We Used To Help Whole Countries Get Back On Their Feet

Now the same Conservatives who whinge on endlessly (and very selectively) about the virtues of those good old days would rather burn their own country to the ground and dance in its ashes than lift a finger to help rebuild it.

Because Freedom!

Excuse Me While I Whip This Out

I know some of you have been losing sleep wondering about the longest sentence in French literature.

Worry no longer.  The longest sentence in French literature is this 823-word behemoth by Victor Hugo, which left France's Strategic Semicolon Reserve dangerously depleted for decades:

“The son of a father to whom history will accord certain attenuating circumstances, but also as worthy of esteem as that father had been of blame; possessing all private virtues and many public virtues; careful of his health, of his fortune, of his person, of his affairs, knowing the value of a minute and not always the value of a year; sober, serene, peaceable, patient; a good man and a good prince; sleeping with his wife, and having in his palace lackeys charged with the duty of showing the conjugal bed to the bourgeois, an ostentation of the regular sleeping-apartment which had become useful after the former illegitimate displays of the elder branch; knowing all the languages of Europe, and, what is more rare, all the languages of all interests, and speaking them; an admirable representative of the “middle class,” but outstripping it, and in every way greater than it; possessing excellent sense, while appreciating the blood from which he had sprung, counting most of all on his intrinsic worth, and, on the question of his race, very particular, declaring himself Orleans and not Bourbon; thoroughly the first Prince of the Blood Royal while he was still only a Serene Highness, but a frank bourgeois from the day he became king; diffuse in public, concise in private; reputed, but not proved to be a miser; at bottom, one of those economists who are readily prodigal at their own fancy or duty; lettered, but not very sensitive to letters; a gentleman, but not a chevalier; simple, calm, and strong; adored by his family and his household; a fascinating talker, an undeceived statesman, inwardly cold, dominated by immediate interest, always governing at the shortest range, incapable of rancor and of gratitude, making use without mercy of superiority on mediocrity, clever in getting parliamentary majorities to put in the wrong those mysterious unanimities which mutter dully under thrones; unreserved, sometimes imprudent in his lack of reserve, but with marvellous address in that imprudence; fertile in expedients, in countenances, in masks; making France fear Europe and Europe France! Incontestably fond of his country, but preferring his family; assuming more domination than authority and more authority than dignity, a disposition which has this unfortunate property, that as it turns everything to success, it admits of ruse and does not absolutely repudiate baseness, but which has this valuable side, that it preserves politics from violent shocks, the state from fractures, and society from catastrophes; minute, correct, vigilant, attentive, sagacious, indefatigable; contradicting himself at times and giving himself the lie; bold against Austria at Ancona, obstinate against England in Spain, bombarding Antwerp, and paying off Pritchard; singing the Marseillaise with conviction, inaccessible to despondency, to lassitude, to the taste for the beautiful and the ideal, to daring generosity, to Utopia, to chimeras, to wrath, to vanity, to fear; possessing all the forms of personal intrepidity; a general at Valmy; a soldier at Jemappes; attacked eight times by regicides and always smiling; brave as a grenadier, courageous as a thinker; uneasy only in the face of the chances of a European shaking up, and unfitted for great political adventures; always ready to risk his life, never his work; disguising his will in influence, in order that he might be obeyed as an intelligence rather than as a king; endowed with observation and not with divination; not very attentive to minds, but knowing men, that is to say requiring to see in order to judge; prompt and penetrating good sense, practical wisdom, easy speech, prodigious memory; drawing incessantly on this memory, his only point of resemblance with Caesar, Alexander, and Napoleon; knowing deeds, facts, details, dates, proper names, ignorant of tendencies, passions, the diverse geniuses of the crowd, the interior aspirations, the hidden and obscure uprisings of souls, in a word, all that can be designated as the invisible currents of consciences; accepted by the surface, but little in accord with France lower down; extricating himself by dint of tact; governing too much and not enough; his own first minister; excellent at creating out of the pettiness of realities an obstacle to the immensity of ideas; mingling a genuine creative faculty of civilization, of order and organization, an indescribable spirit of proceedings and chicanery, the founder and lawyer of a dynasty; having something of Charlemagne and something of an attorney; in short, a lofty and original figure, a prince who understood how to create authority in spite of the uneasiness of France, and power in spite of the jealousy of Europe, — Louis Philippe will be classed among the eminent men of his century, and would be ranked among the most illustrious governors of history had he loved glory but a little, and if he had had the sentiment of what is great to the same degree as the feeling for what is useful.”

-- Les Miserables

But it is not the longest sentence in all of literature.

...

At best, it is the longest sentence in French literature, though I can't confirm that.* Traditionally, the longest sentence in English Literature has been said to be a sentence in Ullyses by James Joyce, which clocks in at 4,391 words. Past editions of The Guinness Book of World Records have listed this record.

However, Joyce's record has recently been surpassed. Jonathan Coe's The Rotters Club, published in 2001, contains a sentence with 13,955 words. I believe he currently holds the record in "English Literature."

However hold on to your seats...

There is also, apparently, a Polish novel, Gates of Paradise, with a 40,000 word sentence. I have been unable so far to find absolute confirmation on an author. Bramy Raju, written by Jerzy Andrzejewski, and published in 1960, translates as Gates of Paradise, but it has been described as a novella. And while there is no absolute definition of that term, novellas are usually shorter than 40,000 words.

