July 5th begins summer’s great trench. Nothing but sweltering discomfort punctured by periods of merciful relief.
There is a New Yorker magazine cover which aptly suits these dog days. On it a grinning rubicund sun wipes sweat off his brow while beneath him broiling on the way to burning beachgoers merry themselves towards heatstroke.
The best part of this season for me? Beer. Beer is colder these days than during winter. Continue reading The Wonder Bar
The current GOP doesn’t envy Mexico much of anything, but doubtlessly its more avaricious hierarchy dreams about becoming an Anglo version of the PRI. The PRI, or as it’s known in English, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, has been called “the perfect dictatorship.”
An electoral process gives the organization a sheen of legitimacy. Think of an oil slick upon water. See it as pay-for-play democracy. Isn’t this the system the Republican Party prays someday burdens the United States?
Ideally, doesn’t the GOP hope to import and infect America with this Mexican model? Through it “freedom” and “justice” mean “shackled to rank ideology and life-draining consumer indebtedness” while “scandal” gets erased altogether from civic discourse because almost every transaction, even the most mundane — especially the most mundane ones! — requires “a little something extra.” A taste. Some beak wetting.
There. Privatization of public services in a nutshell. Continue reading Reconquista 2012