Let Blago celebrate Silver Anniversay at home

Possibly the most entertaining public official, albeit dreadful governor, in my lifetime popped up in the news after a 2 year absence. In a 24th anniversary love letter from Rod 'Blago' Blagojevich to his long suffering but apparently loyal wife Patty, Blago sought sympathy for himself and hope for his appeal process still grinding inexorably in the ...courts, for early release from his twelve year stay in a Colorado federal prison on corruption charges. Ask a hundred folks what Blago did to deserve 12 years in the joint, costing taxpayers a cool fifty grand yearly, and possibly all hundred will roll their eyeballs and say "beats me." That's because Blago, who made nary a dime on whatever cockamamie schemes he rambled about endlessly on secretly recorded conversations, essentially got twelve big ones for taunting and baiting the entire political and judicial system. Our perfectly coiffed, Elvis channeling, perpetual motor mouth political fool, is apparently an infantile narcissist who heedlessly stumbled to his doom.

Like most defective and disgraced politicians of his ilk, a public citizen Blago represents no further threat to society. Having lost his income, his reputation, his freedom, his future, and his cherished hairdo, Blago needs to vacate his cell for a truly deserving bad guy. If it's so important he continue to pay and pay for imagined horrors, why not grant him home confinement for the rest of his sentence, with a pass to work eight hours a day in a homeless shelter or equivalent public aid agency. Wife Patty's loyalty is admirable. Time for Blago's revenge seekers to examine their own foibles, show some compassion, common sense and fiscal responsibility to let Blago celebrate his Silver Anniversary with his wife and daughters. Besides, maybe, he can break out his famous 'football' and a little hair dye to once again channel Elvis.

Book Pick: Hotel Florida, by Amanda Vaill

Subtitled, "Truth, love, and death in the Spanish Civil War," Hotel Florida is not a straight history of that horrendous conflict which killed hundreds of thousands, many in atrocities committed by both sides. Rather, it conveys a sense of the war as experienced by three sets of lovers who fought in or reported on the war for the Loyalist side. The most f...amous was the power journalistic team of Ernest Hemmingway and his latest fling, Martha Gellhorn, for whom he abandoned his second wife in Key West to report on the war for the American press as a propagandist for the Loyalists. The second pair was photographer Robert Capa who, along with his colleague and mistress Gerda Taro, invented modern photo journalism. Last were Spanish Foreign Press officer Arturo Barea and his Austrian assistant and mistress Ilsa Kulcsar. All three interacted at Madrid's Hotel Florida, the iconic residence and watering hole for the powerful and famous among government leaders, foreign fighters and war chroniclers. It's difficult to read about the depravation experienced by the Loyalist side, whose cause for democratic reform was crushed by massive German and Italian fascist support for the anti Loyalist rebels led by General Francisco Franco. Spain was truly split between Loyalist and Nationalist forces when Franco combined military, church and landowner interests to overthrow the Spanish Republic. When told that a revolution meant he'd have to kill half of Spain, he replied, "Let the killing begin". Hotel Florida conveys the horror of that pledge, and its implications for the coming worldwide apocalypse that started just two months after Franco's victory. The democracy's refusal to confront Hitler and Mussolini in Spain may have done more than Munich to set up WWII. Painful to read, impossible to put down.

Syria: From Hitlerite enemy to Churchillian ally in one year

News item:
The U.S. “is sharing intelligence about jihadist deployments with Damascus through Iraqi and Russian channels,” the Agence France-Presse reports, citing one source as saying: ”The cooperation has already begun.”

Odd, just a year ago Secretary of State John Kerry was comparing Syrian president Assad to Hitler: “This is our Munich moment. Striking Assad is a matter of national security. It’s a matter of the credibility of the United States of America. It’s a matter of upholding the interests of our allies and friends in the region.” The US was within days, if not hours of blasting our newest bête noir to smithereens till first the Brits, and then the American people said "NO". Frustrated beyond measure, the American war party has turned Syria into an unspoken ally so we can start bombing our newest boogeyman, Islamic State jihadists, who we previously armed to overthrow Assad. If pressed on this bizarre turnaround, Secretary Kerry should channel comedian Steve Martin and offer: "Excuuuuuuuse me!"

Never in history has a funny mustache been airbrushed so quickly from the face of a former enemy so we can get his permission to bomb more imagined bad guys to Kingdom Come.

