Poet Mary Ruefle will be at the Hill Center tonight. You should go. I am.
Who cares about the Paris Commune?
This… just because I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff.
Union Yes! (Says The Catholic Church)
Through the combination of social and economic change, trade union organizations experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the interests of workers… The repeated calls issued within the Church’s social doctrine, beginning with Rerum Novarum, for the promotion of workers’ associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honoured today even more than in the past…
Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate
Firing Squads
First, this is overwhelmingly sad. As a Christian and a Catholic, the death penalty is a national sin that taints all our souls.
But worse, the people who fire the guns: what must that do to a man’s soul? To execute with a gun, like that? No matter how righteous a man might feel about the need to end someone’s life, this can only eat away at the soul.
Poor Jeb Still Can’t Get His ‘Moment.’
Jeb’s campaign rollout has been, by and large, professional, yet also notably underwhelming, mostly, it seems through no fault of his own (welll… almost; hiring a publicly racist dude for a senior role on his campaign can be laid at his feet).
He gets public and forms the right kind of committees and everyone is all excited and there’s about to be a ‘Jeb Moment’ and then Romney comes along and takes all the wind out of his sails and there’s actually a kind of ‘Romney Moment’ (which is more than Romney got when he was actually running for president).
Okay, but Romneymentum dies down and now Jeb is poised to be ‘the guy,’ but then Scott Walker comes along, who’s everything Jeb is and more (he’s ‘establishment,’ whatever that means; been elected governor of a swing state; etc – and he’s also blue collar and has some Tea Party bona fides).
Scott Walker-mania kind of dies down and, for no discernable reason, fellow Floridian Marco Rubio suddenly becomes written about as the flavor of the moment and, even worse, as someone with some legitimate hope for winning.
It’s gotta be galling. Nothing Jeb does seems to get good reviews (his Detroit speech was pretty roundly panned with a universal, ‘meh’). Even worse his so-called strength in education has become weakness over Common Core (I say, ‘so-called,’ because, let’s face it: Florida schools sucked as much under Jeb as they do today, and the suck pretty bad today). Even worse than that, he’s being pilloried as some of moderate, which must really get under skin, because anyone who lived in Florida under Jebocracy knows that he makes Barry Goldwater look like a French socialist.
I’m not sure how I feel about all this. Obviously, I want a Democrat to win, but I’m torn, because it almost looks like he’s the next Mitt: someone who gets nominated as a smart, competent technocrat able to use his brains, corporate know how, etc to win the presidency, but who is actually unable to put together a competent campaign organization or, you know… win.
Another Thing (Maybe) That Jeb Has Romney To Thank For
Marco Rubio wants to be president. Really wants. He’s been dreaming about running in 2016 since his GOP star took off in 2010. Also, he knows that he’ll be entirely too bald to run in 2020 as anything other than an incumbent… so this it really. It’s now or never.
But Jeb.
Jeb, Jeb, Jeb.
A certain younger and supposedly smarter brother of a former failed president had recently made his own aspirations known. And you can be sure that this suddenly dried up a lot of home state money for poor old Rubio.
But then Mitt suddenly took all the wonderful momentum that had magically appeared when Jeb went public.
I’m wondering is Rubio didn’t see a tiny opening for him to lay some groundwork when that happened?
My Wife Explains Why Paul Ryan Grew A Beard
I told my wife that Paul Ryan grew a beard. ‘I forgot about him,’ she said. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we may have uncovered why Ryan grew a beard.
Has it occurred to Boehner and McConnell that the congenital insanity of the House GOP caucus means that they are essentially ceding a huge amount of power to Pelosi because they will need her help to actually keep America working (failure to do so will almost guarantee that Dems take back the Senate next year; they might anyway, based on a favorable map).
I didn’t realize that Mitt hated Jeb so much. Or maybe Mitt’s just good friends Rubio. Either way, massive f— you. Wonder how this will affect Jeb’s super PAC fundraising?
I need to pay closer attention to this stuff.
Vote
Midweek Staff Meeting – Yes, It Is A Problem
Weekend Reading – Finding Religiousity In The Secular Mundane
Steak Fry
I just realized: this year will probably be the last ever Harkin Steak Fry! If you don’t know what I’m talking about… well, you’ll probably never understand.
the coffee philosopher 