This Is a Sailor Wearing the Watch that Tells the Time of the Honored Man that Lies in the House of Bedlam

Yesterday I said war (by which I mean Corporate's entire police-state apparatus, from boots on the ground in Afghanistan to wiring embassies for State to running a whorehouse outside Fort Benning in Phenix City Alabama) is what Corporate makes now. This is the sub-lede of this story as of 7:00 PM EST on Your Fucking Washington Post's webpage:

Sources in both parties said all sides were close to signing off on an emerging agreement except House Speaker John Boehner. The reason for the hangup was not immediately clear, but the framework has the potential to trigger big cuts in the defense budget.

and in the story:

But sources in both parties said all sides were close to signing off on the emerging agreement except House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). While the reason for the hangup was not immediately clear, the framework has the potential to trigger big cuts in the defense budget. Defense cuts are likely to be problematic for many of the veteran Republicans Boehner will need to push a compromise through the House. A Boehner spokesman did not immediately respond to questions.

I was like, well, hey! but then immediately thought: those who've served, are serving, will serve - and one benefit of high unemployment is the pool of recruits deepens - are gonna be double fucked compared to normal fuck, cause those executives at Raytheon don't want their taxes raised and aren't giving up their bonuses, and if their bonuses depend on outsourcing the making of a drone's navigational gyroscope from Bumfuck Alabama to $3 a day workers in Malaysia, win!

This is the deal that was always in place. This wasn't about breaking you and me, we outraged, OUTRAGED! I TELL YOU! motherfucking pwoggles: we've been house-broken since Bill Clinton. This was about breaking the motherfucking crackers, and breaking them in a way that Corporate can simultaneously use to keep them pissed off at pwoggles (who hate America so much they weaken its defense, who hate motherfucking crackers). Rinse, repeat.







Daily Gaddis:

 - It's not. It's not, damn it, I.... when I'm working, I.... Do you think I do these the way all other forging has been done? Pulling the fragments of ten paintings together and making one, or taking a. . . Durer and reversing the composition so that the man looks to the right instead of the left, putting a beard on him from another portrait, and a hat, a different hat from another, so that they look at it and recognize Durer there? No, it's... the recognitions go much deeper, further back, and I... this...

I found an old broken-spined mass-market copy Saturday on a shelf in the basement, anyone want it?

• We have no idea just how badly we've been reamed.
• We have no idea just how badly we've been reamed.
• I'm still enough of a rube to wonder - sorry, I say this all the time - there's NO profit, cash-raising, future TV deal in being an fraud insurrectionist from the Left and primarying the motherfucker? Oh, and Raul, run or shut the fuck up.
• UPDATE! As a Marylander, let me take this opportunity to tell Benjamotherfucking Cardin TO FUCK HIMSELF WITH INTENT WITH A MOTHERFUCKING RUSTY CATFOOD LID and to offer $$$ to any Marylander who primaries the motherfucker from the Left.
• Thanks a lot, asshole.
• Paul Krugman's obamapostasy will never be ready.
• Robert Reich's obamapostasy will never be ready.
• I like Yves, but Warren for Potus shows profound stupid.
• Lessons.
• Blueprint.
• Christianity, atheism, and freakish anger.
• Since a good blogfriend is always extolling James Scott's Seeing Like a State, here's seeing like a society. (h/t Silver Spring Jim).
• Celebrating William Gass' birthday. Reread Omensetter this past February, The Tunnel is on docket to be reread in 2012. (h/t)
• Silliman's always awesome lit-links.
• Darkblack's Sunday Overnight.
• Attics of My Life.
• Eyes of the World.
• Jerry Garcia was born sixty-nine years ago today, and I was at the show below, one of the best five nights of my life:

VISITS TO ST ELIZABETHS

Elizabeth Bishop

This is the house of Bedlam.

This is the man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the time 
of the tragic man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a wristwatch
telling the time
of the talkative man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a sailor 
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the honored man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the roadstead all of board
reached by the sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the old, brave man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

These are the years and the walls of the ward,
the winds and clouds of the sea of board
sailed by the sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the cranky man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
over the creaking sea of board
beyond the sailor
winding his watch
that tells the time
of the cruel man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a world of books gone flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
over the creaking sea of board
of the batty sailor
that winds his watch
that tells the time
of the busy man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a boy that pats the floor
to see if the world is there, is flat,
for the widowed Jew in the newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
waltzing the length of a weaving board
by the silent sailor
that hears his watch
that ticks the time
of the tedious man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

These are the years and the walls and the door
that shut on a boy that pats the floor
to feel if the world is there and flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances joyfully down the ward
into the parting seas of board
past the staring sailor
that shakes his watch
that tells the time
of the poet, the man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the soldier home from the war.
These are the years and the walls and the door
that shut on a boy that pats the floor
to see if the world is round or flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances carefully down the ward,
walking the plank of a coffin board
with the crazy sailor
that shows his watch
that tells the time
of the wretched man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.