Finally, there is a Czech novel that consists of one long sentence -- Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age by Bohumil Hrabal. It is this novel that Coe has said inspired his 13,955 word sentence. Hrabal's 'novel sentence' is 128 pages long, though I have been unable to find an exact word count. It most likely takes the award for longest sentence. Even if it doesn't, it dwarfs Hugo's significantly.

Of course, in literature as in life, length itself is a waste if you have no idea what to do with it.

When Elephants Fight

 It Is the Grass That Suffers.

Professional Left Podcast #208

""Don't hate the media, become the media.”

-- Jello Biafra

Da' money goes here:

Nothing Says "Thanksgiving"

Like the great WKRP turkey drop.

Oh the humanity!

He's Gonna Recommend You

To the server in the sky.

From New York Daily News:

SEE IT: Jesus and Virgin Mary spotted on Google Earth pic

Some are convinced that two blurs on captured on the Web giant's Street View site are actually the holy mother and child in a classic pose.

Many say these figures hovering above the A5 highway near Walensee, Switzerland, are Jesus and Mary. Skeptics say it's a glitch in the software...

Or someone has been uploading Chick tracts into the Matrix.

Cue Norman Greenbaum in 3...2...1...

Stupid Shit Andrew Sullivan Says, Ctd.

What infuriates Andrew Sullivan most about Alec Baldwin?

It's the double standard!

...there is a glaring double standard here. It seems to me that this double standard cannot stand any more. And this raging, violent bigot cannot be defended any longer.

Yes, Mr. Sullivan really, really, bitterly detests those goddamn double standards:

...
What a bunch of hypocrites and phonies on that propaganda network [MSNBC]. They’re almost as bad as GLAAD, which has finally – finally – criticized the bigot. But, of course, they haven’t called on MSNBC to fire him...

There will be no consequences. With liberal homophobes, there never are. If you’re a conservative and are caught yelling these slurs at random people, you’d be fired pronto or buried in an avalanche of gay protest. If you’re a self-entitled liberal, you’re fine. What, I wonder, will MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Thomas Roberts and Jonathan Capehart say about this? Nothing, I’ll bet you.

Which is why, when it's Alec Baldwin yelling something stupid over his shoulder (and thereby single-handedly destroying New York's hard-earned reputation as a G-rated, family-friendly Disneyland-on-the-Hudson), Mr. Sullivan absolutely revels in his firing:

I just believe that explicitly homophobic slurs directed at actual human beings as a way to degrade them doesn’t have a “but-he’s-a-liberal” exception. It’s ugly and would not be tolerated if directed against any other minority group. MSNBC did the right thing.

And yet...

And yet...

And yet...when it's Andrew Sullivan's friend Niall Ferguson writing something much more deliberately and premeditatedly destructive, well, hey, let's not get crazy here (emphasis added to attract the eye):

Niall defends his article and, on the CBO Obamacare numbers, claims that I don't "understand the issue that well." He says that none of the critics have addressed the substance of the piece - and that it's all a liberal lynch mob. That's insane. He's right that calls for him to be fired are egregious and over-the-top. But the criticism we've run on the Dish is entirely devoted to data.

Likewise, when the stupid thing Alec Baldwin yelled over his shoulder at a paparazzi stalking his wife and child might also have been anti-gay, obviously all mitigating factors are irrelevant, any attempts at an apology are a ruse and his character witnesses are a joke:

...my post was motivated above all by a sense that Baldwin’s public support of gay equality is somehow reflexively used by him and other liberals to excuse this classic homophobic behavior. It wasn’t him so much as his liberal enablers that got my goat as I wrote at the time.

...

Subsequently dragging his gay hairdresser out in front of the paparazzi he supposedly disdains doesn’t help either. Nor does making cringe-inducing jokes about his love for another man in public.

And yet...

And yet...

And yet...when a deliberately and premeditatedly destructive thing Andrew Sullivan's friend Niall Ferguson says is viciously anti-gay, obviously all mitigating factors should weigh heavily in his favor, his apologies are sincere and Mr. Sullivan is only too happy to personally stand in as a character witness:

I am obviously an interested party to this. I’ve known Niall as a friend since we studied history together at Oxford. This has not deterred me from criticizing his public arguments on the merits, so I’m not a suck-up. But I have known the man closely for many years – even read Corinthians at his recent wedding – and have never seen or heard or felt an iota of homophobia from him. He has supported me in all aspects of my life – and embraced my husband and my marriage. He said a horribly offensive thing – yes, it profoundly offended me – but he has responded swiftly with an unqualified apology. He cannot unsay something ugly. But he has done everything short of that. I am biased, but that closes the matter for me.

What is there left to add...

...but this by Mr. Andrew Sullivan?

...there is a glaring double standard here. It seems to me that this double standard cannot stand any more. And this raging, violent bigot cannot be defended any longer.

For the record, having spent the last six years building a career out of borrowing the entire Liberal critique of the Right, filing off the serial numbers and re-marketing it all as "Real Conservatism", Alec Baldwin remains virtually the only Liberal Mr. Sullivan ever writes about.

And now, back to the great American pastime...

Sometimes It's Best

 To just quietly back away.

In Which Mr. Axis-Of-Evil Continues To Pretend

That it's still 2002:

Hillary Clinton’s Iran Trap
David Frum
November 26th 20135:45 AM

During the 2008 race, Clinton was seen as a better friend to Israel than Obama. But she was also the first top U.S. official to float the nuclear deal idea. So what happens if it fails?

What will Hillary do if President Obama's bold gambit fails?  

Well, I suppose she could just change parties and run as a Frumpublican.

