The Funky Western Civilization
Mesdames et Messieurs, Bon Soir, this is Joan of Arc,
Tonio has asked me to personally deliver a rather special message.
He say he just cannot get enough of my 15th-century wisdom.After many a Saturday night of doing ze funky western civilization together I know for a fact he agrees with me when I say,
Vous pouvez faire des conneries au boulanger et obtenir les petits pains
Vous pouvez vous retirer de chaque accord sauf un*
Unfortunately, I've never been able to take the cure for what the Good Doctor Thompson called being a “news junkie.” My sickness includes sending out the things I read. In recent years, sending became quick a way to exorcise from my soul whatever I just read – “Out, damn spot! What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?”
Then last year, for some reason, a number of people who write started telling me I needed to write. I was not taken. Over the years, a number of attempts at making money writing all ended being subsidized by the Bank of Joe.
The harassment continued,
“You need to write.”
“No one has the perspective you do.”
“Open a subscription, you can make money now.”
“I won't stop badgering you until you start writing.”
The biggest culprits were Ames, Jan, Yasha and Ratigan. Ames was easiest to ignore. He doesn’t even write anymore. He gets paid for chattering, though as they use to say on the Southside, “It’s good work if you can get it.” However, his partner Dolan still writes, and some fine writing it is.
By the Fall, it was Ratigan who finally pushed me with a couple of phone calls that basically came down to, “What else are you doing?”
“I'm golfing.”
But, winter was coming.
As I suspected, writings no way to make a living and then three things happened in the last 48 hours.
First, I get an email from a person with money asking, “Did I remove them from the list for not paying?”
I replied, “No, but I should.”
Funnily enough, my years in politics let me encounter a lot of wealth, let's say exponentially more than someone in my income bracket outside a waiter at some fancy restaurant. I used to always tell the apolitical poors, “Wealth, they're all in politics.” In this regard, Illinois Tuesday’s primary election saw turnout below 20%. Illinois poors population multiplies, money flees.
Second, knowing kinda smart people like Ames and Ratigan, and I say kinda instead of really smart because they encouraged me to write, has some benefits.
Yesterday, I sent Ames this piece from the WSJ:
U.S. to Ramp Up Military Presence in Europe to Counter Russia
New troops and weapons are part of NATO’s response to the war in Ukraine, including the first permanent U.S. troops to Poland”
He immediately replies, “Yep, they're getting what they want. Look where we were literally days before the Maidan coup,”
Pentagon Plans to Shrink Army to Pre-World War II Level
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel plans to shrink the United States Army to its smallest force since before the World War II buildup and eliminate an entire class of Air Force attack jets in a new spending proposal that officials describe as the first Pentagon budget to aggressively push the military off the war footing adopted after the terror attacks of 2001.
Of course that never happened. As all good Americans know, the American backed 2014 Maidan coup — with none other than then Vice-President Joe Biden head of the American Ukraine desk and ne’er-do-well son Hunter pulling millions from a Ukrainian gas company — deposed the eminently corrupt, hey, it’s Ukraine, Russian friendly, elected president.
The Military Industrial Complex no longer needed to fret running out of Middle East countries to blow-up. The Russians were a full-on enemy again. Champagne corks could be heard popping across the suburbs of DC, let the good times roll. Lord, such grossly obscene sin, “sin in eternal hymn,” sin only great power can commit.
Then, the third thing, I get a pix from Hagearty. He's winning fistfuls of money golfing.
It's time to start golfing again.
*You can bullshit the baker and get the buns
You can back out of every deal but one