Book Pick: Hotel Florida, by Amanda Vaill

Subtitled, "Truth, love, and death in the Spanish Civil War," Hotel Florida is not a straight history of that horrendous conflict which killed hundreds of thousands, many in atrocities committed by both sides. Rather, it conveys a sense of the war as experienced by three sets of lovers who fought in or reported on the war for the Loyalist side. The most famous was the power journalistic team of Ernest Hemmingway and his latest fling, Martha Gellhorn, for whom he abandoned his second wife in Key West to report on the war for the American press as a propagandist for the Loyalists. The second pair was photographer Robert Capa who, along with his colleague and mistress Gerda Taro, invented modern photo journalism. Last were Spanish Foreign Press officer Arturo Barea and his Austrian assistant and mistress Ilsa Kulcsar. All three interacted at Madrid's Hotel Florida, the iconic residence and watering hole for the powerful and famous among government leaders, foreign fighters and war chroniclers.  It's difficult to read about the depravation experienced by the Loyalist side, whose cause for democratic reform was crushed by massive German and Italian fascist support for the anti Loyalist rebels led by General Francisco Franco. Spain was truly split between Loyalist and Nationalist forces when Franco combined military, church and landowner interests to overthrow the Spanish Republic. When told that a revolution meant he'd have to kill half of Spain, he replied, "Let the killing begin". Hotel Florida conveys the horror of that pledge, and its implications for the coming worldwide apocalypse that started just two months after Franco's victory. The democracy's refusal to confront Hitler and Mussolini in Spain may have done more than Munich to set up WWII. Painful to read, impossible to put down.

IS chops 'em off; US blasts 'em off

If you listen to the American war party, as soon as Sunni fighters finish creating their newly emerging Islamist State, covering a large swathe of Syrian and Iraq, they'll hop on airplanes to attack America. The hyperbole and imagery is embarrassingly outrageous but the party's talking heads pop up daily on mainstream news, using the severed head of journalist James Foley to promote new bombing and new canon fodder on the ground in never ending expansion of American violence begun eleven and a half years ago. America fathered this new, unsettling development by obliterating their 1960's sock puppet Saddam Hussein, who was designated by the West to continue the artificial country of Iraq as an American ally. But as predicted by anyone who chose to see and tell the truth, attacking Iraq was only going to create chaos leading to its disintegration into the three natural areas of occupation: Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish. We gave the Shi'ites everything but the semi autonomous Kurdish area in northern Iraq. We gave the Sunnis nothing, except arms and money and training to fight off al Qaeda which was never in Iraq till we essentially invited them into the bloody caldron of death and destruction our bombs created. Now the Sunnis are using our goodies to create their own state which includes a sizable chunk of Syria, also destabilized, in part, by the war party's support of Sunni insurgents. Meanwhile our valued ally Saudi Arabia, is pouring money into the Sunni cause to promote their Holy War against the Shi'ites. If none of this makes sense, welcome to American foreign policy, where everyone is our friend and everyone is our enemy depending on the war party's whim. And the next time one of the American war mongers demands more bloodshed to avenge the barbarity of our newest boogeyman, the Islamic State, remember that IS chops heads off one at a time; America blasts them off wholesale. 

American foreign policy in 3 quotes

“If Assad goes today, a political vacuum emerges – who will fill it? Maybe those terrorist organizations. Nobody wants this – but how can it be avoided? After all, they are armed and aggressive.” - Russian President Vladimir Putin warning the West about the folly of regime change in Syria

"I made you, I can destroy you." Bill Cosby comedy bit warning his children about the consequences of not obeying him

"Stupid is as stupid does." Forrest Gump on how smart people who do stupid things are still stupid

This is all you need to know as we watch the unfolding nightmare of endless bombing and possibly ground troops to take out our former Sunni buddies armed with our weapons, our training and our money. The war party wins...everyone else loses.

Music Pick: Woody Allen

Woody Allen (b.1935) a music pick? Though much more well known as writer, director, producer, actor in 73 movies in the last 50 years, Allen also plays a mean, dirty (that's a compliment) clarinet with is New Orlean...s Jazz Band, playing weekly in the Big Apple and on world tours as well. Though he'll never challenge Goodman or Shaw for artistry, Allen is very entertaining and listenable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPl7ARZ3JE4