I Used to Lie with an Ear to the Line for That Way, They Said, There Should Come a Sound Escaping Ahead, and Iron Tune of Flange and Piston Pitched Along the Ground, but I Never Heard That

I just tweeted about the shitstorm while waiting for you, I said as we were sitting down to Thursday Night Pints and the shitstorm was quickly mentioned. I tweeted, I continued, I'm curious, I wonder how much immediate and long-term money and influence Hilary Rosen, in the penthouse boardrooms of Corporate - Dem Division, just flushed in that thirty-second soundbite. This is the stupidest shitstorm yet, said K. Till tomorrow, said L. I said, I have to imagine Rosen will be muzzled and dog-housed once her Ozzie Guillen self-flaying is complete, at least two weeks or six more shitstorms, whichever comes first. Imagine, said K, think how pissed-off Obama's camp must be, how pissed off he is, she fucked-up Obama's winning game-plan now no matter how inconsequential and temporary it probably turns out to be. L said, I'd guess Rosen loses the time and money it takes Obama's camp to gain back the advantage they had before Rosen opened her mouth, time and money permanently lost. My guess, I said, is she'll still be more wildly wealthy and influential than she is right now after opening her mouth last night but she'll never be as wealthy and influential as she might have been before opening her mouth last night. Has anyone responded to your tweet, K asked. It took me two minutes to set the new iPhone up for wifi in the bar, everyone's told me, always use wifi instead of 3G whenever possible (or is it always use 3G before wifi?), I had to go up to the bartender to get the password, was told on my way to the bar to get the password that I might as well buy a round while I was up there anyway, so when I looked at twitter five minutes after the question and more than an hour after the tweet the answer was no.

• My avatar's nemesis was born 89 years ago today.
• The material existence of ideology.
• Metropolitan resistance.
• BTW, anyone complaining that the Romney campaign and Corporate - GOP Division is running with the Rosen story as hard and dishonorably as they possibly can should remember (a) Romney's playing POTUS 12 for fuck's sake and (b) remember how the Democrats deliberately and gleefully used (and will use future) Romney quotes taken out of context and (c) STFU.
• UPDATE! This: Political scientist Tom Ferguson has noted that there are always two elections at work concurrently in America, a public election that voters see, and a hidden election where funders operate in shifting coalitions to pull the levers of power.  In this case, it’s the very triviality that is on display that speaks to what is going.  Rosen, a corporate lobbyist who represents or has represented copyright interests, for-profit colleges, and BP, is fighting with David Axelrod, who has made money from the nuclear industry, and Anna Romney, who rides expensive horses bought by her husband’s private equity millions.  This is staged kabuki between powerful millionaires, none of whom can credibly speak from recent experience on economic struggles.
• UPDATE! The gist of my question about what Rosen's comments may have cost her.
• For example.
• Motherfucking Obama.
• Even Kos-writers have the occasional obamapostasy.
• War on women, war on everybody.
• On lesser-evilism.
• On the oh-so-polite middle-class asshole.
• Things you might have missed.
• Lowell George was born 67 years ago today.
• UPDATE! Zen's got a couple of song and stuff.
• Seamus Heaney is 73 today.
• Glanmore Sonnets.
• Casualty.
• Beckett was born 106 years ago today.

GLANMORE SONNETS IV

Seamus Heaney

I used to lie with an ear to the line
For that way, they said, there should come a sound
Escaping ahead, an iron tune
Of flange and piston pitched along the ground,
But I never heard that. Always, instead,
Struck couplings and shuntings two miles away
Lifted over the woods. The head
Of a horse swirled back from a gate, a grey
Turnover of haunch and mane, and I’d look
Up to the cutting where she’d soon appear.
Two fields back, in the house, small ripples shook
Silently across our drinking water
(As they are shaking now across my heart)
And vanished into where they seemed to start.