Monday, December 31, 2018

Kunstler: Forecast 2019: Ding Ding! Margin Call USA

Kunstler: Forecast 2019: Ding Ding! Margin Call USA

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"Christmas Ain't What It Used to Be," by Judith Flanders

The Orthodox Byzantine Hymns of the Nativity Vol. 10

Maureen McGovern, "The Morning After"

Skinny Puppy, "Assimilate"

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Big Freedia, "Rudy, The Big Booty Reindeer"

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Monday, December 24, 2018

Kunstler: Merry Christmas to All

Kunstler: Merry Christmas to All.

Dow plummets 600 points to below 22,000 in worst Christmas Eve trading day ever.

A.S. Hamrah

Trying to find a now-defunct Wikipedia template for major English-language cultural magazines, and browsing various Wikipedia articles on magazines, I visited the Guernica website, which reviewed a new book by a movie critic I've never heard of. But I'll check him out from time to time.

Friday, December 21, 2018

C & K

No, not Cecilio & Kapono, but Coozledad and Kunstler.

It's fitting both are posted on the day of winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.

Friday, November 30, 2018

Afrofuturism, Afropessimism, etc. (a post in progress)



Here.

http://www.culturalstudies.pitt.edu/course/black-time-afrofuturism-afropessimism-and-beyond

Wikipedia: Afro-pessimism

Thursday, November 29, 2018

Marianna Scheffer: One Year Since Her Death

It was a year ago yesterday that Marianna passed away. There's much to consider and I plan to post something later.

Monday, November 26, 2018

Tuesday, November 20, 2018



Wednesday, November 07, 2018

Tuesday, November 06, 2018

An Interesting List

https://twitter.com/DavidFutrelle/lists/aafarrightwatchers/members

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Coyote Oldman, "People of the Glacier", f.k.a. Post No. 30

I originally made this post as a placeholder on Halloween night. Now, on 6 November, I edited it to include this video, by a musician I first heard of last night while listening to Music Choice.


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Gnostic Gorilla, "St. Basil's Asylum"

Dumpster Dive!

"The Rise and Fall of Borders Group, Inc. (1994-2011)"

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Christopher Williams, "Talk to Myself"

Friday, October 26, 2018

Megyn Kelly

A timeline of her shambolic career at NBC.

(Her show, Megyn Kelly Today was opposite The Wendy Williams Show. You know which one I'd always watch.)

29 October update: Late last week, Megyn Kelly Today was still listed for this week on the channel guide, but is now listed as Today Third Hour. And the last airing of her show on Friday (a rerun), was mostly pre-empted by coverage of the mail bombings. A fitting end.

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Max Blumenthal in Harper's



19 October update: It turns out Max wrote this for Browsings, the Harper's blog, and not the print magazine itself. Nevertheless, the article marks his first appearance in Harper's. He gets back into his Republican Gomorrah groove as he details Nikki Haley's "pilgrimage" (a week prior to her resignation as UN ambassador) to the "decidedly immoderate, highly secretive organization of right-wing, mostly evangelical Republican operatives known as the Council for National Policy, or CNP."

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Brexit as an Example of The Long Emergency

The Fall is a podcast on the possible hardships in Great Britain after Brexit takes full effect.

Friday, October 12, 2018

Avenatt1 the Avaricious

Thursday, October 11, 2018



Ford Fairlane is superior to A Star is Born and Andrew Dice Clay's performance was better back then. Remember that unforgettable line about Sting? --Armond White (@3xchair), Twitter, 11 October 2018

[To wit: "Is Sting really an a--hole?"]

Monday, October 08, 2018

Friday, September 28, 2018

Kunstler Talks with Doug Henwood

Kunstler "yakking" with Doug Henwood.

"A Particularly Catholic Realm of Elite DC Suburban Preppy Culture"

Max Blumenthal grew up in in Washington.





Wednesday, September 26, 2018

On Peak Knowledge (a post in progress)

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2011-11-01/impermanence-knowledge/

Andrew Cusack

I found his blog by chance the other day. Splendidly designed and erudite.

Monday, September 24, 2018

A Sign of Peak Oil?

Friday, September 21, 2018

Ralph Norman

Monday, September 17, 2018

Megan McArdle

Saturday, September 15, 2018

Friday, September 14, 2018

Edroso's New E-Newsletter

The Village Voice, whose electronic edition recently went kaput, was Edroso's main outlet for commentary. Now he has a newsletter.


Monday, September 10, 2018

Monday, September 03, 2018

Kunstler: The Uncomfortable Hiatus

Kunstler: The Uncomfortable Hiatus.

