the defeatists!

Mitch McConnell has a powerful vagina...or something

I've been quiet lately. I've been trying to care, but frankly it's been really difficult. Whether I'm listening to Keith Obermann doing Gonzo journalism in response to Ann Coulter, using his dad in much the way that Hunter Thompson used the desire to find a tatooist for his wife or watching the Roumanian skier who has lived in Vancouver for decades crash and burn on her last event or listening to Bill O'Reilly babble or whatever, I basically don't give a damn -- fuck 'em all.

Today's health care nonsense is a mesmerizingly great idea. For something. A year ago might have been good. However, the piles of stupid outreach by the Democrats and the manure lagoons of Republican bad faith have made the whole thing stupid. Mitch McConnell whines that the time isn't equal, and the President points out that McConnell might be right, but he's the fucking president so sit down. Maddow wondered last night wondered why bombthrowing Anthony Hebrew National Wiener isn't on the bill, and frankly, so do I. After all, he's the most prominent leftist bombthrower on health care whereas all the Republicans at the table are bombthrowers from the right. The Democrats are having fun with the Republican impotence, finally; however, they aren't sufficiently vicious to really put on a show.

ZZ Top - Viva Las Vegas
by rycko35

Meanwhile, our national soap operas continue. Charleston TV will broadcast the appearance of Jenny Sanford explaining why she's divorcing her husband. She has to attend; he can send an affidavit, and I'm sure he's doing that so he can spend the day hiking the Appalachian trail and wondering how he comes back from this. Those two classy explanations of gender and race relations, Courtney Love and John Mayer, are back. Courtney announces through the Twitter machine that she'd like to hatefuck Mayer, perhaps in return for guitar lessons...she acknowledges that he is the better guitar player, the first coherent thing she's said in human memory. My cat is a better guitarist than the Queen Wannabe of Grunge and Punk Alternative. Why exactly do we care? Why should we?

And, people are still getting killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Haiti remains a disaster. The market is confused. Joe Biden is unhappy that people are complaining about American imperial decay; some Brit dweeb chooses to tell us all how right he is, it's all relative and we're neither Rome not Britain; he then announces that "Still, history is our only guide. It is natural to seek instruction from it about the trajectory of earlier great powers, especially at a time when the weary American Titan seems to be staggering under “the too vast orb of its fate.” He then counsels us not to not take the counsel of Gibbon. I've been trying to read Gibbon for 20 years, off and on, and frankly, the only reason to read him is to do what he tells us not to, in this guy's words, "comparing epochs remote from one another."
That's the reason for history...Yes, of course things will be different, but the patterns are what we're looking for, not details.

Step away from the mirror and assume the position...

I kinda stopped caring much about Elton John in the early 80s...last thing he wrote that I thought had some musical merit was "I guess that's why they call it the blues..." That said, the news that he went in to check his closet and found Jesus there, probably with a gerbil up his ass, has come as a bonus.Anything that pisses off the Catholic League is a good thing. But, I bumbled on this one...Big Tits have developed a taste for bats. WTF? Turns out someone at the BBC either has a joyful sense of humor or needs to be taken to a strip club. And no, the bat isn't Jose Canseco..or A-Rod. 

But, the news gets better. Glenn Beck tells CPAC they need to act like Tiger Woods ...I'm picturing the party with Michelle Bachmann and Jeanne Schmidt getting it on with Michael Steele and Boner Boehner with a real boner. Shudder...And, Dick the Dick was a fan of preemptive war against the Russian republic in order to save Georgia. Where soon to be waterboarded by CPAC Bob Barr was treacherously getting ready to come out of the CPAC closet as an honorable man who'd sworn an oath to defend the constitution of the United States a couple of times and intends, however kooky he might be otherwise, to have read it and be neither delusional nor illiterate.

Like an allegory sunning itself on the banks of the Nile...wearing a straw hat saying Barry's the One!

