Politics – Page 24 – the coffee philosopher

Posted on February 13, 2013February 13, 2013 by the coffee philosopher

The Graveyard

While no one could have predicted that Rubio would suffer from a hilarious flop sweat and embarrassingly intense dry mouth on national television, the slot following a president’s state of the union address is a notable graveyard of failed national ambitions; a high risk opportunity without a lot of real upside (you’ll always look less presidential than a president addressing congress and the nation).

Which leads me to ask: did Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, and Bobby Jindal (himself a noted failure in the same slot) engineer Rubio’s appearance just to take him down a notch?

Posted on February 13, 2013February 13, 2013 by the coffee philosopher

A Moment Of Silence

Please bow your heads as we honor the passing of Marco Rubio’s chances of being president.

I kid, of course, but yeah… I mean he actually gave a decent, though bland and uninspired, speech, but that dry mouth and his desperate lip smacks before grabbing the water bottle… his handlers may be telling Rubio that it won’t overshadow his introduction to the national stage, but, um, yeah, it totally overshadowed his introduction to the national stage and when his name is mentioned for the next four years, this will always be brought up (and in eight years, he’s going to be bald, and that’s never good for one’s presidential ambitions).

Posted on February 10, 2013 by the coffee philosopher

Washington Celebrities

So, I was walking down to the bank to withdraw some money for the offertory at church when I saw what seemed a familiar sight.

Andrew Schwartz, whose impromptu adoption of the lead role in the Folger’s Henry V had so impressed me, was walking down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Nothing special, but it was nice to be able to tell him in person how much I had enjoyed his performance.

So, that’s kind of what passes as a celebrity sighting in DC – or at least, what passes as a celebrity sighting once you’re bored of seeing Boehner standing outside a bar with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

Posted on February 10, 2013February 7, 2013 by the coffee philosopher

The Sunday Paper – Roman A Clef

Politic0: The Novel

Beyond the ‘big six.’

Ferlinghetti: The Movie

Animal poetry.

Small town poetry scenes.

Mainstreamin’ Marx.

Posted on February 2, 2013February 2, 2013 by the coffee philosopher

Obama Is Unconstitutional Because Skeet Shooting

Obama needs to be impeached immediately. If America had known he had only gone skeet shooting a few times instead of many times, he could never have been elected.

Not only does this make his entire presidency unconstitutional, it also makes any future (and obviously fixed, using ACORN voter fraud muslim ninja thugs) election of a non-white president also unconstitutional because the second amendment.

Posted on February 1, 2013January 21, 2013 by the coffee philosopher

A Writer’s Life

I have been lucky. I have been able to make my love words part of how I make my living. My ability to use programs like InDesign and to remove paper jams from deep in the printer have probably been equally important, but let’s not harsh my vibe.

One of my nieces wants to be writer. She’s interning at a magazine right now. While I could write a lot about the problem with internships (not only are most internships in flagrant violation of U.S. labor laws [if the internship is unpaid and the intern is doing actual work, that’s wage theft and it’s illegal], as well as creating a economic caste system that disproportionately benefits young people whose parents can afford to underwrite almost all their child’s living expenses during the term of the internship), I actually started thinking about here when I read this quote from Eileen Myles, who is an amazing poet, as well as a cultural commentator:

I do think it’s possible to make a living doing my writing but you have to be willing to live badly which I frequently do. There’s lots of blogs to write for instance and oddly even if they “pay” you you have to wait longer than ever before. While everything’s electronic pay checks are moving slower than ever before. You could blame the post office but I blame politics for that too. Increasingly though the belief is that you must be an academic or a publishing heavy if you are writing about books and you are obviously making your income elsewhere or else you are new or young or wealthy already and are just now climbing into prominence and need the “exposure.” So there’s less respect than ever for the idea that a writer or even a aloud reader of her work needs to get paid. There’s much shame about $ and that during an economic downturn. I find this trend to be deeply immoral. So the desire to make a living as a writer is a true perversion in this culture but I think we need our perverts more than ever…

…So you need a lot of courage and imagination and stupidity — and trust — that since the culture needs you it will support you. It must. It’s a crazy notion but I think it’s true and we make it true by acting on it. To be a working writer is a political act.

Look beneath the surface, and it’s not an optimistic take. Beneath the faith that society will learn to value its writers, it’s not a long dig below the permafrost to find the fear that society will not.

How many ways will remain for my niece and which things she carries will she have to sacrifice to achieve even Myles’ hard life?

Posted on January 28, 2013January 24, 2013 by the coffee philosopher

Don’t Be A Hater

I probably should have said, “don’t be an a–.”

My own, local Washington Post published itself an asinine and irritating little piece on poetry. I was seething. Luckily, someone else responded more productively than I could manage:

From coldfrontmag.com/news/open-letter-to-alexandra-petri

I am writing in response to your attack on American poetry in your Washington Post blog today. Throughout your piece, you forward assumptions based on your own lack of exposure and allow these to stand as truth. I know it is just an opinion blog, but people have been convinced by less, and despite your “blog voice,” I sense you might really believe what you are saying. I will also assume you are sincere in stating: “I hate to type this and I hope that I am wrong.” So I am glad to let you know that poetry is fine. In fact, it is thriving…

I hope you’ll click on it and read the whole thing.

Posted on January 23, 2013January 19, 2013 by the coffee philosopher

End Of The Road For Jeb

It’s getting close to the moment when we can finally call it quits on the presidential ambitions of a certain John Ellis, ‘call me Jeb!’ Bush.

Last year, his very presence would have sent Mitt packing to one of his many mansions and while he might not have won, he couldn’t have done worse than Mitt who, contrary (as it turned out) to his reputation for managerial acumen, proved himself unqualified to so much as lead his merry band of maladjusted misfits out of a paper bag.

Now, not only has Rubio taken on the dubious role of Florida Republicans’ favorite son, it’s not even clear if an ideological space left for him.

Rubio, Rand, and Jindal look to be everyone’s favorite flavor of tea bag. Christie is the ‘can do’ pragmatist for the rare Republican primary voter who is looking for the bare minimum of competence. Ryan is the super fav of voters who want a president capable of looking boyishly handsome and super dreamy while failing basic math on national television. Right now, it’s hard to see Jeb finding room anywhere except next to an unloved sad sack like Jon Huntsman, fighting to play the role on CNN of the man everyone thought would one day be president but wound up never even coming all that close.

That Bush-ie running for Railroad Commissioner in Texas might one day amount to something, but in 2016, ole Jebbie will likely be meditating on how his best days ended a decade before.

Posted on January 22, 2013January 22, 2013 by the coffee philosopher

Ross Douthat Apparently Now Believes In Big Government

That’s the only conclusion I can reach by the fact that the only people to get up and leave last Sunday when a priest at the church began to make a pitch for the Cardinal’s Appeal were led out by Ross Douthat.

The money raised from the appeal does not go to priest salaries or administration, but goes to things like homeless shelters, care for foster children, and education.

Because he left just after hearing what the priest was going to talk about, I can only assume that he has dismissed the idea of private contributions and civic/community groups taking the place of publicly funded social investments and so now supports increased spending on government social programs.

Or maybe he was just in such a hurry that he couldn’t wait sixty seconds to hear what the priest had to say.