Yep

What elevates this theoretical exercise above a parlor game is the deep grief felt by tens of millions of Democrats, especially women. They believe not just that Donald Trump is a disaster, but that the United States will miss out on a great, inspiring leader in Hillary Clinton. For these bereft citizens, Hillary’s departure from the national political scene ranks alongside those of Adlai Stevenson and Al Gore — losing candidates who were clearly superior to the winners, whose loss left America much worse off.

I agree with the Clintonites’ horror-struck reaction to Trump. But are they right about the rest? Have we really lost much with Hillary? Let’s look at what we know, or can assume with reasonable certainty, would have happened under the first few years of Madam President.--TR

This guy always makes sense to me.

The liberal mindset is a tough thing to crack.  If HC had even remotely addressed the actual problems facing the U.S. she might have turned things in her favor.

It falls on her that her own obsessive personal self-aggrandizement and quest for power and riches overran good sense and a persuasive worldview.

No one was more indisposed to confront those realities than HC, however.   Hell, even Trump talked about the issues with more authority, albeit from the wrong angle and with confused and sickening logic.

Bernie made more sense, but he was shouted down by the DNC.

I'm not sad for HC, she ran an awful campaign.  I am sad for a country that can't take the words of MLK to heart.


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Christmas Story

If you're local or visiting over the holiday be sure to head over to Newberg (not far from Portland) and catch Charles Deemer's funny and poignant "Christmas at the Juniper Tavern," in a production by the Valley Repertory Theatre group.

Read here for the lowdown.

More background on the play and author.


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The Ducks are Blue

Unlike the majority of Oregon's loudest fans I still like Helfrich, despite his down season.  I'd keep him around, mainly because I don't see another coach out there who would be a decent replacement.

The deal with coaches is most of them are meatheads.  In the PAC-12 alone you have Jim Mora (huge ego, angry and under-performing), Sonny Dykes, who can't get it done at Cal, and the two Arizona schools' coaches, both vulgar meatheads who stomp around on the sidelines like apes; all have managed to have disastrous seasons just like Oregon's.

If Helfrich is fired, the program will fall even more than it has now. It'll take longer to come back, too.

Update:  Oregon's AD, Rob Mullens, is bungling his job big time as of right now.  Seems to be either a coward or immensely confused, likely a little of both.

Here's the thing.  Some players signed on for next year because they like the staff that is there, despite the onfield struggles this season. Now several of the better recruits are looking elsewhere.

Oregon's unrealistic expectations remind me of national politics, wherein our crazed working men and women (or unemployed men and women) went ahead against all good sense and voted for Trump.

Mullens is kind of a Clinton-like figure, frozen like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

I've never liked Nike's influence on the team.  For that matter I didn't like Chip Kelly as the head man at Oregon, but there's no arguing that he was innovative at the time and could motivate his players.

He won a lot, and should have won a NC in his second year.

Guys like Kelly (during his limited college run), Nick Saban and Urban Meyer of tOSU are pretty rare. The latter two were the right guys at two of the biggest football factories in the history of the game. They took those jobs because they knew they could win there more readily than elsewhere. Oregon isn't in that league, wasn't even with Kelly.

Everyone else in the discussion is marginal.  Everybody has warts.

Here's something to think about.  The Michigan State team that played in the BCS playoff last season fell to 4--8 this year.

People aren't clamoring for Mark Dantonio's head like Oregon's bandwagon fans are dogging Helfrich.

It's a sticky wicket, but this is one time when I think change is unnecessary, and likely stupid over the long haul.

Well, everyone has an opinion, and there you have mine.

I wish Mullens had one, but like someone else wrote today--he's probably waiting for Phil Knight to tell him what to do.


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The Finale Home Orchestra

This shit is for the birds, dig?


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The Great Zinn

Now more than ever.

I'm reading it and you should as well.









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Gone Days

Been a week already since I last posted?

Where in the hell did the days go?

Feeling pretty shabby lately.  Low energy, headaches, colds one after another.

Oh well, it's winter (or nearly), what is to be expected?

Trying to write some new Finale pieces.

Ducks bball this afternoon from Hawaii, versus Georgetown.  Nobody was more surprised than me that Oregon beat Utah Saturday.

Now the Civil War feels like a pick 'em.


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Project

IP troubles continue, all day yesterday and now.  Searching for a clue.

At the senior center this morning, which is cool.  But who doesn't appreciate the sanctity of thee pad when online?

Working on a project for my grandson's second grade geography lessons. Evidently there's a book for young readers called "Flat Stanley." The kid has a chalkboard fall on him in class one day.  Unhurt, he is however flattened. His parents take the opportunity then to send him off in an envelope to visit relatives all over the country.