The overall strangeness of this thought aside, consider the timing. An angry man had just smashed his airplane into an I.R.S. office in Austin, Tex., killing one federal employee, injuring others and breaking quite a few windows. Does this seem like the very best time to be encouraging people to assault government property? Pawlenty’s defenders will undoubtedly say that he did not want his listeners to literally grab a golf club and hit something. But it is my experience that many Americans do not totally understand the concept of a metaphor.  Gail Collins, 2/20/2010

One of the reasons that domestic terrorism is such a problem lies from whence domestic terrorism springs. Far be it from the AXE to condemn another man's sense of grievance -- without that sense of grievance, less fun -- but whether it's the Freemen or the Hayden Lake Racists in Idaho plotting the assassination of a Senator who's been a strong advocate for workers and veterans, or the Ku Klux Klan and their other furry fans, American domestic terrorists are less Stalin and Mao and more Symbionese Liberation Army and generally twits. The Tea Party movement is hard to take seriously; it's like the folks who advocate secession which a leftie-socialist-communist-pinko-fag guy like Antonin Scalia has indicated is totally whack. So, when idiots like Scott Brown and idiot-wannabes like Tim Pawlenty start talking about 9 Irons to the rear windows of government (T-Paw) or between pimping their daughters while saying the latest nutcase was frustrated by lack of openness and just another guy who doesn't like paying taxes (P.diddle.Brown), the AXE is moved to headshaking. Now, I'd like to shake their heads off their silly ass necks, but that would be wrong. Not as wrong as flying a fucking airplane into an office building, but wrong. Brown, speaking in complete ignorance of anything can not be labeled an appeaser to domestic terrorism; to steal a bit from Dana Carvey channeling Bush 41, Brown might not have been "prudent" in his response to this dumbass Khalid Sheik Mohamed wannabe Texan twit, but his heart was obviously in the right place.

Ms. Collins  has saved the AXE from having to spending a lot of time researching the errant pilot; she was a helluva reporter and editor before becoming a Mencken-esque pundit, and in terms of fact checking, she's in the same league as Rachel Maddow and George Will. Something about being a Rhodes Scholar makes you far more likely to get your facts straight. Anyway, here's her description of the ideology that drove this guy...

Let’s think this through. Andrew Joseph Stack III, the pilot, was a man with multiple hatreds, from Catholicism to unions, whose rage at the I.R.S. apparently began when the agency refused to allow him to declare his house a church for the purpose of avoiding taxes. And the end of the story is that he crashed a plane into a building, killing and injuring innocent people. Plus, he burned down his house. Where his wife and her daughter lived.

Now, I'll be the first to say that angry fantasies are as American as poison ivy and as human as brain cancer. There really is nothing wrong with feeling aggrieved for no good reason; the problem and the evil lies not in the thoughts but in the action. It would be nice to live in a world where actions have no consequences...actually, it wouldn't. That's a scary place -- the good consequences would be erased along with the bad ones. However, Mr. Stack was obviously a quietly percolating nutcase. Which makes Scott Brown's linking him on FOX to the unfortunate election in Massachusetts understandably troubling...The fact is that a lot of people who voted for Brown probably feel this way, at times; hell, I feel that way at times. BARRACK OBAMA probably feels that way at times. Feelings are morally indifferent and ethically irrelevant. IT'S WHAT YOU DO WITH THE DAMN THINGS that either makes you a good citizen, a great American or a goddamned terrorist, murderer and traitor.

I've seen some references lately to Richard Hofsteader's Fun with Dick and Jane: Proper tablemanners at the Tea Party...oh, that is, The Paranoid Style in American Politics. The link takes you to the original article from Harper's in 1964. The article is a classic that every thinking human ought to consider...The beginning alone is worth the effort of clicking the link...

It had been around a long time before the Radical Right discovered it—and its targets have ranged from “the international bankers” to Masons, Jesuits, and munitions makers.

    American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wind. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression “paranoid style” I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics., In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.
    Of course this term is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good. But nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content. I am interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric. The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent.

Ultimately, the Tea-Party/CPAC nonsense is well-summed up by the Bushie twit who's angry that the Obama administration is actually killing terrorists in combat. Go figure... Perhaps a better summation of the whole mess is best summed up by that great American paranoid, Jack D. Ripper...

