Journal of Post-Ralphaelite Thought

Am I alone in thinking 2013 will probably suck about as much as 2013? At least we have maybe a year before the next campaign cycle begins.

In the wake of the Newtown shootings, people are struggling to come up with ways to prevent future tragedies involving mass murders by gun-toting crazies. Some are calling for renewing the ban on military-type assault weapons and high capacity ammo magazines of the type used to gun down the victims at Sandy Hook elementary school. The previous ban was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, and expired in 2004. Previous efforts to renew the ban have never gotten out of committee. Others have suggested that instead of banning weapons, a hefty tax be placed on certain types of ammunition. After all, without bullets, a gun is about as useful as a length of pipe in a fight. Back in 1994, Daniel Patrick Moynihan introduced a bill to impose a 10,000% tax on hollow point ammo, saying, " Guns don't kill people, bullets do. " Earlier in the year, Chicago discussed imposing a 5 cent per bullet "violence tax," which ended up going nowhere. Still others hav...

Now that the initial wave of shock and horror over the shootings at Sandy Hook has worn off, the national debate has again started about gun control, and to a less degree, mental health issues. Discussions about both are long overdue. After every recent shooting, the first reaction of the gun-lovers is...to buy more guns, because they fear "the government" is going to make it impossible to get guns. Am I the only one who sees this as closely related to the behavior pattern of people who are hoarders ? I'm tired of hearing some say that this happened because of some amorphous  "Evil" in the world that humankind is powerless to overcome. If there's Evil afoot, it's what Hannah Arendt, writing about the Nazis, call the banality of evil :  "normalizing the unthinkable." Such as accepting the idea that the man or woman on the street needs to own military-style semi-automatic assault weapons with huge magazines of ammo. There have been quite ...

The other day I awoke to the news that pianist Dave Brubeck had passed away at age 91, one day short of his birthday, December 6. To say he was a jazz giant is only to illustrate the weakness of the written word, compared to his chosen language, music. I first got turned onto him as a twenty-something who had grown bored with his dorm roon collection of rock and roll. KERA (local public radio station) at the time played classical during the day, and jazz at night. My first purchase was a double LP called The Dave Brubeck Quartet at Carnegie Hall . To say it knocked my socks off is to further illustrate the weakness of the written word. He was born in the San Francisco Bay area. After graduating from the College of the Pacific (where his inability to read music created a bit of a scandal), he was drafted and served in George Patton's Third Army. While in the army he formed one of the army's first multi-racial bands. It was then that he first met his long-time collaborato...

Thanksgiving 2012 is remarkable for a number of reasons. Officially it falls on the 4th Thursday of November, which is usually the last Thursday as well, but because of how the calendar played out this year, we have another Thursday in November which falls after Thanksgiving. If you use Black Friday as the start of the Christmas Shopping, it means an extra week of Ho-Ho-Holiday sales for merchants, for which they are surely thankful this year. Speaking of Black Friday, I'll leave that again to the more intrepid - I have no desire to go out and mix it up with bargain-crazed shoppers. It used to be this annual Orgasm of Consumerism started at 5 AM or so, Friday morning, but it has steadily crept forward, first to Midnight, and now, in some cases to 8 PM Thanksgiving day. To which I say, shame on you Merchants. And shame on you, Shoppers, since without your enthusiastic support, this inexcusable practice would not happening. This year is also notable for the fact that Thank...

I confess, I'm ready to be done with the 2012 election. I'd feel this way regardless of the outcome. Unfortunately, conservatives can't quite let go. The recriminations and finger-pointing are in full swing - amusing but eventually tiresome. Latest members of the Sore Loser Club are restauranteurs John Schnatter, CEO of Papa John's Pizza, and Zane Tankel, who owns 40 or so Applebee's Restaurants in the metro New York City area. Both are incensed that Mitt Romney's loss means ObamaCare is no longer going to be dismantled. Tankel has announced he'll start firing employees and stop building restaurants. Of course, he's a franchisee, so it remains to be seen if parent company Applebee's will fill the gap with other franchise holders. Applebee's International president, Mike Archer, said Tankel's remarks, "were not the views or opinions of either Applebee's or other franchisees, although we respect his right to speak freely as an ...

Well, I certainly can't fault him for preparing this in the first place. Leaving it where someone can use it to ridicule and generally add insult to injury - now that's a different matter. I am, of course, referring to the premature (by several lifetimes) launch of Team Romney's Transition Website, screen-captured in all its glory by Taegan Goddard and shared on his Political Wire website. See more pages on Political Wire , including a jobs page (you too can join Team Romney!), and Mitt's plans for his inauguration. Taegan Goddard says, "The site was quickly taken down but I saved screenshots ."   I can't thank Taegan enough, no to mention the low level web tech who forgot to take down the site right after Mitt conceded. As a web pro, I don't fault him for creating a site - things like this don't happen overnight. What I do object to is the pompous, arrogant tone, which screams, "You people have had your fun - the grownups are here...