Senator Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican who is playing a crucial role in bipartisan negotiations over financial regulation, pressed to remove a provision from draft legislation that would have empowered federal authorities to crack down on payday lenders, people involved in the talks said. The industry is politically influential in his home state and a significant contributor to his campaigns, records show.
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20100310
People who need to wake up in a Jigsaw trap
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Watching the process of sausage making is especially repellent when you see they throw the sxxt in too.
ReplyDeleteAs Terry Pratchett said, sir, “never give the monkey the keys to the banana plantation.”
ReplyDeleteFor "no one can serve two masters."
Matthew 6:24 and Luke 6:13, and all that sort of things, sir.
But not necessarily in that order.
The gentleman's reference to the Saw horror franchise is a good one.
ReplyDeleteThe hand trap, in particular, fits the bill.
The fact of the matter is: people are already caught in a Jigsaw trap.
All of mankind is!
A trap of mankind's own making, if I may add, sir.
Mr. Obama cannot help. He can't. He won't. He doesn't know how. No one does. Ultimately, the president of the United States too, just like any head of state, or any politician in the world, is caught into his own Jigsaw trap---it comes with the office.
The water-clock bleeds into the abyss.
Is there a way out?
Reminds me of seeing Allen Ginsberg once at a party in San Francisco, late at night, all of us drunk, and Ginsburg sitting deep in some funky couch repeating: "We're doomed. We're doomed."
ReplyDeleteBut it's spring folks! Is it not wise to appreciate the beauties at hand rather than constantly cry over the woes of the world? Can anyone carry all that weight?
There those, of course, who see only what they want to see. They are called religious fundamentalists, among other things. Free market capitalists is another name for them. They come in many guises. But it's not until one admits everything is hopeless that we cab begin to truly enjoy ourselves.
And as for everything being hopeless..... maybe, maybe not.
Yeah, there's something to be said for being fully aware of life's horrors and still being able to enjoy oneself. Why not? And working hard, too, to make things a little better, in spite of it all.
Though, as for working hard, I think I'll have another drink.
Regarding Dodd and Corker it was watching Maddow last night that I discovered they are the "committee" which will map out the reform. Two men. And as she rightly said the Democrats have an advantage of three members in that larger committee Dodd chairs and once again, here we go, the Dems are playing "bipartisanship" with the Repugs giving all their power away.
ReplyDeleteSo now sleazy skid road check cashing chains will be protected without a whimper. Until someone cries out, hopefully.
Something has come over Bartender. Always the quintessential (no pun, Quinty) conveyor of bon vivant and decorum, he seems to be slumping dangeously into the frame of mind we often credit for driving us to drink. As close to the stock as he is, this will never do. We need to provide a recreational break to cheer him up. Something robust. Utah, could you come over here for a minute?
ReplyDeleteMy bad, Sir.
ReplyDeleteI certainly didn't mean to bring down the mood.
The fault is all mine.
Bartenders are constantly talking to new people and starting new conversations---it comes with the job. Most play it safe and just keep to familiar topics: "So, what's your drink?," "Did you see the game?," "Have you heard the one about...?."
On occasion a bartender may get stuck in a conversation with a bar patron and there's no knowing where it may lead.
When a patron initiate a conversation, it's up to a bartender to know when to go along with the topic at hand...and when to change the subject.
Some bar talks are more controversial than others.
Take the current subject matter for instance. Some critics have been denouncing the whole thing as nothing more than a "sadist gore fest" and "low quality" and "cheap snuff", while others commended its stylish visual tricks designed to camouflage cheap effects and called it true "chilling" and "terrifying" horror---but enough about global politics. Has anyone seen a good horror film, lately?
Off topic, but this seems like as good a place as any to ask: Why didn't Avatar win best picture?
ReplyDeleteWhat's with that?
Why wasn't Capitalism: A Love Story even nominated? That's what I want to know.
ReplyDeleteAnd where is PONYO?
ReplyDeleteHow did somehow "The Princess and the Frog" manage to make it on the list of films nominated for Best Animated Feature, and not Ponyo???
That's what I want to know!
Getting back on subject (I haven't even seen Avatar or the film that won) here's a quote on Huffington from something Thomas Frank wrote. Who's asking the right questions, I think.
