Random Maddow

No reason. Just wanted to share.

more about "Random Maddow", posted with vodpod

Bah Humbug, America!

The Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said: “We have had before us this whole question of the viability of the American automobile manufacturers. None of us want to see them go down, but very few of us had anything to do with the dilemma that they have created for themselves.”

–The New York Times

Now, I’m not a huge supporter of whatever genius thought the Hummer was a viable long-term business plan, but seriously? That’s the line you decided to go with, McConnell? “Hey, so I know that 2 million of you will probably lose your jobs over this, but hey, not my problem. Merry fucking Christmas, auto workers!”

Bleeding-Heart Pinko Liberal BS

Unrelated pee-wee softball game picture, May 2008

So here I am, watching Rachel Maddow, and she is explaining how the Senate Republicans trying to block passage of the auto bailout are all from states with hefty foreign-owned, non-union auto company factories – and thus, foreign auto company influence. And that these dudes are ostensibly fighting the auto bailout because of those damn union workers and their wanting, you know, a middle-class wage and a pension and health insurance and what not. I mean, the gov’t shouldn’t have to pay for that BS, right? Certainly not like the subsidies the foreign-owned, non-union car companies got from the state governments of those particular Republican Senators, right? And it’s not like the actual figures for average worker pay at the bailout-seeking American car companies have been overblown when used for union negotiations, right? And that’s totally reasonable, because they made such a stink about compensation levels when they approved fifty times as much money for the financial industry? Oh, wait, what?

Anyway, this is less about the auto bailout, and less, unfortunately, about Rachel Maddow, and more about another pinko liberal dude: George Orwell. I’ve been reading an exceeding excellent volume of his essays, and thus sort of summed up how I felt about the whole situation:

The damned impertinence of these politicians, priests, literary men, and what not who lecture the working-class Socialist for his “materialism”! All the workingman demands is what these others would consider the indispensable minimum without which human life cannot be lived at all. Enough to eat, freedom from the haunting terror of unemployment, the knowledge that your children will get a fair chance, a bath once a day, clean linen reasonably often, a roof that doesn’t leak, and short enough working hours to leave you with a little energy when the day is done. Not one of those who preach against “materialism” would consider life livable without these things. . . . The question is very simple. Shall people . . . be allowed to live the decent, fully human life which is now technically achievable, or shant they? Shall the common man be pushed back into the mud, or shall he not?

– George Orwell, Looking Back on the Spanish War, 1942

Old Timey Vassar

From LIFE magazine archive on Google:

The quad, looking toward Rocky, 1936

Sanders? Oct 10, 1950

Reunion 1953

Not quite sure where that last one is. Any ideas? One of the quad dorms?

Unrelated

So this reminded me of this from a Nova episode about dogs:

more about “MySpace Video Narcoleptic Dog by Ludicus“, posted with vodpod

Also, unrelated, Will says that this is my alter ego. I know nothing about her music. But like her hair?