My grandson's flattened likeness arrived a couple of days ago.  Been shooting pics of him with Portland sites in the background.

His class will present the results in a display until Christmas break, talk about where their classmates' families come from, what those places are like, etc.

Cool?  I like.

Later.


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Listen

Mainstream pundits, Clinton fans mostly talking failed strategy, lauding Clinton, in popularity context.

Most, with the notable exception of these people, have voiced nothing about Clinton's lack of vision for the country, inability to connect with the poor, deliberately bogus economy, lack of common sense.

Liberals are voicing a vacuous multiculturalism without backbone, an illusion without economic justice.

Don't protest Trump.  He was elected, partially because liberals are idiotic. Protest the oligarchy. Protest the system, the MIC, Wall Street.  Protest the DNC! Protest the indiscriminate wars the beloved Hillary supports, indeed helped start!

Jesus, liberals, you don't listen.  You are clueless.

What are you marching for?  Do you even know?

I'd be out there with the protesters if I could do it without recognizing how hypocritical and phony I'd have to be, because protest shouldn't be about Hillary's lost election, but rather about America's institutional corruptness.  It should be inclusive of the electoral process and both candidates' corrupt essence.

I'd rather go have a beer in a dive bar with an unemployed, high-school-educated factory worker, who incidently hasn't written off Marx in favor of whine and cheese.

You'd be surprised what poor folk know.


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The Problem with Liberals

Amen, brother.

Thanks to CL for sending this my way.


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From Bad to Worst

My IP is shit right now, oh well...

Jeez, I guess I was wrong about my Ducks winning today.

It's okay, I've been wrong about a lot of things lately.  I'm not in favor of anyone losing a job, but I certainly have no say in anything.

This game might have saved coach, had his team performed.  It didn't, a sorry reality in these days of hyper-economic college football.

Oregon has a good young QB, however.  But so did WSU for years while the Cougs struggled until this season.

Up next, USC and Washington.  I'm listening right now.

Later, OSU and UCLA.  I'll listen to a bit of that too, before crashing.


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Leapers

(Register Guard photo)

Oregon's bigs play above the rim.

The Ducks beat Army last night, 91-77.


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It's Hard, Man

What is the difference between academic and literary writing? If this sounds like a joke, the punch lines are many. Style. Voice. Jargon. Signposts (“The aim of this chapter is …”). In fact, jargon so litters academic writing that signposts are indispensable to reader comprehension.--AS

When I can't make good sentences or sort out my thoughts, which happens frequently, I just put the bullshit out there and hope for the best.

I spent far too many years trying to be a writer's writer, and I walked away disillusioned; when I returned I came back scribbling.  It is all I can do, so I live with my poor qualities in the fashion of a man who lives with a shrew and can't escape, because against all good logic he loves misery.


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Tip Off

It is particularly nice that Oregon basketball begins tonight, versus Army, in light of the miserable football season the Ducks are now suffering.

But like I say, I sense an upset of Stanford tomorrow.

Oregon's ballers ought to handle Army tonight, but then face two toughies back-to-back in Baylor and Valparaiso next week.

How good is Oregon, a pre-season favorite based on last year's results and the return of some nice players? Ought to find out very quickly.

I thank the candy man in the sky for college sports, an escape valve. I can't handle much else these days.


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Say You Want a Revolution?

The upshot of all of this of course is it's an anti-Trump rally rather than an anti-establishment rally.

Hillary and Donald were two sides of the same coin, corporate generated, corrupt to the bone, and hell-bent on making ordinary peoples' lives hard as fuck--all behind a magical curtain of lies.

Two biggest lies of a dumb fuck presidential race:

Trump:  "I didn't touch those women."

Clinton:  "We can't afford single-payer."

You get what remains of empire, folks.  A misogynist and a warmonger.

An out-and-out racist, and an enabler of racism.

A real pair to draw to.


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Oregon Talent

A talented young Oregon women's team on the way up, like Oregon's men's team.

Big things ahead, any injuries or stiff necks aside.


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Welcome!

In short, since 1992, I have watched as you have transformed a current of social thought once rooted in that most basic an necessary human sentiment—empathy—into a badge of cultural and educational superiority.  And because feeling good about yourself was much more important to you than actually helping the afflicted, you signed off, in greater or lesser measure to almost all of the life-sapping and dignity-robbing measures of the authoritarian right.--TH

I find it interesting, fascinating really, that liberals are (might be if they're not simply mourning Clinton) suddenly paying attention to what is going on. The unrest in the streets is a welcomed thing to see, if somewhat belated and naive.

(Not as many as were in the street to celebrate the Cubs; people have their priorities after all.)

People, many for the first time in their lives, are confronting the essence of struggle and the limitations of the oligarchical paradigm that they have been suckered into believing is democracy--have indeed willfully embraced it like robots.

