Prisonship-ish, imp-ish inventory.

1. SodaStream fizzy water maker.
2. Crime novels by Jonathan Valin, Stephen Greenleaf, John D. Macdonald.
   
3. Tyvek, Nothing Fits.
   
4. Nobuhiko Obayashi’s House

Many viewers here—even cinephiles—will not have heard of director Nobuhiko Obayashi. Is he well-known in Japan?

Obayashi was already famous in Japan as a director of commercials before House, and its trailer even uses this as a selling point. And check out this Mandom ad—one of his nuttiest. He’s since directed almost forty films in many different genres, and is also a well-known television personality.

House is basically indescribable. But if you had to, how would you describe it?

An exhilarating grab bag of visual tricks, a disturbing satire that turns the giddy sheen of pop culture against itself, and an oddly moving coming-of-age allegory. I think it’s easy to praise the film as surreal, weird, etc., and leave it at that, but it’s a very carefully crafted work, and reveals a new layer with each viewing.

YouTube - Trailer for House aka Hausu (1977)

YouTube - Trailer for House aka Hausu (1977)
Currently blowing my mind.

Why Am I on the Internet Right Now, It Can't End Well

Read the comments section at Town Hall about the Tracy Morgan thing. Conflicting thoughts. These people are in the political ascendancy in this country; their thoughts are more stream than ours. But they lash out because they are small and afraid all the time.

I'd rather be in the political minority, I think.

A Conservative's Guide to What's Happening Egypt

It's pretty simple, really:

1. The unrest in Egypt and Tunisia are the result of our invasion of Iraq, validating the Bush Doctrine and vindicating Cheney; unless

2. You'd like to point out that Iraq is now peaceful because of the war and installation of democracy, thereby validating the invasion of Iraq and disproving the liberal thesis that you can't create a democratic society through invasion; unless

3. You'd like to worry that the uprising in Egypt is being led by the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islam may take control, something Iraq avoided, thereby validating the invasion of Iraq; unless

4. You'd like to argue that the uprising is a genuine democratic revolt that could be co-opted by the Muslim Brotherhood unless Obama sends messages of support to the democratic resistance as he failed to do with the Green Revolution in Iran.

Any way, you win and the liberal islamofascists lose!

Don't Text the Subtext

So, Tracy Morgan is asked by Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley "Tina Fey or Sarah Palin?" This is to help settle an ongoing argument. Everyone acknowledges that they are fine looking dames, the both. Morgan tells them that he thinks Sarah Palin makes fine masturbation material. Everyone gets uncomfortable and TNT apologizes for Morgan's behavior.



Dear TNT:

Mayhaps you might consider apologizing for having your co-hosts ask a guest which of two national prominent women he'd most like to fuck. That is what they asked him, even if they didn't use any naughty words. You see, I know you're concerned that some thirteen-year old boy was just robbed of his innocence by hearing the word "masturbation," but the real damage was done before that when he realized that the only place for women in this conversation was as a sex object. Even if he couldn't figure out what the initial question meant (unlikely) he would be hard pressed to miss the follow-up conversation about how fine looking they are.

So your apology only reinforces that at TNT sexism is perfectly acceptable, as long as no one uses any naughty words. So, fuck you and your apology.

Oh, and Kobe Bryant is a rapist.

Spot On, I Guess

For your reading enjoyment.

LOOMING DEFICIT FOR LCC

LCC’s Strategic Plan (2010-14) in part promises to “Promote responsible stewardship of resources and public trust [and] ... apply principles of sustainable economics, resource use, and social institutions to Lane’s learning and working environments.” Lastly, the 2010—11 budget commits to “focus on our mission of teaching and learning.”

Reports on the best current available estimate for LCC’s combined downtown projects of $52 million pencil out to approximately $294 per sq. ft. Problematically, remaining downtown projects’ construction costs unfunded liability attach to the 90,000 sq. ft. learning facility planned at the former Sears site. Depending on the accuracy of various available yet sketchy estimates, the budget deficit approximately oscillates between $650,000 and a whopping $8 million.

Although according to The Register-Guard 85 percent of the funding is virtually guaranteed through the issuance of bonds and state and city of Eugene funding, moving forward in spite of as much as an $8 million funding hole during this extraordinary economic time, may expose the Board of Education to an even more on-point charge of governance entropy than recently leveled against the college’s administration. Lest LCC’s board panic, reasonable taxpayers may consider embracing a PAYGO or similar funding methodology.

