Tim Hallinan’s The Queen of Patpong arrives in bookstores today and, come to think of it, so should you. Go ahead! Buy a few copies; get an early start on your Christmas shopping. Buy a copy for yourself, get one for your best friend, give one to your brother’s ex-wife’s sister’s boyfriend. Give a copy to your third

Regular readers of this blog are well aware that my blogging activities sort of ran off the rails in early April and that my blog posts since then can be counted on the digits of one hand—with a couple of thumbs to spare. Getting my various projects back on the rails and back up to speed has been a long, slow process, so

When good intentions collide head-on with the reality of adverse circumstances, good intentions almost always come out the big loser. To make the point, I’ll cite an example from recent personal experience. While my intention was to do all the things I’d committed to do, the reality was that a sudden downturn in my heal

The following blog post, reprinted here unchanged from the original, comes to us courtesy of Barbara O’Brien (The Mahablog, Crooks and Liars, et al.) Barb asked if I would be interested in helping her out by reposting her article; because I stand ready to enlist the pages of Frieddogleg to any number of worthy progressive

Over the weekend I learned that I can’t be a good environmentalist because I sometimes eat meat. Alrighty, then, here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to stop busting my hump to be a good environmentalist. First thing on my new agenda is to replace all those CFL and LED light bulbs, purchased at great expense (

As we know, convenience food and pharmaceutical industries are two of the most prolific advertisers of consumer products to which Americans have become addicted. Automobile manufacturers—whose products are as ubiquitous in American culture as Big Macs, telephones, TVs and computers—round out the top three. Let's fac

We Americans depend on our addiction to conspicuous consumerism and consumption to appease our addiction to instant gratification, which we finance with our addiction to credit. An addiction to television begets addictions to convenience food and a plethora of over-the-counter and prescription drugs, which give us the illus

We Americans are habitual addicts. Indoctrinated into consumerism at an early age, most of us base every aspect of our lives on conspicuous consumption. Even when we work at producing something, it's all about being able to consume more. We're so enamored of self-indulgence that we've elevated addiction, per se, to a lifest

There are enough “strikes” in the Health Care Reconciliation Bill to take the Major League, the Minor League, and all the Little Leagues through an entire season of baseball. With all the misdirection that is part and parcel of the legislative process, it’s no wonder that legislators find it so easy to deceive the Ame

Like the earlier Jonathan Swift, after whom the late writer/blogger Al Weisel named his blog (Jon Swift), the latter day version of the brilliant 18th-century satirist was himself a brilliant satirical writer. But Jon Swift was more than just the name of an excellent blog; it was a pseudonym, a nom de plume, a pen name, and

Insurance is like a casino game. The insured bets that the insurance company will pay off in the event of a loss or claim, and the insurer bets that it won’t. Even when the “house” loses, it can still cut its losses by arbitrarily and unilaterally adjusting the amount of its “bet” downward. Sometimes, it simply re

“I think Barack Obama is a one-term President.” —former Vice President Dick Cheney Well, I think Dick Cheney is an asshole—but he’s probably right. President Obama runs a serious risk of being a one-term President because he’s largely failed to deliver on his campaign promises (the ones he made to the voters

CBS refused to run a paid 15-second NORML ad on its 42nd Street digital billboard, so I’m letting the ad run here, for free: Take that, CBS! Q >>>

Corporate dominance of the political process was foretold by the recent Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. FEC, in which corporations got the go ahead to spend unlimited amounts of money to back the candidates of their choice or to influence legislative outcomes. With that monumental error of lapsed judgment, the SC

Do televised news reports often leave you baffled? This video shows the probable reasons why. When TV news seems pointless, vague, confusing, irrelevant and incomplete, and it often leaves you scratching your head and wondering what that was all about, now you know why; there’s an app a formula for that. If you want f

In response to my previous post, Suzan (Welcome to Pottersville 2) asked what the first step is in dealing with the corrupting influences powerful corporations have on government. Having pondered that question for a few days, I’ve come to realize that I probably have a better understanding of what needs to be done than I

There will never, ever be any positive changes to anything that matters to individual citizens until corporations are reined in and brought under strict government control. Despite the recent Supreme Court Ruling that gives corporations (including foreign corporations) the right to spend virtually unlimited amounts of money

If you haven’t seen this video yet, you owe it to yourself to watch it at least once. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Olbermann’s comments are true but, at best, they paint only an incomplete picture. What might Future America look like after a generation of absolute co

Today, the Supreme Court of the United States did a stupid thing; it gave away the people’s democracy, made a gift of it to corporations. The United States of America have officially become the Corporate States of America. Sign Public Citizen’s petition to Congress! Are you as outraged as I am? You sho

A news report, by Kohr Harlan, a few nights ago on Local 6 News featured a couple of Portland pizza restaurant owners, one who supports ballot Measures 66 and 67 and one who adamantly opposes them. Obviously, one of them comes out on the right side of the issues and the other one doesn’t. But how do we decide which is whi

The following is a reproduction of the text written on a comment card and handed to a flight attendant by Joe Johnson, a passenger (and alleged terrorist) aboard Hawaiian Air Flight 39: “I thought I was going to die, we were so high up, I thought to myself: I hope we don't crash and burn or worse yet, landing in the o

From the novel, Grotesque, by Natsuo Kirino: “In the farming villages of China there are over two hundred and seventy million people, more than the arable land can feed. The farms produce only enough to support a hundred million, fewer than half. Of the remaining hundred and seventy million people, about ninety millio

“The Portland Air National Guard confirms that two F-15 fighter jets "scrambled" the Hawaiian Airlines flight in mid-flight. This means that they met it and escorted it back to PDX. The contact took place at about 1 pm.” —from a report filed by Joel Iwanaga, KOIN-TV Local 6 News Okay, I can almost unders

On Tuesday, December 29th, I posted a couple of videos under the heading Jane Hamsher is Right. Badtux the Snarky Penguin posted a comment about it on Wednesday, and thus began a running healthcare debate with ‘Tux that concluded on his blog on New Year’s Day. While I don’t always agree with ‘Tux in regards to

Today is more than the beginning of a new year. It’s the beginning of a new decade—the second decade of the 21st century—and a time for making new resolutions (or renewing old ones) and for renewing hope and optimism for better prospects with which to shape better tomorrows. 28 years ago to the day, I resolved to

Forcing taxpayers to send trillions to private insurers for junk insurance is just plain wrong. Anyone who thinks that mandating payments to insurance companies is healthcare reform should get a mandate to do a stint in reform school. This non-partisan message is right, too: If the current he

Once again, ‘tis the season in which I celebrate not celebrating Christmas. It’s a personal tradition, begun 20 years ago, that’s only gotten easier over time. Distancing myself from Christmas wasn’t something that happened all at once, it happened in increments as I abandoned one destructive Christmas ritual a

December 21st: The winter solstice, shortest day of the year. This is also my shortest post of the year. Serendipity? Or synchronicity?Q >>>

One of the drawbacks of lower tax revenues is that education is always among the first of public services to take the hit. As tax revenues decline, the quality of education goes down. School districts, deprived of essential operating funds, react by gutting curricula, laying off teachers, shortening the school year, expandi

An excerpt from the novel, Pipeline, by Peter Schechter: “. . .. The Americans are shortsighted; they won’t see that a long-term dependency on Russia is a strategic trap. They can’t get beyond their big cars. Their crazy use of water. Of electricity. Spend, spend. Consume, consume. The United States is incapable o