a blind flaneur

Many Americans feel a disturbing sense of distrust and déjà vu about the crisis de jour. We’ve been through this before, repeatedly. Doing the Bum’s Rush is George W. Bush’s Presidential style. Remember his admonition that “the smoking gun might be a mushroom  cloud” during the war-drumming that led us into Iraq?He cooked the books […]

I’m a week and a day late with this one, but Hurricane Ike slowed me down a bit. May your Monday morning feel as alive as Saturday Night.

Grant Wood. Parson Weem’s’ Fable. 1939. Amon Carter Museum, Forth Worth.
When I was five years old, before I learned to read, I laid claim to a book in the family library called Pictorial History of American Presidents. It covered the course from George to  Ike, who still held office then, and it was loaded with […]

While looking for a clip of the real thing where Sarah Palin elucidates the Bush Doctrine, I found this YouTube spoof. When access to reality fails, satire serves.
Here’s the blurb from www.britethorn.com: “This is raw footage from Gov. Palin’s first interview since being named John McCain’s running mate.”

“After weeks of an increasingly nasty presidential campaign, the candidates took a respite from partisan politics Thursday,” according to NPR. “On the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, John McCain and Barack Obama promised that they would not campaign. They even appeared together in New York City to silently pay their respects at […]

“And Now, the Hidden Son of Sarah Palina,” a cartoon from the Belgian newspaper Le Soir: “I told you.,” Palin says to what looks like a moose in drag, “to stay in your room.” [text translated by Daniel B. Suits]
The nomination of Sarah Palin as the Republican candidate for vice president launched a thousand ballistic […]

When I waxed nostalgic about Alaska’s take on states’ rights (think red meat and oil wells), I forgot all about fulfilling the llibertarian dream of growing pot in the back yard. Thanks to the1st Official Sarah Impersonator for reminding me.

Tired of those hackneyed elephants and donkeys? Hold on, the moose is making a comeback. Not since the days of Teddy Roosevelt has this specie of charismatic mega-fauna received the attention it deserves as a potent political symbol. If you know only two things about Alaska governor Sarah Palin, the Republican Party’s surprise nominee for […]

My friend Chris Merrill talked tonight on PRI’s The World about Radovan Karadzic’s other life — no, not the naturopath in hiding who was captured last week in Serbia — but the psychopath who wrote poetry as he pursued ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Chris told a surreal story I’ve heard several times about meeting Karadzic […]

JibJab is back with a new satirical video for the 2008 election — Time for Some Campaignin’. JibJab seemed to invent the Internet video mashup in 2004 with This Land!, which presaged YouTube by two years. Now JibJab has a YT channel and a commercial site. According to their YT profile:
Brothers Gregg and Evan Spiridellis […]