tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78628472012-01-13T03:45:54.466-05:00A blog from a gentleman of the Liberal political persuasion dedicated to right reason, clear thinking, cogent argument, and the public good. Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.comBlogger3701100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-3654041683404285052008-09-26T18:34:00.001-04:002008-09-26T18:36:06.233-04:00

I cannot continue writing. My brains are scrambled, I miss too many critical things when reading and make a fool of myself, and my moods are too unstable. So farewell, once again, perhaps one day I can return, but I have little hope for it. Move on to other blogs. I will try to round out the politics the day after the election, but then no more, at least for now.

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-69087263828344438402008-09-14T00:50:00.003-04:002008-09-19T11:24:25.009-04:00

She really is starting to. Some configuration of hints and glimpses in the still pictures and video footage are beginning to have a creepy echo for me of a show about androids on the SciFi Channel. It is, I am certain, wholly irrational, another one of my biochemical blips projected on quite a normal woman who happens to be in politcs. Were she still the Mayor of Wasilla, or even merely the

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1969593798200479152008-09-13T19:03:00.001-04:002008-09-13T16:26:31.049-04:00

As the Palinmania is slowly settling down and the race is pulling back to a statistical dead heat, I have a brief remark or two in mind about Palin's daughter Bristol and Palin's unborn grandchild. After a lot of foolishness trying to blame the mother for the choices of the daughter, the reasonable consensus has emerged that the Palins were handling whole affair about as well as could be

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-70060244759920783992008-09-12T18:37:00.001-04:002008-09-13T16:28:01.174-04:00

In the banking business there is one iron-clad law: no bank, on its own, can pay off all its depositors at the same time. Banking works only when depositors have confidence in the bank’s solvency. There are quite a number of banks out there whose solvency is now burdened by huge amounts of foreclosed loans and deflating house values.Fannie and Freddie held the bulk of these loans. If they fell do

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-14658300988296668032008-09-12T13:54:00.011-04:002008-09-13T16:30:17.394-04:00

My friend the Anchoress now also writes columns under her own name, Elizabeth Scalia, over at Pajamas Media. Her latest is titled: Psychologists Want to Purge Your Brain of Un-Green Thoughts. In it she says this:These experts have made the staggering observation that negative feedback breeds a bit of spite; if you tell people they are pigs who are killing the earth, people will raise an

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-81275784912540405112008-09-12T11:33:00.005-04:002008-09-13T16:32:56.750-04:00

Let's cut to the chase:The Republican and “Independent” worthies who spoke at their convention–Joe Lieberman, Fred Thompson, Rudi Guliani, Sarah Palin and John McCain–are supposed to be leaders. The same is true of Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama. Leaders are supposed to set standards and examples. They are supposed to be the best of what our politics has to offer, not

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-88510244802228646452008-09-12T10:47:00.002-04:002008-09-12T11:27:45.839-04:00

Okay, I'm back. It's been a long dark road, but my life is stabilized; I have the cutest little laptop you have ever seen; I am on Social Security Disability, Medicare, and Medicaid; I supplement this with paid appearances at committee meetings to provide "mental health consumer input". So I like to think of myself as a "professional manic depressive"--I get to use the politically incorrect

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-17747540625906951632007-07-20T12:10:00.001-04:002007-07-20T12:25:33.161-04:00

This is to announce that I have moved operations to a new blog: The Empty Sky. I will not be posting on politics there. Until a major change comes, there is really no more to say about politics.But I will add one footnote. As of today, there is a very good chance that my greatest wish will come true. The 30% of this country for whom George W. Bush can do no wrong, and, particularly, the so-called

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1148922993200115692006-05-29T12:56:00.000-04:002006-05-29T14:17:42.173-04:00

Sometime back I wrote that the state of our country and the world so discouraged me that, when and if it ever was offered, I would seek to learn the Buddhist practice of learning how to die carefully, deliberately, and consciously.The opportunity has arisen and I am preparing to go when June commences. I am over 50 and I have never cared much for material goods beyond immediate need or temporary

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1145744611266958202006-05-14T06:06:00.000-04:002006-05-14T08:53:11.816-04:00

I'm quite peacefully partisan. This does not mean that I am not partisanly pugnatious. I am. But I am at peace with myself about my partisanship. If I were not, I could not be so forthright here and elsewhere.Besides my particular political goals and beliefs, I have the overarching viewpoint that the point of politics is policy--the things that can be done by government. In general, a partisan is

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1146375552571288512006-05-13T21:52:00.000-04:002006-05-13T23:30:32.010-04:00

I started this as another late night post from a brain too wound up to sleep. And a brain prone to lucid despair. The weight of writing it was too much for me then. But I am finishing it rested, albeit with a caffine starvation headache. No, I'm not doing anything so silly as "cutting back on my coffee", I simply got too involved with another project today to notice that I hadn't had any coffee

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1147424401904988732006-05-12T04:19:00.000-04:002006-05-12T05:00:02.030-04:00

You deserve it. I have watched my counter numbers still rise without my having given any reason for you to look in here for far too long. Writing was simply impossible. I had taken on a job which demanded eight solid hours of constant intellectual work on a computer and allowed me to do absolutely nothing else. I don't know if you have ever done such a thing. I never did by choice, even when

