The Books of Bokonon

Bill McBride decided to publish a blog post he wrote, but shelved, in 2014. It may be an "old" post, but it is as timely as ever: As far as the "debt ceiling", the "debt ceiling" sounds virtuous, when, in reality, the vote is about whether or not to the pay the bills - and not paying the bills is reckless and irresponsible. The "debt ceiling" is redundant (once a budget or a continuing resolution is passed, then the impact on the debt is pretty much known). This is like someone not paying their credit card bill to teach themselves not to use so much credit! Irresponsible. I prefer the term "default ceiling" because that is what it is. He's right, you know. Refusing to pay debts is irresponsible, and there is a reason why lenders are reluctant to loan money to anyone who defaults on their debt obligations, whether they're individuals, businesses, or nations. A lot of folks in the US probably have long forgotten the last time ...

You never know what special brand of insanity will come from the wingnuts who run the GOP. We have one wingnut Congress Critter who claims that somehow the "Deep State" and the "Left" are conspiring to cancel cowboys. Confused? Seth Meyers breaks it down in A Closer Look:

Here is something we need to keep an eye on, and it's something I feel is stating the obvious: Russian-inspired and Russian-backed influencers are not resting in their efforts to turn regular citizens in various parts of Europe and the US against the Ukrainian effort to defend itself from a full-scale Russian invasion, and against NATO itself. Martin Longman focuses primarily on the influencers in the US , and Reuters covers the influence campaign in Germany .  Many of the people Martin Longman refers to are political influencers who were once considered part of what counts for a far-left in the US, but who now are embracing and are embraced by far-right political entities. Some were writers I had some respect for, which is something I regret. Many of us who were left of center in the US were livid about the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and were equally livid about economic policies that left so many fellow Americans behind, and several of these individuals were among the ...

Dan Gillmor at Techdirt wrote a very thoughtful essay on why journalists in particular needed to abandon Twitter . I'd recommend reading the post and completely ignoring the comments. Those are a shit show. Twitter is a special case at the moment simply because it is now owned and operated by a man who displays the symptoms of several personality disorders and who will suspend accounts, including those of municipal public services , on a whim. That is just not a sustainable situation.  His primary point throughout is that Twitter's users need to exit in an orderly manner. That means having presences on platforms that are far less toxic, use those regularly, and then use Twitter more or less as a friendly reminder that a lot of their real action is elsewhere, and to go there if they don't want to miss out. Gillmor is very critical of journalists and most news media corporations. In the case of Twitter, Elon Musk is essentially naming the tune, and the media corporations and ...

A little over a decade ago, the GOP-led House of Representatives played a game of chicken with the Obama Administration, nearly plunging us all into a global depression, and briefly leading to a downgrade in our nation's credit rating. Sometime between this summer and early next year, depending on how things go, we may see a repeat performance. V ox is reviving its explainer on what the Biden Administration can do to prevent disaster . It will look eerily similar to the options Obama had available. As the Vox article notes, Obama eventually gave in somewhat to what the Tea Party faction of the GOP Caucus insisted on in exchange for a debt ceiling increase. Perhaps Biden will draw the same conclusion. Then again, Biden has presided quite differently from Obama, so it's possible we'll see more of a real fight this time around.  So much comes down to how many in the GOP Caucus are willing to work with the Democratic minority (it would only take a handful, given the very narrow...

As you probably already know, extreme-right-wing supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro held their own January 6th style coup attempt by storming the Congressional building, the Presidential Palace, and the Supreme Court. Much like our own experience with a self-coup roughly two years ago, Bolsonaro's failed. As of now, well over a thousand individuals have been arrested and are being held for questioning, and investigators are collecting forensic evidence at what is now a crime scene in the capital city of Brasilia.  Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo has a fairly detailed run-down of what happened . One major concern is that the US, which once had a reputation of inspiring copycat attempts to create democracies is now gaining a reputation for copycat attempts to destroy democratic governments and institutions. We can thank Trump and the MAGA crowd for that. I am hoping that those responsible, including Bolsonaro, are brought swiftly to justice. If so, that would be an im...