No one ever holds those goofs responsible for anything.

This Day In Labor Market News

So, Alec Baldwin got fired from MSNBC for calling someone a cocksucking something; opinions differ as to the noun which that adjective was summoned to modify.

Wow!  Really?  He said that on the air?

Well, no.

He shot his mouth off cussing out a paparazzi who was trying to impale his family with a camera.   And so MSNBC fired him for single-handedly destroying New York's hard-earned reputation as a G-rated, family-friendly Disneyland-on-the-Hudson (For the record, Alec Baldwin still enjoys the distinction of being the only Liberal Andrew Sullivan has ever heard of.)

Meanwhile, across town at the Tiffany Network, the lady who used The House that Cronkite Built to fake up a Giant Scary Benghazi Story (and thereby tossed a few thousand pounds of jellied gasoline onto the dying embers of the wingnut's current favorite Kenyan Usurper fairy tale) is not being fired.

But she didn't actually put this great, big, whopping lie on the air did she?

Actually, yes.  Yes she did.

She did it after having spent a year researching a story that other journalists were able to debunk in less than a week.  And after failing to disclose that the liar at the center of her narrative had inked a book deal with a subsidiary of her own network.

And for all of this she is being told to sit in the naught corner for awhile. 30 days seems to be the industry standard, although she's prettier than Mark Halperin, so you never know.

Meanwhile, Sean Hannity and a dozen, dozen more just like him continue to enjoy jobs-for-life openly and enthusiastically and deliberately lying to the public every single day.

So plan your careers accordingly future pundits.

Are There No Workhouses?, Ctd.

This post about the toxicity of long-term underemployment and unemployment among those of us who have excellent credentials, great work histories and are old enough to have clear memories of "The Six Million Dollar Man" yielded a lot of comments and emails.

Here is one late arrival from "GB in FL" that I thought I would share:

I rarely leave comments or offer advise, but something made me go back to this page and share some thoughts.

After working for the same employer for 28 years, they finally gave me the pink slip. Now I'm 57, unemployed, divorced, and living off my dwindling savings. So I can relate to some of the posting I've read here. But, here's some information or knowledge I've recently come across.

1. We are not our jobs, careers, education levels, assets, etc. We are sovereign beings with a right to exist. There are a hundreds of conspiracy theories blame our social problems on alien agendas, the Illuminati, the 1%. They say we are being programmed to depression, despair, and hopelessness. You must realize that you are not your 'net value.' You have a soul, spirit, and physical body and you can make a difference in this world.

2. Be flexible and adapt. The United States was the top dog after WWII, but now it's an empire in decline. Don't worry about it, this is the natural order of civilization. Empires come and go, who needs them?
3. Become as self reliant as possible. I'm learning hydroponics, off grid living techniques, and will eventually have a mortgage free property. We can't expect the government assistance to last forever. The system is bankrupt and the generosity of our fellow man is waning.

4. Take a look at some of the new and exciting ideas being presented. People are putting together moneyless communities. Time banks offer work exchange opportunities. You can build a tiny home or live for free in a household that needs a care sitter.

Life is attitude. I admit my attitude has been gloomy lately, but I'm starting to make a shift.
Much love to you.
GB in FL.

Happy early Thanksgiving, kids.
Take care of each other.

How Every Neocon On Earth Reacted

To the idea of a treaty with Iran.

On Message

Today, like every other day, without having to lift a finger, your Crazy Uncle Liberty got his wingnut bullshit talking points served up piping hot for breakfast, lunch and dinner:

"I wonder what the deal clincher was.  Did Obama promise the supreme leader of Iran that, if he liked his health care plan, he could keep it?  What was it that cinched this deal?  Man, oh, man, oh, man.  These people will do anything to distract us from how bad Obamacare is, including let the Iranians get a nuclear weapon down the road.  It's unbelievable.  And you know what they're counting on?  They're counting on the fact that most people don't care about Iran."

-- Maximum Republican Leader-for-Life, Rush Limbaugh

MOLLIFYING THE MULLAHS
IRAN – A DANGEROUS OBAMACARE DIVERSION 

David Limbaugh: Prez treats tea-partiers as enemies and Islamic theocracy as peace partner

"...From Obama’s perspective, one thing is definitely more urgent than any foreign policy issue on the table: creating a serious enough diversion to slow down his free-falling approval ratings from the Obamacare rollout and insurance policy cancellations, which have exposed his deliberate deceit of the American people."

-- David "Fredo" Limbaugh, aka Limbaugh the Lesser,
who has a well-paying media gig because bros before pros.

"Amazing what WH will do to distract attention from O-care."

-- Actual United States Senator, John Cornyn on The Twitter

"So he is desperately trying to change the subject from ObamaCare to just about anything else. As Dan wrote this morning, he sent John Kerry off to get a deal with Iran at any cost so the two of them could wave the piece of paper and pretend they had accomplished something."

-- Honest-to-God, one-time Republican presidential nomination front-runner,

Herman Cain

“Don’t you think it’s a little curious? Some of my friends were talking over the weekend, isn’t that curious timing? Out of nowhere, you know, in the midst of Obamacare not unrolling correctly, the president’s poll numbers never been lower then, look, [Secretary of State] John Kerry pulls a rabbit out of his hat and changes the subject.”

-- One-man Conservative Thinkin' Real Hard Tank and log-of-feces homonym,

Steve Doocy.

