Monday, September 5, 2016

If that's your story




stick to it.



We'd say, it's bad enough, when the candidate in the lead shows a dogtag every day, but only if we're buying dinner. Now we have a candidate closing hard, who's throwing away his dogs, as fast as the other one's scarfing down money. It would be enough, in normal times, to restore our good opinion of information. But these demonstrably are not normal times. This campaign's beginning to remind us of Kosovo in the 90s. If we wanted to know, don't you think we could?




  Lucky you. How do
  they fare, where 
  you come from?


                




















iii  Bruce Weber

v    Joachim Ladefoged
      Balkans, 1999








5 comments:

  1. http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2016/9/02/if-clinton-foundation-closes-people-will-die

    As the 4th Muslim Caliph, Ali ibn Abi Talib, once said, "People usually complain that their rulers are oppressing them, but I complain that my people are the ones oppressing me!" Cheers, indeed, to "the other one's scarfing down money"! Long may she reign over us clueless, malicious ingrates.

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    Replies
    1. I haven't checked your source for the epigram, not that any eminence or antiquity would lend it a bearing on this posting, because it is obvious that you describe a mode of government not once, but twice, which has no bearing on this continent. Are those who host you and have endorsed that candidacy, worse for clueless malice or ingratitude; or do you, again, perceive only your own resources?

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  2. Time and again questions about the Foundation's questionable funding are answered by retorts like "but it does such good works..."

    To which I dare say, (1) how could it be otherwise and not do good works? (2) how can such retorts about the Foundation's good works be considered acceptable answers to questions about questionable funding? (3) Why can't the two principals stop even the appearance of conflict?

    I also dare say that this election is for her to lose and it seems to me that, other than attract money, she has not yet figured out how not to. Isn't she told enough to know?

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    Replies
    1. The natural response to any boast of good works, has always been that raising money for the Gates Foundation or the Southern Poverty Law Center (for example) would be just as constructive, and quite a lot less demeaning and destabilizing than running two Departments of State from the same desk. It has been good enough for countless fortunate people, not to revolt the innocent. Bear in mind, it’s the irrepressible, fighting-for-us compulsion to do nice things that is the constant in this incidental aggrandizement. Who could have known, sheikhs and thugs would reform so munificently within that radius? That said, the candidacy hinges now on the stop-loss formula of blackmail: do you really want to pursue an indecorum you simply imagine, only to be governed by your worst nightmare? We are not exercising the right to vote; we’re exercising prosecutorial discretion. A happy interval in the republic’s life, hence this Tuesday’s posting. We are needed to worry. But all of this, what's left of the Democratic Party foresaw in 2009 in her Senate confirmation hearings, only to roll the dice with stunning contempt for the odds.

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  3. Amen.

    My last sentence should have read "Isn't she old enough to know?"

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