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1145778440002340872006-04-23T02:59:00.000-04:002006-04-23T03:47:20.923-04:00

One of the peculiar things about my mental health condition and, maybe, about the medications which treat it, is the totally flat affect I now feel towards weather. In my imagination and memory I can still see and feel my heart lift on brilliant sunny days in October, where the sky was an impossible blue and the leaves were red and gold; or equally on windy and rainy days in April, with each of

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1145684776265755962006-04-22T01:18:00.000-04:002006-04-22T01:46:16.420-04:00

This is a late night cry in the wilderness. A brain too old, too stressed, and too weary is fighting back with insomnia. The brutality, banality, and hypocracy of the world has triumphed for the moment over hope. For the moment only [I think!] and due to having to sustain total concentration, when I no longer have mental margin, for 8 solid hours, I have lost reason to care about my fellow human

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1144938972810247942006-04-13T09:44:00.000-04:002006-04-13T10:46:48.346-04:00

I have been under the gun. My very secret, hush-hush, job has started up again--the one with a certain company who recently made a very big boo-boo, kept some of their business so secret that they didn't even know about it, and made a very embarrassing splash in the national news. It takes all my evenings, twenty hours worth of work piled on top of the seventeen I have been averaging at my first

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1144498345912559592006-04-08T06:45:00.000-04:002006-04-13T10:45:15.976-04:00

...over on the blog All Things Beautiful. To the point where the hostess over there, Alexandra Von Maltzen, decided to waste an incredible amount of her own bandwidth quoting from these humble pages and excoriating them. What a pity. I have obviously worn out my welcome, so I won't bother to reply over there. You can go and read it all if you have the time.If you do, you can tell her for me that

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1143986854817356942006-04-02T09:59:00.000-04:002006-04-13T10:42:57.526-04:00

As an inveterate watcher, I observe very few truly happy people over the age of twenty-five. Hot blood, hormones, and a new day practically force some happiness on you in your youngest adulthood. The new days are still so truly new. But nearly every other face I see is distorted with some fantasy of worry, annoyance, or discomfort--never here, never now, never actually prepared to enjoy a new day

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1143889043946251362006-04-01T04:44:00.000-05:002006-04-13T10:42:09.850-04:00

In my state there is a wonderful, waistline bulging, restaurant chain called Der Dutchman. The theme, and the cooking is Amish, of which we have a considerable number in Ohio. So park your buggy, tuck your knapkin in your shirt like a bib, and sit down to Chicken and Egg Noodles, Ham with sweetened apples, slow simmered green beans, fluffy mashed potatoes, and pecan pie:[On Conservative Tribalism

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1143806452172915792006-03-31T06:42:00.000-05:002006-04-13T10:41:24.163-04:00

I have been a little tangled up by my usual Spring job. It takes my four evening hours and turns my brain to oatmeal. I simply do not have the headspace for sustained proactive thinking, so here are some samples of my latest reactive thinking:[On Buddhist Ethics]Everybody innately knows the difference between right and wrongIf so, why do we condemn parents for failing to teach their children the

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1143044156207185132006-03-26T19:37:00.000-05:002006-04-13T10:40:44.916-04:00

I was sitting in the lobby of my office building on my break. I noticed a trim, attractive woman of about thirty-five walk by. She had one of those round faces with a wide naturally smiling mouth, that are more attractive for a little maturity. Not like the high cheekbones and regular features that remain beautiful, in a different way, in every decade, up to late old age. But, rather, a glowing

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1142643744664182592006-03-25T16:25:00.000-05:002006-04-01T12:16:36.980-05:00

I have been a little lax in posting. There is a mental side to convalescence from surgery which is far more intractable than the physical side, which I'm pleased to say, has proceeded very well. But the depression, combined with the fact that virtually no one in the world seems to have anything new to say about anything, and nothing significant has happened that requires anyone to say something

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1142793830255933662006-03-19T12:07:00.000-05:002006-04-01T12:15:20.070-05:00

Another round of my good friends on the right making damn fools of themselves, this time over Operation Swarmer. It started with good ol' Baroness Alexandra, who is developing quite a rep as a well-illustrated linkfest for every right-wing tempest in a teapot which comes along.As always, I feel a little guilty burdening you with this, since it appears somewhere else, but by God if I have to spend

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1142729226974430922006-03-18T18:07:00.000-05:002006-03-20T06:51:41.376-05:00

As I'm sure you have guessed if you have stopped by lately, I am in the depressive phase of my bipolar cycle, and in one which the medications are having less effect than usual moderating. I have been so now for more than a week. I strongly suspect that bipolarity is an abnormality in some kind of natural biological feedback mechanism. For the effect of my recent gallbladder operation appears to

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1142551393161198072006-03-16T17:01:00.000-05:002006-03-20T06:50:59.810-05:00

I am sitting staring at my CRT screen wondering what to say next. The United States and Israel were the only two serious opponents to the idea of the United Nations creating a permanent human rights body. The only ones. A couple of tiny Pacific archipelagoes fell into line, probably because the United States is absolutely the only one who pays any attention to them, attention in the form of

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1142353777597381862006-03-14T10:16:00.000-05:002006-03-20T06:50:22.106-05:00