And so the sun seems to stand still this last day before the resumption of business-as-usual, and whatever remains of labor in this sclerotic republic takes its ease in the ominous late summer heat, and the people across this land marinate in anxious uncertainty. What can be done?

Some kind of epic national restructuring is in the works. It will either happen consciously and deliberately or it will be forced on us by circumstance. One side wants to magically reenact the 1950s; the other wants a Gnostic transhuman utopia. Neither of these is a plausible outcome. Most of the arguments ranging around them are what Jordan Peterson calls “pseudo issues.” Let’s try to take stock of what the real issues might be.

Energy: The shale oil “miracle” was a stunt enabled by supernaturally low interest rates, i.e. Federal Reserve policy. Even The New York Times said so yesterday (The Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground). For all that, the shale oil producers still couldn’t make money at it. If interest rates go up, the industry will choke on the debt it has already accumulated and lose access to new loans. If the Fed reverses its current course — say, to rescue the stock and bond markets — then the shale oil industry has perhaps three more years before it collapses on a geological basis, maybe less. After that, we’re out of tricks. It will affect everything.

The perceived solution is to run all our stuff on electricity, with the electricity produced by other means than fossil fuels, so-called alt energy. This will only happen on the most limited basis and perhaps not at all. (And it is apart from the question of the decrepit electric grid itself.) What’s required is a political conversation about how we inhabit the landscape, how we do business, and what kind of business we do. The prospect of dismantling suburbia — or at least moving out of it — is evidently unthinkable. But it’s going to happen whether we make plans and policies, or we’re dragged kicking and screaming away from it.

Corporate tyranny: The nation is groaning under despotic corporate rule. The fragility of these operations is moving toward criticality. As with shale oil, they depend largely on dishonest financial legerdemain. They are also threatened by the crack-up of globalism, and its 12,000-mile supply lines, now well underway. Get ready for business at a much smaller scale.

Hard as this sounds, it presents great opportunities for making Americans useful again, that is, giving them something to do, a meaningful place in society, and livelihoods. The implosion of national chain retail is already underway. Amazon is not the answer, because each Amazon sales item requires a separate truck trip to its destination, and that just doesn’t square with our energy predicament. We’ve got to rebuild main street economies and the layers of local and regional distribution that support them. That’s where many jobs and careers are.

Climate change is most immediately affecting farming. 2018 will be a year of bad harvests in many parts of the world. Agri-biz style farming, based on oil-and-gas plus bank loans is a ruinous practice, and will not continue in any case. Can we make choices and policies to promote a return to smaller scale farming with intelligent methods rather than just brute industrial force plus debt? If we don’t, a lot of people will starve to death. By the way, here is the useful work for a large number of citizens currently regarded as unemployable for one reason or another.

Pervasive racketeering rules because we allow it to, especially in education and medicine. Both are self-destructing under the weight of their own money-grubbing schemes. Both are destined to be severely downscaled. A lot of colleges will go out of business [Note: I'll keep track of colleges going defunct.--P.Z.]. Most college loans will never be paid back (and the derivatives based on them will blow up). We need millions of small farmers more than we need millions of communications majors with a public relations minor. It may be too late for a single-payer medical system. A collapsing oil-based industrial economy means a lack of capital, and fiscal hocus-pocus is just another form of racketeering. Medicine will have to get smaller and less complex and that means local clinic-based health care. Lots of careers there, and that is where things are going, so get ready.

Government over-reach: the leviathan state is too large, too reckless, and too corrupt. Insolvency will eventually reduce its scope and scale. Most immediately, the giant matrix of domestic spying agencies has turned on American citizens. It will resist at all costs being dismantled or even reined in. One task at hand is to prosecute the people in the Department of Justice and the FBI who ran illegal political operations in and around the 2016 election. These are agencies which use their considerable power to destroy the lives of individual citizens. Their officers must answer to grand juries.

As with everything else on the table for debate, the reach and scope of US imperial arrangements has to be reduced. It’s happening already, whether we like it or not, as geopolitical relations shift drastically and the other nations on the planet scramble for survival in a post-industrial world that will be a good deal harsher than the robotic paradise of digitally “creative” economies that the credulous expect. This country has enough to do within its own boundaries to prepare for survival without making extra trouble for itself and other people around the world. As a practical matter, this means close as many overseas bases as possible, as soon as possible.

As we get back to business tomorrow, ask yourself where you stand in the blather-storm of false issues and foolish ideas, in contrast to the things that actually matter.

