04/26/24

Archive - March 2011

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SHOULD I EAT THIS COOKIE?

03/31/11
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I've had this Winter Sweater Cookie for a few months now. It's pressed between two sheets of Waxed Paper in a large manilla envelope. Every so often I take it out and force people to look at it, then write down how it made them feel.

I think the green icing tastes like mint not like a frog or a traffic light. I don't know for sure. I don't know the snow man's name, but I never asked.

Also, I lied: I've actually had this cookie for a few years now. I can't get to sleep without knowing where it is. I would never eat it in front of anyone. Just like Veal.

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Morning Constitutional 03/31/11

03/31/11
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As a 7th grader I spent many evenings sitting inside a large refrigerator cardboard box. By choice. The box had one side section removed through which television reruns of Who's the Boss? and Growing Pains could be viewed.

Inside I sat on a considerable pile of stuffed animals, most purchased, some donated. Often I would don goggles and keep my fingers crossed until it was uncomfortable. At regular intervals, even during viewing hours, two Teamsters would enter the house, lift the lid above me and pour in more stuffed animals, often Korean in origin.

This went on for months until both my parents and the school agreed I would repeat the 7th grade and never discuss this matter publicly.

Today, that embargo ends.

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JOE BAGEANT HAS DIED

03/30/11
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Joe described himself as a redneck socialist, and he was. He was profoundly concerned with the fate of the people he wrote about, those who worked hard all their lives and ended up with nothing. Funny: I’ve never met a socialist who didn’t care about others, or a capitalist who did. The truth is that a great many decent people are on the wrong side of the intelligence curve, don’t come from families that send their young to university,and can’t protect themselves from the corporate lawyers and bought legislatures.

SOURCE

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COULDN’T RECALL

03/30/11
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Taking in Charles Ferguson's excellent documentary, Inside Job, about the dark doings of Wall Street in our time, I confess I was awestruck all over again at the complete surrender of Obama to the very characters who embodied the corruption that rotted our system from the heart outward. Summers, Rubin, Geithner, and a host of other revolving door grifters who did everything possible to set up the implosion of banking, defeat the rule of law in money matters, and ruin millions who wanted nothing more than something useful to do in this society for a living wage. Most impressive of all in this brave film were the shameless academic mandarins caught on camera trying to weasel out of their greed-driven misdeeds - Glenn Hubbard, chair of the Columbia University Econ department, a perfectly...

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VIDEO REPUBLICANS DON’T WANT YOU TO SEE

03/30/11
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In the clip, Duffy is asked whether he'd support cutting his own salary. Duffy says he would, but only as part of a plan where all public employees' salaries would be cut. He then said that the $174,000 in salary (not including benefits) he receives is a squeeze for his family of seven to live on. The Conservatives are waging a war against the Working Class in this country. They don't want you to see a video of a Wisconsin Republican whining that his congressional salary of $174,000 is too small to live on while he and his party demand that everyone else work like slaves for nothing. He complains that he can't afford his six children on this salary. It's called birth control you stupid piece of shit. You're familiar with it. Your party voted to defund Family Planning, one of the primary...

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Nightcap 03/29/11

03/30/11
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The best nights are those when the furnace goes quiet and you can hear the filing cabinet. It’s faint but if you control your breathing, you can make out words and sometimes melodies.
Most of it’s in Portuguese and often it’s just strings of numbers but it’s drenched with emotion. The other furniture says the filing cabinet is crazy, it’s just muttering. But sometimes I make out the name Lucia. I suspect he had a family, or at least a wife, and had to leave her to come to America to make a better life for them. Then after establishing himself, he sent for her only to learn of The Accident.
He would stand alone from then on, condemned to a solitary eternity holding old copies of Mad Magazine and bags of Canadian pennies.

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GIGLIO’S ITALIAN MARKET

03/29/11
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In 1926, Frank Giglio, an Italian immigrant from Calabria, Italy founded a small grocery store just blocks away from Detroit's Eastern market. In a predominatly Italian neighborhood his products brought a part of "home" back to his friends in the area. He carried pastas, oils, olives, homemade sausage, lunch meats like mortadella, salami and prosciutto and a variety of cheeses. Giglio's Market was a family run business and still continues that tradition today. Over the years our customers have grown to include many ethnicities and although the Italian specialties are still dominant, Giglio's has adapted to carry many hard to find products from all over the world. From Italy to Detroit to St Clair Shores, the Italians fled. This store was frequented by my relatives who lived down the...