"Despite mainstream media outlets including NBC News declaring it foolish to link the Obama administration’s big Iranian sellout to changing the subject from Obamacare, The New York Times did just that on Monday, announcing that the Iran deal was a “welcome change of subject” from Obamacare."

-- 12-year-old echo-baby Ben Shapiro at the Breitbart Collective

repeating what he thinks the oldsters saying

over at the Batshit Grownup's Table

Which is why tomorrow your email inbox will be full of your Crazy Uncle Liberty's received wisdom about Iran and Obamacare.

And so it will go and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.  Right up until Roger Ailes and Boss Limbaugh decide the Pig People need to start screeeeeeeeeching hysterically about something else.

Sunday Morning Comin' Down

In the bolgia of the Diviners:

Canto XX

ARGUMENT.—The Poet relates the punishment of such as presumed, while living, to predict future events. It is to have their faces reversed and set the contrary way on their limbs, so that, being deprived of the power to see before them, they are constrained ever to walk backward. Among these Virgil points out to him Amphiaraüs, Tiresias, Aruns, and Manto (from the mention of whom he takes occasion to speak of the origin of Mantua), together with several others, who had practised the arts of divination and astrology.

AND now the verse proceeds to torments new,

Fit argument of this the twentieth strain

Of the first song, whose awful theme records

The spirits whelm’d in woe. Earnest I look’d

Into the depth, that open’d to my view,        

Moisten’d with tears of anguish, and beheld

A tribe, that came along the hollow vale,

In silence weeping: such their step as walk

Quires, chanting solemn litanies, on earth.

  As on them more direct mine eye descends,         

Each wonderously seem’d to be reversed

At the neck-bone, so that the countenance

Was from the reins averted; and because

None might before him look, they were compell’d

To advance with backward gait...

Sherlock Lives

Never Cruel nor Cowardly

Never give up, never give in.

Not a bad policy.

The Second Tiers Have Some Fun

The Swimmer

The second happiest words on teevee this week* are these:

Meet the Press will not air Sunday, Nov. 24, due to NBC's Coverage of Formula 1 Racing

So you'll have to buy your Both Sider smack somewhere else.

Like. say, from the PBS News Hour:

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, [Democrats] made a big mistake.

There's -- Mark's right. There's no question there's been a deterioration of norms, but that's no reason to basically begin the erosion of the institution of the Senate, what makes the Senate special. When you go to the Senate dining room and you look at the senators, they actually do talk to each other across party lines. They have working relationships. It's not great. It's not the way it used to be.

But they basically have working relationships. And they were able to pass legislation, even immigration reform, a couple weeks or months ago, because they have to do that, because to get a lot of stuff passed, including nominations, you have got to get 60 votes. And it's very rare that one party has 60 votes. So, they're used to working across party lines, in a way they just aren't in the House.

And so, if you take away that 60-vote thing, starting now with some of the nominations, but probably going within a couple of years to the Supreme Court nominations and maybe the legislation, you basically are turning the Senate into the House. You're basically beginning the erosion of what makes the Senate special, beginning the erosion of minority rights.

You're creating a much more polarized body over the long term. So, if you think partisanship and polarization are in short supply, well, then this was a good move, because we're going to have more of it, I think, in the medium and long term.

I have to give Mark Shields (David Brook's Lou Costello) credit for pointing out that Mr. Brooks' analysis is patently absurd. That the Senate has already become a shithole of Republican obstructionist nihilism thanks entirely the coordinated sabotage of the institution by Republicans:

MARK SHIELDS: David's -- David's analysis is, as always, interesting, but erosion of partisan -- of comity and good feelings is not beginning with this. This is not -- this is not a cause.

This is an effect of what has happened. I mean, this is a consequence of what has been going on. In running administration, Judy, personnel is policy. If you can't have your own people at a department or an agency, you can never -- you can never execute or be responsible for -- for the administration of justice and the law, which is your obligation. ...

But Mr. Brooks did not get to be the Sage of the Beltway without a truly epic capacity to ignore observable reality in favor of his prefabricated Both Sider advice that he best way for Democrats (and this advice always applies exclusively to Democrats) to get a bully to stop punching them in the face and taking their  lunch money is to continue giving that bully their lunch money and offering their face up for punching:

DAVID BROOKS: ...

In the first place, what you're going to get is much more polarized judges. Now you have to kind of pick a nominee who is going to get some votes from the other party. Once this rule is in place, you don't have to do that. Both parties are going to go to their bases and we will have a much more polarized judiciary than we have now as a part of this.

Then the final thing to be said, I agree with Mark, there's been a deterioration of norms, but the way to fix that is try to get people to behave better. We fix the norms. You don't want to break the fundamental structures and rules of the body. To me, that's basically giving up.

And so we're sort of sentencing ourselves to a long period of greater polarization and partisanship.

And so. like the rich, shallow, delusional Neddy Merrill in John Cheever's surreal "The Swimmer", our Mr. Brooks continues to plunge indefatigably onward towards an institution which he keeps insisting is warm and vital, but which we all know by the end of the story (Spoiler Alert) has been decrepit and abandoned for years.


* The happiest words are...

Professional Left Podcast #207

""Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”

-- Abraham Lincoln

Links:

• Are there no workhouses?
• The greatest military on Earth defends our shores while on welfare.
• WalMart employees living the American Dream...on welfare
• For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"/ But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot...

Da' money goes here:

The Doctor Is In

Spoilers.

The Pettysburg Address

Just a day after the 150th anniversary of one of the most important speeches on human rights in American history was delivered by America's 16th president, Abraham Lincoln's Illinois became the 16th state to make same-sex marriage legal.