Over the past few days I have been forced to confront how chronically ill I really am. There is a period in after-surgical convalescence when you no longer are in obvious pain, but when the subtle disorder of a violent intrusion into your body lays on you like a lead weight.In someone such as myself--bipolar, hyperlipidemic, hypothyroid--whose consciousness is constantly battered with a

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1142219213262839892006-03-12T21:54:00.000-05:002006-03-20T06:54:06.366-05:00

I am stunned beyond words. There is no way to even label idiocy such as this:Internet blows CIA coverBy John CrewdsonChicago Tribune senior correspondentPublished March 12, 2006WASHINGTON -- She is 52 years old, married, grew up in the Kansas City suburbs and now lives in Virginia, in a new three-bedroom house.Anyone who can qualify for a subscription to one of the online services that compile

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1142170427193709362006-03-12T08:10:00.000-05:002006-03-14T11:39:28.686-05:00

One of the things I frequently run into jousting with my friendly adversaries over on Conservative blogs is the complaint that the Democrats are "always negative" in their chronic opposition to George W. Bush, that they are, in other words, mere "Bush haters".I must admit some truth to this. The private character of the President, which he takes no trouble to conceal, is sometimes a matter of

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1142080236739662922006-03-11T06:51:00.000-05:002006-03-14T11:38:18.850-05:00

And the bladder to go with it. Very early Wednesday morning, I woke up with a steel band of agony around my upper abdomen. I told Mrs. Claus it was a gallbladder attack. She was skeptical, because she was in the grip of the Monte Carlo fallacy: I couldn't be having a gallbladder attack since she had just had her own gallbladder removed not two months before.However, I was having such an attack.

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1141562963154240732006-03-06T05:48:00.000-05:002006-03-14T11:37:22.550-05:00

I have written before about thick textured time, time which is marked by hundreds or thousands of deliberately repeated individual actions, as reference points, on any given day. Unlike most duration, such time does not go by in an undifferentiated blur, and, by zoning off definite intervals with consciously repeated actions, we can clearly see how little is in any such intervals, no matter what

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1141337792393624012006-03-05T05:01:00.000-05:002006-03-14T11:36:21.496-05:00

Age brings very few comforts. One of the least comfortable things about it, is how well you learn to read faces. This skill, combined with the hyperacusis of my watcher's disease, has led me to live in a world of starveling ghosts, whose minds are anywhere else but right here, right now.You call it the real world.So few people really see anything. Vision is just a coarse grained radar screen to

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1141484912702620182006-03-04T10:02:00.000-05:002006-03-05T07:35:24.096-05:00

...I have been making trouble over at the Anchoress' again, too:The Anchoress: It’s going to get worse before it gets better. The press and the left want his absolute destruction. Nothing less will do. If they can destroy him and discredit him…well, to be honest, I think it’s the only way the Democrats can get back into power, thru despiriting the whole country in the manner in which it was

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1141349256662413392006-03-02T19:37:00.000-05:002006-03-05T07:30:56.373-05:00

Okay, I admit it, I've been at it again. But when someone like Baroness Alexandra gives me such a perfect target, how can I resist? Could you resist? So here it is:This is an article published in the Toronto Star, (ht Adora), which I thought may spark an interesting debate. It is a plea written by eleven Canadian Muslim academics and activists: Jehad Aliweiwi, former executive director of the

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1141328047386099982006-03-02T13:49:00.000-05:002006-03-05T07:30:07.550-05:00

A few days back, I came stone cold awake at 3:30 in the morning. The timeclock of blog posting is far different than any ordinary worldly clock. There is a certain kind of procrastination that is part of blogging that is not really procrastination. It is, in fact, a rather rude pushing of the conscious mind out of the area, while the rest of the blogger does the real work. Sometimes it feels like

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1140472258631888562006-02-28T05:05:00.000-05:002006-03-02T23:26:14.056-05:00

The quotations in this post are going to be a rough journey through a raw heart. It was excruciatingly difficult to follow the path of them again, for I was a participant in part of this Political Convert's journey, an obstacle in her way and a thorn in her backside. You know me. That's just how I am.But, as with most of the women converts to Conservatism out there, I liked her a lot and

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1140979181176239932006-02-26T13:23:00.000-05:002006-02-28T14:09:26.653-05:00

So now there is a dead spot. I write often in bursts and, when I finish a piece, I often crave to do more, particularly if I am working in longhand. Typing is harder. Typing now usually makes the knuckles ache.But the words disappear. It is as if my batteries completely discharge and can no longer cold crank the engine.The writing hobby is a tough game. You're not working to assignment. You can't

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1140866420965993122006-02-25T05:31:00.000-05:002006-02-28T14:08:15.243-05:00

The Hummer was red and [of course!] the woman driving it was jabbering on her cell phone, while exceeding the speed limit by 10 miles per hour, on the way to work. I saw her while waiting at the bus stop.She probably has 2.2 children. Though what on earth she does with the .2 child, I haven't a clue. Maybe there's some therapeutic or educational alternative for .2 children. As a .2 child is

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1140524837353742412006-02-22T21:53:00.000-05:002006-02-27T04:18:20.046-05:00