While nothing important is going on, symbolically the goats are dancing on the altar

One of the Defeatist - Malcontent axis announced today that goats were awesome. One of us actually grew up with a mother who had owned goats, and decided that she was either ignorant or a few fries short of a happy meal...which, since she lives in Paris, is likely true literally. She pointed out that she was talking about mountain goats, and not up close. When our little cluster-coven gets into goat talking, you know that the world is off-kilter. What I can't figure is why the guy who's mother had goats didn't have llamas or alpacas...

But then there's this bit of news from Canada. A mentally ill person forged a pass and crashed an event in Vancouver, getting too close to Joe Biden and his wife, who were watching cross-country alpine extreme curling or something...according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, "He had an infatuation with the US Vice President." Obsessed might make sense; I could see that. Infatuated is so wrong; unless it's a translation from the French, Canada being bi-sexual about what language they speak -- although, in Vancouver they speak either Chinese or Canadian-Stoner.

The world is definitely feeling increased gravitational  pull, which the History Channel indicated might be the sign of an approaching black hole...Which may be part of the plot of the extreme fringe of the Tea Party to screw over Ron Paul while assassinating a sitting US Senator. A t-p loonie from Idaho announced at one of their group hugs that he wanted to hang Patty Murray, D-Washington, because she was in with bad companions. Ms. Murray is a pretty competent Senator, and has been very good on issues close to the AXE's heart, but I wouldn't want to see even someone as repulsive as Jeannnie Beannie Copter Schmidt of Ohio hung because of her bad companions. Especially in Idaho, and Schmidt hangs around with Michelle --I'm the crazy white bitch, not the first lady -- Bachmann, Boner Boehner and others of that ilk.  Idaho is a pretty nice state, scenery wise, and they do have good potatoes, although not as good as the ones grown by Navajo Pride, the Dine' Nations agricultural business headquartered in Farmington, New Mexico just off the REZ. Between the gay ex-Senators, the lynchers of union organizers, the white supremacists and the Teabagged, I am starting to wonder a bit about the people there.

Well, at least Fred Eaglesmith and the Ginn sisters provide a brief taste of reasoned discourse...

A soft rock Congress...

Dear god, this is awful...kind of Steve Perry and Journey meet Men without Hats   and mate with  a drag Heart cover band and does a film strip for the Texas State Board of Education . Since I believe Jefferson played the violin, I guess I can figure out who he is, and I recognize Ben Franklin but the beer swilling lout? Sam Adams? Paul Revere? Which one was supposed to be Adams...but, I have a more basic question...WHERE THE HELL IS THE FUCKING RAPTURE WHEN YOU NEED IT!

You might ask yourself...how did I get here...

Well, I have no idea how I bumbled on to this at the moment, but it was probably either a guitar site or HuffPo. Ana Marie Cox, late of Wonkette, Swampland, the Daily Beast, Air America, Playboy and occasional evil influence on both Rachel Maddow and Megan McCain, is out of work and joined us independent blogging types. Until she gets another real gig, which she should, soon. Maybe when Rachel goes to take that gig with Fox, she'll get a shot on MSNBC. However, in the meantime, Ana Marie adds some class to a mob of guys in bathrobes and bunny slippers, and old woman posting pictures of cats.

If you're not familiar with her work, you should be. Stop reading this, go immediately to the video and watch the  footage of Teabags, Maddow, Cox. How hard is it to make an openly lesbian, Oxford PhD blush? She had Maddow threatening to go underneath her desk and hide after a couple of evil grins and a nod or two, along with trenchant commentary. She isn't on the show enough; I think she'd be kind of cool occasionally guesting on the Daily Show and Colbert.

That said, she's a serious journalist. There's a bit of Hunter S. Thompson in her grin, and a bit of Dorothy Parker in her writing, but she knows what she's talking about, and uses the Gonzo bits for context, not to have a separate and possibly more interesting story line going. She's probably too bright to be a straight reporter, too cynical to be an anchor, too honest to be a commentator, and too talented to work for Rolling Stone. An elfin Matt Taibbi with a touch of ADD?