It got better for Illinois.

Then the local sales rep from the Cult of the Red Beanie (tm Charles Pierce) opened his piety hole and made himself look like a fool:

Paprocki exorcism marks same-sex marriage bill signing

By Lauren Leone-Cross
The State Journal-Register

The head of Springfield’s Catholic Diocese presided in front of several hundred people Wednesday night at the city’s largest Catholic church to perform what he described as an “exorcism in reparation for the sin of same-sex marriage.”

Bishop Thomas Paprocki’s ritual at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception began about half an hour after Gov. Pat Quinn in Chicago signed the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act into law, making Illinois the 16th state to legalize same-sex marriage.

Paprocki opened up the services quick to defend his actions from critics who have decried the exorcism as a “political stunt.”

“I wish to preface my reflections by saying that I am conducting this prayer service and am speaking to you now with great reluctance,” he told the gathering. “I did not seek to enter any controversy, and I don’t relish being part of one. But I have given this matter a great deal of thought and prayer, which has led me to the conviction that God is calling me to speak out and conduct these prayers.”

Paprocki was also quick to condemn champions of same-sex marriage, including lawmakers and gay and lesbian couples.

“Since the legal redefinition of marriage is contrary to God’s plan, those who contract civil same-sex marriage are culpable of serious sin,” he said. “Politicians responsible for enacting civil same-sex marriage legislation are morally complicit as co-operators in facilitating this grave sin.”

After his homily, Paprocki read the rite of exorcism in Latin.

“I exorcize you, every unclean spirit, every power of darkness, every incursion of the infernal enemy,” he began. “Every diabolical legion, cohort and faction, in the name and power of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Meanhwhile, outside, dozens of same-sex marriage supporters stood with signs. And across town, several other clergy and faith leaders celebrated the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act’s passage.
...

Their Chief Weapon is Surprise

From the Daily Beast:

Monty Python—Not Dead Yet

By Tom Sykes

November 21st 201310:28 AM

After 33 years, the five surviving members of the iconic British comedy troupe reconvened to reveal more details about their much-anticipated reunion performance. And they were as funny as ever.

Contrary to what we’d all been thinking for the past 33 years, Monty Python is not dead.

Unlike a certain (ex) parrot, it has not expired, is not pushing up daisies, nor has it run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible.

For the five surviving members of the iconic British comedy troupe— John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin— today officially announced their reformation at London’s Playhouse Theatre today, sitting at a long table placed on the set of Spamalot, the play “lovingly ripped off from the motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail” which is currently being performed there.

The troupe—who boasted that they had a combined age of 357 (they’re all in their 70s) and thus were entitled to a winter heating allowance— will perform at London’s O2 arena on July 1 next year. Tickets will go on sale at 10am British time on Monday.

...

I am delighted this exists in the Universe.

If They Would Rather Die, They Had Better Do It

And decrease the surplus population.

The story of Ms. Barrington-Ward was sad and infuriating and horribly familiar.

The comment section was worse:

Debbie New York, NY

...

I work my butt off for 65%-75% less than what I formerly earned, have moved 4 times in the last 2 years, and had to declare bankruptcy myself. It is so really depressing. I haven't had my own place to live in 4 years, I am approaching 60, and what else can I do but put one foot in front of the other? But lately, as another cold dark winter approaches, I feel utter despair. And i live in NY, where at least there are many of these retail jobs. Not that you can live on the salary here. That's the cruel irony. I tried the Southwest for a year, but there are no jobs either, or few. My whole life is in storage, and I fear letting go of all of it will strip me of a good part of my identity. I don't know who I am anymore, all my friends are married and settled, and this feels like a nightmare from which I cannot wake up. Yeah yeah, I've tried looking on the bright side for 4 years, but it doesn't change the facts.

...

JKilcrease San Francisco

I am fourteen years into a good job, making a solid salary in a very stable company... yet still a sense of unease reading this article. Close friends have spent years in intermittent employment after loosing jobs held for decades. How many of us are feeling uncomfortably attuned to the temporary nature of seemingly sound employment?

Businesses suddenly reorganize, shedding older and higher paid workers. These were "higher" paid staff, not highly paid. The difference is one of 25-30K for new hires versus 45-50K after twenty-four years of unbroken service.

...

Julie SCT

This article would have been more useful if the reporter had contacted some companies and asked, point blank, why they don't want to hire someone who's been unemployed for six months. Skills don't erode that quickly. In a poor economy where so many are out of work, why is unemployment such a stigma?

...

DeeMontclair, NJ

I too, am living the dream. I found myself unemployed after more than thirty years of hard work. After years of paying into insurance I was forced to choose between eating and paying COBRA. A few months later, I fell and the medical bills wiped me out. It is very dispiriting to find that you can work your whole life and be wiped out by a fall. This is happening all over the country. We are becoming a country of haves and have nots. This is why the tea party has grown, people in the middle are afraid and have adapted a hoarding mentality.

After a disaster there is always the follow up feel good reporting of how people pulled together. Think Sandy or 9/11. Yet we are in the middle of a catastrophe and we are not pulling together. Corporations are taking advantage of these depressing economic times, to boost profits. The frightened middle class is being fueled by wealthy businessmen like the Koch brothers, who want to defeat government regulation and scare people. They are succeeding.

...

