I am not even tempted to listen to any election coverage.
This is a little surprising to me, actually, since I’m usually much given to morbid curiosity. I’m the guy who slows down to take in the gory details of a six-car highway crash. And the combination of grisly and comedic is something I usually find irresistible.
So you’d think I’d love an American election, wouldn’t you? Yet I don’t. I suspect it’s because my contrarianism is even stronger than my relish for the grisly and horrible. That is, anything I’ve been told to care about — told over and over — I am determined not to care about, no matter how gruesomely diverting it might be if I had found my own way to it.
Wish I had your strength right now.. I’m more of a sadist and would rather flagellate myself with the full depravity of everything our political carnival has to offer. I’ve been going back and forth between both spectrums of absurdity – Fox and then MSNBC. Fox is at least more entertaining because they’ve long since thrown off any remnants of neutrality or rational thinking, whereas the faux liberalism of MSNBC is downright vomit-inducing. Just now I had to suffer Rachel Maddow and her clockwork explanations of how the Supreme Court nominations are such a big deal for Obama’s re-election, as you alluded to earlier – I nearly jumped out my third story window.
Well, Fadduh Smiff, it’s nice to know I wasn’t the only one who assiduously avoided the election-night TV circus. It would’ve been tolerable had there been some weed in the house, but no luck.
All I saw was on my usual trips downstairs from the studio to the kitchen for munchies’n’beer, pausing at the bedroom for a few seconds to catch a bit of what the DW had on TV in the background while she worked on her laptop or read the paper.
The screen was full of glitzy, shiny, swoopy, zoomy digitially-animated graphics flying all over the place just so they could get around to holding still for two seconds so the viewers at home could read the goddamn’ numbers… anchordroids doing their schtick standing up — because it’s supposed to be more “dynamic” or something — while drawing on the screens with their fingers like a local TV weatherman, or John Madden drawing little X’s and O’s and arrows on the overhead replay of a quarterback sneak… and the addition of Maddow’s clipped, precise chirping about electoral mechanations and the Supreme Court damn’ near made my head explode. I found myself longing to watch the old Monty Python “Election Night Special”.
I actually would’ve hung out a bit if the DW were idly flipping back and forth between Fox and MSNBC. I agree that Fox, at least, would’ve been even funnier than the Daily Show and gone great with a pint of Guinness and a couple of bong hits, but alas, the DW had the dial pretty much nailed down to phony-assed, ankle-biting, taking-itself-way-too-seriously, totally-believing-its-own-bullshit MSNBC …except for an hour or two this morning when she had on the morning-after recaps on CNN — which, like Fox, has thrown off any semblance of objectivity or rationality but, unlike Fox, isn’t nearly as funny.
Around mid-morning yesterday, MSNBC was preparing to broadcast some of the last rally of the Obama campaign as one of the commentators — that O’Donnell clown, I think — was breathlessly mentioning how this was the last campaign event ever of his career and, as the Boy Emperor prepared to address his acolytes one last time, the MSNBC guy commented in a hushed, reverent, solemn tone, “…this is history…”
“This is history”? Jesus fuck a shit soufflé. I didn’t know whether to laugh or puke.
Oh, and btw… while I totally understand how you felt in that moment, I’d have strongly recommended against your jumping out the window. A three-story fall would likely have not killed you, only broken lots of bones (my studio at home is on the third floor of the house, as well). Still, it sounds a lot better than the resources I had at hand: half a bottle of Wild Turkey and a bunch of Valiums I had left over from my trip to South Africa (prescribed by my doctor for the 18-hour flight after hearing I was a bit of a white-knuckle flier).
