You know, the real danger for me in watching a Beth Hart video is that it stirs something primal, and reminds me that deep in that cerebral pudding I call my mind there is still a certifiable crazy person who could make his appearance at any moment. Some of her live performances leap straight over the boundaries of gentility and taste, but even then I appreciate her talent, her voice, her daring. She seems a woman of great appetites, a freight train of id coming one’s way.
What’s not to like?
Not too many artists truly give it all on stage, thinking that prudence requires that they hold something back, keep something in reserve, so as to be able to fight another day. Beth Hart is … how to say it … highly imprudent at times. If you go seeking other videos you will see that the one I offer is rather tame.
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The Supreme Court finally said that Cluck cannot screw around with the mail-in ballots for this mid-term election. In ordinary times seeing that august body actually do their job in a nonpartisan manner would not even be worth mentioning.
I don’t know what to say about this Supreme Court. Most of the time the fascist-sympathizing six members are little more than a waste of space and are almost impossible to differentiate from the rest of the toadies that compete for an open patch to kiss on the buttocks of this disreputable man.
Maybe they figured that this was just too much. That if they didn’t finally do the right thing that bags of garbage and dog feces would soon be showing up on their manicured lawns. Or maybe somebody sprinkled fairy dust into their chambers which has convinced them to finally re-read that little book called the Constitution and see where their duties lie.
Who knows. I am grateful for every drop of reasonable that flows from this Court. Such drops are rare indeed.
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I am going to try to discipline myself by republishing no more than three political cartoons at a time in this blog. It’s not easy. Those cartoonists minds are soooo fertile.
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George Booth died four years ago, and I miss him. I’m not sure that I’ve seen every cartoon that he every composed, but it’s not because I haven’t tried. His sense of the bizarre and comic in everyday life is nearly perfectly matched to my own. The major difference between us is that only one of us has actual talent. Any way, it’s been years since I posted one of his drawings here, and this morning I picked this classic.
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For me, this cartoon provided one of those nearly falling off my chair while laughing moments. The reason … I have met those guys more than once, in person, aeons ago. Old souls who were members of a genre known in Minnesota as the bachelor farmer. And I can hear them having the conversation above while oscillating in a creaky wooden rocker on a creaky wooden porch.
When I was in high school our family lived down the road from the Boettcher Brothers, who lived in a ramshackle house that had long ago lost the last flecks of paint from its siding, making it the uniform gray-brown color of the classic haunted house.
They were getting on in years and when they were out and about they would be wearing what seemed like the same pair of worn bib overalls and straw hats. No slaves to fashion they.
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“The rule of law to democracy is like oxygen to a human body. It is something that you absolutely need to survive.”
Patrick Schiltz, Minnesota federal district court judge.
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There was a poignancy in the phone call, as one woman phoned to let another know that she was not going to make the AA meeting later that day. There were at least two reasons to make the call, one is that both women were seniors with health problems, and the other is that both are alcoholics. Even after decades of sobriety the enlightened former addict knows how thin the protective curtain is between them and relapse. They have seen old friends walk back through that curtain and disappear. Silent battlefields.
It’s a simple act, almost a reflex. To avoid causing worry they pick up the phone and make the call. It’s what comrades do.
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Little Home In The Valley 