Tom Hughes  Bayonne, NJ

I don't know if there has ever been as broad and deep a disconnect between employers and people who desperately want and need to work. Perhaps that desperation shows through in the very few long-term unemployed who are actually able against all odds to secure the rare opportunity for an interview. Being unemployed is not simply one of the obstacles to gaining meaningful employment, it has been the primary barrier for more than half a decade. And there is no "cure" for it. Human resources managers have become inured to the struggle faced every hour of every day of the "unemployable" unemployed. That insensitivity, though, not only permeates the desperate situation faced by the jobless.

...

csprof Westchester County, NY

This has been brewing for a while. When the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, many of my IT friends were laid off, and never got back into the industry again. Some took early retirement, some tried for years to get back in, burning through their retirement savings before giving up. One became a vet tech, another started a business selling classified ads until that industry collapsed. None of them made nearly as much money as before, and none of them have been able to rebuild their savings. I keep reading that there is a mismatch because not enough people know how to program or do IT work - so how come none of my friends could ever get rehired? They DID have the skills

Donald Surr Pennsylvania

Note Ms. Barrington-Ward's age! Let's be honest. HR people also have been given the word not to hire anyone over 50, because their health insurance rates are too high. That word came down from the bean counters at the top.

...

pdxtran Minneapolis, MN

As a proverbial unemployed Ph. D., I worked for temp agencies for three years during the Reagan Recession, when the official unemployment rate in the Twin Cities was 11%.

I was registered with four different agencies, each of which I phoned daily starting at 7:00AM.

During that time, I worked an average of three days a week, not enough to allow me to move out of m parents' house.

Fortunately, college teaching jobs eventually opened up, and I was able to find a full-time job in another state. But I know that even the temporary agencies can be overwhelmed with job seekers. 

Vicky CA

My husband is 53 and for most of his life made over 100K per year and now has been unemployed for over 4 years. The interviews for anything are rare and he never gets a call back. He is so depressed and discouraged that I'm afraid for him and our family. All of my friend's husbands are unemployed and committing suicide. I'm not kidding. Two funerals within the last year. If you are male and over 50 you are either employed in a good job or on the bread line. My son who is 20 cannot find work either. All positions he applies for are taken my older workers who in a better economy would never be in those jobs. I am the only worker in the family and pray that I'll keep my lousy job. Retirement? It will never happen for me. Vacations? We haven't been on one in 10 years. Spending? I am lucky if we have extra to replace old underwear. We watched Cinderella Man the other evening and our situation is becoming like those people's in the 1930's depression. Not enough money to always keep the lights on or enough money for food. Who is saying our current economy is in better shape? The Great Recession is not over for our family by any means.

NoName NYC

It is just a horrible and demoralizing experience. I had a good job doing audit and compliance for a major bank. I had the bad fortune of being laid off at the age of 57, in 2008, during the downturn (our entire division was laid off). Employment has been scarce since then. Older workers do not get offers of meaningful work, if they get any at all. I was looking at homelessness for a while; pretty terrifying after 35 years of being a wage earner and productive member of society. It doesn't matter how good your resume is, how well you tailor it to the job, paring off experience so as not to appear "overqualified", recommendations on LinkedIn-none of it matters after you reach a certain age. There doesn't seem to be an interest in changing this situation. I don't envy younger workers either, who are being encouraged to integrate their live/work experience. You can train for years in a profession and have it be replaced by a robot, or a human in Bangladesh. Live for your job, work 80 hours a week, neglect your family (if you have time to even have one) then your company gets downsized and you are cast aside like an empty husk. The employment climate in this country is way out of balance and I don't know what the answer is.

And finally, in direct response to the Anonymous commenter in the previous post who was contemplating ending his or her life, please do not do so. Please do not do something that you can never undo. Please read this and reach out to someone. Anyone.

Jen D  New Jersey 

"The long-term jobless, after all, tend to be in poorer health, and to have higher rates of suicide...." How well I know this. I have written before about my brother who committed suicide in July 2012 at the age of 60. He was laid off early on in the Great Recession and thought his IT skills would be valued by employers. No. He sent out hundreds of resumes, had few interviews and no job offers. All employers saw was an older guy who had been out of work a while. When he died, he had an old car to his name and over $30,000 in debt that he had no way to pay. He had even tried to start a business, but with no marketing background, it failed miserably.

I think of my brother every single day. I still startle myself when I think I need to email him an interesting story and then I realize all over again that he is gone. If anyone who is reading this is feeling desperate, please think of the devastation your loved ones will feel. Please open up and talk to someone. My brother didn't say a word and left no suicide note; the questions and "what ifs" will haunt his loved ones forever.

The Rent Boi on Christmas*

As long as there is a nickle to be hustled out of any rube anywhere, Bill Kristol's

Indestructible 


Hillbilly


 Kill Bot


Will

Always be with us.

* Even though it completely shitcans the entire scansion of the rhyme, while I was sleeping, referring to a whore as a "whore" has apparently become offensive some number of (probably imaginary) people who never heard of Jeff Gannon.

Management regrets the error.

Are There No Workhouses?

The New York Times tells a sadly familiar story

...

It has been a painful slide. A five-year spell of unemployment has slowly scrubbed away nearly every vestige of Ms. Barrington-Ward’s middle-class life. She is a 53-year-old college graduate who worked steadily for three decades. She is now broke and homeless.

Ms. Barrington-Ward describes it as “my journey through hell.” She was laid off from an administrative position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008; she had earned about $50,000 that year. With the recession spurring employers to dump hundreds of thousands of workers a month and the unemployment rate climbing to the double digits, she found that no matter the number of résumés she sent out — she stopped counting in the thousands — she could not find work.

