Where's the Pony?

Calhoun’s Can(n)ons for April 8, 2011

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.
Thomas Pynchon

The laughter started in the middle of Los Osos Valley Road, halfway home. I had been driving along while listening to another radio news broadcast so full of crap it took my breath away. Then it hit me: They’re not even trying anymore. The bullsh*t has now gotten so high it’s simply no longer worthwhile to try to spin it, to cover it up or ignore it or pretend it isn’t there. There’s simply too much of it. Piles of it. Mountain ranges of it, filling all the spaces of our daily lives. A person can’t breathe any more without inhaling bullsh*t.

In the bad old days, there was a sense that arrant nonsense should be hedged in with at least some kind of plausibility, that blatant, palpable lies needed to be finessed, that hypocrisy and theft and greed and wrongdoing and bad behavior needed to be justified or hidden because there once was some kind of sense of accountability or shame left in the country. A sense that people were too smart to fall for the feeble con, the misdirect, the political carny tricks that only worked on low-information rubes.

No longer.

We aren’t bombing Lybia, France is. President Obama is a Muslim who was born in Kenya. Tax breaks for the rich and for multinational corporations create jobs. Trickledown economics raises all boats. The budget deficit can be fixed by cuts alone. Taxes are job killers. What’s good for Wall Street is good for America. (Which is why I paid more taxes last year than G.E. did?) Medical reform hurts businesses. A fairer, reformed tax code is socialism. Illegal immigrants are destroying America. Global warming is a myth. Tighter (and enforced) Wall Street rules and regs will kill the economy. Outsourced jobs didn’t kill the American Dream. Skewed tax breaks for the wealthy didn’t kill the American Dream. A de-regulated Wall Street didn’t kill the American Dream. Collective bargaining by Wisconsin’s teachers did!

Bullsh*t.

Here in California, which is sinking under a mountain of debt, the legislature has been held hostage by a minority of Republicans who refused to even let the people vote on extending a modest handful of about-to-expire taxes and instead proposed a cuts-only budget which will result in continued tax breaks for big corporations while it slashes K-12 funding and cuts services for the most vulnerable of our citizens. In short, Grover Norquistian Bullsh*t.

In real life, when your family finds itself in debt, you tighten your belts, cut expenses to the bone and every able bodied family member, including the kids, goes out and gets part-time jobs to raise income. But not in Republican Norquististan. In that country, Daddy first goes out and buys a few Rolls Royces for himself and his buddies, thereby busting the budget. Then he absolutely forbids Mom and the kids from getting jobs to raise more money, and instead takes money out of the house-repair account to buy more cars for himself, and if the leaking roof can’t be repaired and falls down as a consequence, well, too bad. Then he eliminates family medical coverage to ensure his rich friends have extra money for luxuries, and if the kids get sick and die as a result, also too bad. As for taking care of Granny? Sorry, Daddy needs that money to avoid paying taxes on a new yacht, so out into the street she goes while the rest of the family is put on bread and water rations for the duration.

In the good old days, anyone proposing that line of Bullsh*t would be laughed out of office. But not now. Now, they get elected by the very people who are going to get kicked to the curb – folks who understood too late that the funny piece of paper pinned to their backs was a bull’s eye. And now they’re afraid because they no longer even know how to ask the right questions.

Which is why the corporate pols no longer even bother to lie to them anymore. And why the bullsh*t is so high it’s blotting out the sun. And why I started laughing out loud while driving down Los Osos Valley Road, half-way home.

Donald Trump for President! Too perfect. America? You’re fired!

