you say potato...

North Korea nukes;

Hugh Hefner;

NFL - concussions;

NFL - protests

-------------- It's possible that I've focused more attention on the NFL in the past six days than I had previously in the past 31 years or so...

Friday it was a New York Times article about concussions -- by Sunday night, it was protests expressed by kneeling or arm-linking or strategic absence from the field...


Now it's --

Hugh Hefner was a trailblazer!

Hugh Hefner was a sleazy pornographer!

Shut off Trump's Twitter account, he's going to provoke Crazy North Korea to cause a nuclear holocaust!

----------------------

I'm gettin' tired...

________________

People who comment on Hugh Hefner seem to fall into three separate but sometimes overlapping "camps" --

1) readers who have happy and romantic memories of using Playboy magazine to learn about sex -- some who grew up in the 1950s and 60s say they had no other access to this info

2) people who strongly criticize the objectification of women -- this camp blames Hefner for opening floodgates to harsh and graphic and by now somewhat ubiquitous forms of -- umh -- (smut)?...  and

3) people who objected to Playboy and similar publications because it seemed to encourage immoral behavior.

----------------------------
Jay Amberg in Neptune, New Jersey Commented:  "Looking back, as a baby boomer, I think three things had a profound effect on my adolescence, Playboy, the Vietnam War and Woodstock, though not necessarily in that order."

Susan in Staten Island wrote in, "I'll honor him lounging around in my pajamas....all day."


DRS in Toronto said, "I dunno.  Hard to see him as a hero.  More like a male madam with piles of good books on the bordello bedside tables.  And as good for women as fundamentalists who insist on covering them from head to toe.  Bunny-tailed and scantily dressed is equally non-liberating."


CA Meyer, Montclair, New Jersey:  "Someone so reviled by both the Christian right and the PC left couldn't have been all bad."


Matthew B, Lakewood, Ohio -- "I looked at Playboy because I wanted to see naked girls, but I discovered a world hidden from me in middle America.  I heard black voices, gay voices, meek voices, braggadocio voices, bigoted voices and free thinking voices.  I thank you sir...."


Wrote Michael in Denver, Colorado, "I'm just reading this for the article.  RIP Hef."

--------------------------

-------------------
==========================

[last part of Guardian editorial begun here yesterday] --

The symptoms of the malaise are clear and Mr Corbyn's bold claim is to have the cure.  The medicine prescribed by the Labour leader is uncontroversial elsewhere.  Rent controls for housing are coming into force in Scotland to deflate ballooning rents.  Public ownership of utilities is a mainstream view in western Europe.  

Labour's reversal of corporation tax cuts would merely return the rate to its 2011 level and still leave companies shouldering a lighter burden than they do in bigger European economies.  The party should be congratulated for debunking the idea that decreasing corporate taxes is the only way to increase investment.


What is fascinating about Mr Corbyn's speech is its hidden depths, most notably on possible "alternative models" to capitalism.  The Labour party sees in the future not just the rise of robots, which might entrench economic feudalism, but also the worry that too many people will remain trapped in drudgery-filled, low-productivity jobs.  

Although Mr Corbyn did not spell this out, he referenced a little-publicised party report that fleshes out Labour's view of the new economy.  This states that accelerating automation is a key political project.  

Labour's goal, the report argued, should be to accelerate into this more automated future "while building new institutions where technological change is shaped by the common good".  Mr Corbyn's socialism is evidently more intellectually bracing than previously countenanced.


Oratory is not shallow or frivolous -- it is at the centre of our political process.  Mr Corbyn has inspired the faithful by telling party members what they want to hear.  His plans are premised on the idea that "there is a new common sense emerging about how the country should be run".  

This "common sense", a phrase significant in any attempt at political and social transformation, challenges the idea that the truths of society can be found only in markets.  In proving electorally successful, Mr Corbyn can lay claim to have expanded the epistemic range of public debate.  Ideas once thought unsayable have become acceptable.  


This year was when the crisis in economics caught up with the crisis in politics.  But the future contains the biggest issue to face Britain since the end of the second world war.  Mr Corbyn's gnomic utterances on Britain's long-term relationship with Europe were telling.  

