WEEKLY SOUTHERN ARTS
"Sometime the boogaloo 
  • Home
  • From The Publishers
  • Summer 1970 - Fishing with Alligators
  • The Fire-Starters
  • Jimi Hendrix Was The Roy Buchanan of Rock & Roll & Other Rural American Stories
  • Real Genius
  • Guns, Faith and Murder
  • A Blue World
  • Nova Explains
  • Satan's Jr. High
  • The Million Dollar Store
  • The People Who care
  • Jesus and The Red Words
  • Sniffing Out White Supremacy
  • Artistic Con-cepts
  • “The Word From The Streets”
  • A Voice from the Crowd
  • How a White-man Became a Black-man In Order To Find His Whiteness—His Alright-ness.
  • Camille Bertault: 2 Views of a Secret
  • Judy Garland - "Soul Singer"
  • Robert & Jimi and the Twenty Seven Blues
  • The Last Vestiges of Mueller’s Collusion Case Just Died...and Nobody Noticed
  • The Great Pretenders
  • Imagine
  • Me and Junior Parker
  • The Republican
  • "Kill The Pigs!!!"
  • "Another of Trump's Henchmen Falls!!!"
  • Saving ISIS, Killing America
  • Cyrus The Great Strikes Again
  • The Big Lie - "Fear Russia Love China"
  • “The Russians are Coming!” (again)
  • "Impeach This!"
  • “Trump Backs Turkey Down”
  • Congressman Elijah Cummings Died last night at the age of 68.
  • Sweet Home Chicago (The Obama Shakedown)
  • Blind as a Bat
  • "I cannot Tell a Lie"
  • If Only Obama Was Still President, Syria Would Be Swell
  • Impeachment Fever
  • The Ballad of Hunter & Joe
  • "God Will Do It!"
  • Jeffrey Epstein & The Mysterious Case of The Infinite Pedophile Monkeys
  • The World is Insane: pt 4095 - “What is Less Than Zero?”
  • The Magic Bullet and The Lonely Death of Jeffrey Epstein
  • The Facts about Illegal Immigration
  • Chicago
  • Liz Warren Hits The Road
  • Traitors & Lies
  • “If The World Was Fair”
  • "The Few, The proud, The Insane: The Democrats"
  • "GOD & UNCLE SAM"
  • A Minor Complaint
  • Murder in The Meantime
  • The 22-yr-old Bottle Blonde
  • “Jerry “The Toad” & other Sesame Street Lessons”
  • "Riffing in Tongues"
  • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence Revisited
  • The Few The Brave The FBI
  • Jesus and Liz Warren Want to Forgive You
  • The Witch Hunt Ends? Not Even Close.
  • Divine Guidance
  • The Crocodile & The Politician
  • Uncle Joe Apologizes
  • Why I Hate, Hate Crimes
  • It's Only a Matter of Time
  • Let It Rain
  • Dumb & Dumber
  • ....of Poets & Scientists
  • Goodbye Pork-Fried Rat
  • Hearing Duane Eddy
  • Is It Alright...To Be White?
  • "Hell is Real!!!"
  • Mauled by Reality
  • The Cult of The Secret Unknowing Marxist
  • Resist the Devil and He Will Flea
  • The Unwitting Socialist
  • Personal Stories
  • The Magula Report 2019
  • "The New Blood & The New Deal"
  • “The Wall"....and other, mostly silly conversations.
  • The War for the Soul of Mankind: “Stan Getz vs Eric Dolphy”
  • The "Others"
  • White Cracker-Ass Niggas
  • New York Gives The Thumbs Up To Mass Genocide
  • Rudy & Nat
  • A Close Shave With The Well-Intended Bigot
  • This is What Happens When My Favorite Band “The Mellow Herb” Comes To Town
  • The Hemispherical Brain Activity of a Wayward Somnambulist
  • Gun "Race With The Devil"
  • “Half Of All Millennials Think Barack Obama is More Important Than George Washington!!??”