I struggle to recover balance. I struggle to recover balance in myself from a brain overwearied and a heart scraped raw. I struggle to recover balance in a country made frantic by a danger which hovers somewhere between real and imaginary. There are days when the two merge into one.In the post on Political Conversion below I spent a lot of personal time wandering around in the mind of someone who

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1140614232767747162006-02-22T20:16:00.000-05:002006-02-27T04:17:14.400-05:00

There is absolutely nothing at all inconsistent or surprising about the Bush administration unquestioningly turning over seaport management duties to Middle Eastern governments. Let's look first, courtesy of CNN, at where the pressure for it is coming from:LOU DOBBS: Still ahead here, do you wonder why President Bush is insisting on pushing this port deal through? Well, we do, too, and we've

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1140613094737262652006-02-22T07:39:00.000-05:002006-02-27T04:15:25.830-05:00

My regular posting cycle, which is demanding a lot of fresh thinking, is giving me fits, so, to keep you entertained, I'll fill in with a few things I have been dropping off on other blogs about Iran. The blogs in question are All Things Beautiful, Gates of Vienna, and Officer's Club:These are the real lessons the Iranians learned that GW, Maid Condoleeza, and his Merry Men didn't learn until

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1140270982394271292006-02-20T06:48:00.000-05:002006-02-22T21:57:40.676-05:00

Sometime back I asserted that the most important political phenomenon of the past 25 years was the prevalence of "conversion experiences" to Conservatism by former Democrats, particularly by formerly Democratic women. I still think so. And I think the fact that the Democratic Party has not, even yet, come to terms with it, is by far that Party's greatest weakness. Howard Dean has not come to

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1140261210766759432006-02-18T04:44:00.000-05:002006-02-20T11:31:04.073-05:00

I have been making a nuisance of myself over on the Baroness' blog again. And to the point where she actually has urged me, by name, and in the original post, to take a deep breath and calm down! That particular post was the sort of miscellaneous blog round up which is forgettable within hours. But she followed up with one that clearly shows that I have been getting under her skin a little:I

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1140136437815067212006-02-16T19:09:00.000-05:002006-02-20T11:30:12.746-05:00

If you haven't had a chance yet to take this little test, you should try it, if you are 50 or above. Most of you who stop by are younger than me, relatively healthy, and I didn't do too badly, so it should boost your morale considerably to take it. I'll go pour the coffee while you do.*****************************************************Now that you've taken it, I can tell you, confidentially,

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1139968501154859552006-02-15T06:48:00.000-05:002006-02-16T20:26:37.536-05:00

But there is no help for it. If I am to continue political blogging and preserve my own self respect, I had better start doing it, since no one else looks to be. As I have slowly dipped back into the blogs on my roll, it becomes ever more evident that they have virtually nothing new to say. I promise a Straight Shot of Politics here, but somebody seems to have stolen all the whiskey in town.Vice

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1139885270667354072006-02-14T05:16:00.000-05:002006-02-16T20:25:33.036-05:00

At least I have felt like a snowflake lately, drifty and floaty, and I have certainly been driven. Whether I'm as "pure as the driven snow," however, is an open question. As is the question of why driven snow is purer than the ordinary kind.Or maybe the question is irrelevant. One thing my teachers say about Buddhist "insight" is that it leads to what they call Great Equanimity of mind, totally

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1139877289650147242006-02-13T19:19:00.000-05:002006-02-15T12:26:49.470-05:00

Two weeks ago I did something for the millionth time. Literally. The what doesn't matter. I have never consciously done anything one million times before. I have been alive 20,000 days more or less, and even something that I do regularly, like eating three squares a day, I've only done, perhaps, 60,000 times. So it is quite possible that I have never, voluntarily, done a million things before,

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1139496281267540342006-02-13T05:39:00.000-05:002006-02-15T12:25:57.640-05:00

I get to see a lot of real life where I work. I routinely handle problems of pointless tragedy, heartless suffering, and endless failures. I work with the people who know from personal expericence that life in America can be a not very nice thing at all. And a few of them are, like me, old enough, observant enough, and still in possession of enough of their marbles not to be self-decieved that

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1139418881034810132006-02-08T11:20:00.000-05:002006-02-13T18:06:35.943-05:00

A recent visitor here was a gentleman by the name of Eric Vessels. He has two blogs, one Buddhist and focused on his study as a shakuhachi player. This is the traditional Zen Buddhist flute introduced into Japan from China. It is a long flute, like our recorder, which is made from bamboo. Asia also has a crossflute tradition, but this long flute is, I think, the more well known.He actually lives

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1138832701264173472006-02-05T05:47:00.000-05:002006-02-13T18:04:40.080-05:00

When I look at the pictures that Baroness Alexandra Von Maltzen places at the head of her posts, I am struck by the distinctness of her private taste as well as the distance of that taste from my own. If you happen to be one of handful of people who actually read us both, you might be startled that I find any difference the Baroness and myself particularly noteworthy. We are, respectively, very

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1138977311036026002006-02-03T08:56:00.000-05:002006-02-05T07:46:57.826-05:00

I have a pictorial post nearly ready to go for you. It was an idle thing, an antodyne to my weariness with politics. But Blogger just isn't cooperating at the moment and I cannot load new pictures. So I guess I'll just have to sit down and face reality. You will have to face reality, too, since I also can't get Blogger to spell check this post.We have a gaggle of sore winners who were less