This country slipped into neofascism long ago. The oppressed already knew this--the poor, the marginalized and the ignored, all the groups liberals proposed to uplift while crushing them like cockroaches.  The police state, the surveillance state, the militarists--Clinton is a shining star--all of them have us by the crotch.

Not to defend groping, but people are being groped and not even realizing it!

Maybe they'll read a goddamned book now.  Put down the trash.  Pick up something meaningful. A history book.  A book of philosophy. Something in the sciences.

It is not just Trump that is a threat, however. Clinton was not the answer, but rather a big part of the problem. She would have been a momentary functionary, a blip on the TV screen, a neofascist in disguise. Then she would have passed the torch to another jackass. And another.  On and on, as it has been working for many years.

The entire apparatus must come down. Quit crying and fight the powers that created this lie.

My fellow citizens...

If you don't like the way things are, strike.

You may have to fight in the streets, even if you don't want to, even if you are afraid.  Only you can determine to what degree you should become part of the resistance--what you're capable of doing.

Nobody is going to  tell you how to do it or what to do.

You may die.

It happens.

Do you see it now, America?  Your freedom is at stake.

America, welcome to reality--finally.


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Crap

One of my guys when I lived in Eugene and worshiped the college basketball team.

His game was stellar. I sat in my apartment in San Francisco and listened one night when he and Cal's Phil Chenier dueled for three OTs in an incredible game in Berkeley.

I can't even remember who won.  Doesn't matter, they took over the game.

They traded baskets in OT like superstars, which is what they were.

They later played on the same pro team in Baltimore, I think.


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Politically Incorrect

One of my favorite chicks is a complete babe in this piece.

Naomi Klein, you rock.

Additional reading and analysis.

Bottom line, everybody needs to hug.


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Ramones

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America's Games

The Oregon Ducks are as dazed this season as the Democratic National Committee.

The Ducks, like the DNC, have some 'splainin' to do. Arrogance and abysmal talent brought both down to size this season.

That said, this failed old prognosticator (I wrote repeatedly that Clinton would win in spite of herself) is going out on the limb one more time before he goes off to protest the Trump takeover.

I'm calling Oregon in an upset of Stanford in Eugene on Saturday. (Note: the only prediction re: the Ducks I've been wrong with this year is the Colorado game. I had no idea how good Colorado would be.)

(Conversely, I'm not counting on the DNC to confront reality any time soon.)

I started crying after that one, just like the Clintonites after the Midwest Deplorables (formerly the 47 Percenters) kicked their fannies yesterday.

Oregon and the US are both in a rebuilding mode now.  One thing we do know.  Oregon's fall from grace happened a lot faster than the DNC's.

The Dems have been working hard for 30 years to get to this place.

Oregon did it in a couple of years.


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Reality Problems/First Idiot

Wacko Jill Stein supporters own a piece of this. Congratulations, assholes. Lesser evil is still lesser evil.--Alison Hedges at CommonDreams.

Below, the first reasonable response (couldn't have said it better myself).

You do not have a clue as to what happened. Please give the States where the Greens pulled enough votes from Clinton to flip it to trump.

The margin of Trumps victories in the key states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania was greater than the total amount of votes cast for Stein.

Indeed I could not find a single State where the Greens made a difference. In fact in everyone of those States, the Libertarians gained more votes than did the Greens and if it were not for the Libertarians more states would have been won by Trump.

I suggest you study the facts before posting such nonsense. The Democrats lost because the Candidate they offered up was corrupt and did not appeal to the left.

This is purely on the "assholes" at the DNC and the Clinton camp.--SuspiraDeProfundis

Of course to be fair, Alison is merely questioning the gall anyone could have conjured to vote for a candidate other than her gal.  Darn, it's a mean old world.


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Yep 2.0

First must read.

Second must read.

Now get ready for the fight.





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Shocker!

Protest vote all the way.

The dream crushed.

My career as a prognosticator/pundit didn't have a chance.

I suggest Dems get their heads out of their asses going forward.

Bernie would have crushed him, had he only the balls.

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Reality

Parts 1/7 of the series.

Your election night entertainment!


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Boring Day

Yawn...

I voted for 97 here in Oregon, raising the corporate tax.

Voted Stein.

Noted that all the neocons are Clinton backers, as was obvious would happen, creating an odd-bedfellow coalition of the unwilling--right and center.

The entire election run-up was shock and awe, baby--all that is left are the smoldering ruins of my faith in this nation.

Is Clinton winning?

Can't wait for the expanded wars, whomever wins.  Then the nuclear exchange with Russia.

Note to my blog visitors from Russia:  Stay safe!


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Check Your Radicalism at the Door

Wow!  Reich finally writes something worth reading.

