4 posts tagged “politics”

I don't know if anyone else noticed this article on the casino mogul, Sheldon Adelson, in the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago.  I had no idea.  I thought it was really freaky.  When the Israelies are concerned that American Jews are getting too cheeky with their leaders, we should probably be concerned too.  Maybe it only interested me so much because I live in Las Vegas.  And because the article references an incident that Adelson had with one of our most famous/popular local columnists.  Anyway, half way through I almost stopped reading it because I felt like it was just so dark.  Then I kept reading because I thought I should go ahead and face the darkness.  Work through it.

It was a similar feeling to how I felt when I read this article about the political gadfly asshole, Roger Stone.  Again, it is totally freaky how dark this guy is and how twisted his existence is.  The man has Richard Nixon's face tattooed on his upper back.  Does that sound like a reasonable person to you?  And the fact that he's all wrapped up with our messed up politicians is very disturbing. 

Who are these men?  Why are they so scary?  Why do they have such power?  Why are they important enough to merit profiles in the New Yorker?

And I just can't bring myself to read Sy Hersch's most recent article about how Bush et al. are gearing up for an invasion of Iran. 

I also came across this today on the Huffington Post and actually had to double and triple take to be sure that it was a joke.  (Even though he did, in fact, make yet another comment about killing Iranians.  Here's the video.)  This guy really scares me too.   He's totally dead behind the eyes.  Very disturbing. 

Fortunately, I also read this article recently by one of my fav medical writers for the New Yorker, Atul Gawande.  This one is about the science of itching.  Fascinating.  (That's me trying to end on a positive note.)

The mister sent me this article from the Washington Post this morning.  I am not someone who believes that all babies have to be breastfed.  Instead I sympathize with women who really want to bfeed and try to do it and it doesn't work for one reason or another.  I know that bfeeding our monkey was really hard in those early months and was a lot of work once I went back to work.  Anyway, I'm just saying, great, do it, or great, don't do it.  Babies need to be fed.  Feed them and give them the best stuff you've got.  Either way, we're not in the developing world and the kids will turn out fine (I know that this is a very bourgeois statement and that some groups of children will probably benefit from bf even more than other groups).  This article, however, gives us another example of the problems with politics and money and their combined interference with public health and the common good.  

I've been making my way through this very long New Yorker piece on Rudy Giuliani.  I think it's important to know what the enemy is up to.  I came across this quote last night and just couldn't get over it,

"Focussing on the differences between him and the Democrats, he assailed Hillary Clinton, criticizing her as a redistributionist and an enemy of the free market. “Now, these are scary thoughts, they really are—that she, or some Democrat, can take your money and they’re going to use it for the common good,” he said..."

Huh?  This is so confusing to me.  The Common Good is a BAD thing?  Since when?  What?  And who enjoys and believes this kind of garbage rhetoric?

I suppose that he and those who think like him would prefer the Republicans taking your money and using it for a BULLSHIT WAR!  Now, that's okay with them, but the common good?  No $%@*& way! 

It's mindblowing.

It's during events like this Libby thing that I am particulary thankful that I don't have cable tv and can barely even get the local news using our tv's rabbit ears.  And I'm not very good at being addicted to news on the internet so I've been avoiding that as well.  I mainly get my news from NPR and that's fine with me.  I know what's been going on with the case and the ensuing non-pardon, pardon nonsense.  I'm just glad that I've managed to miss the pundits. 

The mister was watching some Hardball clip on his computer this afternoon.  It was some bullshit interview with some conservative old white man who was going on and on about Clinton and his perjury.  Whatever.  Just hearing a little bit of it made me really happy that I'm not addicted to news tv or the like.

Last week my friend Jonell posted a link on her blog to a video commentary by Keith Olbermann.  Again, I don't have cable but friends have sent me links to his comments before and so I knew what I was getting in to.  Maybe you've already seen it.  Anyway, I don't know if it's just my moon or what, but I could barely watch the first four minutes of it.  I just felt so sad and demoralized by it all.  I had to turn it off.  It was making me cry.  In the past when I've watched his comments I've felt inspired and angered but glad to see someone saying what so many of us think and feel.  This time I just felt overwhelmed by the negativity and seeming futility of it all.  Like he can keep doing scathing video commentary and it will have no cumulative effect at all.  Those guys do whatever the hell they want to do (just as they have been all along) and nothing seems to be able to stop them.  And of course I watched this on the 4th.  I wasn't feeling very partiotic before I tried to watch it, and I felt even less after. 

What has been bothering me even more lately was that whole slew of insane Supreme Court decisions.  That's been making me evern more nuts than this most recent display of cronyism.  Still, I think that maybe the mashup between the Supreme Court and Libby just was too much for me.  I just really think that we need to move to Spain.

On a related note, this week in the New Yorker, Hendrick Hertzberg has a great commentary on Cheney in The Talk of the Town section of the magazine.  Hertzberg hasn't been writing his usual pieces for a while now and I've missed him.  It was good to read him this morning.  My only complaint is that he never makes me feel better about anything, just worse.  Seems to be the way of the world at the moment.