ON MATTERS OF DUBIOUS INTEREST
I’ve been reading the New York Times daily since I lived in New York in the late 1960s. It was a very different paper (a “paper,” that is) then. Now, despite a few very pertinent newsworthy stories, they are giving us a bunch of lightweight flaky stuff on their web’s front page. You must go below the fold (the double line) to get the real news and opinions. Why is this happening? Continue reading “The No-News NYT”
Captain: Them sonsabitches. Here we are stuck for over a month now, and nobody will pay the bill to get us out.
First Mate: The Greeks who own this tub got plenty of money. And we can’t even get decent food. Continue reading “On Board an Oil Tanker off Hormuz”
“We” includes everyone but his investors, that is. For many of us the man typifies arrogance, smugness and swagger. One would think the world’s richest person (at $826 billion and counting) could afford some humility. But with all that money and power, Elon manages to generally behave like a yahoo. He is a very mixed bag of characteristics and has done some good works. I’ll give him credit for that. He’s still a yahoo. Continue reading “Why We Hate Elon Musk”
You know about his obsession with gold. You’ve been appalled with his record of corruption, self-dealing, and the slush fund. Grift and graft. Now he honors himself with a new piece of illegal tender decorated with his grotesque face (Who did his hair for this?) and signature. The bill is also supposed to reflect the country’s 250th anniversary. An old law states that “no living president can appear on currency.” House Republicans are working on bills to void this. Continue reading “It’s Always about Money”
Trump: It’s my great pleasure to see you again, Mr. President. No, no groveling, please!
Xi: Did you sleep on the plane?
Trump: Very little. Too busy posting memies on Truth Social. I get so many stupid questions directed at me. Continue reading “Dialogue”
There is a new book out that I want very much to read. It’s an anatomy of capitalism: The Insatiable Machine: How Capitalism Conquered the World, by Trevor Jackson. Capitalism plainly dominates the world’s economic and social life. “An economy predicated on infinite accumulation, mass consumption, and fossil-fueled industrialization is not reconcilable with a finite planet.” Continue reading “Capitalism Exposed”
It’s pretty quiet today in my house, though I have some Bach playing in the background. Bach in Mexico is as incongruous as the Fourth of July is here. Not many Mexicans care about Bach, though a few do. The cultural values are just different, viz., tacos and hot dogs. Like so many other holidays, the Fourth has lost its original purpose, celebrating the independence and founding of the USA. Today it’s the Big Holiday: three days off from work, barbecuing, drinking, the beach, family time. Fireworks are the only symbol of Independence Day left that makes sense.
And there isn’t much unity left in the old federalist vision of a mutually united United States, is there? Maybe there never was. I thought for a minute about comparing Trump to George Washington, a man of reason, humility and integrity. Well, no need to go further with that.
There are pockets of Americans in Mexico who do celebrate the Fourth—in places like Cabo and Cancun. But the American Fourth is quite different in tone and style from Mexican Independence Day on September 16th which features marching bands, parades, street food and folk festivals.
For me, American holidays have lost most of their meaning. I know that’s true for many of us whether we live at home or abroad. Big holidays are mostly about time off and Black Friday sales. Much has been written about the dessication of our holidays over time. It’s true even in my lifetime. The old parades and the fire trucks showed the kids some hometown spectacle. My mother used to call Memorial Day Decoration Day, its former name. Some still lament the commercialization of Christmas. Holidays are now major economic events, and that’s also becoming true in Mexico.
As the world has become more money-driven, it’s also turned more authoritarian, which implies a denial (or transmutation) of most historical values and traditions. I wish you a Happy Fourth of July anyway, and you might try putting on some Bach.
The stage is now populated by Trump’s insane tariff scheme. Its advocates proclaim grand consequences, while Democrats yammer about adopting populist economics and finding a leader. In the back row of the theater two old Greenies, thus far silent, rise to point out the madness of ignoring climate change. Continue reading “The Dinosaur in the Room is Climate Change”
The Perpetrators
“I’m not a doctor, I just play one for HHS.” ―RFK, Jr. to J. Goodman.
