Felonious Husk underlings fire bird flu, not realizing it is a crucial ally in their effort to destroy the country.

Two African American boys coming from or going to school. One has a couple books held together by a strap slung over his shoulder. He's wearing a white t-shirt, red sweatshirt or sweater, and a blue cap. The other is wearing a yellow cap and green top of some kind. They are standing in front of New York City brownstones.

“Two Boys” by Getel Kahn, color print, ca. 1935–43. Note the books the boy in red has slung over his shoulder.

Via NYPL, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, WPA Art Collection, image id 5179323.

I’ve eliminated a lot of categories that I’d rather keep as tags, if my host Micro.blog had tags. While I wait to see if that ever changes, I need to reduce the number of categories still further. I had let their number grow because of the lack of tags, but it’s time to rein them in a bit.

The plot of “The Manchurian Candidate” relied on a convoluted brainwashing technique to get an American to attack his own country. Who knew that a simple venal carnival barker from Queens and a lunatic South African fan of Apartheid and Nazism could achieve a much more impressive result?

Black and white photo: Looking up at circular fire escapes around bay windows, and bas-reliefs under windows on hotel, Chrysler Building just visible at right.

“Murray Hill Hotel, Manhattan” by Berenice Abbott on November 19, 1935, for her “Changing New York” Federal Art Project.

Via The New York Public Library, image id 458449867.

Despite Russia’s unrelenting propaganda, Ukraine is not a U.S. client state, and NATO is not a U.S. client organization, not even when the current U.S. administration talks as if they were.

Let the great eugenicist experiment begin! RFK Jr.’s terrifying Senate confirmation puts the U.S. withdrawal from the WHO in a foul new light. Ditto Felonious Husk’s freezing of USAID funds.

  • If Gulf of Mexico = Gulf of America
  • If America = Great Again
  • Then Gulf of Mexico = Gulf of Great Again

Watched “The Deadly Affair,” dir. Sidney Lumet (UK, 1967), a spy thriller based on John le Carré’s 1961 debut novel, Call for the Dead. Quincy Jones did the musical soundtrack. Good stuff.

It must be rough to have many billions but to not know love, friendship, or respect.

“Why Has Transphobia Gone Mainstream in Philosophy?” by Samantha Hancox-Li, Contingent Magazine, October 1, 2019, contingentmagazine.org… 🏳️‍⚧️

Diplomacy 101: Orange Oaf’s threats are going to lose their value as fast as Putin’s nuclear saber rattling has. It sure would be nice if Orangina deigned to surround himself with people in possession of expertise and experience.

Sounds like artillery fire. Guess I’m close to Aberdeen Proving Ground. That, or things in DC are escalating.

Black and white photo of a dumpster in a DC alley. The message in block letters painted with stencils reads, 'WHEN THIS IS ALL OVER'.

“When this is all over, Adams Morgan, Washington, DC” by Tracy Meehleib, April 8, 2020. Via Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2020632316/. License: CC BY-NC-ND.

Orange Oaf is setting up a mediocre cadre of leaders who will only tell him YES. And why not? This approach has been working out real well for the bare-chested judoist of the Kremlin, who’s losing hundreds of thousands in Ukraine.

Translations from MAGA to English:

  • merit – good-for-nothing
  • meritocracy – mediocracy
  • patriot – sucker
  • taxpayer – sucker

Watched an antifascist drama set in the time before the United States was at war with Germany, “Watch on the Rhine,” dir. Herman Shumlin (USA, 1943). Despite the title, it takes place around the U.S. capitol, except for an initial border crossing from Mexico and a train to Washington.

It’s hard to look at the coming constitutional crisis and not think of Prussia’s constitutional crisis of 1858–64. But instead of Bismarck, we’ve got Boris and Natasha role-playing leaders.

I don’t understand how tariffs are supposed to foster American industry. How is investing in a country led by a criminal lunatic a sound plan?

I don’t know how the Republican party comes back from their fascism, however long the affair lasts, without some thorough housecleaning and a major rebrand.

Photo of Mixed Race Sociability in Jim Crow Washington, DC, 1944

Black and white photo of a convivial scene. More details in caption.

Pete Seeger at twenty-five entertaining federal workers, sailors, and soldiers with a banjo and song at the opening of the Labor Canteen in Washington, DC, on February 13, 1944. This unsegregated place in a Jim Crow city was sponsored by the Federal Workers of America and the Congress of Industrial Organizations.1 Note First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt enjoying herself in the mixed race and sex audience. On the wall behind the merrymakers are sketches of a hapless character undergoing physical training, perhaps Private Snafu.

Source: Office of War Information, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017864322/

  1. For further details about the Labor Canteen, see the long caption for Washington Area Spark, “Social equality at the Labor Canteen,” https://www.flickr.com/photos/washington_area_spark/54266105006/. ↩︎

The one who deals the blow forgets.
The one who carries the scar remembers.

– Haitian proverb quoted in Jonathan M. Katz, Gangsters of Capitalism (St. Martin’s, 2022), front matter

What’s the U.S. version of “banana republic”? “Orange republic”?