A comment on the human condition...by a cartoon cat

Evan (Even?) Bayh is retiring and the Democrats are going to run Rachel Maddow in Indiana or ...god, this is incredibly boring. So, the Dems majority will be down to -10 or something, and the neo-Fascists will repeal the 14th Amendment and the teapartyers will switch from Lipton to Chai...or something. President Obama is taking up naked luge riding, and Sasha is going to be Queen of the Mardi Gras. Just like in Brazil...Family Guy makes an unfunny tasteless joke at something -- Trig Palin? Delusional assholes? People who pretend learning disabilities to get shoulder massages -- and the AXE feels bad for Sarah Palin, who must now make this all about her, drawn inescapably into this like a Dalmatian to a fire bell. Which animal, Trig would have the best response to now and forever, and just want to pet the doggie. Who would probably bite him...

Sorry, not caring. Everything we do is stupid. Nobody except Sarah Silverman and Paul Krugman actually bother to think things through, even a little bit. Our public life is turning into a reflection by a bad bar band, one that hasn't practiced enough so they have never really figured out how to end a number...the drummer is always a bit behind, and everything looks sheepish. Or, as the boys in Top Gear describe, everything catches fire and we all go home. Nobody gets anything done...nothing gets better.

The news that 5 million people currently receiving unemployment will be off the roles by June would be exciting, except it just means that they've run out of benefits. The news that housing is affordable means that more of us are surviving on cash flow somehow, but that we are still bankrupt. The news that the Luge course may or may not have killed some guy from Georgia -- unfortunately, not Saxby Chambliss, but the other Georgia, the one with -villi on the end of every name and theme parks dedicated to Stalin's memory, is obviously repugnant. I now want to learn how to luge, not from a death wish, but because what seemed kinda silly and stupid is now seeming valorous. The kid was supposedly terrified of the turn that killed him, did it anyway, and died. Yup, sounds like the Olympian spirit to me.

Screw it all...as Larry says in this morning's Pearls, "For no reason, I don't think you look fat." Things go poorly and hilarity ensues...

Ok, all you Frank Zappatistas...

A really bad song, performed as only the Mothers can...

Stultification and insanity blues...the diabolical banality of evil

Hi, my name is Crusader AXE of the Lost Causes and I'm a recovering alcoholic, once and future soldier, devotee of St Michael the Archangel and Bob Dylan, sometimes manager, sometimes scholar and sometimes street mime, and I have a tale...For some reason, Crusader AXE has been having problems sleeping. Actually, I've been haunted the past week by a book and by a phonecall, that are making me question the universe and the nature of evil. Of consequences. And, the integrity of the entire thing...the world is what it is, and that for Crusader AXE defines reality and integrity, that correspondence between what you are and what you propose that you are.

A long time ago, I was a freshman in the Jesuit West Point. Although we were not an ivy-league place, despite the infestations of the stuff all over campus, we were top tier. Still is, and the scores have gotten better and the academic performance has vastly improved, since they let in women. Another story, another rant. My class was huge, over 900. In a school that had 2400 or so places, this was a huge bump in enrollment, and was pretty much unsustainable. On my floor, in my frosh dorm, we had a bunch of really bright people, as we did throughout the class and the college. Oh, I was very much a "liberal" and something of a rebel wannabe. Finding myself...yet, still driven by all those silly Catholic things like humility, charity, and a basic need not to be liked so much as to be a good person, whatever the fuck that means.

Anyway, we were all bright, intelligent, and doing what people have done in universities since Aquinas...drinking, playing cards (bridge and whist mainly), bullshitting, and talking about girls. And, occasionally going to class. And then, there was Roscoe...not his real name. Roscoe was a lump who was assigned to Frank from Long Island as a roommate. Frank was typical of the mob, very bright and semi-cynical, and interested in drinking, smoking dope, listening to music and bullshitting. Roscoe was a throwback...a joyless guy who singlehandedly dropped the average SAT score by a point. If 1600 is the max, and it was back then, and the average was 1100 -- yes, the AXE did a lot better than that, but Catholic schools in those days spent an inordinate amount of time in high school training you how to take standardized tests and I was brighter than the average bear. On the other hand, there were people I liked and admired all over the campus who made me look stupid; and, then there were the Stacks Rats, a sub-species entirely. Roscoe was stupid. As I look back over the years, I wonder if he was suffering from a mild case of Downs Syndrome...shared some of the facial features and coloring, but the entire family were lumps. I know, because all his brothers went there. If the family had girls, they would have sent them to some Catholic Girls School someplace awful, but all of the guys went to the Jesuit West Point. Daddy was an accountant-troll-insurance executive, and since the place had been founded in 1843, the family's men had gone to the Jesuit West Point. Given their general insanity -- and everyone in the family that I ever met was weird...the closest to normal was the next younger brother, who was wildly out of the closet gay...at a predominately Irish-Catholic-jock college in the early 70s. It wasn't his choice...anyway, it's possible that they started going to the goddamn place in the 1830s, they felt such a feeling of entitlement and ownership.

