Ouled Nail: A Danse Macabre

They undulate themselves as

the Corinthians remain unfazed

by all that commotion,

all that intense bantering

upon the dusty proscenium.

Behold your future--

Doctors of Bellys and Heads!?

Aren't they Ionic, though?!

Here's the Deal

Fascism Versus Democracy

The current experience of the United States will show, I suspect, that Fascism is not the inevitable form which a non-Bolshevist society must take, but rather that it is abnormal and pathological. Philosophically, Fascism is a movement whose leaders are civilians in riding boots. Politically, it is an entirely new type of tyranny, both personal and demagogic--a tyranny which for the first time in history exploits the mob spirit in an era of universal suffrage and gives to the supreme leaders irresponsible power as limitless as that of the modern state. In contrast to this picture, we now see in America a leader who has never played for the role of hero or savior and whose greatest ambition appears to be to look like a common human being, a member of the middle class by voluntary affiliation. Without frowning or putting on a mask of ferocity, he has taken on his shoulders the heaviest burden that any President ever assumed; he does not shirk the responsibility, and he stands ready to give an account of his stewardship when the time comes . . . perhaps the most appropriate term for this new American way of grappling with social and economic unrest is still the good old word "democracy."

--"Fascism in the Making" by Max Ascoli, November 1933

. . . and if chosen I will . . .

I too, am an elderly man with a poor memory. I too, am 81 years old. There, though, the things I have in common with Joe Biden end.

For one thing, I know that actions have consequences, whether those consequences are or aren’t intended. I didn’t need Ruth Bader Ginsberg to show the truth of that—I’ve known it since I was a young man with a good memory.

Another thing that clearly separates me from Joe Biden is that, like Dirty Harry, I believe “that a man has to know his limitations.” Joe, apparently, doesn’t. His running for a second term proves his adamantine asininity. I have never even sought a first term, frankly because I didn’t give a damn.

Until now.

I’m tossing my hat in the ring, because America deserves better than what it’s going to get come November.

That’d be me: (The poor man’s Joe Biden)!

Hey Jude

To state the obvious, I have put off writing a blog for January 2024 until the penultimate day. There are a myriad of reasons for this delay, all invalid, ranging from intellectual lethargy to physical disgust. I have a strong suspicion that many people will understand my self-diagnosed state of being, given the circumstances in which we all have been plummeting downward to our current weird-worldly situation.

Throughout all of my Bidenesque 81 years abiding in this particular portion of the planet I have never felt less comfortable with the odds against maintaining the necessary conditions for the continued "success" of the so-called "Democratic Experiment."

"So-called," because its "success" was always a grand delusion if you'd dare or care to examine its roots. The land-grabbiness of the gold-greedy conquistadors and the colonizing, genocidal, God-fearing folks whose battle cries of "Live Free or Die!" had many applications, the least of them being the application of "Freedom" for "Others."

Well, this year, perhaps the penultimate, or worse.

If we keep heading down this narrow path straight to hell there will be nothing else to say.

Just "air-quotes" hanging in a purple sky.