Since the protracted process of electing a Speaker of the House of Representatives began on Tuesday, Hakeem Jeffrees, the Democratic Minority Leader, has been a paragon of patience and grace. Following the final vote that just barely elected Kevin McCarthy as Speaker (history-making, but for the wrong reasons), Jeffries delivered the first speech prior to McCarthy taking the gavel. It was a masterful speech which often reminded me of the first time I saw Obama give a speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. This was one for the ages. Here is the clip from CNN's YouTube channel:  

A couple of years ago, I was playing a lot of late-1970s and early-1980s synth pop videos, which I've loved since I was probably still a preteen. I was also listening to a lot of minimal wave (also sometimes called minimal synth) on YouTube as well. We all know how YouTube's algorithms work, so it was no surprise that I'd get suggestions for videos from different artists in the same basic genre. If I'm going to be obsessed with minimal wave, why not get a bit more obsessed? A video by a band I'd never heard of before, Poeme Electronique, had apparently cut a video of their one released single, The Echoes Fade . It's a haunting track that I continue to enjoy. It was apparently released in 1982, and it does sound like a synth pop song of the period. The lyrics have some depth to them, and the production and musical craftsmanship is outstanding, especially given what was likely a very limited budget. The video is also definitely a period piece, and clearly shot on ...

What is your personal memory of the January 6, 2021, attack on our Capitol and Congress? How did you hear about it? How did you react? — Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) January 6, 2023 Today marks the two-year anniversary of Trump's attempted coup that led to the brief disruption of the certification of the electoral vote. That is a day I will never forget. I was working remotely, attempting to get some work completed before the new semester began. My wife had on one of the news channels covering what should have been a routine certification of the electoral votes for each state. I was expecting that some Senators and Representatives on the GOP side would object to the count in some swing states, so that it was likely going to be a long day for everyone in Congress. I went into the living room at some point to see Trump at the Obelisk looking more menacing than usual (which is saying something). I remember Trump telling the crowd to march over to the Capitol Building and that t...

We've ended the third full day of the new Congressional Session and the House has yet to elect a Speaker . Kevin McCarthy has lost 11 votes in a row. To put into context, that means that this is the first time since before the Civil War that it has taken more than nine votes for the House of Representatives to elect a Speaker. Then again, the majority party is the GOP, the guy wanting the Speaker's gavel is Kevin McCarthy, and so it's no great loss at least for now. My impression from catching coverage after my wife and I came home from our favorite diner was that McCarthy and his team will continue to hold votes for as long as it takes. Like Thanos, he claims to be "inevitable." And he may well be. He's made a ton of concessions to the 20 or so hold-outs, and so far that has not led to a breakthrough. So we go through another potential Groundhog Day scenario tomorrow, and perhaps the next day (and the next day, etc.). Any of us who have ever sought a leaders...

Like many of you, I've been checking the live blogs and C-SPAN to see how the GOP, with its very slim House Majority, would handle the vote for the Speaker's gavel. Our major parties are very broad coalitions, and so one expects negotiations ahead of a new session of Congress to be heated, but probably mostly settled by the time January 3rd hits.  Not this time. Kevin McCarthy has been jockeying for the Speaker's gavel for a good couple years, and is the GOP House Caucus Leader. However, he has never quite been able to close the deal. He's tried to become Speaker before in 2015. That effort failed when he did the equivalent of shooting himself in the foot. His sin that time? After the GOP leaders had taken great pains to present the Benghazi hearings as non-partisan, McCarthy let loose with how much the hearings had hurt Hillary Clinton's chances to become President. In other words, he could not be trusted to refrain from crossing the party line. His support evapora...

I'm not new to blogging. I blogged under a pseudonym from the aughts through the present on several community blogs. I've blogged under my own name on academic matters for about roughly a decade, and have used Twitter as a microblogging platform until recently. I do have a presence on Mastodon to continue what I did on Twitter.  That said, microblogs have their shortcomings, including, most importantly, the ability to add some nuance to one's writing. Complex ideas are difficult to express with character limitations. The old-school blog is probably much better suited for my purposes. I chose the name, The Books of Bokonon , for a reason. Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle was one of the books that strongly influenced me as a teen. The quasi-religion, Bokononism, is light-hearted while pointing out the complexities of being human and finding meaning in life. Cat's Cradle captured the hubris that could lead our species to self-destruct. I've shared Vonnegut's ...