God wants you to kill teh gay

We all know Republican Jesus and his father, the Master of the Universe, created teh gay so the pious would have someone to stone on those otherwise dull weekends in Babylon. But a Kansas preacher wants to bring it back, because nothing says limited government to a conservative nutcase like being dragged out of your house by the State and tortured to death for public amusement: [Read more…]

To be or not to be a worker bee

Working at the bottom end of the economic ladder for the last two years has been an eye-opening experience to say the least. In fact, if not for the humiliation and constant fear inherent in trying to live from shitty paycheck to shitty paycheck, I’d recommend it for everybody purely as a character building experience. Here’s the latest character building lesson I barely escaped … [Read more…]

Macro economics for dummies

A buddy of mine really freaked me out the other day when he demonstrated he’d bought into the Austerians hook, line, and sinker. I. e., that the way out of a recession is gut government spending. During the discussion he threw out “I took macro economics, I know how it works.” I didn’t argue with him because, one, I love the guy to death, he and his wife are some of the most decent compassionate people I’ve ever known, and two, I judged it would have been pointless. But if I was going to try to argue on those terms, here’s how it might go … [Read more…]

Memorium to Joey

Most of the Vietnam War is a blur in my mind. I wasn’t born when it started and it was wrapping up by the time I was in second grade. But one day stands out clearly, in Kindergarten, we were making drawings with flowers, learning the seasons. Spring was probably not far off, but all I remember was a cold, bleak day with crunchy snowy remnants lining the icy gutters and sidewalks under a sky of slate. The assistant teacher suddenly piped up and said “Hey Joey, come with me for a minute, I’m going to read you a story.” Even at age five I got a really weird vibe, story time was already over … [Read more…]