  • "The Dow Posts The Biggest One Day Gain In History."
  • Good Morning Comrades
  • Sharks, Zombies & God
  • A Road Home
  • You're Getting Sleepy....Very Sleepy
  • Stupid People
  • Jezebel and Ahab Make a Comeback
  • Stevie Ray Vaughn: Derivitive Hack or Genius
  • Music & Reminiscence
  • “The Giant Facebook Id-Monster Attacks”
  • “Bullshit...it’s a Damned Invasion!”
  • Bobby-Jack
  • Lowell George searching for authenticity
  • For The Love of Krazy Kat
  • How I Came To Understand That Fighting The Power Was Useless. Unless...You Fight The Power By Giving Power to The Power To Fight The Power
  • Within the Lifetime Of The Average American...The U.S. Population Could Realistically Exceed That of China & India
  • The Problem of Blasphemy In a Secular Society
  • The Waitress and The Power
  • A Message From The Democrats After The 2018 Midterms
  • On This Day Before Election Day, These 5 Things Should Be Remembered As You Vote
  • A Lie Is As Good As The Truth....as long as it's a good lie
  • "Evil Republicans Suppress The Minority Vote"
  • The Enemy of Mankind
  • The Mob
  • Why Chinese Tariffs?
  • A Caravan To Nowhere
  • Ant Farm
  • “They’re Coming For Your Social Security!”
  • The Witchfinder Speaketh
  • Eating Sawdust & Voting Democrat
  • Muslims Kill Washington Post Journalist”...and other stories best left untold
  • Orwell's Nightmare
  • The Sobbing Walrus
  • A Telling Lie
  • Tribal Marxism
  • A Pimp and His Stable of Political Whores
  • "Evidence?.... I Don't Need No Damned Evidence!"
  • A Post Modern Lynching
  • Talkin’ Blues: A White Social Justice Warrior Meets a Bluesman
  • Pocahontas Wants To Impeach President Trump
  • A Belated Tip of The Hat To John McCain's Funeral
  • "Colin Kaepernick Fights The Power. My Brothers!"
  • Jack Ryan: Promoting Jihad & The Brotherhood of Man
  • Rediscovering Willie "The Fruitbat" Johnson
  • The Allegation
  • Message in a Bottle
  • A Coven of Witches
  • The Communist & The Exalted Cyclops
  • America vs Satanic Goat Worshipers
  • Forcing Transgender Penis Cakes on America
  • The Iidots Lament
  • Irritating Post: no. 529
  • Irritating Post: no. 642
  • My Brain is a Liar
  • My New Rap "Alligators"
  • Helpful Hints in Logic
  • The Unredacted News
  • A Loss of Composure
  • The Myth of Objective Fact Checkers
  • Surviving Politics
  • The Pit or The Pendulum
  • Do Not Forsake Me. Not For a Dollar. Not For a Dime.
  • Repeller of The Amorites
  • Sometimes I feel Like a Motherless Child...but only sometimes
  • Welcome To The Freakshow
  • Part One: The Monster Is Summoned
  • A Sideways Glance at Reality....
  • The Ballad of Trey Gowdy
  • Lies, Spies, and Thighs at The FBI
  • The Ballad of Charlie Crockett
  • Children in Cages
  • A Poem For Clifford Odets
  • Anthony Bourdain
  • Like Billy Eckstein Singing to an Empty Club at 1:00 AM on a Saturday Night in 1975.
  • A Letter From The Democratic National Committee
  • Bent
  • "There Were No Spies in The FBI and Other Fictional Tales"
  • The New Rules For Radicals
  • Blood In The Water
  • "3000 American Businesses Colluded with Russia For Profit"
  • I Spy (For The FBI)
  • Free Shit—and Bears
  • Cute Dog Videos
  • How The Press Aided and Abetted Terrorists
  • The Iran Deal Myth
  • The Scouts
  • Pinko Muthafuckas
  • Kelly Joe Phelps
  • Johnny Winter and, 1970
  • Happy Days Are Here Again
  • RAGe Against The Machine
  • Carlos and Buddy
    • How The Bird & Darwin Took Flight With a A7#9 Chord
  • Just a Few Glaring Examples Of Media Scummery
  • They Call it Stormy Monday
  • "I Gotta Take A Wiz" or, "How Starbucks Destroyed the World"
  • Who Needs War?