But by all means vote for Clinton and continue with the mess...


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Yep

Good read here.











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Someone Has to Do It

I listened to an interview with the founder of this website last night.

His phony headlines, with a short paragraph-lead for each one, are brilliant.  I really liked the way he handled the NPR interview, giving the mainstream interviewer just enough rope to demonstrate her perplexed discomfort with his satire.

He could possibly be an undecided voter!  Funny as the Onion.

Have you listened to NPR's election coverage lately?

Pathetic.


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Deserved Fate

Hillary Clinton’s speeches to the captains of finance strongly imply that she would resume the project of privatizing Social Security. Hers will be a gradual, stealth approach. The opening salvo will be further cuts in benefits and extensions of the full-benefit retirement age. But these alone will not satisfy Wall Street. The privatization plan will be resurrected, first in the form of legislation once again to begin “partial privatization.” In the end, the objective will be to turn the program into a broker’s-fee-for-service plan entirely in the hands of Wall Street. Retired workers will no longer be unqualifiedly entitled to Social Security benefits. Their fortunes will be tied to the vagaries of the stock market and other speculative ventures favored by brokers. And retirees will pay for this “service.” There will be no refunds when the market goes belly-up.--AN

How Wall Street is conspiring to take over Social Security as a fee-for-service program, with the help of guess who...

But by all means get that woman in office and shatter that glass ceiling! And when it happens don't be surprised that a million shards of glass will slice and dice the elderly into pieces--nevermind the continued degradation of the environment and total war that will make Obama look like a piker.

Hahaha...ain't it funny?

Not if you have young family members like I do and anticipate their future.  In another ten years my 8 year-old grandson will face the possibility of fighting a war, not for the benefit or protection of America, but for the purpose of keeping the wealthy in their mansions and corporate suites.  This is where we are, where we've been for far too long.

But all of that is lost in the noise, the propaganda, the nonsense and the spectacle--the very manufacture of consent realists talk about. The control and conformity of the herd. The MSM and centrist websites don't, with few exceptions, talk policy; it's all about personality, the gawdawful spectacle of Trump when a dangerous neoliberal waits in the wings.

Our choice?  Not for me; I'm all in with Stein.  Hi ho! as Vonnegut might have scribbled.

A strong companion piece.

And another.

A song.


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Sad End

St. Clair nails it.










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Rah! Rah!

Saturday's Oregon/USC game will be on ESPN radio, rah rah!

Won't have to listen to the bumbling Jerry Allen this week. He and Jorgy can be as silly as they want as I listen to real pros do their work.

Oregon beat the Trojans last year, but it won't happen this season.

Yet I might wander into a bar and watch the game on TV.  This is the first year I've been unable to stream the games at FirstRow (site hijacked by Bovada) and my free IP is weak, though I can stream ESPN radio with Stephouse ads at 30 min. intervals.

Good enough for that and email and this blog, if I can post fast enough between ads.


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Ghost of Joe Tinker

Listening to the 7th game.

Wowza!

Joe's Wiki.







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Football Expert

A few of my college football notes from this blog.







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Feed Me

New month.  I made a pot roast in my crock.

Man, oh man.  You oughta be me! You oughta be so lucky, and good.



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Bingo!

I've caught several of these programs from On The Media.

Highly recommended. Listening to them, I was constantly struck by how far afield our national discourse has meandered from common sense to complete idiocy.  OTM does a great job with the material.

Needless to say, the Dems and Repubs at the highest levels of command don't talk about this stuff. The Hillary and Trump voters remain clueless, often willingly, of course.

Give a few bucks to United Way and you're good for another year. Write a screed to the local papers that is anti-Black Lives Matter! You're good to go.

"Change, not charity," cried Alinsky, to no avail.

Poverty is a growing fragment of the planned economy, has been here in the US since our founding. And what are the major repercussions of such policy, aside from lining our current corporatists' pockets and annihilating nearly half the populous?

Why, a degraded environment, of course, which fits nicely into the niche of national irrationalism that indeed makes us exceptional--just not in the way Trump, Clinton and Obama and their brethren envision it.

Bernie half-assed tried to speak to truth (he's a militarist as bad as the others), but was shouted down by the media and centrists who remain convinced, conveniently for them, that nothing can be done. Pragmatism is an increasingly foul-smelling dead horse rotting in the degraded pasture.

Of course people will go on beating it to a pulp, amid the carbon emissions.

Stein is on her own and deserves my support now, for she is the only candidate willing to touch the subjects.  She earned my vote by being the brightest broad in the room. (See what I did there? Layers of meaning and innuendo fucking with your gender politics!)

Here's an essay from the weekend that mulls our denial.

And another somewhat related piece.

Seriously, listen to all of the pods if you haven't done so yet. Read the articles.


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