Friday, November 21, 2008

Dipnote

Even the US State Department has its own blog now. User friendly, upbeat, and cheerily extolling the virtuous rhetorical values of our seriously failed state. A lesson for mass communication aficionados and political analysts alike.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Straight Hammett

Plans are all right sometimes. And sometimes just stirring things up is all right.

--Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

American Business

In Illegal People, David Bacon examines the history of the economic relationship between Mexico and the United States, as well as the politics of immigration and indentured labor. This expose of the cynical manipulation of power by American banks, institutions and politicians over the lives of innocent people napalmed by NAFTA, reminds me of a remark made about American business:
They will stoop to anything and stop at nothing.