Laural's Dish

LAURAL'S DISH

Laural is our dog, my dog. Everyone else heads off to school, "people like me and Laural" stay home. He's a fine companion, but you have to understand. If he's having a really good time he tries to bite you, me, anyone. Not hard, just…similarly, if you're scratching his belly real good, but then shift to his (apparently less preferable) ears, he'll growl at you. The irregular spelling of his name results from the time that Alexandra and I were mulling the possibilities, in a tunnel in Newton Abbot, when we came across the graffiti: Laura L is a dog.

Laural loves to eat more than any living being ever created, and he will eat absolutely anything. We've weaned him from rocks but he once tried to eat an unopened can of Carlsberg Export. surprise! So his dish frequently has unusual things in it, bits of this or that, absolute treasures that others might consider slightly unfit for human consumption, for whatever stupid reasons.

Beneath please find my literary reflection of Laural's Dish:

Laural's Dish comes out on Fridays, before lunch, usually.

25 February 2011

This is most important (though hardly entertaining) thing you're going to read this month. Take some time with it. It would only have been improved by charts showing how today we‘re more like the feudal system than we are like 1979:

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110223/wl_nm/us_saudi_king

Buying peace and loyalty. Offering them the Wimp Taxbreak. Sounds like the Saudi general public is more savvy than we are, though. We keep insisting that the filthy rich keep taking more (see the abolition of the corporate tax in Wisconsin).

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/beauty/dress-code-for-the-royal-wedding-uniforms-morning-coats-lounge-suits-and-hats-2457028/#photoViewer=1

http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/115223/20110223/vivienne-westwood-turned-down-request-to-design-kate-s-royal-wedding-dress.htm

Ok, that does it! If Viv's not designing the dress and they're having a stupid dress code...I'm not going!!!!!

They're going to have to use some of the banker bailout slush fund cash to get any cool people to show up for this sort of event. Royal wedding uniforms? Bleeeeeaaaaaaacccchhhhhh!!!! (sounds like a great place to play "the vomit game," though)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20110218/cm_csm/364507

There's usually a reasonable argument on both sides, but I think that this is one of those rare ones where it's pretty fucking obvious, like when Reagan destroyed the family farm. The tax break package that the governor just gave corporations is larger than the deficit that he says is why he has to engage in union-busting.

Wisconsin is not about small businesses vs. unions. It is not about private sector vs. public sector. It is not liberal vs. conservative. It is not big government vs. small government. It is not about spending or saving. It is about capital vs. humans. It's that simple.

By casting their lot in with the corporate power structure the Tea Party is committing suicide as a mainstream force in American politics-right there on the streets of Madison-and defining itself as the illiterati tool of ExxonMobil and GE. They are yelling, at the top of their lungs, "Money is more important than people!" They either need to change course directly, or start preparing Tea Party II, the splinter group that cares more about workers than CEO bonuses.

(check out Billy's middle finger) ...but on to happier and more glorious and entertaining things. How about TOP TEN MANAGERS IN BASEBALL!!!!!

