Mac McClelland

It seems that Mac McClelland, a journalist who wrote this and more for Mother Jones on Haiti, had a breakdown. This is about the breakdown and how she cured it. A writer at Slate had a serious problem with her having felt as she did and dealt with it as she did. Ms. interviewed her. … More Mac McClelland

Michael Bérubé

There was the question last year of LSU’s “Foreign Languages 14,” all instructors discontinued due to program reduction. Now this document on events in the UL system has been posted on the Louisiana AAUP website. I am reposting it in its entirety since it is a public document and important. I have emphasized a few … More Michael Bérubé

Paul Street

Obamaism’s shortcomings are the failures of the Democratic Party’s longstanding corporate-imperial centrism and of the dominant narrow political culture that pits an arch-plutocratic, extremist military party (the faux-“conservative” Republicans) against the “inauthentic opposition” of the conservative, faux progressive, and corporate-neoliberal Democrats and leaves no room for non-corporate parties that accurately reflect majority progressive opinion. The … More Paul Street

Betty Ford

From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, via commenter human: According to Mrs. Ford, her young adult children probably had smoked marijuana — and if she were their age, she’d try it, too. She told “60 Minutes” she wouldn’t be surprised to learn that her youngest, 18-year-old Susan, was in a sexual relationship (an embarrassed Susan issued a … More Betty Ford

Paul Krugman

I think Obama and the Republicans are trying to destroy the country. I think the plan is to get as much US capital into the top 1% of bank accounts, and invest it elsewhere. From yesterday’s New York Times: On Thursday, President Obama met with Republicans to discuss a debt deal. We don’t know exactly … More Paul Krugman

A to Z

I heard Assange and Žižek on KPFT, 90.1 on your FM dial, today while stuck in traffic on US 59N in Houston, and I was quite positively impressed by both of them. If I had the drive to do over again, I’d go downtown on surface streets and get on I-10E from San Jacinto, a … More A to Z

Period Piece(s)

I saw this van in the parking lot of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Its front license plate says “Texas Turn-On.” I am multiplying it by five to create an art installation right here. At the state welcome center on the Sabine River I had seen a granite megalith erected in 1962 by … More Period Piece(s)

Mictlantecuhtli

This is Mictlantecuhtli as seen in the Codex Borgia and uploaded to Wikipedia on a Creative Commons license. I do not know whether I will like the cropped version of his gravatar, so I may change it still. Everything I do gon be funky from now on so I have become Mictlantecuhtli on the suggestion … More Mictlantecuhtli