Jose Ortal, Blue River

Listen, Spock

Been reading and participating is some hot abortion debate over the last few days. The consensus on the left is that people who shout "abortion is murder" can't possibly actually mean this, because then they would also be calling for life sentences for women who abort their babies, which is something that almost no one does. Having refuted the basic claim - that honest people really do believe that life begins at conception and abortion is killing a person - the conversation then moves to the "real" motives of these people. (Oh, it is also often noted that many anti-abortion screamers have no problem obtaining abortions for themselves or others). The most popular theories being that rich white folk want to control women, poor minority women, and/or poor people in general.

I'm not sure I disagree, necessarily, but it occurred to me this morning that for the most part, the thinking of people who scream "abortion is murder" goes something like this:

Jesus said abortion is murder and nothing you say is going to change that. He's God, you're not.

Logic is not going to win the day here.

Because I'm That Kind of Contrarian/Asshole

Under 7%, people

Recession Continues to Take a Toll on Union Membership | CEPR Blog

The labor market recession continued to exact a toll on union membership in 2010. According to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics Union Membership report, the unionized share of the U.S. workforce dropped to 11.9 percent last year from 12.3 percent in 2009. The private sector unionization rate fell to 6.9 percent in 2010, from 7.2 percent in 2009.

Even as employment losses slowed in 2010, unions continued to lose members, compared with 2009 where union membership and overall employment decreased at about the same rate. In 2010, union rolls shrank by about 600,000 members. Over 2009 and 2010, the Great Recession helped to reduce union rolls by more than 1.3 million members. In the absence of federal support for state and local governments, public sector cutbacks will continue to depress the overall union membership rate.

Don't Blog, Organize!

I've been working on it for two days now and I have still not made it all the way through this great post on L'Hote. As I was thinking I should finish reading it before commenting on it, it occurred to me that maybe there is no strong labor presence in the blogosphere because people who care about labor are working very hard organizing people and they have little free time to be thinking about how to craft a left critique of the modern political scene, let alone write about it. Lord knows there are precious few brilliant people in the labor movement today - dying professions tend not to attract large numbers of the best and brightest - and those that exist need to be in the field, not running blogs.

And I second Farley at LGM, let's not be thinking that the modern American labor movement is populated with a whole of far-left people, especially in any kind of leadership role. Hasn't been the case since the 50s. As the post itself makes clear, centrist liberals have been willing to run away from the crazy commies for a long time now and people who espouse far-left ideas do not rise high in any American bureaucracy, including labor.

All of which is kind of covered in the post itself. I wish I had more time to engage with it.

For God's Sake, Why Can't We Put This State on Kruse Control?!

Senator Jeff Kruse
R-Roseburg, District 1

E-Newsletter Number 1, Volume 1

Working Hard For You

DEFINNING GOVERNMENT

I received a few interesting responses to my last newsletter. There were some who seem to get the impression I am anti-government. Actually there are people who seem to think many of the groups who have sprung up around this country, like the Tea Party, are anti-government. They are not and I am not. Government is essential for a well ordered society. The alternative is anarchy, which no reasonable person would want. The real question is; what is the role of government? This is the question our Founders tried to answer with the Constitution.


Some answers seem easy, like national defense and police protection. But even areas like these can have subsets. Clearly an army needs to be of a national scale, but do we need a national police force? As in most areas of government The Constitution assigned these duties and responsibilities to the individual states. Additionally the states have assigned core functions to the individual cities and counties. This is simple in principle as the best government is at the level closest to the people. In reality the states have found it necessary to have a state police force to deal with public safety issues that cross jurisdictional boundaries. Similarly the federal government found it necessary to create the FBI to deal with public safety issues that crossed state boundaries. I don’t think anyone would argue this matrix is not necessary and appropriate, but it should also be noted jurisdiction starts at the local level and moves up based on defined criteria.


The transportation infrastructure is another example of an area government involvement is logical and necessary. This area also has well defined areas of jurisdiction and responsibility. While it is important for the federal government to have responsibility for the part of the transportation system connecting the country, it would create an unmanageable mess to put the feds in charge of all city and county roads. The reality is, in most areas of government involvement, the farther up the “food chain” one goes the more complicated and non-responsive things become. This is a good agreement for local control in everything from education to social services. One size does not fit all and never works the way it is intended.


The question before us now is quite simply has government become involved in areas of our life it does not have the Constitutional authority to be involved in. Example: the Federal Department of Education. The enumerated powers clearly leave this authority with the states and very few in the education enterprise will tell you they find benefit from this agency. The same can be said for all social services. What we have seen at both the state and federal level over the last 60 years is a growth in government that has out stripped our ability to pay for it with increasingly diminishing returns on investment. Currently the only sector of our society experiencing growth is government and the increasing tax burden is making it harder for many in the private sector to stay solvent. During this Legislative Session it is my hope we will revisit a lot of the programs enacted over the years (most with the best of intentions) and make discrete decisions as their continuation.