Dusty Baker, Reds - It amazes me that Dusty's never won a World Series, even though he's never had a team you would expect to do so. He's half wizard. You can see him in the dugout watching the game in at least five dimensions. People have latched onto the fact that ten years ago two of his pitchers hurt themselves or something, and that's all they think about. Dusty's a main reason that the Reds are the great long-shot bet for this year. That and everyone focusing on the Phillies. I think this may be his year, even with that lineup.
Ron Washington, Rangers - He's got a lot of that same thing in him that Dusty has. When they stole that run in the first inning of the playoffs last year, you don't see many managerial moves more brilliant than that. Ron's great on the tactical side, but he's also inconsistent. Experience will change that. He's also got that rollin' along New Orleans thang that keeps everybody loose and wanting to show up at the ballpark, and that is the single most important (and most underrated, and least understood) thing that a manager can do.
Joe Maddon, Rays - As Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena play elsewhere, I think it's going to start becoming even more apparent how much crazy Joe gets out of his players. He has that almost Walt Disney-like ability to hypnotize his clubhouse into thinking that they're in the middle of a great drama, and they're the underdog hero. Look a little more closely at the teams he's taken so close, they aren't great teams.
Ozzie Guillen, White Sox - The year they won everyone said that it was because of great pitching. Um, who were those pitchers again? I submit that he's kept a subpar team in contention through sheer will and some esoteric peripheral insights. Ozzie's teams go out onto the field expecting to win and to be glorified for it later, and know they don't have to worry about it.
Charlie Manuel, Phillies - About as monosyllabic and inarticulate as humans come, Charlie is nonetheless a bright guy, discernible only by watching him closely over extended periods of time. He's got that spirit of baseball in him, that he's of the chalk and dirt...and that keeps everyone confident and makes good things happen.
Bruce Bochy, Giants - Catchers (can) make great managers because, mainly, they understand that pitching and not hitting or anything else is the key to winning baseball games. They're also tough guys, which helps in a room full of jocks.
Tony LaRussa, Cardinals - Crazy, innovative...abrasive and arrogant but that's the kind of crap the press over-emphasizes. He has great ideas and really dumb ones and it takes him longer than you'd expect to be able to tell the difference, but he has lots of ideas, which sets him apart in this particular profession. He's won with a garbage team, and damn near no one else can say that.
Jim Leyland, Tigers - Another great dugout presence, I don't remember anyone ever calling him unfair,,which is incredible given that in professional sports people are unfairly called unfair all the time...and he's good on the tactical side, too.
Terry Francona, Red Sox - His greatest asset is that he's incredibly even-keeled, which makes him the anti-Billy Martin (see above, greatest tactical manager who ever lived; but a firework waiting to go off). You gotta be one extreme or the other in Boston, and he has the horses to do it again this year. Right manager in his perfect place situation.
Ron Gardenhire, Twins - I think he's got less sheer brilliance than anyone else on this list, but he doesn't make mistakes. He's incredible at assessing his talent, and putting his players in situations where they have a chance to succeed. That's worth something--always making the playoffs, but never getting far into them, so far.

18 February 2011

My wife Theresa teaches at the Exeter Steiner School. It's a small school, just a few blocks away. An oasis in a typical, British working class neighbourhood, a lot of trees on a little campus. It is-I use the term rarely-a great school. The teachers all love what they're doing, care about the children, are patient within human limitations...

Theresa was leaving school for the week, late Friday afternoon. Some of the older children (8-10 year olds) were still hanging out, maybe waiting for parents. The sun was shining and the children were hanging upside down from the branches of the trees, singing "Hey Jude." "They knew all of the words, and they were so happy."

Just hearing her tell it, it was one of those experiences where just for a moment the veil between this beautiful but often troubling world and the underlying Love reality of the universe gets so thin that you can see through it, you can actually feel, sense, bask in, that absolute beauty that is our natural, spiritual home. Just for that moment. And then it's gone but you know it's always there.

There's good and bad about this whole Egypt thing, but mainly good so far I think, and it's definitely high drama. While it sorts itself out-or at least settles on a direction to do so-it's kind of fun considering the implications:

On Kuwait: We face the prospect of pro-democracy demonstrators having to violently overthrow a brutal dictatorship we lost thousands of lives (including Americans) putting back into power, so we could get good oil deals. Yeah George W. Bush's foreign policy was terrible, but his father wasn't much better. Reminds me of the Iraq War protest chant:

George Bush, we know you!

your daddy was

a killer too!

On Israel: Although I have championed a Palestinian state for more than 30 years now, I also consider myself pro-Israel. Despite its very big (and often horrifying) problems and attitudes, Israel is closer to us, culturally, than any other country in the region. It is also the best semblance of a functional democracy, however much we may loathe some of its electoral decisions. Egypt has always been-during my lifetime-a distant second.

What if the students and businessmen and good hearted religious folk of their many faiths get close enough to the controls to make Egypt work. What if it becomes a desert bloom of tolerance and multi-culturalism and accomplishes through attitude and achievement what the greatest military might in the world has not...i.e. marginalize hate-filled religious fanatics to the extent that they have no moral authority and can't get anything done...what then?