‘This is history’ –
HOSTESS BRANDS TO WIND DOWN COMPANY AFTER BCTGM UNION STRIKE CRIPPLES OPERATIONS
Friday, November 16, 2012 at 7:00AM
The Board of Directors authorized the wind down of Hostess Brands to preserve and maximize the value of the estate after one of the Company’s largest unions, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), initiated a nationwide strike that crippled the Company’s ability to produce and deliver products at multiple facilities. …
The wind down means the closure of 33 bakeries, 565 distribution centers, approximately 5,500 delivery routes and 570 bakery outlet stores throughout the United States.” [13-14,000 jobs]
http://hostessbrands.com/Closing.aspx
There’s no way to soften the fact that this will hurt every Hostess Brands employee. All Hostess Brands employees will eventually lose their jobs – some sooner than others. Unfortunately, because we are in bankruptcy, there are severe limits on the assistance the Company can offer you at this time.
I wish each of you the best.
Gregory F. Rayburn
CEO
Hostess Brands, Inc.
http://hostessbrands.info/ceo-letter
correction – not ’13-14,000 jobs’ but 18,500
The company plans to go out of business, lay off its 18,500 workers, and sell its snack cake and bread brands. Hostess claims a nationwide strike crippled its ability to make and deliver its products.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/the-twinkie-is-dead-hostess-to-close-18k-layoffs-expected/
“That is, anything I’ve been told to care about — told over and over — I am determined not to care about…”
I envy the ease with which you are manipulated.
Anyway. This is the best blog on the internet.
Watching the returns of this election is more like eating road kill than rubbernecking an accident.
Just thinking about Obomber & Michelle (in her spiffy new frock) waltzing out on some balcony with those death-head grins makes me glad I’m not long for this mortal coil.
We spent the day climbing over rocks in 9 Mike Canyon (Utah), the biggest art gallery in the country. Thousands of petroglyphs, everywhere, for miles. It was amazing.On the long ride home, we listened to radio coverage of the election. The best was on the Navajo station out of Window Rock, Arizona. Couldn’t understand a word of it! Except the plugs for a congresswoman by Bill Clinton. What a piece of shit that guy is.
come on
you really don’t enjoy the notion
a vulture capitalist is too much
for some white wage workers in the rust belt ?
that voter suppresion led to a huge turn out of the target population?
in the end
is it all about moral revulsion ?
all about it ?
i guess you have to have a sports fan head
i root for certain benighted amerikan sub pops
union workers
blacks
chicanos
they lost last night ?
the marx citation down blog
strikes me as at least in art a caution
but then i lack moral revulsion
from the droner in chief
drones smell like the state to me
and i don’t see any other self inflicted species gauntlet
to pass thru on our way to an earth wide tahiti town
I’m glad Rombama lost, and I’m sorry Obromney won. Hey, one out of two ain’t bad.
As for ‘union workers, blacks, chicanos’ — no, they didn’t lose last night, but they didn’t win anything either. And they’ll lose a lot over the coming Four More Years(tm).
Do you really think they’ll lose less than if the other guy had won?
Yes
Even NLRB appointments matter
The new democrat snake
that coils around the orthrian core
Must be destroyed
But I contend electing
Repubs into the white house only postpones this eventuality
I have a fools hope in a Barry
on one of his many pilgrimages
To the sunny side of wall street
Will get hit either on the road there or back
with a Saul Paul conversion
Unprecedented ?
Potus wise yup
But ……
Meanwhile Barry will reduce the states pressure on self organizing jobsters
and lighten the suppression mechanisms
On the oppressed helot.
“inside ” nations
Ya me and Sam Webb
Well, as has frequently been pointed out here, arguments based on knowing, somehow, what ‘would have happened if’ are quite irrefutable by those of us with no knowledge of alternate universes.
The new democrat snake
that coils around the orthrian core
Must be destroyed
But I contend electing
Repubs into the white house only postpones this eventuality…
Well, fear not, fellow loathers of Donkeycrats. Despite the big Obummer win, and Elizabeth Warren’s election to the Senate (spit), let’s not forget how great the Donkeycrats are at pissing away any advantages they win. They’ve always had a singular talent for throwing a fight. They yet will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Mind you, I think a Rombama win would’ve hastened the onset of “revolutionary” conditions — sad to say, over time I’ve become a “things have to get worse before they get better” kind of guy — despite how tough it would’ve been to sort out the MoveOn clowns and other opportunist infiltrators from the crowds who would’ve instantly surged into the streets.
