It's Poetry in Motion

… she turned her tender eyes to me:

  • I've been reading Brian Doherty's history of modern American libertarianism, Radicals for Capitalism. This 2007 book has a lot of stuff about the billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, who have funded a lot of libertarian activity since the 1970s.

    But recently the Koch brothers have come to the attention of the lefties, who are desperately looking for Alinskian targets to demonize and scapegoat. So, after decades of being ignored by everyone except libertarians, suddenly Charles and David are "newsworthy".

    Andrew Ferguson has a short and funny article at Commentary about the phoniness of it all.

    ThinkProgress's reports on the Kochs were repeated on the more heavily trafficked and slightly more mainstream Huffington Post, drawing the notice of the MSNBC talk-show host Rachel Maddow, who pointed out to her viewers that while Americans for Prosperity had a "really innocuous sounding name," it was a sock puppet of the Kochs. When Maddow speaks, the White House listens, and by August, the president himself was at a Texas fundraiser warning an audience that had paid at least $5,000 a person about the dangers that rich people posed to politics. Obama didn't mention the Kochs, just their organization. Despite an "innocent-sounding name," he said, "they don't want you to know who theAmericans for Prosperity are." It's not clear from the president's remarks who "they" are, but they can't be good.

    Obama's quote, along with reporting plucked from ThinkProgress and other websites, made it into the New Yorker magazine at the end of August as part of a long expos? of the Kochs and their organizations by a staff writer named Jane Mayer. (According to Mayer, the names of Koch political organizations are not only "innocent sounding" and "really innocuous sounding," as Obama and Maddow said; they are also "neutral sounding" and "generic sounding." You can't fool the New Yorker.) Within a few days of its publication, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee filed a complaint against Americans for Prosperity with the IRS. Terry Gross feted Mayer and her article on NPR's Fresh Air, and Frank Rich wrote a Sunday column in the New York Times that was mostly a paraphrase of Mayer's piece.

    Truly a herd of independent minds…

  • New Hampshire Governor John Lynch, running for re-election, recently touted the state's $70 million surplus for FY2010, and claimed that this demonstrates NH "is on sound fiscal footing."

    Exercise: read Charlie Arlinghaus and see if you agree with the Governor. I think we'll be on "sound fiscal footing" until November 3 or so, then we'll suddenly find ourselves in a world of fiscal hurt.

  • Apparently all the real scientists have enough money for everything they want to do
    The Civilians, the New York-based theatre company known for projects investigating real-life topics - including the upcoming IN THE FOOTPRINT about the controversy surrounding the development of the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn - has been awarded a three-year grant in the amount of $700,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for THE GREAT IMMENSITY, a new production about climate change, it has been announced by Steve Cosson, founding Artistic Director of The Civilians.
    It sounds like something Leonard Pinth-Garnell might feature:
    The play weaves actual interviews with top scientists and locals from the regions into the sisters' fictional tale as they struggle to survive polar bears, tundra buggies, snakes, and a Chinese pimp -- all while grappling with the harsh and seemingly hopeless realities of climate change.
    For the movie, I suggest Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen for the sisters, and Mickey Rooney as the Chinese pimp. (Via Hugh.)

  • The Oatmeal: If you do this in an email, I hate you. I'm sure no Pun Salad reader commits those crimes.


Last Modified 2022-10-05 4:36 AM EDT