Why Obama Is The Big Loser Of The Summer

“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing after they’ve tried everything else,” quipped Winston Churchill, who did not live long enough to witness the rise of the Tea Party.

Congress got ’er done eventually. The debt ceiling was raised. The U.S. did not default. But the damage was done. Faith in Washington spent. The S&P downgraded the lone superpower’s sterling credit rating from AAA to AA+ for the first time. Our sense of humor along with it:

– “Yo momma so poor she raised her debt ceiling and the S&P STILL downgraded her.”

– “Caught a just downgraded AA+ 11-inch Maine bass. Gotta cross to Canada across lake for AAA fish.” Economist Nouriel “Dr. Doom” Roubini’s tweet from a Maine fishing trip.

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A Political Spectrum Empty Of Economic Reflection

The Text: The Twilight of Meaning by John Michael Greer at The Archdruid Report.

The Article: This is not going to be an easy post to write, and I’m not at all sure it will be any easier to understand; I trust my readers will bear with me. I could begin it in any number of places, but the one that seems most important just now is the vestibule of the little public library six blocks away from my house. It’s a solid if unimaginative brick rectangle of Eighties vintage, one room not quite so full of books as it ought to be, another room in back for the librarians to work, a meeting space, restrooms, and a vestibule where books that are being discarded from the collection are shelved for sale.

That’s standard practice in most public libraries these days. If a book hasn’t been checked out for three years, or if it needs repairs and there isn’t a huge demand for it, it goes onto the sale shelf. Prices range from cheap to absurdly cheap; the sale doesn’t bring in a huge amount, but at a time of sparse and faltering budgets, every bit helps. The exception is children’s books, which aren’t for sale at all. They’re in a cart marked FREE, and if they don’t get taken in a month or so, they go into the trash, because there simply isn’t any demand for them. That was where, a few months ago, I spotted a copy of Kate Seredy’s 1938 Newberry Award winner The White Stag.

The vast majority of my readers will no doubt find the reference opaque. Still, back when I was a child—no, dinosaurs didn’t quite walk the earth back then, though it sometimes feels that way—winners of the Newberry Award, one of the two most prestigious US awards for children’s literature, still counted for quite a bit. Most libraries with a children’s collection of any size had the whole set, and most children’s librarians were enthusiastic about getting them into the hands of young readers. That’s not how I found The White Stag—I needed nobody’s encouragement to read, and Seredy’s compelling illustrations of galloping horsemen and magical beasts were well aimed to catch my eye—but find it I did, and that’s how medieval Hungarian legends about the coming of Attila the Hun wove their way permanently into the crawlspaces of my imagination.

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A Nation Of Have-Nots Playing Pretend

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

John Steinbeck

I Regret Nothing But Everything

Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien by Edith Piaf.

Words Do No Justice

NOTE: The image below is a fairly graphic photograph from the Holocaust.

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