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1138806719602125462006-02-01T08:10:00.000-05:002006-02-05T07:46:08.063-05:00

I had a flashing episode yesterday, for the first time in my doctor's examination room. Normally these occur in places like Wal-Mart. Part of the bouncing up and down of my bipolar condition is a set of symptoms resembling some of those of a migraine headache. All the lights become too bright, all the sounds become too loud, all the random background sound becomes too noisy [noise is not the same

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1138581876133860502006-01-31T05:29:00.000-05:002006-02-05T07:45:14.693-05:00

Is anger significantly different from hatred? The Anchoress thinks so. I do not. As I pointed out below, drawing this particular distinction is the central explanation, for the Anchoress, of the positive spiritual results from justified and righteous anger. Perhaps those spiritual results are on display at their best in posts such as this in response to the confirmation of Samuel Alito.I repeat:

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1138565003535574172006-01-30T05:34:00.000-05:002006-02-01T08:09:20.863-05:00

Hamas has won the Palestinian elections. You aren't happy? You think the Palestinians don't deserve democracy? After all, no one so stubborn as to believe that they ever had a real grievance against Israel could possibly have been ready to vote on their own, right? They are mere children, playing at being adult, right? Grievance against Israel? How could such a thing possibly be? Our best friend

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1137766830203200672006-01-20T09:07:00.000-05:002006-01-20T09:20:30.263-05:00

My teachers observe the Tibetan New Year ten days from today. It is a lunar calendar which is approximately congruent with Chinese New Year. This time the congruence is exact, but other years there is a month's difference. The next week will be an intensive time for my monastery, with day long practices to expel the leftovers of the old year in preparation for the coming time of Chotrul Duchen,

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1137437583810917452006-01-18T18:31:00.000-05:002006-02-01T08:07:18.183-05:00

We have just passed Martin Luther King day, this Monday, and it is a time to take stock of the things which he galvanized. MLK is one of the few persons in my lifetime that I would genuinely look to as a hero. He not only faced an actual violent death with courage and conviction, he also faced something far worse--the sheer unmitigated hatred of millions of people. Such things are a burden that

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1137584719639704152006-01-18T06:11:00.000-05:002006-02-01T08:08:35.766-05:00

From the analysis of the latest Zogby poll:But Zogby said the glaring split between how Republicans, Democrats and independents think the President is handling Iraq is remarkable.“The numbers in support for the war in Iraq are extremely low among Democrats and independents,” Zogby said. “This is a partisan war.”While 61% of Republicans said he was doing a good job managing the war (down from 70%

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1137268181412336142006-01-16T06:48:00.000-05:002006-01-18T20:50:55.293-05:00

And I can assure you that it is not like restating the obvious. When you place a comment on someone else's blog, you never know where your response will lead you. The material you are addressing is fresh, your prejudices didn't choose it, and out of your response to it come fresh thoughts, self-revelations of self-hidden agendas, and sometimes whole new issues to think about.A few days back I

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1136993629696284982006-01-15T06:02:00.000-05:002006-01-18T20:48:45.826-05:00

I have long sight, particularly out of my right eye. Since late in the 1960's opthomologists have been able to correct the distance vision of my right eye to 20/15 and my left eye to 20/20. They stood exactly there at my last eye examination.I also have slow reflexes and poor balance, stemming I suspect, from being dragged head first with a forceps out of my mother's birth canal while she was too

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1137243568284219452006-01-14T06:43:00.000-05:002006-01-18T20:47:23.433-05:00

Mrs. Claus and I know a lot of doctors. We like to refer to ourselves as "professional patients". Mrs. Claus is so almost to the point of obsession, down to always obtaining copies of her x-rays and MRI's, as well as keeping informal journals of our blood pressure, my blood sugar, and our weight, on her appointment book.This is largely in self-defense. With multiple medical specialists and lots

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1137066087323482392006-01-12T06:09:00.000-05:002006-01-15T08:54:54.913-05:00

The time is now. The place is here. The USA. The result is discouraging.I go through bouts of disgust with the impasse we have in our politics. Right now I no longer think that there is anyone of goodwill and good sense out there. The nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court concentrates all of the bad will, and bad faith, that our country's politics have to offer. I'm not going to go into

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1136862519914040102006-01-10T20:00:00.000-05:002006-01-15T08:53:27.926-05:00

The Buddhist paintings the Tibetans make are called thankas. They are done in an opaque tempera, with mineral pigments, on canvas. They are not stretched over wood bars and then framed, like our canvases, but are sewn to a set of several surrounding pieces of silk brocade in various colors. The outer layer of brocade is sewn back over itself, top and bottom, so round wood dowels, sometimes capped

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1136651278400058262006-01-07T11:18:00.000-05:002006-01-15T08:51:57.546-05:00

While I was putting together the compendium of posts entitled The Thrilling Adventures of Joe Claus, I returned in my mind to some prior private reflections upon personal, as contrasted with political, blog posting. I do both here and the line between them can become an ethical issue because of the general misunderstanding of my literary form.Now it may still be a piece of cant in the academic

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1136461969428978822006-01-05T06:39:00.000-05:002006-01-10T08:31:53.466-05:00

