News Blog

Keeping Up With Our Former Selves

Happy Girl Smart Phone

People today aren’t so much keeping up with the Joneses as keeping up with our former selves. Things we used to be able to afford are suddenly too expensive. It’s not because we make less money nominally but that everything costs so much more. And so when commentators talk about people not getting a raise in 20 years, that’s what they’re talking about. The earning power of our money is less.

This doesn’t even get into the situation of people’s whose nominal income has been flat — or worse, has slid — but who are still forced to pay higher prices that assume a much higher income level. Read More

Corruption Battles

Watching multiple corrupt parties battling over corruption is a mindfuck that causes people to take this or that tidbit of the opposing stories and weave them into elaborate and unprovable theories designed to exonerate one or the other side, forgetting entirely that BOTH SIDES ARE CORRUPT, rendering the whole thing moot.

Bolton Makes Strange Bedfellows

John R Bolton

The anti-war and anti-US-meddling wings of all parties should be very happy today.  John Bolton, the evil warmonger who has been Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor for the past year and a half has just exited the White House, stage right.  Trump fired him, says Trump.  I quit, says Bolton.  Who cares?  He’s gone and the world feels slightly less scary as a result.

In an effort to gauge public opinion on the matter, I read around the top news stories from papers across the country only to discover that views are mixed. Republican opinion is largely pro-Bolton, but oddly enough, some Democrats seem reluctant to admit that getting rid of Bolton is actually a very good thing.  They would have us to believe instead that Bolton’s departure is a symptom of how unstable our government is under Trump, rather than a lucky break for vulnerable peoples across the globe. Read More

No News is Good News? — On Going News-Free

After the latest round of shootings earlier this month, I had a moment of nausea that led me to think it might be a good time for a news hiatus. The weather was gorgeous — high summer in Vermont — and an array of family were due to visit. So rather than read depressing headlines all summer, I decided to take a couple weeks off from the news. Maybe, I thought, it will make me happier and less anxious if I just don’t hear any of it.

In the process of undergoing this experiment, I learned a couple unexpected things. First, that daily life, even without news, has plenty of stressors all on its own, and secondly, that some news will out. Oh, and a third thing, that your friends, will eventually find you boring and run out of things to say when you’re around. Read More

The DNC Vs Everybody – A Footnote to Russiagate

Dutch Roundel with Justice - Metropolitan Museum of Art / CC0 - Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

Those following the Julian Assange story probably already know about the recent ruling in the DNC email case. This is the one where the DNC sued Russia, the Trumpies, and Wikileaks over their stolen emails. They said it was racketeering. The judge said it wasn’t and dismissed the case. With prejudice meaning they even can’t file it again.

This was such a bummer to the DNC that they initially had nothing to say. The next day, they managed to mumble a few words about what a shame it was that free speech trumps the sanctity of our elections, or words to that effect. A few news outlets covered it and then the story faded away. Which is odd because it was kind of a big story — one wonders how it would have been covered had the ruling gone the other way.
Read More

Enjoying The Good Old Summertime News-Free

This morning, shortly after reading on my iPad that there had been a couple more mass shootings, including the one in California at the garlic festival, someone in my rural neighborhood got out a gun and started firing. This is not weird or unusual for this neck of the woods, but having spent many years of my life in the city, gunfire functions as an alarm. It’s a a signal to freeze, listen, and possibly seek an interior room of the house, which is is exactly what our cat did when he heard the first volley. Read More

Poking the Hornet’s Nest in the Middle East

Mk-17 Theronuclear Bomb

President Donald Trump is now focusing all his attention on the Middle East, and this is causing the rest of the world to look there too. It’s also causing Middle Eastern nations to look at themselves and take sides. Since there are at least two major factions, led by the Saudis and the Iranians respectively, one would expect that a US invasion of Iran would lead other Middle Eastern countries to get involved on one side or the other. As a spokesman for Iran said last night, one bullet could set the whole region ablaze and US interests with it. Read More

How To Keep The Middle Class In Line

Staffsmith and Sons

Controlling the middle class is imperative if you want political power in America.  Here’s how it’s done:

Give them just enough to claim middle class status.

Keep them insecure and wanting more.

Make them think that if anything changes, they’ll lose what they have. Read More

Vermont Writer Questions Humanitarian Crisis in Venezuela

Vermont writer Peter Lackowski has visited Venezuela five times since 2005, giving him perspective on the current situation in the country and how it evolved over time. His new article, “Eyewitness in Venezuela: a 14-year Perspective,” calls into question the official story of a grave humanitarian crisis, which the United States says is due to Maduro’s corrupt leadership and which provides America with an excuse to attempt regime change in that country. Read More

In The Mode of Dr. Seuss

Parasols

We had a lot of truths to say
But everywhere was yesterday

And everywhere we turn our heads
There’s nothing new
There’s nothing fun
There’s nothing new under the sun

It’s all the same
It’s just a game
And if we do it all for gain

The result will be predictable…

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