ReplyDeleteWe can vote all the bums out and replace them with worse bums only to show those so and so's in Washington what's for. And we've seen all this before. Tonight I - admittedly - became fascinated with Glenn Beck, and watched much of his show. Here was footage of American Nazis parading about, Father Caughlin, the Roosevelt administration's links to Communism, Joe McCarthy uprooting subversives, all kinds of zaniness and craziness. Stuff mesmerizing like a cobra staring you in the eye. And millions watch this! Millions love it. Millions believe it is all true. And right on. And the real deal.....
"Not too long ago, Kansas would have responded to the current situation by making the bastards pay. This would have been a political certainty, as predictable as what happens when you touch a match to a puddle of gasoline. When business screwed the farmers and the workers--when it implemented monopoly strategies invasive beyond the Populists' furthest imaginings--when it ripped off shareholders and casually tossed thousands out of work--you could be damned sure about what would follow.
"Not these days. Out here the gravity of discontent pulls in only one direction: To the right, to the right, further to the right. Strip today's Kansans of their job security, and they head out to become registered Republicans. Push them off their land and next thing you know they're protesting in front of abortion clinics. Squander their life savings on manicures for the CEO and there's a good chance they'll join the John Birch Society. But ask them about the remedies their ancestors proposed--unions, antitrust, public ownership--and you might as well be referring to the days when knighthood was in flower."
"What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America" (2004) is a quintessential book on that phenomenon. A documentary by Laura Cohen and Joe Winston, inspired by Thomas Frank's best-seller, made it on Roger Ebert's Ten Best Documentaries of 2009 (I don't believe the documentary was nominated for any Oscar.)
ReplyDeleteThe book explores the rise of conservative populism in the United States through the lens of Frank's native state of Kansas.
Once a hotbed of the left-wing Populist movement of the late nineteenth century, Kansas has become overwhelmingly conservative in recent decades.
And who is to blame?
Many contend that the DLC's distaste for what they refer to as "economic class warfare" has allowed the language of populism to be monopolized by the right-wing.
Thomas Frank argues that the Democrats' abandonment of populism to the right-wing, shifting the form of that populism from the economic realm to the "culture wars," has been critical for Republican dominance of Middle America.
Am I on topic?
ReplyDeleteI am not sure who's keeping tab on this, but I am following Quinty's lead, so I hope we are on the right track.
Oh, don't look at me.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't know, Sir.
I fell for that one once already.
A thread with the word "quintessential" in it TWICE. That should deserve some kind of award in itself! Where's that baboon man who hands out such things to sites?
ReplyDeleteAs for the "topic," anyone demanding we stay on one thing or another just isn't drunk enough yet. Bartender, I think I'll take my bottle of Jack over to that little table in the corner.
Not drunk enough?
ReplyDeleteWhy when I go home my significant other claims she hasn't seen me sober in seven months.
But don't ask me.
I lost track.
Charlie Parker died on this day in 1955, in a room in the Stanhope Hotel in New York City. He was 34. His last job had been March 5th, at Birdland.
ReplyDeleteRIP Charley Parker.
ReplyDeleteAre there any innovators on the grand scale like him today?
No matter, something new will always come along, don't you agree? Maybe jazz, like the Baroque, or Gregorian chants, or Motown, simply came and as an evolving force is gone?
Like Swing or Dixie or Hard Bop?
Or there folks out there taking it a step forward? I don't know.
But what I do know is that something new will come along. It always does, though it may take some time.
Jazz.... Yes, so far it is America's great cultural contribution to the world. Along with Walt Whitman, Edgar A. Poe, Hemingway, Faulkner, and whomever else I'm not thinking about here.
Now, who's got a couple of quarters for the jukebox? I personally rather like Bessie Smith or Billie Holiday.
With much ado about nothing I am in a quandary. To think that my cool handed friend aka Jazzolog can banter with Quinty about Bird's birthday less then 12 hours after his day is absurd; he is so cool I only come back to see that he is still riding with the ghost busters, I mean ghost riders in the sky.
ReplyDeleteLet me buy everyone a round of drinks and salute my dear birthday boy.
Lady Haig