“I’ve been turned down from McDonald’s because I was told I was too articulate,” she says. “I got denied a job scrubbing toilets because I didn’t speak Spanish and turned away from a laundromat because I was ‘too pretty.’ I’ve also been told point-blank to my face, ‘We don’t hire the unemployed.’ And the two times I got real interest from a prospective employer, the credit check ended it immediately.”

For Ms. Barrington-Ward, joblessness itself has become a trap, an impediment to finding a job. Economists see it the same way, concerned that joblessness lasting more than six months is a major factor preventing people from getting rehired, with potentially grave consequences for tens of millions of Americans.

The long-term jobless, after all, tend to be in poorer health, and to have higher rates of suicide and strained family relations. Even the children of the long-term unemployed see lower earnings down the road.

The consequences are grave for the country, too: lost production, increased social spending, decreased tax revenue and slower growth. Policy makers and academics are now asking whether an improving economy might absorb those workers in time to prevent long-term economic damage.

“I don’t think we know the answer,” said Jesse Rothstein, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley. “But right now, I think everybody’s worst fears are coming true, as far as we can tell.”

Soon after we first talked in October, Ms. Barrington-Ward left her sister’s house in Ohio, where she had crashed for six weeks, and went back to Boston and filed her bankruptcy paperwork. She contacted a headhunter. “I’ve got to get a job,” she said. “I just have to.” She had two job interviews lined up and her fingers crossed.

Long-term joblessness — the kind that Ms. Barrington-Ward and about four million others are experiencing — is now one of the defining realities of the American work force.

...

Except for gender and being homeless, Ms. Barrington-Ward's story is nearly identical to my own, right down to our ages.

When Ms. Barrington-Ward and I got on the Big Career Escalator years ago, we believed certain things to be true because we could see them in operation all around us.  Usually, honest labor had value.  Tangible value.  So did persistence.  So did excellence. And even if you were kneecapped by bad breaks or bad times or bad people, after you got banged up and bounced downhill once or twice, you got up again and worked your way back into the labor force.

Of course you could get a job -- a real job -- if you set your mind to it.   

Of course you could.

But while we were very busy working those hard, long hours -- while we were excelling at what we did -- someone set fire to all the rules and burned all the maps.  

Suddenly, no, you cannot get back into the workforce.  

No, we will not tell you why.  

Try as hard was you like.  Beat your brains out until it finally becomes clear that you will never have a full-time job with bennies again.

Never.

Never.  Ever.

That's the new reality: the quiet, lethal, zombie apocalypse no one prepared you for and which swarms over you and takes you down by sheer weight of numbers.  Which, by the way, leads us to the other ironic difference between Ms. Barrington-Ward's situation and my own: the fact that my last full-time job was helping people exactly like Ms. Barrington-Ward find work.  

I spent a long time building a righteous portfolio as a economic development and labor force expert.  Over the years I helped thousands of people find work, either directly by helping them think through their options, rework their resumes, learn interviewing skills and find internships and training, or indirectly by setting up and funding programs to get unemployed people like Ms. Barrington-Ward back into decent sustainable work.

I worked with the whole, sad rainbow of the unemployed:  kids in tough neighborhoods, young adults without prospects, ex-offenders, single mothers, and the suddenly and unexpectedly jobless like Ms. Barrington-Ward.

So like the physician who gets a bleak medical diagnosis, I am intimately versed enough in the arcanum of labor market data to be in a unique position to understand just how bad things are and how bad they are likely to remain for years to come.

My former profession has blessed me with the knowledge that there really are ways to solve the problem of long-term unemployment and underemployment that would give the millions like Ms. Barrington-Ward back their dignity and economic autonomy.

My understanding of political reality has cursed me with the knowledge that as long as we live in a culture that treats poverty and unemployment as signs of moral depravity, none of those solutions has a prayer of being realized.

Good luck to you, Ms. Barrington-Ward.

Good luck to all the Ms. Barrington-Wards, everywhere.

I Wonder Who Will Be Getting The Jewels of Nuance

In the settlement.

From the Washington Post:

Love, etc.: David Brooks and Sarah Brooks divorce

BY THE RELIABLE SOURCE

November 18 at 3:28 pm

Divorcing: David Brooks and Sarah Brooks, after 27 years of marriage. The respected New York Times columnist, 52, and his wife met as students at the University of Chicago; she converted to Judaism and changed her named from Jane to Sarah when they wed in 1986. Just last year, Brooks said “I go to colleges and I tell kids if you have a great career and a crappy marriage, you will be miserable. If you have a crappy career and a great marriage, you’ll be happy. So every course you take in college should be about who to marry.” The couple, who upgraded to a $4 million home in Cleveland Park last year, have three children.

I firmly believe Mr. Brooks should suffer the torments of the damned for his many years of terrible opinions, lying and awful writing. 

That being said, divorce -- like the sun and the rain -- rises on the evil and on the good alike, and falls on the just and on the unjust alike. It is a miserable, heartbreaking business and I wish anyone going through it (except the real, abusive monsters) good luck and kindness.

That being said, words alone cannot express how eagerly I await the David Brooks column in which he rounds up the all the usual David Brooks suspects -- neurology, disordered families, the poors having un-David-Brooks-approved-of sexytime, the '60s and, oh, let's say Henry V -- to explain the collapse of his marriage.

Watch It Quick

Before it vanishes.