Friday, August 31, 2018

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Toronto Rant

Nancy, on holiday in Toronto, being her grumbly self:



With this site, maybe the bar could be located, or at least guessed at.

1 September update: This list of the top fifteen squash courts and clubs in Toronto would be helpful too.

On the Southern Dialect (a post in progress)

This is a book on the subject.

A Wonkette article on contempt for at least a certain Southern accent.

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Via @SRothbell

Tuesday, August 21, 2018







Mad. Indeed.

Thursday, August 16, 2018

Mark Ames opines on V.S. Naipaul.

Aretha Franklin died this morning. I found out about 5:30 a.m. Hawaii time. There's still much of her music I haven't heard but should like to.

Wednesday, August 01, 2018

Stoop-id People, f.k.a. Post



Another instance of New York slowly becoming like a theme park, according to Jeremiah Moss.

Two things that occur to me:

I keep thinking about that fake stoop. The stoop, so utterly urban, normally brings the inside out; facing the street, it engages residents with the sidewalk ballet.

Lately, I've been watching reruns of Hey Arnold! on Teen Nick. One of the minor characters is named Stoop Kid. He doesn't just hang out on the stoop but lives on it, and apparently never leaves it. And not only doesn't he "engage with the sidewalk ballet" he actively rejects it, shouting at passersby who seem to get too close to his stoop, not unlike the stereotypical old man yelling at people to get off his lawn.



CBGB was never an abbreviation but an acronym: "Its full name of CBGB & OMFUG stands for 'Country, Bluegrass, Blues and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers'."--Wikipedia

Tuesday, July 31, 2018

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https://theoutline.com/post/5543/david-foster-wallace-conference-profile?zd=1&zi=jd7izwnr

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Librarian.net Update

I haven't read librarian.net in ages, but checking it out tonight, I read that Jessamyn is on the faculty of the UH-Manoa library school.

Currently I teach at UH Manoa’s library school....

Quick to Order, Slow to Arrive

Nancy grumbles about discusses the state of McDonald's, particularly the long wait for items ordered. And the other day I noticed the "wimpy cat-blogger" finally deleted NN from his blogroll.

Three of Four on Lady Baltimore Cakes







Morris Berman on the Benedict Option

Morris Berman and the Benedict Option."

Time

Sunday, July 29, 2018

Some Tweets About History







Tuesday, July 03, 2018

TBogg vs Neil Steinberg

Saturday, June 30, 2018

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"Could Germany Fracture?"

"Could Germany Fracture?" asks Charles Hugh Smith on his blog, Of Two Minds.

Saturday, June 23, 2018

George Will: Four Types and Their Reaction to His Column

Never Trumpers


Trumpers

Resisters welcoming him

Resisters skeptical of him



Sunday, June 17, 2018

Thursday, June 14, 2018





Neither magazine is what it used to be. And it occurred to me recently that The Smoking Gun isn't discussed much anymore.

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Wednesday, June 06, 2018

"Liberal Living Upon Narrow Means" (a post in progress)

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Reaction to Reactions: Bhad Bhabie

Is Bhad Bhabie the first to post a reaction video to reaction videos to her song? I don't know but she can dish it out.

Saturday, May 26, 2018

Thursday, May 24, 2018

How Things Have Changed





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Monday, May 21, 2018

Don't Hate, Appreciate.

I don't often agree with Nancy Nall but I like what she says here. Below are some examples of said self-righteous/Debbie Downer types hating on the royals.









To which @ljhickey24 says:



Sunday, May 20, 2018

The Volcano

Sometime I'll look back at the news coverage of the current eruption and see what was the most false, or sensationalistic. The ignorance about Hawaii is understandable, but if people want to inform themselves they can do so more easily than they could have even a decade ago.

Sunday, May 06, 2018

Friday, May 04, 2018

Another Way to Celebrate May Day

Monday, April 30, 2018

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Kunstler: That Collapse You Ordered...?

Kunstler: That Collapse You Ordered ... ?

Monday, April 16, 2018



That's "palate-cleanser."

Thursday, April 05, 2018

Wednesday, April 04, 2018

Martin Luther King, Jr.: Fifty Years After He Was Slain



He was complicated.

Saturday, March 31, 2018



They probably think Paul Newman is the old dude who makes salad dressing.

Rappers Discussing Rappers



CeCe Rogers, "All Join Hands."

The Lessons of a School Shooting--in 1853

#Everythinghasahistory

Nachlass (Nachlaß)

is what I need to learn more about.

No More Kings, "Sweep the Leg."

Paul Lekakis, "Boom Boom (Let's Go Back to My Room)."