  • Why The Devil Don't Come Around No More
  • 2+2 Really Does = 4
  • The Tangled Web
  • Shadow Banning
  • What Changed?
  • Oblivious But Concerned
  • "Give Up!"
  • Jesus: The Spirit of Man and God That Illuminates The Darkness
  • Mickey Baker: Goin' To Kansas City
  • "Washington Saves America from Pot-smoking Mass Murderers"
  • Nontraditional Thoughts
  • Attack of The Trillion Dollar Omnibus Bill
  • Hearing Junior Wells “On Tap'' one more Time
  • Just Words
  • Muddy and Me
  • Racist Debtaes About Terrorsim
  • Fidel's Utopia
  • Unwitting Hypocrisy is The Best Kind of Hypocrisy
  • Excess Baggage
  • Excess Baggage pt. 2
  • Fake News Is The New Real News
  • The Death of Billy Graham and Manufacturing Consent
  • American Youth: The Rise of The New Media
  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Talk About Slavery and Shit
  • Just Smoke
  • Monkey in a Box
  • How The Children of Sal and Dean Destroyed The World
  • On This Cold Winter's Morn
  • The Crime of the Century
  • Evidence: What The Hell Is It?
  • They Were Pissed: America, Jack Kerouac, and the Beats
  • Negotiating The Maze Of Life and a Blues Shuffle.
  • Everyone Is Hitler (In their own Way)
  • The Mystery of The Giant Balloon Shark
  • Subterfuge and Its Discontents
  • God Debunks Global Warming
  • Day Two: God Continues To Debunk Global Warming
  • Strzoking Russia
  • The Al Franken Effect. Or, How to Destroy America and Lose Elections
  • The Big Maybe
  • The News Apocalypse
  • The Guitarticle (Guitar article)
  • The Nation of Lucifer
  • Slurring Pocahontas
  • Why Everything Good Said About Net Neutrality is a Lie
  • .....and behold, The Cause of Your Demise Is Upon You
  • The Trans-boy That Cried Wolf
  • Believe Nothing
  • Donald Trump Blasts The Heads Off Of Tiny Woodland Creatures
  • The Problem of Hypocrites
  • Roy Moore: Serial Pervert
  • I'm So Frustrated
  • The Devil's Whisper
  • Science Can't Dance
  • You're Gonna Have To Serve Somebody
  • Louie C. K.
  • Common Sense
  • Hunting For Witches
  • Living in The Age of "tRump"
  • The Devil is a Hustler
  • The Skinny
  • Eric Dolphy
  • ISIS Rode in On a Donkey
  • "The Manafort Indictment"
  • The Truth About the Middle East
  • Dennis Budimer's "Alone Together" Revisited
  • The Halloween Edition
  • The 20th Century Was Groovy
  • The Salesman
  • The Dossier
  • Elmore James
  • Isle of The Poor
  • The Patriarchy is Alive and Well
  • Moving Napoleon
  • Guns and Guerrillas
  • Playing Four
  • Hollywood and Scumbags
  • Why Everything You Think, Is Wrong
  • Killing Yourself With Terrorism
  • Being Liberal
  • Laced With Hate
  • A Message From Occupy Democrats
  • A Taxing Dilemma
  • What Really Happened with Aid in Puerto Rico
  • Colin Kaepernick and Beyoncé are geniuses. Part 1
  • When the Levee Breaks
  • The Second Coming of Anthony Weiner
  • How to Never Lose a Fight
  • Creating Chaos out of Meaning
  • Crime and Punishment
  • The Man in the Mirror
  • Guitar Gods of the Sixties
  • Entopy: A Play in One Act
  • The Ragged Tale of a Poverty Stricken Economic Genius
  • The Dreamers
  • Hey There Georgy Girl
  • This Is Not a Defense of Joel Osteen. Or is it?