Within days, Frank and Roscoe were at war. Frank was a basically nice guy, very social and he made an effort. If you didn't share space with Bill, he just seemed like the village idiot. But, Frank's freshman year was hard. We thought he was just being funny. Then it was spring, and amidst the smell of tear gas and roses blooming, it was time for us to chose roommates for the next year, when we would move to upperclassmen "houses." I screwed around and when I finally got around to choosing, my choices were Roscoe and some stacks rats. The stacks rats scared me, because deep down inside I knew that I was a dilettante, and if I really cared, I be studying more and playing cards, guitar, and drinking less. I felt sorry for Roscoe, and figured he'd be harmless and, I was being Catholic that week, I could possibly help him.

It didn't work out that way at all. Frank came to see me, and begged me not to do it. When a casual friend comes to you and pleads that you not do something for your own good, you kinda, oughta, damn well better listen. Nope. Not me. Hell's route is not only paved with good intentions, there's high speed rail now...and there was then as well...

It was a horrible mistake. Roscoe made it clear to me that he was insane the first morning...registration was that day, and because of my grades and placement, I got to register at any time, as opposed to waiting. Roscoe, who had managed in the easiest academic year in the history of the college (69-70) had managed a roaring 1.8 and started his sophomore year on probation. I knew guys who didn't come back because they figured the academics were too hard and went elsewhere with mid-2s. Guys who had lives and minds and weren't lumps. But, Roscoe's family had rallied around and written checks, and there he was.  Anyway, with my registration not until 10AM, at 4:45AM his alarm went off. It went off every 15 minutes until goddamn 5:30AM. He got up, stumbled down the corridor and I went back to sleep. At 6:00, he came back in and opened drawers and slammed closets and made even more racket -- it may be an illusion, but I think he was singing the Archies, Yummy Yummy Yummy kinda sotto voce, if you're a bull elephant in rut! -- and then he left. In a suit, tie, and carrying a missal. Roscoe was off to mass. He then went to breakfast, and came back, took off his jacket and sat in his chair that he'd brought from home, and said the rosary. Out loud, in the traditional mindless Catholic way...HAILMARYFULLAGRACEDALORDISWIDTHEE and then decreasing in volume until the last syllables are almost whispered...followed by the full volume HAILMARYFULLAGACE...I can't recall, and only older Catholics will get the reference, but I think he said all 15 mysteries, and said them out loud. If you're a Protestant, this is like trying to sleep while someone like Jerry Falwell pounds the pulpit, handles snakes and speaks in tongues. Hell, I think Roscoe spoke in tongues too...

He certainly wrote in tongues. He was taking a set of classes that would have made the dumbest jock at Dumbass A&M embarassed, and was having problems. I offered to help...and then I read, if that's the word, his first paper. It bore some resemblance to English. Not much, but some. The words were English. Kind of. They just weren't the right words, weren't in anything like the right order, and had neither logic nor style. I tried to explain this to the spouse, who writes a clear editorial style and eschews all adjectives and adverbs. The incredibly talented illusionist and illusionist scholar Crispin Loves Sarah Palin as an archetype Sartwell occasionally posts poorly written papers from his undergraduates on his blog. His undergraduates are as articulate as Cicero and as rhetorically perfect as Aristotle himself compared to this guy. Roscoe didn't eschew anything, he'd do things like make adverbs the subject of a sentence, skip the verb and add some extra grammatical figures and punctuation just because.