How dumb would Israel look refusing to deal with a Palestinian/Gaza government that gets along quite peacefully with its Egyptian neighbors? How much credibility, how much cache, would that add to the always enthusiastic and inspiring Israeli peace movement?

What would Israeli foreign policy look like if they had a credible competitor for the cash America pours into the region trying to enhance production and western (or at least post-14th century) values? How fast could it get there? What's happening in Egypt could be the best thing to happen to Israel in a long time.

Egypt has the potential to be an international beacon. It is a nation of many different religions-and an incredible independent spiritual tradition-established on the teachings of many great visionaries. If I may paraphrase them, collectively: "We are all brothers. Love your brother. Peace."

Something even bigger and better than fascinating television footage may be afoot. I hope so, we do tend to evolve particularly slowly, socially, as a species.

and now for something completely different...

I've become absolutely fascinated with Bat-Mite.

I haven't read comics much in 40 years. Sergeant Fury and the Howling Commandos were my first favorites, then in junior high I got into Archie like everybody else, and at LSU I went through a Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers stage...but since then I think I've read five, all the same two days...Myles brought home some Captain Americas and I devoured 'em. But I watch a lot of cartoons on tv, a couple times a week, as background. Usually Scooby-Doo if it's on, but Wile E. Coyote is the only one who I would count as a hero. The Newfins have different ones they watch.

From Myles watching "Batman: The Brave and the Bold" I caught little bits and pieces of Bat-Mite every once in awhile. He looks pretty funny. He has dumb ears on his hat. And then he looked funny again, and is silly. So earlier this week I looked up more information on this incredible being on Wikipedia.

Man, he's incredible! Did you know...that he's an imp with super-scientific powers (that appear downright magical to metaphysical morons like humans) from the Fifth Dimension?! And that Batman is his hero?!! So he helps Batman, kind of like a guardian angel...

Wow, Batman's even cooler than I'd realized.

But what I really, really want is a Bat-Mite t-shirt.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110217/ts_yblog_thelookout/why-the-wisconsin-labor-bill-is-a-big-deal

Has America learned a lesson in direct democracy from Egypt already? ...even if it's something they learned from us....?

http://www.neweconomics.org/press-releases/are-british-banks-getting-billions-in-hidden-subsidies-asks-nef

Ok, so let me get this straight. Banks can't profit on their own, oftentimes, but we prop them up with public money so that they can give themselves ridiculous bonuses for putting people out of work and home?

And that we don't have a national bank because it would cost less, and put 'em out of business, and then they'd be impoverished and/or unemployed...kind of like the people who support them in a poorly run enterprise that's too often unsustainable unless everyone else supports them. But dammit, pay up your fucking mortgage on time, or else!!

Isn't that basically about right?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110216/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_iraq_curveball

Bullshit alert. And thus historical revisionism and rehabilitation set in. It was all al-Janabi's fault!

Not that I believe that Bush or Blair were ever dumb enough to believe al-Janabi in the first place, but if they did...shouldn't we put them in mental homes, for their own good and the safety of everyone else?

Ok, I haven't been listening to much really loud music lately, but the last 48 hours it's been coming on. TOP TEN REALLY LOUD ALBUMS THAT I JUST LISTENED TO, AM LISTENING TO, OR AM ABOUT TO LISTEN TO:

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
Slash
The Pretty Reckless
Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy
Janis Joplin - Pearl
Suicidal Tendencies - How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can't Even Smile Today
Airbourne - Runnin' Wild
UFO - Obsession
Nirvana - Bleach
Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers - L.A.M.F.

Ok, maybe things can end pleasantly with a nice film update. How about...in the order of how smart I think the people working on 'em were, generally speaking...and to be fair qualified by the simple reality that I think people making movies tend to be smarter than people making, you know, laws or cannons or off-ramps...

11 February 2011

There's a great old Archie comic book, where Archie and Reggie are walking down the street and they're walking by all these girls drawn with just those lines to involve teenage boys, and the narrative's going "It's only natural that when the weather improves, and the season changes to spring, a young man's mind would be drawn to..." and Archie and Reggie are really checking 'em out by that picture, and then you flip the page and it goes......BASEBALL!!!!! (and they're all hitting and running around the bases).