Labour's muddled thinking is obscured by the shambolic approach of a ruling Tory party fractured over Brexit.  The Labour leader has proved he can lead a congregation.  But he will need a broader message to convert the masses.
[end]

-30-

gloom to cheer

Sometimes when you read The Guardian -- either the UK edition or the U.S. edition, it's pretty amazing how closely some of these people in England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland follow our American news and politics.  Canada, too -- let's not leave out Canada.  

I get the feeling they watch us much more closely than we watch them.  Both the actual journalists and Readers who Comment-in -- you know, it isn't only the full-time reporters, lots of these people have opinions and observations.

It seems like they  -- look to us, to America, for (I don't want this to sound egotistically patriotic, but --) I feel like they look to us for an example, something to look up to.  That may sound like I'm trying to be boastful, but I don't mean it that way.  That's just the way it comes across, to me.

Sometimes they are disappointed with us.  Sometimes not.

______________________

September 4, 2017 on this blog (post titled "queen of hearts") we re-printed a NYT Reader Comment from a Diana feature story:

------------ [excerpt from Comment] ---------------- It is worth remembering that British monarchs reign but they don't rule.  The UK is a Constitutional Monarchy which means that Parliament rules, and as Parliament is elected by the people (with somewhat fairer constituency boundaries than exist in the US) [referring to gerrymandering] they truly rule themselves.

The monarchy is an elegant mechanism for separating the role of Head of State and all its trappings from the political arena.  The Monarch is non-political -- so you solve the problem of the ceremonial leader of the country being someone you voted against be it Obama or Trump.... [end, Comment] -----------------

I thought that was an interesting point, and worth focusing on.

_____________________________
__________________________

September 27, 2017 Guardian ran a story about the Alabama Senate primary (Moore - Strange...or was that "more strange"...?).

Two Guardian reader comments:

James Hubbard
If elected Moore would take Sessions' place.  What difference would that make in the Senate or the nation?  Alleged analysts have been reporting right wing upsurges, revivals and waves for many decades.  

A closer, less hysterical look at American history would reveal that reactionaries and strident conservatives (people opposed to almost any government program, or the extension of civil rights to almost anyone) have been around since the 1930s.  

By 1938, a combination of conservative Republicans and southern (and therefore conservative) Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and maintained control until the 1960s and have regained control periodically ever since.  

The notion that, since the New Deal, the United States has been run by liberals or progressives or even centrists, is seriously flawed.  Only for brief periods in the early 1930s and the middle 1960s did the Congress expand the government's role in the United States to any significant degree.  

To complicate the picture a bit, the only other period that might qualify was Richard Nixon's first term (which may explain in part why contemporary Republicans act as if Nixon never existed).

Ralph Crown
And yet, when you ask people what they actually want, rather than about partisan talking points, they want what progressives want.  Things like single-payer health care, a living wage, worker's rights, good schools.


And yet the people who control the government don't provide those things, in fact go out of their way to oppress the general population.  

Why would people vote for representatives who don't represent them?  

Why do the largest increases in government and deficits take place under conservatives?  

Who really benefits?
-------------- [cue Twilight Zone music...]

-----------------------------

In today's UK-edition Guardian, an Editorial appears titled
"The Guardian view on Corbyn's speech:  his best yet"

first part of the Editorial: ____________
---------It is remarkable what a difference a single election can make.  Even if you lose.  

Jeremy Corbyn delivered his third -- and best -- speech as Labour leader to a party giddy with optimism.  By reducing the Tories to minority government and increasing Labour's vote by the biggest amount since 1945, Mr. Corbyn has transformed gloom to cheer.  

That the Labour leader has done so from the left is a vindication of his brand of "modern, progressive socialist" politics.  Mr Corbyn's attachment to socialism is important:  since the 1990s Labour leaders have avoided mentioning the word, which they viewed as being synonymous with the then unpopular notions of state control and higher taxes.  


They preferred instead to declare their loyalty to democratic socialist "values".  


Values are less controversial than policies.  Values can be shared, whereas policies divide.  However, Mr Corbyn's speech was peppered with plans to intervene in markets where vested interests, represented by the Conservative party, have conspired against the multitude.  

The Labour leader wants to distinguish his party from the thinking of the last four decades, arguing for a "new model of economic management to replace the failed dogmas of neoliberalism".  His contention is that the party is now electable because of socialism, not despite it.