“It cannot be denied that if the apostles of political indifferentism were to express themselves with such clarity, the working class would make short shrift of them and would resent being insulted by these doctrinaire bourgeois and displaced gentlemen, who are so stupid or so naive as to attempt to deny to the working class any real means of struggle.”
“.. all arms with which to fight must be drawn from society as it is ”
yes the wage class must fight this state
this state first among all states on earth
and must work ultimately for its destruction
no this state is not labout to reform itself into an early grave
but like the angels in heaven
the wage class must counter the shrewdly contrived machines of evil
with nthing more then the repurposed ” endemic objects” ready at hand
…….”the fatal conditions of the struggle “so to speak
and yes
” …. the fatal conditions of this struggle have the misfortune of not being easily adapted….”
not only to our ” fantasies”
but even to the most obvious tangible
most imediate most treacherously conflicted aims of the class struggle
Nothing speculative about the GOP assault on job site organizing
Madison ’11 was the dress rehearsal
For washington’13
I don’t see that as crystal ball stuff
Of course not every good soul has much
involved in that front of the eternal struggle
My pal herb’s
Fuck the supreme appointments or
Saints preserve us
The FED appointments
It’s enough to look at the NLRB appointments
But this is moot
Now we face Barry bum’s rushing us into cut city
Only if Barry tries to slow this fiscal cliff band wagon
Only if he scoffs at
This media scream
” yikes come January we turn into mice
and the economy into pumpkins”
When throw into our big media pool
bull shit floats…. like witches
Ecessively elliptical even by my slip shod standards
Not to mention the perfectly placed typos
nthing more then the repurposed ” endemic objects” –
http://www.thejump.net/humor/sniper.htm
That kitten is not a trotskyite
it may become one or
even a council
communist
NLRB ha thats a good one Opie.
DOL will live proud under the rule of Hilda Solis for almost a decade.
The chicanos won…….and every member of the SEIU. Not that they dont deserve an extra serving of arrepas on the day we thank puritans for expelling Billy Blaxstone down to Pawtucket, where freedom rings louder than a perfect mix of Iglesias generations from maxed out BOSE
Massachusetts said good bye to Brown who seemed dedicated to not being Republican and maintaining a strong jaw line. But its worth it to see Elizabeth Warren chase that asshole Boner from Ohio around the senate floor, that will be fun to watch……id rather have brown down there mainly because he drives a pick up truck, like me.
The R. I. ers
Always see. Thru
to the reactor’s core
Comrades, never mind the election results. Instead, tune in to the Petraeus affair, which is way juicier than Clinton and Lewinsky affair. I’m glad that weasel lost his job thanks to a runaway penis and I sure wish there were more runaway penises in this world!
Seriously, man… I lost all of whatever interest I had in the “election” when the Petraeus brouhaha broke; ironically, I first saw the report last night via a link off of the Drudge Report, your one-stop shop for dumpster-dived news. I’m especially enjoying it as I’ve hated that motherfucker ever since he was Bush’s boy, and after he became Obama’s boy and MoveOn suddenly scrubbed their Web site of all derogatory references to Petraeus (assholes).
Seeing that bloody-handed sonofabitch lose his job because he couldn’t keep his pecker stowed has totally got me doing the happy dance. Boo yah!
Somewhere there is a clip of the biographer in question (whose book’s dust jacket credits a ghost writer) telling the Daily Show host that she got to know the Gen. by “running” with him, adding that Petraeus liked to run with “young people” (her words) as a way of getting to know them. When the writers have ghost writers one is left to wonder what the writer’s task rightly entails?!
The idea that Petraeus only resigned after the FBI informed him that it had found evidence of the affair on his computer suggests that he must not have remembered the affair, or surely, being a stand up kind of guy, he would have resigned earlier.
Arthur Silber, on the blog roll here, speculates about more plausible reasons for this farcical media “story”, pointing out how curious it is that, his having resigned, the Congress is not going to question him about the Bengazi “failure”, which occurred on his watch.