The Little Words Mean the Most

Offices have ridges: Small car museum: I collect for design curves

Happy Valentine's Day, Simone, small and big

 

Her brother, charismatic Paul; delivering news in my office

why

yet again these

are the tides

my wishes ride

What JFeist wrought for my new website

America, the Adult

There's real promise, I figure. Once we accept that the hopes of the 99.995% are more important than the purchasable excesses of the .005%, in a nation of 330 million questing souls ... and growing.

Real campaign finance reform will begin to kill ... or tame anyway ... the evil rot that passes for bipartisan governing these days.

PS: governing is a joke in America. We have this machine built by Colonial-period, Enlightenment-inspired minds.

That's not working. Presidential and congressional politics have become a reality show with producers: the money people. Many good people hide there, hoping to emerge as the real thing; but they're famously "pragmatic." They have to be to stay. They play the best game they can. But BIG MONEY steers the contest. It has at least the loudest voice. Money talks.

Come on other Adult Americans, you know it and I know it, every major politician HAS to wear a price tag. It's THAT f.in expensive to run successfully for office anymore.

Oh, yeah: and an end to Citizens United. BEGONE!

Allowing Citizens United is MacBeth's three witches, steering fate. Before Citizens United, we had a level playing field, of sorts.

Citizens United changes the game completely: now only the rich can play. You didn't see that, did you? I'm not rich. You're not rich. Nobody's rich like THEY are rich, the THEY of Citizens United.

Prying that heavy hand off the "mood of the nation" will require a NEW Supreme Court, I suspect. In my lifetime, I dearly hope. But maybe not. This is a long fight.

I believe it's a precursor fight to universal health care or racial equality or pretty much any other greater good. Better solutions in both those gut issues will flow from overturning Citizens United. Not the other way around. This is the Hunger Games. Only for real this time.

CITIZENS UNITED = US DEMOCRATIC CANCER

Nothing is more important than ending Citizens United ... to the sustainability and integrity of our once-in-a-millennium flamboyant experiment in democracy (thanks, Greeks and Enlightment!).

NEXT TALK: The Pareto Rule Squared: How campaign financing now works in America.

Life in the country: Internet, phone down 'til Friday

Curse you heavy snow that broke so many limbs. We're running the whole biz off a cell phone hot spot. With more snow on the way.

$153 million in Bill and Hillary Clinton speaking fees, documented

SEAN'S BEER TALKING: On the other hand: Who cares? I wish I got paid that much to speak. They're entitled, given the acres of shit they have had to till. I believe Hillary (like a growing crustacean) will shed her shell repeatedly and emerge as a super-hero ... when she's inaugurated into the WH and pretty safe from bullies with unlimited budgets

Jonathan Feist sets up a photo shoot

for my new website, engineered by John Haydon; Jonathan & family live with scrupulous admiration & respect in a Shaker meeting house; he's a recorded lullaby composer with a degree in photography and his portraits are FABULOUS! Currency-ready; Hillary on the sawbuck. He insisted on payment in Bourbon, not cash. Three small-batch bottles exchanged hands. And there was a tiny tasting after work. Some photos include me and a beagle in my lap, to prove a point about puppies and kittens. In fact, we did several psychological tests: smile, no smile, looking in doubt, arched brows. Both of us have been nibbling around "face interpretation." Dan Hill. That stuff.