  • The Ballad of Poindexter Glockenspiel
  • The Big Dummy
  • More Florida in Pictures and Text
  • How Do I Hate Thee
  • Florida in Images and More Images
  • "How To Solve The Healthcare Crisis and Why It's So Damned Hard To Fix"
  • The Big Lie
  • The Demise of the West
  • “Good Times! Good Times! You know, we talkin’ bout Good Times!”
  • "Justice My Ass!"
  • Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
  • The Coming Apocalypse and How to Avoid it: a Historical/Biblical Perspective.
  • "Muthafuckin' Chains!"
  • Lies Our Father's Told Us
  • Poetry and Politics - a few mixed verses
  • The Inner Man
  • The Vampire and The Carpet Salesman
  • Comey Speaks!
  • A Word From Nostradamus about the Comey Hearings
  • The Towering Babble
  • Chain of Fools
  • I Got Ramblin' on My Mind
  • Telling Ourselves Stories
  • Shit! Make Me Wanna Holler!
  • Even More Reasons Why The Paris Accords are Total Horseshit.
  • When Life Imitates Satire
  • Jethro and Becky Sue Come To America
  • Random Apocrypha
  • Why The Paris Climate Accords Are Total Horseshit
  • Urban Stories
  • The Kingdom of God: a personal rant
  • Urban Week @ South Beach
  • Serpico Revisited
  • The Road To Surf-dumb. Or, is it The Road To Serfdom?
  • This is Not a Political Article
  • My Hometown
  • What Does This Mean?
  • We're All Fools Sometime
  • One Pill Makes You Larger
  • "What a Maroon!"
  • Secrets and Lies
  • A Tale of Wine and Murder
  • "White House Under Siege!"
  • The Amateur Narcissist
  • Like a Rock
  • The Greatest of Ally of a True Idiot is.....
  • How To Prove someone's a Witch
  • Jesus Was a Sly Dog
  • An Open Letter From The Democratic National Committee
  • The Power of Language
  • The Existential Croûton
  • Random Facebook Thoughts
  • A Play "The Poverty Racket"
  • The Demise of the 4th Estate
  • Love To Hate My Enemies
  • Feelings, Oh, Oh, Oh, Feelings
  • Art or Reality
  • The Prison Yard Blues
  • Who is Richard Spencer and Why Does He Matter?
  • __an excerpt from "The Power of Voltron "
  • A Plea From a Progressive
  • ANTIFA - The Anti Fascists, Fascists
  • Conspiracy Theory
  • 4 More Poems, 4 More Pictures
  • "Are You Freaking People Insane?"
  • 4 Pictures 4 Poems
  • The Ballad of Carlos Slim
  • Pretending What's in Your Head is True
  • The Cognitive Dissonance of a Faithful Democrat
  • The Human Snakepit
  • George Freeman - Unsung Master of the Jazz Guitar
  • The Price of Milk
  • Suspicious Minds
  • Bill O'Reilly Sexual Predator?
  • The New Soldier
  • Orwell Revisited
  • Larry Coryell - The Godfather is Dead
  • A Tiger Beat
  • South Florida - HOT & COOL
  • Jean Paul Sartre & the Existentialist Mojo
  • Culture Matters, Immigration Matters, Sharks Matter
  • Thomas Sowell
  • A Tree Falls In Central Park on a Gay Banker
  • Black Codes From The Underground
  • Does an Idiot know they're an Idiot?
  • A Poem for Pooh
  • It's All or Nothing Baby!
  • Racism is Alive and Well
  • "Shut the Hell Up!"
  • Jerry Seinfeld - Social Pariah
  • A Man Must Nurture His Pet Peeves
  • Not the Usual Immigration Article
  • Man Talk, with Donald Trump pt. 1
  • Man Talk, with Donald Trump pt. 2
  • The Bad Seed
  • Dogma Never Sleeps
  • Trump and Clinton Debate
  • Was Jesus a True Pacifist?