For your consideration I have a little gem of a quotation showing the attitude of prominent Republicans toward the art of government:"I will do everything in my power to stop anything beneficial to New Jersey, period. I will use everything I have until New Jersey lives up to their commitments," said U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican and third-ranking official in the Senate

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1136418971815565122006-01-04T18:37:00.000-05:002006-01-10T08:30:04.626-05:00

Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack.I went out for a ride and I never went back.Like a river that don't know where it's flowing,I took a wrong turn and I just kept going.Jack Abramoff fall down go boom to the tune of eleven years in Club Fed.He is likely to take a fair number of Republican office holders with him, maybe a few members of the Executive Branch, maybe two or three news reporters,

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1136374653842742962006-01-04T06:34:00.000-05:002006-01-04T06:37:33.856-05:00

I have been noticing an increase in my traffic recently. Thanks to all for stopping by. I am a little under the gun this week, taking on a lot of vacation replacement time at my job, so my one post a day average may suffer a little. Please bear with me. As you can see immediately below, I've served up plenty of meat and potatoes for you. And I should have a little dessert ready by this

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1136172721681564482006-01-02T21:03:00.000-05:002006-01-07T13:04:56.956-05:00

The political posts I do here are occasional and, largely, are of no real interest for any longer than two weeks after the original posting. But I have other writing in me, familiar essays of the major and minor journeys of my life, which are somewhat more durable. Now that I have made over 300 posts, they are worth collecting together for both you and I to get a rounder and more comprehensive

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1136230754255358512006-01-02T13:35:00.000-05:002006-01-07T13:00:51.376-05:00

In keeping with my segregation of prior posts and placement of links on my blogroll, I will now list what I think are my significant economic posts.[Full list of posts below the fold]The Ill Wind Blows Nobody GoodThe Real Problem of PovertyMeanwhile Back In The Materialist Conception of HistoryMessages From The Conservative Garden of EdenThe American Decline I: The Richest Rich People Money Can

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1136127723226780822006-01-01T08:12:00.000-05:002006-01-07T12:57:10.560-05:00

Over my 300+ posts, I have often written of my own mental illness. It is now called a Bi-polar Condition. It used to be called Manic Depression. I just think of it as a fire in the brain. What is it like? When you are unmedicated, it is like trying to sail a boat in a gale. On medication it is like driving a different company car every day, with slightly different locations for the controls and

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1136108026749756752006-01-01T04:28:00.000-05:002006-01-01T04:44:05.086-05:00

This is just the thing I needed to clear my bout of the blues. H.T. = Bob Geiger.

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1136084675157208192005-12-31T21:18:00.000-05:002006-01-04T22:29:55.166-05:00

Writing the post immediately below was like trying to pull a rusty razorblade out of a tall, narrow olive jar. The whispering Darkness drowns out much else in my ears just now. Maybe it will leave me if I get enough sleep. Maybe. Maybe the medications will dull it by tomorrow, by next year, by 2006.Maybe.I have to hang on. The true story of Mrs. Claus' future is yet to be told. It will be a

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1135959798230107282005-12-30T09:55:00.000-05:002006-01-04T22:29:05.786-05:00

In surfing around I noticed the Anchoress and Alexandra have posted 2006 predictions. A long while back, I mentioned that my own attempts to analyze trends, by letting the images of the present morph into the future in my mind's eye, led to nothing but a bright, white wall around the year 2007, through which my mind's eye could see nothing. Things before my mind's eye are a little less indefinite

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1135684021801668982005-12-29T06:27:00.000-05:002006-01-01T07:11:07.090-05:00

I have written elsewhere of the deadness and dryness that my bipolar condition can induce, the nausea with writing, with politics, with everything, the illness casts around you like a tangled net.I had a hint of it yesterday morning while lying in bed dozing and drifting in the hour before the alarm was due. Old habits die hard. For many years my brain was used to waking up on command from the

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1135787180785009612005-12-28T11:07:00.000-05:002005-12-31T21:06:56.526-05:00

The ever-fertile mind of Alexandra at All Things Beautiful, has solicited opinions of the Ten Worst Americans. She has written me that her hope is an interesting collective excursion into the real meaning and nature of wickedness. I'm not sure she actually accomplished this, but you can go check out the comments and links for yourself and form your own opinons. Here's what I had to say: Ok,

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1135274710276701132005-12-27T05:59:00.000-05:002005-12-29T10:40:54.103-05:00

I have added a new blog to the roll--The Evangelical Outpost--run by a genial and intelligent fellow from Texas, Joe Carter, and winner of the Weblog 2005 award for best religious blog. When I went over there recently, there was a lot of fast action on the comment pages about a critique by Joe of mainstream science in the context of its refusal to admit the possibility of Intelligent Design.Now I

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1135624290741628982005-12-26T13:52:00.000-05:002005-12-26T14:13:43.830-05:00

Amnesty International is a favorite organization of mine. The picture to the left is from the ad that they have placed on several blogs concerning "extraordinary rendition" or sending people abroad for interrogation where our distaste for torture is not shared. It will have no appeal to those who have convinced themselves that the people who might be our enemies are less than real human beings.