The Last Pale Light In The West

 From the soundtrack of tonight's "Walking Dead"

Sunday Morning Comin' Down

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."

-- Richard Feynman

This week, the same Conservative mopes who giddily goosestepped along behind every lie and fraud and war crime and impeachable offense committed by the Bush Administration continued hating the living shit out of the Kenyan Usurper for trying to provide tens of millions of Americans affordable health insurance:

Meanwhile, Elite Media Both Siders like David Gregory

continued to make princely livings contorting themselves into amazing, Escheresque configurations in order to pretend that Conservatives aren't insane.

As predicted, ABC television executives let ambulatory human carcinoma Erik Prince use their teevee network as his personal, book-pimpin' bidet, while those nutty kids of the "This Week..." bouncy castle took the "Obama's Katrina" meme out for another ride.

Meanehile, over on an entirely different network with entirely different waxwork figures sitting around a completely different table...

COMING UP: THE PRESIDENT'S LEGACY -- IS THE ROUGH ROLLOUT OF OBAMACARE THE PRESIDENT'S OWN HURRICANE KATRINA?

After which David Gregory said what may very well turn out to be the stupidest fucking thing you will hear a major American teevee network pitchman say this week (emphasis added):

DAVID GREGORY:

So here's the other political question. Look at the president's standing in a Quinnipiac poll on personal attributes: Is it trustworthy, honest and trustworthy? Look at the change. He was at, in October, 54/41; now, 44/52. So that's completely changed. And people will say this is like Katrina; I think it's more like Iraq. That was about life and death, this is not...

All of which was utterly awful.

Utterly and predictably awful.

And so frustrating when you consider how easy it would be to devote that one hour of alleged public affairs programming to actual public affairs programming!

For example, consider how something as simple and entertaining as holding the heads of our Elite Beltway Media underwater for one hour could clearly demonstrate in a way understandable even to laymen with no scientific training --

 
-- the difference between "Hurricane Katrina" and "a glitchy website."


In the meantime, all of the best reporting continues to come from our court jesters...

George Stephanopoulos Puts a Cherry on Top

Of the bullshit parfait that is his Sunday gasbag show:

And in our “Sunday Spotlight,” the founder of security contractor Blackwater USA Erik Prince discusses his new book, “Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror.”

Because nothing says, "Fuck yeah, there's a Club and fuck no, you're not in it." more emphatically than the sight of a major American teevee network helping a straight-up, butchering, megalomaniac thug line his pockets just a little bit further.

Scene from a Cootie Catcher

Unlike every single person who lives in the great D.C. metropolitan area, I have no plans that involve reading Double Down, the 512-page cootie catcher roman à clef (without the "roman" or the "clef") that seeks to get to the heart of the burning question, does he like me or does he like-like me?!

However while taking a break from reading about a meaningless, gay-bashing, headline-generating ritual that will soon be performed by the leader of an Iron Age cult which operates near my home, I chanced upon this excerpt from Double Down which I found kind of hilarious:

...

Obama faced a more immediate challenge, which was to arrest the metastasizing panic among his supporters. In 2008, Plouffe had airily dismissed Democrats who lost their minds in the midst of Palinmania as “bedwetters.” But now there was a similar drizzle as the public polls sharply narrowed—and worse. “Did Barack Obama just throw the entire election away?” blared the title of an Andrew Sullivan blog post.

Chicago’s internal polling strongly suggested that the answer was no—the race was back to where it had been following the party conventions, with Obama holding a three- or four-point lead.

Even so, as the full desultoriness of his Denver performance sank in, the president was consumed by a sense of responsibility—and shadowed by fears that his reelection was at risk. Outwardly, he took pains to project the opposite. When his staffers asked how he was doing, he replied, “I’m great.” To Plouffe, who had volunteered to soothe Sullivan, Obama joked, Someone’s gotta talk him off the ledge! 

... 

In July, around the time her husband’s prep started, [the First Lady] met with Plouffe and expressed firm opinions. That Barack had to speak from the gut, in language that regular folks could understand. Had to avoid treating the debates like policy seminars. Had to keep his head out of the clouds. (Michelle’s advisers paraphrased her advice as “It’s not about David Brooks; it’s about my mother.”) FLOTUS loved POTUS like nobody’s business, but she knew his faults well.

...

The good news is that the  dream of the Liberal blogosphere has come true -- the Leader of the Free World now actually worries about making bloggers cranky.

The bad news?

It's Conservative bloggers like Andrew Sullivan (and Conservative columnists like David Brooks) that the Leader of the Free World worries about mollifying.

The Icksorcist

The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler of an Iron Age cult which operates near my home has vowed to perform a meaningless ritual to make Teh Icky Gays go away.

Inexplicably this has generated headlines all over the country.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Springfield bishop to perform 'exorcism' on day same-sex marriage becomes law

By Manya Brachear Pashman Tribune reporter 7:00 p.m. CST, November 14, 2013

Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield said he will offer prayers for “exorcism in reparation for the sin of same-sex marriage” at the same time Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn is expected to sign the same-sex marriage bill next week.

Paprocki said he will offer the prayers intended to cast out evil at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in the state’s capital Wednesday.

“It is scandalous that so many Catholic politicians are responsible for enabling the passage of this legislation and even twisting the words of the pope to rationalize their actions despite the clear teaching of the church,” Paprocki said in a statement.
...

In the Year of Our Lord 2013, the local Catholic emissary of the Prince of Peace has scheduled a public exorcism just to remind gays how very much he hates them.

Yeah.  I'm sure that'll do the trick.