatloaf,

went away for nine hours a day

and came home hoarding my silence,

built a ferris wheel in my mind,

bolt by bolt, then it broke

just as it spun me to the top.

Turns out I live next door.