An Essay About the Anthropocene

An essay by Richard Seymour about the Anthropocene. Much to ponder.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Thanks to Ian Lind's post today I found this:

Federation of American Scientists link to CRS Reports

Congressional Research Service [CRS] Reports

The Congressional Research Service, a component of the Library of Congress, conducts research and analysis for Congress on a broad range of national policy issues. While many CRS memoranda are generated in response to individual Member or staff inquiries and are confidential, most CRS reports are available to anyone who has access to a congressional intranet.

Yet at the direction of Congress, CRS does not make even its non-confidential publications directly available to the public online. In order to help overcome this unnecessary barrier, the Federation of American Scientists endeavors to provide current, regularly updated public access to as many non-confidential CRS reports as possible. These reports are provided without congressional or CRS authorization as a public service.


Past and Present

Like many other people I watched the Roseanne premiere last night.

Max Blumenthal opines:





The interesting thing to me is when something is revisited after many years, and seeing what changes and what stays the same. Imperial Bedrooms, the Bret Easton Ellis novel from 2010 is an example. Set twenty-five years after Less Than Zero, Imperial Bedrooms is current, but its characters haven't changed much. Rip may be constantly texting and watching CNN on a laptop, but he's still malevolent.

Then there's the new YouTube Red series, Cobra Kai. From what I can tell from the trailer h


http://democratherald.com/blogs/of-being-and-johnny-lawrence-sweep-the-leg/article_1b2d98b1-224f-51e8-9277-221c6ed38569.html

Monday, March 26, 2018

Cilla Black, "Anyone Who Had a Heart"

So Bad It's Good

If you have free time and want a laugh, check out @WorstDamnTweet. It compiles tweets from everybody: Sh!tlibs, Kekistanners, the Acela Corridor (Beltway people), Clown Politicians (a redundancy?), Never Trumpers, Brits, the extremely online, celebrities....

Examples:



On the Decline of Philippine Spanish (a post in progress)

Quora.com: Do Filipinos Care About the Preservation of Philippine Spanish?"

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

On the Decline of German Restaurants

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/grandmas-food-how-changing-tastes-are-killing-german-restaurants/2018/03/19/de4c4994-0b93-11e8-8b0d-891602206fb7_story.html?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.250ca7fa21ff

Linked from NancyNall.com

Friday, March 16, 2018

Thursday, March 15, 2018

This Blog is Twelve

The twelfth anniversary of this blog came and went, and I realized it just yesterday. That shows how hectic things have been lately. They've been discussing small towns a lot recently at NancyNall.com. Much I can say--if I can find the time. I doubt any of the commenters are familiar with Kunstler.

Thursday, March 08, 2018

Wednesday, March 07, 2018

Some Historians to Check Out

Friday, March 02, 2018

On Uber and Ambulances




Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Gryphon

Ougenweide - Nieman kan mit Gerten

https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/wj4byz/spring-hipster-runoff-generation-essay

Horse Power

UC Stereotypes Explained

NorCal Asians vs. SoCal Asians

Smiley, "I Love My Religion"

Freddy Meiway, "200% Zoblazo."

The Chainsmokers, "#SELFIE"

Bertie Higgins, "Homeless People."

People on all sides of this have a lot of time on their hands.

Robbie Dupree, "This is Life."

Song heretofore unknown by me.

"The World Ain't a Big Soap Opera."





Rachel should listen to Yo-Yo.



And this guy.

Dyke & the Blazers, "The Funky Broadway."

Another discovery.



Rick Astley, "Lights Out."

Just heard of this song, too.

Space, "The Ballad of Tom Jones."

First time I've heard of this song or band.

Esperanza Spalding

Alabama, "Jukebox in My Mind."

Another song I first heard yesterday in the Chinese restaurant. It's much more recent than I thought it was.

Charlie Rich, "Rollin' With the Flow."

I first heard (of) this song yesterday afternoon in a Chinese restaurant as I was waiting to pick up my order.


Friday, February 23, 2018

Hating on Rod Dreher--Again







Edroso is the master of Rod-haters, especially here.

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4 March update: I found this.










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6 March update: What exactly is she accusing him of? A kind of sock-puppeting?


Thursday, February 22, 2018

I think of Marianna and know she'd have so much to say about this.

Monday, February 19, 2018

Dupes

Americans are dupes, according to this.




(The New Yorker, "Reading the Mueller Indictment: A Russian-American Fraud" by Evan Osnos, February 16, 2018.)

Yes they are.




Really?



Maybe they are, but so is the chattering class.




Maybe the dupes aren't regular people after all.