I got the daily conversion effort. I got more. The year was looking awful. It didn't help that I was having other issues, including serious health problems, girl issues and plain old fashioned growing up issues. I did not need Roscoe. Frank would come by occasionally, and Roscoe would leave the room as if I were entertaining Beelzebub and Lilith. Not Fraser's wife, the original one, Adam's first wife, the one who mated with demons. Frank was sympathetic, but ended all the conversations with "I told you so..." By the middle of November, I was in the hospital. I came out after a week, still sick but able to go back to class, and the girl friend showed up. When she was around, she scared Roscoe away...giggling. Like Peter Lorre doing Igor...her family had even deeper ties to the place than Roscoe's and had actually done things besides send money. She begged me to see her godfather, who had been her dad's roommate back in '39 and was the rector of the Jesuit community. Nope...but, on Sunday, Roscoe came back to campus from the cave where he'd spend the weekend, hanging upside down and having his parents regurgitate into his mouth for sustenance. He started in on some nonsense and I lost it. I told him not to talk to me, not to wake me, not to butt into my conversations. He was a goddamn idiot. Leave me alone. Leave my friends alone. I then said something that was true but was also unfortunate -- "You can make me miserable and cost me a point on my GPA; but, motherfucker, I will just be myself and you will flunk the hell out of here." At that point, someone came to the door and told me that a sea monster had just washed up at Scituate according to the WBN FM disk jockey, a totally reliable source named Peter Wolfe (yeah, that Peter Wolfe) and we were all going down to see it. I left, it was a bask shark that had been smashed by a ship and chewed up in the propellers of the shipping lanes, we came back. It was cold, boring and the goddamn fish smelled.

On Tuesday, the head corridor Pig told me that we were moving Roscoe to another room with another guy. I was left alone for the rest of the year, and it sucked. Much of my too solitary nature came as a result of that year, as does my prickliness and inability to trust. However, I survived --At the end of the semester, Roscoe dropped out. I limped through the rest of the year, roomed with the guy I should have roomed with anyway for the next year, and got dragged into protecting the little brother, the flaming fag. Who was a nice kid, and at the right school would have been very happy. I'm sure he is very happy...Roscoe remained on the periphery...he got into another school, and got a degree from them in Parks and Recreation. The girl friend decided we needed to just be friends, and went off to have a marvelously successful career as an emergency room doctor, and settled down with a partner a few years after medical school. Lives, I believe, in Rachel Maddow's neck of the woods. Me, well, I'm still on the road, headed for another joint.

Occasionally, I would get the alumni-send-money rag and see Roscoe's name in my class. I ignored it, wondering what the fuck but not caring that much. He was there, someplace and I was here and I have guns. Then, as part of the collegiate send money thing, I agreed to update my info in the Alumni directory. Got it last week; tossed it aside after checking to see who was still alive and well and contributing from the class of 73. However, Saturday afternoon my cell rang, and it was...Roscoe. He wasn't sure I'd remember him...well, trust me. I'll forget my spouse's name and my sister's name and my best friend's name simultaneously before I forget his name. He couldn't believe that I remembered him, and he had just called me to talk. Sounded like he had had a "decent" life -- said he had worked as the manager of a group home and other social service jobs. I just said that I'd joined the Army, had a great life and career and was doing other things now. I then faked the wife has called for me and I gotta go...I finished with a "Take care, brother..." I have a guy I have acknowledged as a brother whom I despise, hate and fear. Go figure.

Roscoe is probably mildly retarded. He had all the social graces of a warthog, along with some of the looks. I know that my description probably makes him just seem irritating, and doesn't put me in a great light. But, that's because it was all so banal. And yet, there was evil there. If Roscoe had not tormented me, I'd probably have gotten the fellowships I applied for for graduate school. It's a cutthroat world, and there is no extra credit in a competitive situation for trying to be a decent guy. I've felt guilty about not trying harder; I've felt guilty about my own inability since dealing with Roscoe to handle the sick, crazed, insane and deranged. And, how like cats, they seem to find me and seek me out for company. I'm still Catholic in a lot of ways despite my anti-theism. I understand that...I was never into self-flagellation or any other kind, but mentally and emotionally, I torment myself about my shortfalls.