“The treatment for measles is chicken soup and vitamin A.” ―RFK, Jr. Continue reading “Quotations to Think about in Perilous Times”
That’s what he said three times while the Secret Service was hauling him off the stage. Wounded and bleeding, he was worrying about his shoes. Why haven’t people commented more about this strange fixation on his footwear? It may be one of his notable oddities, of which there are many.
One theory has it that he wears elevator shoes, which come off easy, and he didn’t want people to see him three inches shorter than normal. Sounds like Trump, doesn’t it?
You may remember the first gold sneakers he was hawking online. That first offering, as the NYMag informs us, was “the $399 gold Never Surrender high-tops, which the website indicated were limited to only 1,000 pairs and had sold out within a day of their release.” There were other designs like the Potus 45 and the T-Red Wave, all with highly inflated prices. A psychologist writes:
If you frequently wear high-top sneakers, you’re perceived as having an avoidant attachment style meaning that you care little for the opinions of others and are incredibly self-reliant [read self-absorbed].
The Trump Store is moving beyond sneakers to lots more Trump schlock, from bibles and coolers to Trump teddy bears
and kitchen essentials and even dog leashes.
But the fixation on shoes continues. Here we have the Trump Golf Shoe.
And now the Assassination Special, the Fight Sneaker.
A whole load of other stuff was being hawked to lovers of trumpdreck at the convention. He must be as broke as Rudy Giuliani. These things will serve as fond mementos of a defeated and demented candidate who barely avoided death. They appeal to women as well as men.
Gals of a certain age with prominent veins should avoid such displays. An addiction to shoes often applies to women. Some of us will remember Imelda Marcos and her 3,000 pairs of shoes. We will remember Trump far longer.
CNN seems to make most of its money selling this stuff to older people, its evening news audience. They know their viewers, yes they do, and the old ones are far more gullible and needy. Nobody else watches the evening news anyway, and elders buy more prescription drugs than any other group. Rather than consult with their doctors, they will believe what they see acted out on their 1080p screens. And so pharma is delighted to rake in billions each year.
News and medical ads don’t mix well, and so the mute button often comes into play. (I’m stuck with CNN on cable here in Mexico; see CNN Is Tottering and my further complaints about it). The other night I watched prime time news on CNN for two hours, holding off on the mute button so I could encounter the following medical ads with their cacophonous, mindless names.
Would you ever mention any of these consumer drugs to friends at a party? Civilized people should avoid such pharmaceutical discussions. Why are the actors in these commercials invariably happy and smiling. enjoying things like camping, entertaining, biking, eating, climbing mountains? Nobody is ever sick in bed and recovering. Black and white, fat and skinny, homely or handsome, these counterfeit people might as well be selling Russian laxatives.
Anyhow, your doctor will surely know if Skyrizi is better than Cosentyx or Sotyktu for your psoriasis. “If you experience any of these side effects, call your doctor,” says the rapid-talking (tachyphemic) voiceover—and see how long it takes to get an appointment. How come all those trivial or deadly side effects end with “call your doctor”? Maybe your doctor has never heard of this drug and thinks you are pushy and offensive for trying to question his competence. More likely, he too is beholden to Big Pharma whose lovely gals visit him regularly to dispense tons of free samples that make his patients happy.
Doctor Aaron Kesselheim of the Harvard Med School says: “Actually, the amount of money that pharmaceutical companies spend on advertising to physicians is far higher than the amount spent on direct-to-consumer advertising because physicians are the ones writing the prescriptions.” So everyone is in on the take.
The take is a lot less for CNN these days, so we can expect to see more medical ads, which pay well. Reports are rife that the network will slash what it pays its star anchors and make some big changes. We’ve heard that before. Long-time anchor Poppy Harlow is quitting. What I wish they would do is stop their constant, sickening pro-Israel bias. If that could happen I’d put up with the medical sludge.