I want to tell you a story about a conversation I had with a constituent many years ago. She called to complain about the quality of food her kids were getting in the school breakfast program. At the end of the conversation she actually said (almost as a threat) that if there wasn’t improvement she was going to start feeding her kids breakfast before they went to school. I told her maybe that would be a good idea. When we have reached the point where people think it is government’s responsibility to raise and feed our children we have gone too far.

Without personal responsibility there can be no personal success. As long as a person is dependent on government they will never achieve their full potential; which would be my wish for everyone. Government is not smarter than people and people know more of what is in their own personal best interest than government does.

A line from a John Lennon song from the 60’s was “power to the people”. It is time to once again make that line a reality.

Sincerely,

Senator Jeff Kruse

Gun Show

When we live in a country where someone can seriously advance the argument that the fact one of the people who tackled the Arizona shooter to the ground had a concealed weapon on him at the time is proof that concealed carry works and gun control is a loser, liberal idea, then I don't know what the hell we're gonna do.

Said it before, say it again, seems like we lost the debate somewhere and were not even in the fraking game any more.

Jelly!

Ezra Klein - Who can replace labor?

Ezra Klein - Who can replace labor?

But as Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson argue persuasively in "Winner-Take-All Politics," labor has long been the largest organized, sophisticated, and funded group advocating for working-class interests in the political system. But they're in decline -- and they're in decline even as business groups double down on their efforts to affect political outcomes.

If you even vaguely believe in the importance of interest groups in the political system, you should consider this a very big deal. But, again, it's not at all clear what can be done about it. My depressing answer is that it's so hard to imagine a successor to organized labor that perhaps the only plausible response is to also reduce the political power of business groups, perhaps through something like the Fair Elections Now Act (which would presumably reduce the political power of all groups, while increasing the political power of voters and small donors). But maybe other people have better thoughts on this.

Only labor can replace labor, Ezra.

Biggest Day of My Life

Happened 15 years ago.

Message: I Care

Looks like someone we know is all fired up about the initiative process.

Goddamn Red Dawn, Yo

Hard to see, but six jets left contrails in the sky while I was walking to work this morn.

Yglesias » Understanding the State/Local Budget Crunch

Yglesias » Understanding the State/Local Budget Crunch

From the California section of N+1′s year in review:

Without any pressure telling them otherwise, Democrats, faced with an ineluctable revenue crisis, are going to go with what has been their signature political move for decades: conceding. The point is, it hardly matters whether you cut the budget with fat Republican enthusiasm, like Chris Christie in New Jersey, or gaunt Democratic humility, as Jerry Brown has promised. What effect this coming evisceration of social services and mass layoff of public servants will have on the makeup of the country is incalculable. That it will only contribute to the deep recession, which supposedly ended several months ago, is axiomatic.

I think the spirit here is right, but the details are wrong. The thing about state governments is that they need to balance their budgets. Consequently, it actually matters a great deal whether you implement cuts with Christie-like enthusiasm or not. Christie has actually been lowering taxes on the richest New Jerseyites, thus increasing the need for cuts. Conversely, while it’s quite true that state budget cuts amidst a recession impair recovery, it’s also true that state tax hikes amidst a recession impair recovery. The only solution to the macroeconomic problem of state/local budget cuts is for congress to appropriate funds.

This is a really big problem! Congress should appropriate funds. What’s more, congress should—but gives no indication of giving any consideration whatsoever to doing so—be looking at some way to reduce the systematic tendency of state and local government to engage in pro-cyclical budgeting. So it’s really two big related problems, and their scope is much wider than the ideological back-and-forth about the optimal size of the state/local public sector.

Ah Yes, the '60s

Just started reading Nixonland on my Amazon-brand e-reader (Kindle). The book opens with some stirring scenes from LBJ as he goes about creating the Great Society. For a second there, you remember that there were politicians who really seemed to care about helping people, not just winning elections.

I was reminded of this while reading Bobo's latest. Mostly because of this:

The welfare policies of the 1960s gave people money without asking for work and personal responsibility in return, and these had to be replaced. The welfare reforms of the 1990s involved big and intrusive government, but they did the job because they were in line with American values, linking effort to reward.

And I, of course, starting thinking about how if linking effort to reward is America's #1 value, how come we always focus with the poor and not on the inheriting rich? Maybe we can take all their money and they can know the morality of working for a change.

Anyway, just as I was working myself up, I came across this sentence:

The geniuses flock to finance, not industry.

And I was reminded that no one can possibly take David Brooks seriously.

Mix Master Mike

This was Amber's main present from me this year. A Kichenaid 3b from c. 1948.

We've had pancakes. Well, the girls have. Everyone knows I only eat griddlecakes.