Yup. Pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training next week. Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball 2011 is open for business...we've made it through another Winter (aka Hot Stove League). Whew! .......aaaaaaaaaaaah.....

Unfortunately my week of pleasant baseball rumination was offset by this. I'm not sure why it suddenly meant so much to me.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1354353/John-Paul-Getty-III-dies-54-paralysed-30-years.html

I don't know much about this guy. I don't think I ever even noticed him, after the kidnapping. He didn't get family support when he needed it. He married the woman he loved, even though it cost him a fortune. He wrecked anyway. Those who knew him best say he's relieved to be dead.

There's a line of esoteric thought, that we choose our parents. I guess maybe we can only see part of the equation, have to take a chance on the rest. Maybe he responded to something like, "Do you want all the oil money in the world, and a dad who hangs out with the Rolling Stones?" Maybe he never had his priorities right, maybe he saw the whole picture but didn't understand which parts of it matter. As a child he was offered everything under the moon and stars, but love.

http://ssy.org.uk/2011/01/romanian-witches-protest-new-tax-laws/

Ok, let's see...insight into Gogol Bordello's "Start Wearing Purple"....how NOT to institute a flat tax and...

...well, just from a moral perspective-for those of us who have no intention of confusing the separation of church and state with the separation of morality and politics-...I know it's a very small sample, but who do you think deserves to get taxed....John Paul Getty I or some random gypsy witches in the forest?

Ok, good. Now...from a utilitarian standpoint...utility is after all the raison d'etre of taxation in the first place...

Speaking of candidates who may have something to say about the tax code, this does look like it could turn into a big problem (and should), if Ron Paul ever gains traction nationally...

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/angry-white-man

Mike Huckabee has a similar problem, though it's at least a bit more distanced from himself...

http://news.change.org/stories/mike-huckabees-best-buddy-wants-to-kill-gay-people-in-uganda

President Obama may yet turn out to be our political savior: not because he turns good, but because you can at least vote for him and get saved from fates that are even worse.

You see why it's nice to think about baseball. Ok, in a Dish clearly suffering from multiple-personality disorder, bipolar syndrome or at least a short attention span we've already played at comic book baseball, morbid fatalism, astral taxation, and big-time bigotry...perhaps we should continue with something absolutely vicious... how about....TOP TEN REASONS THE YANKEES ARE GOING TO SUCK THIS YEAR!!!!!

Joe Girardi is an idiot. He's the worst manager in baseball. That he isn't attacked by his players regularly is an indictment of their collective character.
The Steinbrenner boys are terrible owners. At least one of them has the nausea-inducing obnoxiousness of their father, but neither seem to have his occasional sensations of spectacular good-heartedness.
Because their best hitter is going to be in AAA until mid-May, by which time they'll be 25 games behind the Red Sox. (Jesus Montero)
Because not even Edward Wood, Jr. would cast Alex Rodriguez, Mariano Rivera or Derek Jeter as a teenager.
Because by mid-May C. C. Sabathia is going to count his blessings starting with...well, his family obviously...immediately followed by his opt-out clause.
Because 80% of their games are going to feature a starting pitcher other than C. C., and of those Phil Hughes can only start 25%.
Because they're paying Mark Teixeira $22.5 million and he's at best the fourth best first baseman....in the division! (AGON, Youk, DLee)
Because other than C. C. and occasionally Philip....those starters aren't going to get anywhere near the 8th inning with a lead....which means that the Yankees will be spending millions per inning for Mariano and Soriano to be getting three outs each in games that are already lost.
Because other teams are going to notice, if they start trying to bat Robinson Cano every other batter.
Have I mentioned the starting pitching yet....?

4 February 2011

ulrike's weinglas, gudrun's violin made its debut in the world of literature this week, and did surprisingly well. I mean, obviously, the goal was to write a great novel and I think that I did that, but it's also nice to see it already selling a little bit. It's already out-sold every other book that I've written (which, ok, doesn't say much), and even among the books listed on Facebook as my favorites it's already passed The Nag Hammadi Library, Up and Down With the Rolling Stones: The Inside Story, The Greek Passion, I Can't Wait Until Tomorrow...'Cause I Get Better Looking Every Day, Screwball and M*A*S*H Goes to New Orleans in total Amazon sales....omigosh, I'm out-selling Kazantzakis! and Tug McGraw!!

