Author Archives: admin

Bachmann to Obama: Forget the Debt Ceiling, Lower the Debt, Christian News

According to Christian News, what Bachman said was this: "Sadly, we haven't reformed the bankrupt tax-and-spend policies that we decried [through] Ronald Reagan some decades ago," she noted. "We have ... merely replaced them with a new and insidious scheme called borrow-and-spend." Congressman Bachman seems to forget it was Reagan and Bush, pere and fils, who were the biggest borrowers and deficit spenders, Bill Clinton, for all the damage he did, left the budget in surplus, which Bush and his Read more [...]

The Weekend Interview with Bill Gates: Was the $5 Billion Worth It? – WSJ.com

The Weekend Interview with Bill Gates: Was the $5 Billion Worth It? - WSJ.com. In this recent article in the Wall Street Journal the writer inserted the following paragraph of editorial bias, in direct contradiction to what Mr. Gates had to say on the subject. "The reality is that the Gates Foundation met the same resistance that other sizeable philanthropic efforts have encountered while trying to transform dysfunctional urban school systems run by powerful labor unions and a top-down government Read more [...]

On “Wall Street’s Euthanasia of Industry” (Michael Hudson)

Wall Street’s Euthanasia of Industry | Michael Hudson. Much as I've admire Dr. Hudson's writings in Counterpunch, in this he presents such a dire picture of what's going on in the debt ceiling talks, and the U.S. economy in general, that it is hard for me to believe in such cynicism. I think it's far more likely that Dr. Hudson is expressing the views of the embittered left wing of the party. These are the people whose views tend to be even less popular than those of Michelle Bachman. When these Read more [...]

Mannerism in Literature and the Foxification of the Public Mind

I've been thinking about the Mannerist phase in European art following the High Renaissance, and it occurs to me that western literature, since Joyce, might be going through a similar period of tumult, from which the culture has yet to emerge with its common sense intact. Mannerism can be viewed as a period of great diversity, encompassing the work of Michaelangelo, El Greco, Bronzino, Pontormo, and many others. It was also a period of great exaggeration, with elongated human forms, impossible poses, Read more [...]

Stream of Consciousness, Stream of Pee

Call me Philistine. Call me Ishmael. Call me Thingamajig. Just, please do not call upon me to read your stream of consciousness. I am sorry, but I cannot do it. Much as I appreciate literature, including the early works of Joyce, I cannot read Ullysses, though I think the words are wonderful in the mouths of passionate actors. Nor could I get interested in reading Finnegan's Wake. Recently I attempted Infinite Jest, Molloy, and The Tunnel by William H. Gass, but I'm afraid I haven't the patience Read more [...]

On Krugman: Corporate Cash Con

As other people have said before, given that employee costs, i.e wages and benefits, are tax deductible, it could be argued that lower tax rates are a disincentive to employ people, one of those unintended consequences for which conservatives are always lambasting liberals. But no matter, the real issue we're dealing with here is one of responsibilities vs. rights. Another favorite movement-Conservative theme. Corporations are licensed by the state, given the right to sell shares carrying limited Read more [...]

New Work in Progress

I have a new work in progress, the first draft of which is taking shape here. I call it The Unlucky Thirteen. Its genesis is an incident that occurs in my first novel, Banana Republican Blues, previously known as Moonbeam Highway, and totally ignored before that as Gopher Anus Chili. It concerns the murder of thirteen parasite capitalists on a factory floor in Allentown. It's a mystery to anyone who hasn't read the other book, and a farce to anyone who has. I've decided to share my creative process Read more [...]

Commentary on The Smith Myth « Three Pound Brain

I would agree with you, insofar as the classics I steeped myself in as a youth, were well written, well plotted and had three dimensional characters that drove the story. I still consider that the holy trinity of fiction writing, and find that most published authors are weak in at least one of them. But, I disagree that I should have to follow genre conventions in order to be read. The only people who can write such stuff are those who would write it anyway. Writing with clarity, purpose, wit, Read more [...]

Comment on SF Signal: The Emptiness of ‘Literary Fiction’ and the Stereotyping of Genre Literature

SF Signal: The Emptiness of 'Literary Fiction' and the Stereotyping of Genre Literature. Unfortunately, Literary Fiction has become just another genre, like romance and chick lit, but directed at a reader with higher education, and defined as what people with MFAs write. Indeed, some literary agencies consider an MFA to be a threshold qualification for anyone claiming to write literary fiction. I agree with you that it is often boring, but in my view, the "lesser genre" are even more at fault, Read more [...]

Rule by Rentiers – Readers’ Comments – NYTimes.com

Rule by Rentiers - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com. Le plus ce que ca change, le plus ce que ces le meme chose. The only thing that will set this country straight is another great depression that robs the rentiers of their fortunes and their power, and a tax and regulatory regime that brings things back in balance for another couple of generations. When it happens, the rentiers will teach their children and grandchildren how important it is to cut taxes, capture the regulators and legislators, break Read more [...]