This is stirring stuff.  There's little doubt that Mr Corbyn spoke to the passions of the party, but did he speak to the preoccupations of the wider electorate?  His diagnosis is founded on unquestionable truths:  that an era of deregulation, privatisation and low taxes for the wealthy came tumbling down with the global financial crisis.  Bankers

played a leading role in the crisis, but it's the rest of society that has paid for the crash.  This has had profound consequences:  most notably class divisions have been politically revived.  

"Them and us" economics is rooted in the fact the top 1% of society has recovered all the ground it lost while the average worker faces the longest period of falling real-terms pay since the Napoleonic wars.  It's difficult to sell capitalism to those with no capital.

[article to be continued here, tomorrow]

-30-

it's just your jive talkin' that gets in the way

"People don't get mad when people are shot or killed, but they're getting mad because a football player is kneeling or raising a fist.  The double standard is crazy."

~~ Jesse Melendez
   Jets fan

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

~~ Albert Einstein
   theoretical physicist    (1879 - 1955)




"Never miss a good opportunity to keep your mouth shut."

~~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
   U.S. President, 1952 - 1960

------------------

__________________________

the best people to have as world leaders:

------------------------

is humanity losing its

 

?

________________

Type in on Google,

Jive Talkin' The Bee Gees

and play

It's just your jive talkin'

you're telling me lies, yeah

Jive talkin'

you wear a disguise

Jive talkin'

so misunderstood, yeah

Jive talkin'

You really no good

Oh, my child 

You'll never know

Just what you mean to me

Oh, my child

You got so much

You're gonna take away my energy

With all your jive talkin'

You're telling me lies, yeah

Good lovin'

Still gets in my eyes

Nobody believes what you say

It's just your jive talkin'

That gets in the way

Oh my love

You're so good

Treating me so cruel

There you go

With your fancy lies

Leavin' me lookin'

like a dumbstruck fool

with all your

Jive talkin'

You're telling me lies, yeah

Jive talkin' 

You wear a disguise

Jive talkin'

So misunderstood, yeah

Jive talkin'

You just ain't no good

Love talkin'

Is all very fine, yeah

Jive talkin'

Just isn't a crime

And if there's somebody

You'll love till you die

Then all that jive talkin'

just gets in your eye

Jive talkin'

You're telling me lies, yeah

Good lovin'

Still gets in my eyes

Nobody believes what you say

It's just your jive talkin'

That gets in the way

Love talkin'

Is all very fine, yeah

Jive talkin' - just isn't a crime

And if there's somebody

You'll love till you die

Then all that jive talkin'

Just gets in your eye

Ji=i-i-iive talkin' ...

----------------------

{1975, written by Barry Gibb - Robin Gibb - Maurice Gibb}

-30-

let them see what they've done

After President John F. Kennedy was murdered, Mrs. Kennedy's pink suit was stained and soiled by blood and brain matter:  on the plane from Dallas back to Washington a fresh, clean outfit was offered -- "better change before we land...all the cameras will be on us..." -- and Jackie answered, "No.  Let them see what they've done."

Everything you read about the Kennedys has that story in it, and probably the various movies, too....



In the Pablo Larraín 2016 film Jackie, she says, in a focused, injured, ticked-off whisper, "There were 'wanted' posters everywhere with Jack's face on them!  Let them see what they've done!"


What she seems to be saying, there, is -- well, this film version is making 2 points:


1.  In politics, people's desire to win and frustration if they lose can become too emotional and extreme, and putting up posters saying the president of the U.S. is "wanted" like a criminal or whatever, could possibly provoke mentally unbalanced people to perpetrate violence.


And 2.  In politics -- and in other situations, too -- better to keep it light, don't rile up the crazy....

_____________________________


"Don't rile up the crazy" is excellent policy, in my opinion.


However, I question the idea that the "wanted" posters drove Lee Harvey Oswald (or whoever) to murder President Kennedy.  Stuff like that -- wanted posters, or enactments of pretend-exaggerated-aggression against the current president, or any elected official, are dumb, unhelpful, and in bad taste.  But I don't think such an exercise in bad taste inspires people to suddenly want to commit murder.