Tithing on Sunday

      Well, if you head to downtown SLO on Sunday for shopping, lunch and a movie, it'll now cost you;  The city will raise parking rates, and there'll be no more "free" Sundays.  And in the Tribune story, apparently the City Council didn't discuss the possibility of offering "validated" parking for the structures?  As in, merchants, restaraunts, theatres would offer validated parking for X amount of time, with X amount of purchase. Like, buy a theatre ticket and get your parking ticket validated; buy lunch and get another validation.  Would that encourage folks to hang around downtown longer?
     Personally, I'll be rethinking any and all Sunday trips.  I would often to head to a movie, do some shopping, grab a bite to eat.  You know, consolidate a trip to save gas, spend a pleasant few hours downtown gooning around?  And do it on "free parking" Sundays.  But now?  Any shopping will be specifically targeted -- as in run in to one specific store and keep it all under the 1 hour free parking limit, then get out.  Movies?  Hit the Palm weeknights only. So any merchants who might get my attention (and money) while I'm wandering around on a nice Sunday afternoon, will just have to do without my shekels.
      Meantime, wonder if some smart cookie will think about putting in a multi-plex theatre at the new Target center?  Or even back to the Madonna Plaza.  Used to be one there once.  Maybe there will be again, as the shopping center shifts to the new development?  Dalidio, anyone?
     And when the Los Osos sewer gets built, maybe Jim Dee will once again consider opening a theatre out here.  How cool would that be? Of course, that might not work out because there'll be so little discretionary income left in the community after paying the sewer bill that until the economic cleansing is completed, very few people will be going to any movies anywhere.  Let alone paying for a movie and for parking. 

Glen Beck Bites The Dust?  

Just heard on the news that our own batshit crazy version of Father Coughlin has had his run and like all things in this world, is going away -- at least his show in its present form will be. Well, guess his usefulness as a political and financial tool for his handlers ran out. Time for the Next Dog & Pony Show to gin up ratings by whipping up the seriously Low-Information Voters, the folks who so beautifully represent America's "fearsome and feverish credulity," as Thorsten Veblen put it.
     Pity the writers on "The Daily Show."  They're losing one of their biggest Muses.

Hope Merkel Builds A Bear Mud Oven That Makes Pizzas, Part III

But first, OsoHappy, the giant mud oven bear at Los Osos Valley Nursery (201 Los Osos Valley Rd.) and built by mud-oven builders Jordan and Meleah of Ncredible edibles Sustainable Solutions (http://www.ncredibleedibles.com/) had to have a fire in its belly.

And while that was happening, why not build a spiral raised herb bed in one corner.

And prepare pizzas -- goat cheese, fresh basil, veggies, pepperoni and even an applie pie!

When the fire was down to coals, Jordan raked out the coals, gave a quick swipe with a wet towel to clean the firebrick oven floor.

Then into the oven with the pizzas, then out of the oven and it's time to eat. 









OsoHappy At Last 



Your Sunday Poem

Here’s why you should go out today and buy a least one book of poetry. You need to keep Billy Elliot (and other poets) supplied with pencils. From his book, “Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes.”




Advice to Writers

Even if it keeps you up all night,
wash down the walls and scrub the floor
of your study before composing a syllable.

Clean the place as if the Pope were on his way.
Spottlessness is the niece of inspiration.

The more you clean, the more brilliant
your writing will be, so do not hesitate to take
to the open fields to scour the undersides
of rocks or swab in the dark forest
upper branches, nests full of eggs.

When you find your way back home
and stow the sponges and brushes under the sink,
you will behold in the light of dawn
the immaculate altar of your desk,
a clean surface in the middle of a clean world.

From a small vase, sparkling blue, lift
a yellow pencil, the sharpest of the bouquet,
and cover pages with tiny sentences
like long rows of devoted ants
that followed you in from the woods.

A Letter to Sara Wan

Any bets that Ron Crawford, of http://www.sewerwatch.blogspot.com/, who has posted his letter entitled, "Would the Coastal Commission Still Have Approved the Tri-W Disaster in 2004, Had the Los Osos CSD Not Lied To Them?" will get an answer?  Hey, don't look at me.  I'm not taking that bet. I'm still scratching my head over "bait & switchy."