I Lifted My Plastic Bracelet to the Green Eye of the Barcode Gun and It Sang the First Note of Money’s National Anthem

My daughter threw me a bowl and painted Fleabus twice and Napoleon once before glazing and baking and gave it to me yesterday for Giftmas, she couldn't wait, here's the first Fleabus:





and here's Napoleon (my apologies for cell phone quality cell phone photos):





and the inside of the bowl, Fleabus again





Best gift ever, it's already next to the other best gift evers she's baked me. She gets my stuff (in both senses of the phrase)
 
I'd like to think the ratio of Links of Fury (fewer) versus Links of Fun (more) below in today's grid a positive effort by me to reduce the fury but realize it's (not giftmas which should be replaced by each of us individually pulling a day in the year out of a hat with 365 slips and on the date you draw you gift people that day instead of motherfucking giftmas) merely our shitlords have turned down their psyops shitblasters for giftmas week, what better broth to reduce in than celebrating the birth of Jesus in whatever flavor you eat him. Enforced amnesia and dysphoria deepens condensing. Adrian Belew turned 75 on the day before yesterday

Re: the monologue above, about forced amnesia and dysphoria - youngsters, you may not remember this, but once Donald Trump, as in Emperor Trump, Conquerer of Greenland and Panama and Canada, nominated, get this, Matt Gaetz to run DOJ
"IF MARY TRAVELLED FROM NAZARETH TO BETHLEHEM TODAY SHE WOULD BE STOPPED AT 7 CHECKPOINTS"
☝	That's assuming, of course, IDF soldiers dont' stop, rape, then kill her first						☝
"If Jesus was in Gaza, Israel would burn him alive in a tent and US tax dollars would subsidize the flames that incinerated his flesh. Merry Christmas"
THE MORAL BANKRUPTCY OF THE WEST
"One cannot possibly hate the Democratic Party as much as they deserve to be hated. But keep trying, never give up trying!"
The perp walk that launched a thousand memes
"The Guardian here - much like all US media - is trying to make sure we don’t think about the corruption and fatal crimes of the U.S. healthcare system, of health insurance companies"
Have the Democrats Become the Party of the Élites?
"One interesting thing about Richard T. Burke, the founder of UnitedHealth Group, is he then went on to be the main shareholder in the pawnshop chain FirstCash. So once UnitedHealth bankrupted you and you were sick and desperate, you could sell all your stuff to him for $20
Can “Neoliberalism” Explain Everything?
"A tiny apartheid state with an omnipotent lobbying apparatus"
For Israeli police, humiliating Palestinian women is a tool of collective repression
When You Leave Israel and Enter Gaza, You Are God': Inside the Minds of IDF Soldiers Who Commit War Crimes
Six Questions for Brooke Harrington on the Utopian Dream of Elon Musk and Peter Thiel to Create a Broligarchy Where Billionaires Rule Like Pharaohs
☝	"They’re hell-bent on executing a hostile takeover of American democracy based on a political vision informed by junk libertarianism, comic books, and sci-fi/fantasy novels. Broligarchs like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Marc Andreesen are all on record, in their own words to multiple media outlets and published in manifestos, saying their visions of how life should be were formed by reading Judge Dredd and Lord of the Rings, which I wrote about in The Atlantic last month"						☝
"If you include wars that affect non-white people, we are already well into World War III"
The Game Theory of Giving Up Private Justice or Ending The State Monopoly On Violence
Everything sucks because no one knows what they are doing
Year in Conservation Science: Elephants, Sharks, Mountains, Bees, and More
Each human being is unique					10 great folk albums 2024
Avedon Carol's occasional links						Maggie's
SPOTIFY'S PLOT AGAINST MUSICIANS
Pitfalls of mentorship					{ feuilleton }
Rest in Peace Rickey Henderson, best leadoff hitter in baseball history and the best player I watched live in my devote baseball years in the 80s up to mid-90s at Memorial when I'd see a bare minimum of 15 games a year, Henderson tormented the Orioles, first as an A, then a Yankee, then an A again
"Already grieving, Oakland fans mourn the loss of Rickey Henderson, their hometown hero"
PARSIMONY’S CHRISTMAS (2 SHORT STORIES and 1 POEM)
The Baltimore Beltway is the scariest, angriest, racingest, road rageiest, most dangerous road I've ever driven. 29 through Howard County a close second
The Frenzy of the Visible: On Images in Poetry
Eileen Myles, a ‘Working Life’
Heiligabend			Hungry beautiful animals
And we turn toward the sun once again
50 Contemporary Poets on the Best Poems they Read in 2024
Fat, challenging novels one starts then quits
☝	I no longer can read like I could when young - you wait, youngsters, it's more physical than mental and the mental gets old too - and I lost my If I Start a Novel I Must Finish It Rule thirty years ago so if I start a fat, challenging novel and it doesn't work, bye, of the five above I've tried and quit *Lies and Sorceries* and *Miss McIntosh,* I've tried for decades and thought I'd stopped but Dalkey reissued and PLEASE SUPPORT DALKEY and tried again, no
YO LA TENGO AND SUN RA ARKESTRA HOWARD THEATER DC MARCH 22 2025! Just scored tickets for me and L, it's general admission COME JOIN US!

REDEEM

Rosalie Moffett

The sun was losing
a long gold tooth

on the linoleum

of the labor and delivery ward.

I lifted my plastic bracelet to the green eye

of the barcode gun and it sang

the first note

of money’s national anthem.

Redeem, a word with its feet

in the cement block

of bribe, of buy. Each Tylenol,

a tiny egg in the nest

of the nurse’s cupped hand,

rematerialized weeks later

on the itemized bill. Nearby, a sign

on the fine diamond storefront:

GOING OUT OF     SIN     !

Redemption, a mercy

of wind, of one idea

asleep in another.

I had been the nation

you lived in. Like a shore

in lapping water,

you made your borders

expand a little

with each breath.