b.cognosco
Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Jesus vs Bush
For those of you who don't know, I used to work with cartoonist/artist/social commentator Dan Piraro when we were both living in Dallas. Dan is author of the Bizarro comic strip, a big collection of illustrated novels, anthologies and similar works, painter, performance artist (I hear) and purveyor of skewed merchandise. His latest work is a cool review of his life in art, so far. Sort of like Bizarro, Interrupted.
But this is about this t-shirt. I love it. I take some issue with self-righteous simpletons running around performing senseless acts of stupidity under the cloak of "christian behavior". I never met Jesus. He died before I was born. But I doubt he would have put jesus fish on his donkey, or been happy about corrupt, self-serving politicians using "faith" as a buzzword to pacify the gullible. And I'm pretty sure he'd be appalled at the man we call Mr. President, for a number of reasons.
I just ordered a couple of these. They should go over real well here in the Bible Belt. I'll wear them when I ride my motorcycle. Watch out Soccer Moms. Get yours at www.JesusVsBush.com. All proceeds go to Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary.
Terry Frazier at 9:53 PM
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Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Secret History of Credit Cards
Great PBS expose' on the dirty business of credit cards. It's difficult to watch this and not come away thinking that bankers are crooks (the ABA lobbyist is a real sleezebag.) One of the big demons is the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the US Treasury agency that, in January 2004, declared itself sole regulator of the national banks and insulated them state-based legal action. NY Attorney General Eliott Spitzer thinks that's a really bad idea. But the (former) Comptroller thinks it will be just fine. She couldn't point to any examples where they'd actually taken a large bank to task over anything. But she was very assuring they're on the task. Sort of like the TSA, and FEMA, and the Dept. of Homeland Security - you know, all those federal agencies that do such a fine job of farting around whenever there's an opportunity to do whatever it is they're actually supposed to do.You can watch the whole thing online. It's worth doing. And remember, YOUR Senators voted FOR the banking industry and AGAINST you to revise bankruptcy laws specifically to benefit credit card companies. Don't let them forget.
Terry Frazier at 11:12 PM
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Wednesday, December 7, 2005
Congress to Focus on Critical Issues for Holidays
In the best of all worlds the government would do things that made our lives better. This isn’t actually possible, so the best we can hope for is that they do things that don’t make our lives worse. This is possible, but only rarely and usually about stuff that doesn’t matter. Now that the Republicans have had the run of Congress for a few years, have spent all the money, porked up everything they could find, greased the palms of all their corporate supporters, and generally run out of ideas for f***ing up the domestic situation, they’ve decided to give us a break – today they are holding hearings on the college football Bowl Championship Series. Let’s see, so far this year the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee (which somehow got the idea they were supposed to regulate sports instead of commerce) have held hearings on horse racing jockeys and workers, and now college football. And don’t forget the House Government Reform Committee, which got the idea it should regulate sports instead of government (see a trend here?) and held hearings about steroids in baseball earlier this year.
Before you go off wringing your hands in disappointment remember this – while this group of 58 self-important windbags led by Joe Barton spins their wheels on idiotic sports issues, they are NOT drafting legislation to cripple the internet, stifle your rights, infringe your speech, destroy your privacy, strip-search you at airports, and myriad other things they could be doing in relation to commerce. Whiling away the days in a group circle-jerk about college football is the very best thing they can be doing in the imperfect world in which we live.
So this Holiday Season let’s remember just how important this sort of useless, meaningless, grandstanding really is. If your representative is among the 58 members of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee, please call or write today and thank them for their innattention to things – like energy and commerce – that could really screw up our lives. If your representative isn’t on the committee, or on any committee (what good are they then?), encourage them to start a campaign to study greyhound racing, or NBA parity for women’s basketball, or illegal fertilizer use among professional grounds keepers. Just any damn thing to keep them occupied and away from stuff that only grownups should handle.
Terry Frazier at 11:53 AM
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