But, it still disturbs me. Arendt's phrase, the banality of evil really applies to Roscoe. I really don't think he meant to be a malign force in Frank's life or mine; I think he thought he was just trying to help. But, his impact was like a bad suspense movie...like one of those awful movies with Sting. One of the things he wanted to talk about were priests at the CWP. He told me that when my own personal favorite Jesuit, Father Joe LaBran, was dying, he told the guy who had been rector of the Jesuit community way back when that he wanted the rector to give the homily at his funeral mass, and this was what he wanted the other priest to say about him. Father Rector, a fellow named O'Halloran, told him, "It doesn't work that way..."

I don't believe in the philosophical concept of essence and appearance. But, Roscoe's influence was malign; yet, how do I put that malignity in a box for display? No clue.

Irony abounds, arrigato Mr. Roboto...

The Toyota Manufacturing system is not all that dissimilar to the way they run Wal Mart. They slap down competitors, suppliers and the like and are able to get away with it because, well, they're Toyota and "Oh what a feeling..." Except, obviously, they're not. Hyundai is probably Toyota...or Ford.

Lean systems -- whether in logistics, manufacturing, services or government -- are based on a set of assumptions. The primary one is that if you do things right the first time, you don't need quality control because you have built quality into the system. Why add cost? Works great, until the accelerator sticks and the brake fails and the bastards start suing. Toyota's defense probably was along the lines of we're Toyota, we wouldn't do that? Ah, but you did, and do.

Part of this lies in the inevitable path of entropy. Things generally get worse until the system either crashes or a visionary comes along with a new idea that starts a new system. It's the difference between a cleansing fire versus a controlled burn. Toyota has had neither...they've been able to figure it all out pretty well over the years, and have become complacent.

Also, of course, racist. The other Japanese automakers probably have similar tendencies, but Nissan, Mitsubishi, Suzuki and Subaru -- to a lesser extent --have all had significant in fluxes of American, British, and French gurus and fixers. I'm struck by the most recent Infiniti commercial which harkens back to the late 90s rebirth of the Maxima, with the American design guru swinging for the fences talking about the power of a curve...If you wanted an interesting, fun dependable car, Nissan and Subaru were your best choices; Mitsu and Suzuki were a bit more cutting edge. If you wanted dependability, you bought a Toyota or a Honda.

The stories of the xenophobic Toyota or Honda management teams are an interesting open secret. An acquaintance of mine from Alabama's Workforce Development Agency told me right after Hyundai had its plant opening for the first Alabama plant that their experience with Mercedes versus Honda had made them worry about Hyundai, but that the Hyundai approach was almost interchangeable with Mercedes. At the Honda plant, there was a very strict hierarchy, and a Japanese manager who saw a piece of paper on the floor would go find an American employee to pick it up. At the Mercedes plant, everybody wore the same overalls or lab coat, everybody used first names, and the plant superintendent made a point of picking up every piece of trash he saw. Jobs for Honda were going begging, but there were wait lists for sweepers and laborers at Mercedes and Hyundai.

However, I think that both Honda and Toyota ought to revisit the history of GM. Their comeuppance will probably be a lot like the one GM has faced. The reason that GM got to be the biggest car company was that it made the best cars for the money which resulted in its growth. As quality declined, it stayed the biggest because of ennui and thermodynamics -- things in motion stay in motion, things at rest stay at rest and entropy increases.

Ford and GM and Chrysler have had periodic disasters to shock them from their slumbers. Hasn't happened for Toyota or Honda; has happened for Nissan, Hyundai, Kia, Suzuki and Mitsubishi, and I seem to recall a hiccup or two with Subaru. It will be interesting to see how Toyota responds. So far, their pattern appears to have been similar to the Ford-Bridgestone who made the tires debacle over the Explorer. Let's see where this goes...but, have you driven a Ford lately? Or a Caddy? Their brakes and accelerators work...as do the ones on Nissan and Hyundai and the rest.