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1135481329297162432005-12-26T05:54:00.000-05:002005-12-29T10:38:52.226-05:00

Daily Kos posted the following list from one of its diaries as a pre-Christmas Open Thread. It derives from Media Matters and is a list of the most outrageous, bigoted, and deliberately hurtful statements of 2005 in the Conservative Parallel Media Universe.In bringing this forward when he did, I'm afraid Markos showed an unfortunate lapse of taste. These things do not mix well with whatever

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1135560527344504992005-12-25T18:33:00.000-05:002005-12-27T06:19:13.846-05:00

So what does a middle-aged Buddhist with no family, few friends, indifferent health, ridiculous income, and a fire-eating political blog do for Christmas? Buddhist things, of course. The holiday fell on a Sunday and a certain number of our Sangha had family obligations. But our Lama, Kathy Wesley, who is commited to the Dharma 24/7 [that's part of what being a lama is all about], made the offer

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1135475827107669142005-12-24T19:49:00.000-05:002005-12-25T20:47:11.460-05:00

As brisk as bees, if not altogether as light as fairies, did the fourPickwickians assemble on the morning of the twenty-second day ofDecember, in the year of grace in which these, their faithfully-recorded adventures, were undertaken and accomplished. Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness; the old year

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1135387323825209042005-12-23T18:20:00.000-05:002005-12-25T20:46:14.076-05:00

I use the diminuative advisedly. For Christmas appears to have steadily shrunken in size every year since 9/11. Now I don't believe anyone is making war on it, as I have remarked below. And I think characters like Bill O'Reilly who claim this is happening are part of the problem, not part of the solution. For they simply poison what genuine Christmas spirit is left with their partisan bile. And,

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1135298044658727422005-12-22T18:11:00.000-05:002005-12-24T21:03:16.770-05:00

The sheer effrontry and brazenness of the Bush Administration's commitment to political expediency at all costs can be absolutely breathtaking. For three and one-half years they have been holding Jose Padilla, the supposed "dirty bomber", without trial on Presidential authority alone, claiming both that the indefinite detention was necessary for the country's safety and that the President's power

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1135261646906130482005-12-22T09:17:00.000-05:002005-12-24T21:02:21.110-05:00

I ran across this justification for the actions of George W. Bush on another blog:since such laws, in those particular spheres of Constitutional power, amount to nothing more than nonbinding Congressional suggestions as to how the President might best wield the authority assigned to him, and not to Congress, by the Constitution.The gentleman who kited this out, of course, is talking through his

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1135126526723105162005-12-20T19:24:00.000-05:002005-12-22T22:14:12.520-05:00

The assaults are relentless, against the rule of law, against the intellectual principles of science, and against even the foundations of reason from evidence itself. I don't have to tell you who the shock troops are. You already know. They have come to considerable political power in recent years and there is an ever present possibility that they will eventually destroy the rule of law, the

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1135084635239421812005-12-20T08:07:00.000-05:002005-12-22T22:12:48.950-05:00

You are probably wondering I have not been all over the President's warrentless domestic eavesdropping scandal. Well, unfortunately, Mrs. Claus is not doing as well as we first thought. She is out of the hospital, but on oxygen, and we are in for a large round of medical examinations to determine what now is wrong, since she no longer has a gallbladder.I do have my ideas about the scandal,

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1134869301068083022005-12-18T06:53:00.000-05:002005-12-20T20:07:03.473-05:00

Let's put the evidence on the table first. The following are all from the official press releases at www.whitehouse.gov/.State Of The Union Address, January 28, 2003Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1134856465801782152005-12-17T16:36:00.000-05:002005-12-20T20:06:00.686-05:00

I had thought that I had sufficiently and tellingly mocked the so-called War On Christmas here and here. But a new development has arisen which makes it profitable to look at the whole issue again. Before I posted on my blog, I wrote a rebuttal, on another blog, to the well-known litany of all the supposedly horrid things the ACLU and everyone else are doing to Christmas.I'm a member of the ACLU.

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1134828917385299032005-12-17T08:34:00.000-05:002005-12-18T06:56:01.320-05:00

Nearly, but not quite. Which I hope my good readers appreciate. Steve Soto over at the Left Coaster has one of the most elegant summaries of the whole matter, which may well be the most momentous moment of the second half of the Bush Presidency:Just when Bush was hoping to get wall-to-wall weekend news coverage of the latest "purple finger" election in Iraq, he instead has to dance away from the

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1134791590701958242005-12-16T19:43:00.000-05:002005-12-18T06:54:58.590-05:00

Her name was Tirhas Habtegiris. She was 27 years old. She was a legal immigrant from East Africa. She had cancer. She was on a respirator at Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano, Texas. [Of course it was Texas! Where else?] She wanted to see her mother in East Africa before she died. But she had no health insurance.Because she had no health insurance, no nursing home or other facility in the

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1134705192720563532005-12-16T06:44:00.000-05:002005-12-18T06:53:32.656-05:00

Who put the ram in the ramma, lamma, ding, dong? Questions like these occupy far too much of Joe Claus' time and attention, as a general rule. They are the perfect enticement to procrastination about anything serious--absoultely unanswerable, completely bewildering, and setting off an infinite number of pictures in the mind. There is even a minor school of thought which asserts that stuff like

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1134646758663206612005-12-15T06:36:00.000-05:002005-12-15T06:39:18.680-05:00

The Iraqi election appears to be underway with high turnout and few incidents. I wish them luck. We all should wish them luck. This is the thing more important than anything else one way or another. I will be taking Mrs. Claus to the Emergency Room this morning. Please pray for us. I'll be back when I can.