Yes, well anyway that's a great exercise in personal amusement and shameless self-aggrandizement...and some payoff for thousands of hours getting inside the heads of some very angry people, hundreds of bottles of cheap red wine, ear-splitting music for hours on end, listening to nothing but Pink Floyd's Animals for a full week (yes, it will be obvious where), and cultivating a paranoid consciousness whereby everything is a potential target, and everyone a potential enemy...it was my response to the Iraq War, it was a channel, it didn't make me more stable or a better person. I'm never going to do it again.

But I'm glad I did. George Bush said that people become terrorists because they're "jealous." That's utter bullshit. For a better-and to be fair, more fair-idea of what's going on in those very dangerous minds...

USA portal

European portal

http://www.truth-out.org/jeff-cohen-fear-extreme-islamists-arab-world-blame-washington67267

I'm not really sure what to say about Egypt, beyond that I support any protesters seeking to replace dictatorship with democracy. I hope they get a government worthy of risking their lives for. I will also repeat that we continue, and people all over the world continue...in the Middle East and elsewhere...to pay the price for our absurd foreign policy during the Cold War, when we invariably opposed progressive secular groups (on the paranoia that they might be or turn into communists) and supported any religious nuts who offered to fight the progressives (and that's how we armed al-Qaeda).

But I think that there's a distinct possibility that the CIA's giving us value for money in this one, and I'm impressed with the way President Obama's playing his cards.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110202/ts_yblog_thelookout/wall-street-pay-hits-new-record

http://www.truth-out.org/jim-hightower-obama-inc67200

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclusive/20110127/pl_yblog_exclusive/opinion-gingrichs-take-on-obamas-vision

STATE OF THE UNION

I imagine that we've all seen all of President Obama's State of the Union speech that we're interested in. Supporters will hail yet another triumph, detractors will applaud his skills as an orator.

I'm, personally, very tired of admiring the president's speeches. I'm more concerned about reading through what he's saying, since his record suggests that he never quite does what he says he's going to anyway.

So he tried to unify the nation, by playing on nationalism. Fair enough, who doesn't do that? But for someone vulnerable to the accusation of preferring the interests of global corporatism to those of his own voters, he was awful enthusiastic about getting us to pitch in and sacrifice to help them.

I think it was mainly a non-event, though it does give us a sense of what people are going to try to argue going forward: Obama says that corporations are doing really well again (true enough), so everyone else will soon be catching up to them ("trickle down" Reaganonmics, anyone?). Newt Gingrich says Obama's crazy for putting money into technologies that aren't already flourishing in the first place (has he given up on the Tea Party, and is positioning himself as the Lunatic From Big Oil Candidate?), and Sarah Palin took the opportunity to attack the true fact that so far the corporations are the only ones benefiting from the Obama presidency...which may be an overly simplistic way of looking at the situation that he inherited, but it's also true. And it's going to get her more mileage and traction than either the Obama or Gingrich position, at least until someone else articulates the same argument even better and more enthusiastically...and believe me, that line (for once) starts on the right.

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

http://www.truth-out.org/washington-state-joins-movement-public-banking67119

This is what everyone should be talking about. This is a large part of the answer. If something is too important to fail, the government should be doing it. I'm not talking about socialism, where the government is the only one doing it. I'm talking about a truly free market, in which the government is a player: if corporations can do it better and cheaper they'll thrive (and without our bailouts), if not they'll fail but we'll all be protected because the government will be bulwark of the economy.

http://www.truth-out.org/the-mafia-and-me-reflections-being-italian67161

Before we get lost in the righteous indignation of whatever our own positions regarding whether drugs and gambling-victimless crimes-should even be illegal in the first place, how about my TOP TEN FAVORITE MAFIA/HARDENED CRIMINAL MOVIES THAT I'VE SEEN IN THE PAST TWELVE YEARS