Whoever planned the 1963 JFK hit was organized, had it planned out, motivated by extremism or evil or profit...and probably paid no attention to posters plastered by crackpots.

It would be different if elected officials made a "joke" or "exaggeration" like that -- it would seem then like sort of "an order," or "encouragement," if a troubled person chose to take it that way.  

But any common schmuck can put up posters saying a politician is "wanted."  It doesn't carry the same weight as it would if someone in Congress or the White House said it.  I mean, do we obey commands or act upon suggestions from, for example, graffiti written on bathroom walls?  Probably not.


But a person can see how the widow would be freaked out on several levels by several things, at the time, & the silly "wanted" posters didn't help.


I've read that on the morning of Nov. 22, 1963, the president showed Jackie a newspaper advertisement purchased by someone who imagined that they didn't like him -- a black border all around a photo of JFK and some kind of negative mean ominous message printed on.


"We're heading into nut country," he said lightly.


I think the scene in the 2016 movie was combining that newspaper-ad-vignette into the "Let them see what they've done" verbal exchange.

--------------------

-30-

the lines he loved to hear

Don't let it be forgot

That once there was a spot

For one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot -- and it will never be that way again.


Mrs. John F. Kennedy said these words, quoting from a then-current musical comedy, in an interview with the LIFE magazine journalist Theodore H. White.

The interview took place a week after the assassination, at one of the Kennedy houses at Hyannis Port, by the ocean, on a dark and stormy night -- the young widow chain-smoking throughout.

She doesn't want White mentioning the cigarettes, in his article:  "I don't smoke," she says, in the 2016 Pablo Larraín film, Jackie.


The movie brings to the viewer the chaos, shock, and grief in the immediate aftermath of the assassination.  Or -- maybe it brings the viewer to the chaos, shock, and grief -- I'm not sure....

It illuminates the chaos, actually, of grief itself:  part and parcel of Grief are frustration, stress of trying to make the correct decisions, anger, regret for what might have been, and gazing into the past and present and future, trying to put together puzzle pieces of experience and see Meaning.

Portraying Jacqueline Kennedy, Natalie Portman got the voice and accent exactly right.

_______________________

--------------- [excerpt, White's LIFE article] ---------- She remembers how hot the sun was in Dallas, and the crowds -- greater and wilder than the crowds in Mexico or in Vienna.  The sun was blinding, streaming down; yet she could not put on sunglasses for she had to wave to the crowd.


And up ahead she remembers seeing a tunnel around a turn and thinking that there would be a moment of coolness under the tunnel.  There was the sound of motorcycles, as always in a parade, the the occasional backfire of a motorcycle.  The sound of the shot came, at that moment, like the sound of a backfire, and she remembers Connally saying, "No, no, no, no, no ..."


She remembers the roses.  Three times that day in Texas they had been greeted with the bouquets of yellow roses of Texas.  Only, in Dallas they had given her red roses.  She remembers thinking, how funny -- red roses for me; and then the car was full of blood and red roses....


--------------------- ... "At night, before we'd go to sleep, Jack liked to play some records; and the song he loved most came at the very end of this record.  The lines he loved to hear were:  Don't let it be forgot / that once there was a spot / for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.

...There'll be great Presidents again...but there'll never be another Camelot again.


...For a while I thought history was something that bitter old men wrote.  But then I realized history made Jack what he was.  

You must think of him as this little boy, sick so much of the time, reading in bed, reading history, reading the Knights of the Round Table, reading Marlborough.  

For Jack, history was full of heroes.  


And if it made him this way -- if it made him see the heroes -- maybe other little boys will see.  Men are such a combination of good and bad.  Jack had this hero idea of history, the idealistic view."

-30-

dimensions and purity

pink suit and cigarette meditation
-------------------

Is there more truth in a
photograph or in a painting?


Is morning
more beautiful than evening,
or vice versa?


To write, or to type:
That is the question.


Living in the country is
better than living in town
Except for when it isn't...

Rain...
or Shine


To sit quietly and relax,
breathing,
watching
a movie
or a window


Blues - jazz
hardcover - paperback
cat - dog
Ford - Chevy
Red Sox - Yankees



This modern global life

------------------------

_________________________

-30-