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1134525349469217672005-12-13T18:35:00.000-05:002005-12-16T23:02:48.700-05:00

It's always gratifying to know that folks are reading down in the archived postings. I picked up a nice comment on a post, from all the way back in January, about fashion tips for obese men. It has struck me that some of my readers may have an individual of that sort on their Christmas list, so I'm reprinting a condensed and slightly revised version of the prior post here:First of all, shop

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1134450419677188542005-12-13T07:20:00.000-05:002005-12-16T23:02:07.500-05:00

The umbrella over the tables of the fake indoor sidewalk cafe was furled yesterday morning. It matched the mood of the holiday decorations on the black marble walls and mirror-polished stainless steel pillars of the foyer.Such decorations make the building housing Starbuck's seem more somber rather than less. They are not only the commonplace insult of a de-Christianized Merry Christmas, and a

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1134277323806960702005-12-11T07:31:00.000-05:002005-12-13T21:17:25.363-05:00

I have been meditating for some time now about how little I can seem to find out about what is going on in the world, how little real news I can seem to obtain from the most popular and commonplace sources. I have also been observing with some care how those of my fellow bloggers who claim one form or another of "bias" in news coverage don't really seem to need to know very much about the world

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1134167947309655592005-12-09T17:05:00.000-05:002005-12-13T21:16:30.326-05:00

The Law Lords, highest court of appeal in Britain has soundly rejected the use of evidence gained by torture:For common law, LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL:The principles of the common law, standing alone, in my opinion compel the exclusion of third-party torture evidence as unreliable, unfair, offensive to ordinary standards of humanity and decency and incompatible with the principles which should

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1134135091141758892005-12-09T07:58:00.000-05:002005-12-13T21:15:38.920-05:00

The 1000 people are the number of state and federal executions since 1976. One thousand dead men and women. Two thousand dead men and women--our casualties in Iraq. Two million dead men and women--the victims of the Cambodian genocide of the Khymer Rouge. Six million dead children--those that die yearly of malnutrition or its complications worldwide.Like the old song of the 60's coffeehouses says

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1134013489328209112005-12-08T17:52:00.000-05:002005-12-10T10:41:08.166-05:00

I had planned to write a light piece on the so-called War on Christmas. It would have started with the observation that I, myself, was not at war with Christmas, but that I did sometimes dream of sending in the Delta Force to take out certain transcendently awful Christmas music. I had things like Burl Ives' Have a Holly Jolly Christmas or Robert Goulet's Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas in

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1133734849248322202005-12-07T10:14:00.000-05:002005-12-09T09:04:59.123-05:00

The date for it is 11/17/05. But it is probably still relevant to use it to track trends with. It is a map, on the left, of the Bush approval rating, broken down by state. I wish it was broken out by county as is the Kerry/Bush map on the right, but you can't have everything.Both maps are incremental, rather than winner-take-all. The approval map gives percentage ranges of approval by state. The

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1133965008895169522005-12-07T08:22:00.000-05:002005-12-09T09:03:56.446-05:00

Echoing in my ears today is the sound track of the film of President Franklin Roosevelt asking Congress to declare war against the Empire of Japan, causing all men and women to push partisan differences to one side and to pull together to defeat common enemies of all the things we have and hold dear in America.We could have had that unity again. After 9/11 we did have that unity again. With real

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1133873953229043012005-12-06T07:03:00.000-05:002005-12-07T10:36:46.083-05:00

That I have been "tagged with a meme". It took me a bit to figure out what that meant, but I gather I am supposed to make a set of confessions.I confess: That I deliberately avoided going into the 3 year retreat training to become a Buddhist Lama because of absolutely irrational terror at what I encountered twenty years ago, while doing a short solitary reteat. It was in a cabin where another

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1133707086660456422005-12-05T17:03:00.000-05:002005-12-07T10:34:49.580-05:00

I haven't a clue. It might have even been an olfactory hallucination. There were no doughnuts in sight, there are no doughnut shops near, and none of the street vendors sell doughnuts. Besides, they don't even get there until 10:30, two hours after I do. But the entire block from my bus stop to my job smelled of hot, fresh doughnuts.This is the sort of thing that tugs at the mind of a man with a

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1133721359863421892005-12-04T11:11:00.000-05:002005-12-07T10:28:26.113-05:00

I am really beginning to be appalled at the unbelievable Islamophobia over on Conservative blogs. It is taking on both epic and delusional proportions. The vision of hordes of Jihadis seems to be an endless nightmare that my friends cannot wake up from.The real situation is bad enough. We are making and training a whole new generation of enemies over in Iraq to replace Al Queda and Osama Bin

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1133627066278942612005-12-03T11:22:00.000-05:002005-12-07T10:20:21.220-05:00

At least he wishes he could be Claude Rains:He was always impeccably dressed but never overdressed, unfailingly courteous even when portraying villains or the morally questionable, and carrying a face, not handsome, but close enough to it that it's plainness was perfectly responsive to inner feelings and not half an elegant mask for them. His eyes usually held a faint hint of weariness in the

Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com0