“I don’t mean to rush you, but the C Train will be here in two minutes.” “Why I don’t I just start you off with a couple of bowls of our Port Authority vichyssoise? And maybe some sardines?” “As a matter of fact, I have heard all the jokes—thank you for asking. But I love…
N. Gregory Mankiw is lower than a snake in a wagon’s track
N. Gregory Mankiw is brilliant and prominent, a professor of economics at Harvard University, author of a best-selling introductory economics textbook, and, under President George W. Bush, chair of the president’s board of economic advisors.1 So why he is talking total bullshit on the estate tax in the New York Times? Well, as Greg tells…
A Wall of Shame for the Party of Shame
Wash Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson has a column up arguing that spending $25 billion for Donald Trump’s “impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful” wall is a great idea, because building one would facilitate a grand compromise on immigration reform: “If we could buy an immigration bargain for $25 billion, or even a bit more, it…
Benny Troschel—“Straight No Chaser”
It’s “Straight No Chaser” month at Literature R Us. In fact, I may give this tune of Monk’s a two-month workout, for it seems to be remarkably popular. I guess I wasn’t paying attention. In any case, it’s Benny Troschel working the trompete, with Christopher Olesch on vibraphon, Felix Henkelhausen on bass, Artemiy Kosarev on…
New York Times Obituary Department now wholly owned subsidiary of Rockwell International and U.S. Air Force
Sam Iacobellis, father of the B-1 bomber, the plane that won the Cold War, is dead. Well, that’s what NYT obit dude Sam Roberts tells us, in a stunning outburst of chest-beating Reaganite nonsense. Sam is dead (I guess), so that part of the obit is true, but the rest of it, I strongly suggest,…
Peter Thiel, Dan Grazier, Mandy Smithberger, and I agree: the F-35 totally sucks
Where’s your cannon, big guy? Well, the F-35 hasn’t got one, not yet. Nor does it have the solutions to dozens of other pressing problems, according to reporters Dan Grazier and Mandy Smithberger, who single handedly dismember the $400 billion and counting “Hanger Queen”. This is at least the second extended beatdown Dan and Mandy…
Peter Thiel is pathetic
Angry, middle-aged billionaire Peter Thiel has a column up in the Washington Post that is remarkable for both its incoherence and lack of substance. Briefly, he advocates the election of Donald Trump so that we Americans can have a universal health care system that works, dadgumit, just like the one in Canada. And it won’t…
“Disciplined” thievery gets Ryan nod
According to House Speaker Paul Ryan, Donald Trump is “more disciplined” these days. How is that, Paulie? Because he’s staying “on message” about stealing Iraqi oil? Every prominent Republican who has not announced, at the least, that s/he will not vote for Donald Trump lacks even a shred of honor. “Establishment Republicans”—which includes every surviving…
Sopon Suwannakit—“Straight, No Chaser”
Sopon Suwannakit, piano, Teerawat Tanboot, bass, and Ben Poovaviranon, drums. Posted by Sopon Suwannakit
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here “I can’t say I’m surprised, Smedley. I’ve always said that constrictors were good starters but bad finishers.” “Well, see if Accounting has use for someone who takes three weeks to process a termination.” “Old Harrellson called your bluff, eh, Smedley? Even a healthy anaconda can’t handle anything over two hundred and fifty…