You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do

This one doesn't even pass the laugh test:

U.S. Rep. Cynthia Loomis says some of her Wyoming constituents are so worried about the reinstatement of federal estate taxes that they plan to discontinue dialysis and other life-extending medical treatments so they can die before Dec. 31.

Brimming with compassion over the plight of her millionaire constituents, Loomis argues that

If you have spent your whole life building a ranch and you wanted to pass that along to your children, and you were 88 years old and on dialysis, and they only thing that was keeping you alive was that dialysis, you might [italics mine] make that same decision.

Loomis declined to name any of the people who might be considering this. Nor did she state with any certainty the number of 88-year Wyoming ranchers on dialysis with an estate eligible to be taxed.

The redoubtable defender of the privacy of millionaires stoutly opposes abortion rights, flatly stating that "abortion is a sin against God." Moreover, she opposes gay marriage on the perfectly sound basis that "God defined marriage as between one man and one woman." God must have told her so personally, because there's no Biblical paucity of insatiable phalluses connected to men with multiple wives. Or maybe it's in the Constitution.

When it comes to immigration, the epitome of compassionate conservatism explains how she would extend the same compassion she shows millionaires to migrant workers who pay taxes:

[I] will work to ensure that illegal aliens do not receive social security benefits, medicaid benefits, food stamps, drivers [sic] licenses, or other benefits.

Cynthia fails to mention that no one receives Social Security unless they pay into it (and if they do, why shouldn't they get it?) or that undocumented workers are ineligible for social services. So, she's not going to have to "work" too hard at that one. Certainly nowhere near as hard as a migrant worker at a Wyoming hog farm, the owners of which have about as much to fear from Cynthia's promise to force "employers [to] ensure that their workers are properly documented" as a Wall Street investment banker does from Mitch McConnell.

The sad part is, she's going to have a lot company in Congress come Wednesday. At least her election might prevent a few suicides...



Notice the much more polished direction (by Martin Scorcese) and editing on this abbreviated rendition:

Take A Load Off

R. I. P., Dom DiMaggio. He wasn't really better than his brother Joe, as the ditty had it, but Dom was one hell 0f a ball player in his own right...

Just A Song: Waylon Jennings' "Love of the Common People"...

Conservatives love, love, love to tout the United States corporate tax rate of 35% as the reason why American businesses move some of their operations abroad and as a proof that we have an unfriendly business climate. The next time you see this beacon of intellectual dishonesty, you can respond with the truth, which is that loopholes reduce the effective tax rate to the point that two-thirds of corporations pay no taxes at all. The ugly truth is here and here...

Matt Taibbi tears Brian Cashman a new one here. Citizen K. readers may recall a recent first line by the master of invective. He's in top form in this article:

With his shameless, blatant attempt to buy a World Series with a half-billion-dollar shopping spree at a time when the rest of the country is scrounging under the couch cushions for ramen money, Cashman has laid the foundation for 2009 to be maybe the most entertaining year for non–Yankees fans in the history of baseball. We are all trailing six car lengths behind, waiting for the pinstriped truck to jackknife and explode in a giant conflagration of scandals and finger-pointing. In an age when huge, irresponsible financial bets have brought Western civilization to the edge of collapse, Cashman’s Yankees are perfectly positioned to become an object lesson in everything that has gone wrong with American society in the past eight years or so...

HBO has given the go-ahead for a full season of Treme, a drama set in the music community of post-Katrina New Orleans. Treme will be produced by David Simon (The Wire)...

R. I. P., Randall "Poodie" Locke...

Friday's Choice: The Band sings "The Weight" with an assist from the Staples Singers in Martin Scorcese's documentary The Last Waltz (inspired by Clever Pup):

Back, Barely

I hate JFK airport. It's got to be the...oh, why bother to relive yet another hellish encounter with this monument to corporate, bureaucratic, and design inefficiency? At least our plane was only an hour late leaving...

We arrived in mostly on piece, sans a suitcase that was delivered this morning. I slept until noon and want to go back to bed. It is awfully nice outside, or so Premium T. keeps assuring me. The restaining and refurbishing of our deck was completed while we were gone -- rotten boards replaced, remaining boards sanded, all boards restained, nails leveled. You can walk on it bare foot. Looks great...

On the flight back, I read Dermot Bolger's The Family On Paradise Pier,  a fascinating fictional account of the life and times of the Anglo-Protestant Goold Verschoyle family, whose idyllic life in Donegal becomes shattered by World War I, the Irish revolution and Civil War, as well as long-simmering sibling rivalry and family guilt about its relative wealth amidst poverty. Two of the three brothers turn to Communism while their sister -- the sheltered, romantic Eva -- learns to accommodate the realities and compromises of life without surrendering herself to them. Events take the family from rural Ireland to Dublin to London to the Spanish Civil War to Moscow and to Stalin's gulags. 

Threaded throughout is the antagonistic relationship of the Irish Catholic Church to the Stalinist radicals who sought to elevate Ireland's poor. Bolger shows how the Church's deeper understanding of the fears and traditions of the Irish people easily triumphed over Stalinist ideology even in the face of economic devastation. Compulsively readable -- I devoured most of it in one sitting -- it's one of the most insightful novels about class and the personal relationship to it that I've read. Includes cameo appearances by Brendan Behan, his indomitable mother Kathleen, and James Gralton, among others.

And, Family is based on the on an actual family named Goold Verschoyle. Bolger met the character based on Eva over 30 years ago, taped many of their conversations, and waited for them to ferment into a novel. Accomplished and highly recommended. More on the Verschoyles here...

New Orleans writer Julie Smith says that it's the secrets, not the crime, that make the Crescent City a great setting for mystery novels...

Besides sitting around listlessly and reading depressing accounts of racial divides and near bank runs, I've spent the morning trying to wake up to the strains of some new music that arrived in my absence:

• The Band Of Heathens, The Band Of Heathens. Austin band that wears its allegiance to Little Feat proudly. How can you miss when Ray Wylie Hubbard produces and Patty Griffin joins in for three songs?
• The Long Black Line, Spencer Bohren. Slow blues from New Orleans' Bohrens describes the long black line left by Katrina on every home it affected, then goes down from there, introducing a cycle of songs related by "tragedy, disaster, and the hardships of the human condition." Bohren mixes his own material with songs by blues masters of the 20's and 30's to make a strikingly original album unified by its theme and by his spooky Delta blues guitar.
• 504 And Then Some. Assortment of live performances available to WWOZ donors and subscribers, many taken from the Piano Night they sponsor every year as part of Jazz Festival. I was already glad I'd subscribed, but this is the icing on the cake.

Oh, the president says that everything is peachy keen.

Spencer Bohren performs "Wade In The Water":