1670

I just finished watching 1670, a serial TV historical by Netflix about Poland in the era of Louis XIV. It's a savage satire that reminds me of The Servant of the People, which showed the Ukrainian people as very much responsible for buying into the corruption of their country. In 1670, there is one sensible charachter: a visiting Lithuanian. Recommended.

Newt Gingrich, the Republican candidate with the history PhD, analyzes our current troubles

As summarized by Jim Wright:

Apparently, according to Newt, America’s current economic woes stem from two sources: greedy middle school janitors and unemployed children.
Newt’s solution? Fire the janitors, hire the kids. 
Like chocolate and peanut butter, or feeding the homeless to the hungry, kids and janitorial work naturally go together.  It’s just so, so obvious when Newt points it out, isn’t it?
Fire the janitors, hire the kids.
Brilliant.
First we recoup billions in janitor salaries.
Those goddamned janitors and their outrageous salaries. Who can forget those greedy maintenance men commuting to school each morning? Their private helicopters landing on the roof of the gymnasium, flying in from the Hamptons after a weekend of booze, blow and hookers? Their chauffer driven limos blocking the school bus loading zones?  Oh yes, let us never forget who caused this financial disaster, them with their 24K gold handled mops and gilded toilet plungers while our children could barely afford to chew gum and stick it to the bathroom mirrors? I tell you, nothing chaps my ass more than when those key-twirling broom jockeys took billions in taxpayer bailouts and then gave themselves millions in bonuses. Personally I think it’s a Goddamned outrage that they get taxpayer funded lifetime pensions and golden parachutes even after being found guilty of ethics violations and forced to resign from their jobs. Honest to God, folks, how many more countries could we have invaded if these jumpsuit wearing sons of bitches weren’t bleeding us dry? How many more faith based programs could we have funded? How many high school girls had to graduate because those damned janitors stole money for abstinence only birth control classes? How many aircraft carriers could we have built?  Ask yourself this, how many more tenured history professors could we have hired if we hadn’t had to pay those stinkin’ greedy Janitors? Hell, we could have filet mignon and caviar in the Congressional lunchroom three meals per day instead of, well, ok bad example, but I think I’ve made my point here.

There's more, and all of it equally on target.

P.s.  When was the last time you heard someone in the public forum speak up for more tenured history professors?  Oh, I know it's satire, but even still...

A Hollywood future history

Last year I posted a number of entries about "living in the future" -- how I sometimes felt I had slipped into a science fictional world.

Sometime over the weekend a writer who calls himself IOZ, and who devotes his blog to scathing satire and sacred cow massacres, wrote this, a fine example of the "living in the future" genre, if not necessarily one I would've written myself. It is called Apocalypse Cow.

Living in the future is like totally awesome. One guy running for president is a secretly Muslim mulatto terrorist subversive, the kind of dude who's supposed to be living outside the city walls in the radioactive wasteland that was once the earth. His running mate is a loquacious droid assembled in the basement of a secret Visa/Mastercard facility. His opponent is an insane former soldier who can't conceal his cruel rictus whenever the topic of Death comes up. His opponent's running mate is one of Captain Kirk's girlfriends. I swear to Jesus that the Mayan's were right about this whole 2012 thing. I might have become a Christian if someone had told me the End Times were going to be this fucking hilarious.

It would all be much funnier of course if I were sure we would survive it all.