Not Just Covidiots, But Stupid as Well

Thanks to Lucas for this link.

Thanks to Paul Street for something similar.


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Dore and Hedges

A lot of good stuff in this long  interview. Every time you think it may be dying, the ideas bounce back with power.


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The Cure

I felt wild and unclean
downright dystopian so I
guzzled a bottle of bleach

Each to each join your circus
whatever it takes to cleanse
your decayed viral being

If you are one of us you'll enjoy
the bleach's brackish thick wetness
and off you'll go finally free!


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Trust Us

In this horrible time of economic collapse, it is truly touching to see so many corporate chieftains reaching out in solidarity to the hard-hit working class.

We know they're doing this, because they keep telling us they are — practically every brand-name giant has been spending millions of dollars on PR campaigns in recent weeks asserting that they're standing with us, declaring over and over, "We're all in this together."--JH

Read the article out loud with a Texas drawl and you'll be good to go.


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Good Stuff

You can't go anywhere else on the internet and find such extended brilliance as this.  John Oliver puts it out weekly as a kind of long-play PSA with an edge. Oliver's writing team and his delivery are first-rate.  It's much-needed crowd-dope for these times.

Someone in the comments suggested he do a show highlighting the news that has been largely ignored amid the virus onslaught. 

I agree with that as well.


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The American Experience

WASHINGTON—According to a new report published Wednesday by the Pew Research Center, you live in a deeply embarrassing and barely functional country.--The Onion

The Onion is the site I go to when in search of the facts, not the fake news of the lamestream media, including Fox, CNN, MSDNC, NPR and anything remotely tied to Russian propaganda, especially Facebook posts determined to make me as stupid as a Trump supporter.

Haven't you had enough of being the laughing stock of the developed world?

Just sayin'...


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Five Years After

Every now and again I surprise myself with something I've read on this blog, something I've written and forgotten about.  It's usually something that I determine is a little better than the regular detritus I post here. 

I have no idea how it happens, or why.  Maybe it's luck.  Can a writer be lucky?  Of course he can, but it would be far better to fall back on talent.  I think I may be more lucky than talented on any given day.

With that said, this may not be any good either.  But I like it after a 5-year incubation. Perhaps that is all you can do, like something 5-years down the road, even if you're wrong.


Job Hunting in the Cosmic Disorder

Strange things often happen when I go to job interviews.

I was on my way to interview for a VISTA organizing job
when Reagan was shot.

I was headed to a restaurant to interview for a cooking position
when the Towers came down.

Today I was headed to an interview for a painting job when the
shooting at Reynolds High happened.

A real reminder of how life persists when the madness goes down,
which it does every day somewhere.

Would any of it have happened
if I didn't need a job?

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Scientists: ‘Look, One-Third Of The Human Race Has To Die For Civilization To Be Sustainable, So How Do We Want To Do This?’

WASHINGTON—Saying there’s no way around it at this point, a coalition of scientists announced Thursday that one-third of the world population must die to prevent wide-scale depletion of the planet’s resources—and that humankind needs to figure out immediately how it wants to go about killing off more than 2 billion members of its species.--The Onion

The virus may not be enough, in other words.


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Oliver

I don't have a television, but I get the picture.


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Doug Tompkins

Everything Doug Tompkins touched turned to gold. Then he bought up as much of Patagonia as he could to conserve it as Chilean and Argentine wildlife reserves and national parks.


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A Master Vanquished

John Prine had suffered many health problems over the years, a perfect foil for COVID-19.  He died April 7 in Nashville. He was 73.


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One Punch Knockout

Have you ever run across someone with such a potty-faced, arrogant and insolent demeanor as this, a person whom you would like to smash in the mouth with your own fist? Daily if possible, but at least once in your lifetime, because it would be your contribution to creating a better world.  You could die knowing you've done something important, something rooted in the necessity of  leaving society better off than you found it upon your awakening.


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Street Talkin' Pandemic

The COVID-19 crisis is confronting U.S.-Americans with yet more undeniable evidence of the complete craziness and cruelty of American capitalism and class rule more broadly. The demented viciousness of the possessing class’s parasitic profits regime and many elite professionals’ privileged status are being exposed in graphic ways.--PS

Read Street and many others here.


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Letter and Song/David Rovics

We will not be paying rent for April, and we thought we’d let you know why.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Randall,

Just to let you know, since we’ve never met, I’m one of your many residential tenants.  I imagine that between you and your corporation, the Randall Group, and then between that and its subsidiary, CTL Management, Inc., there are several degrees of disconnect, so you may or may not be aware that your corporate representatives have just sent me and presumably your thousands of other tenants up and down the west coast notifications of yet another annual increase in our monthly rent.--DR

Letter writer, singer, songwriter.


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