White Man's Burden

White man's burden?

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A fourth "Caption This Photo"

(It's my nephew, BTW, on his eighth birthday)



"Do you mind?"
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This is a six year old boy who was killed coming home from school. The woman is his mother.

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"Look beyond the nationalist cant used to justify war. Look beyond the seduction of the weapons and the pornography of violence. Look beyond Barack Obama’s ridiculous rhetoric about finishing the job or fighting terror. Focus on the evil of war. War begins by calling for the annihilation of the others but ends ultimately in self-annihilation. It corrupts souls and mutilates bodies. It destroys homes and villages and murders children on their way to school. It grinds into the dirt all that is tender and beautiful and sacred. It empowers human deformities—warlords, Shiite death squads, Sunni insurgents, the Taliban, al-Qaida and our own killers—who can speak only in the despicable language of force. War is a scourge. It is a plague. It is industrial murder. And before you support war, especially the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, look into the hollow eyes of the men, women and children who know it."

Chris Hedges

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It takes a Pillage

This is my sister.

One of these afternoons she will come into the Wulfshead asking for a job. She will want to tend bar among other things, perhaps dance a little bit up on the stage. She is an experienced topless dancer in such well known San Francisco clubs as Big Al's and The Condor, where Carol Doda became a star. And I can vouch for her character. I hope you can give her a job.

Actually, this is Nomi Prins, an author, who has written a stellar book on the Wall Street financial debacle. She is an expert on the field having once been much lower than any Broadway topless dancer, a managing director of Goldman Sachs.

Her book is called, "It Takes a Pillage," and enters into the netherworld of SIVs (structured investment vehicles) and CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) among other exotic securities. Would you ever buy something called a "structured investment vehicle," which Michael Milken actually invented with his junk bond scam long ago? Today's versions (notice the plural) having merely been updated, and collateralized with disastrous subprime mortgages and other assets.

Yes, she takes us into that neverland where air becomes money. That is what Wall Street does best. Convert nothing into riches with complicated SIVs. Reading her book can at times become decidedly creepy for here we are in this abstract world which makes no sense to anybody but those with a talent for such self-serving abstractions. Those who know how to game the mere promise of money into huge fortunes.

If you are looking for a dissection of this strange world which may yet ruin us - at the moment it doesn't appear as if anyone in government is seriously constraining these people (or am I wrong?) - then this is your read. One which is spookier than anything by Stephen King.

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THE FUNNIEST THING I HAVE HEARD ALL DAY

Pat Buchanan, Republican Consultant, MSNBC, commenting on Brit Hume's nonsense:

Christianity is the most forgiving and tolerant of all religions....

When I heard this I laughed out loud.....again and again and again....

Cross posted at MadMikesAmerica
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Good god, yes

Just found this quote, it's from an article about two-and-a-half weeks ago, but I think it should be shared:

“People are frustrated because we have done our part,” she said. “We put these people in the position to make change and they’re not doing it.”

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Because Christians don't have these types of problems

Faux news fool Brit Hume's advice to Tiger Woods: Convert to Christianity, and everything will be just hunky-dory again.

Seriously.
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Happy New Year Jin!

We must have a beginner's mind, free from possessing anything, a mind that knows everything is in flowing change. Nothing exists but momentarily in its present form and color. One thing flows into another and cannot be grasped. Before the rain stops we hear a bird. Even under the heavy snow we see snowdrops.

---Shunryu Suzuki

And I would answer you...that to prepare the future is only to found the present...for the sole true invention is to decipher the present under its incoherent aspects and its contradictory language....You do not have to foresee the future, but to allow it....

---Antoine de Saint-Exupery

What else is there to say? We end in joy.

---Theodore Roethke

And of course to the whole Wulfshead clientele and staff of universally distinguished personage. Special thanks to jin though, for offering her blog-only special box of sweetmeats, which we ordered and she shipped to us. We've finished off nearly every crumb saving 2 scones, an apricot and a chocolate chip (each a meal in itself), for this morning. I'm astonished at the slight quantity of sugar used in the jecstatic concoctions---and almost no pornography at all!
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