  • Brexit Was the Shot Heard Around the World
  • Obama, How Great Thou Art
  • War is Good
  • The Willful Ignorance of Intellectual Children
  • What about All Those Peacful Muslims?
  • Terror! What Terror?
  • Biff and Shorty Play The Blues
  • Forty Miles of Bad Road
  • How Obamacare Became the law of the land: And Other Fairytales for Adults
  • Genteel Republicans vs The Alt-Right
  • Should Drugs be Legal?
  • The Prophet Speaks
  • The Dream Sequence
  • Voting 3rd Party and the Moral Low-Ground
  • Sayonara America
  • What does Never Trump Mean?
  • Barack Obama is the Most Brilliant Man Ever to be President?
  • If God Created War, Does That Mean That War is Good?
  • Never Let Your Enemies Define You
  • Facebook, Science & Religion
  • Bullshit by the Numbers
  • Bullshit by the Numbers - part II
  • The Heated Quest for the "No Information Voter"
  • I Love The Dead
  • Those Who Lurk
  • Battered, Bruised and Beaten
  • Trump and Hitler
  • America in Black and White
  • Trans-Athletics
  • Playing a Rigged Game
  • Who was that Mass Murderer?
  • The Kidnappers
  • The Game
  • Terror in Nice: A Variation on a Theme
  • The Idiots Guide on How to Destory the World
  • Terror in France
  • A Fictional Conversation Between a Pastor and a Historian About the Bible
  • The Immoral Necessity for Scapegoats
  • Who Really Shot Those Eleven Cops? Was It Donald Trump?
  • Killer Cops and Cop Killers
  • Happy 4th of July
  • How Do You Cast Your Vote When You've Only Got a Few Bullets Left?
  • "Yes, She's a Lying Sack of Shit....but She's our Lying Sack of Shit."
  • All Apologies
  • Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up
  • Goodbye Scotty Moore
  • If a Bluebird Plays the Blues Why Can't it Play Free Jazz
  • Terror in Turkey
  • When David Slew Goliath
  • The Life & Death of a Global Fat Cat
  • Intentionally Censoring the News
  • The Brits Leave the EU
  • Chick, Christian, Roy & Kenny G
  • Who Really Committed Mass Murder in Orlando
  • The Tale of the Prince and the Shrew
  • A Dying Father's Last Father's Day
  • Mass Murdering, Terrorist's Father is Obama and Hillary's Best Friend
  • Why Cream still Matters 50 Years Later
  • Misguided Anger and Partisan Politics
  • The Deep Guilt of the Religious Left
  • Radical Islam! What Radical Islam?
  • Denial is a River in Egypt
  • A Response to all the Haters
  • Why Muhammad Ali was my Hero (in spite of being a Racist)
  • Why Trump Matters
  • The New Progressive Racism
  • A Tragedy in Cincinnati
  • The Evil that Men do (Women too.)
  • Differences? What Differences?
  • Racism Revisited
  • Battling Immigration Straw Men
  • Blood Quantum
  • Fighting Transgender Straw Men
  • Logical Fallacies about God and Money
  • Progressive Straw Men
  • Everybody is Robbing You Blind
  • On The Road To El Donaldo
  • Dear Mark: About Donald Trump
  • Identifying the Enemy
  • Why I Will Vote For Trump
  • I Totally Agree With Myself
  • Teaching Americans Where to Pee
  • Goodbye Lonnie Mack
  • Bernie Wants You To Pay His Fair Share
  • Bruce Springsteen vs. North Carolina
  • Mr. Smiley Is an Idiot
  • Why Does College Cost So Much?
  • Black Power and Bad Vibes At Whiteness History Month
  • How Facebook Showed Me That We're Doomed
  • Muslims kill Muslims by means of White People
  • The Slap
  • America Wants a 3rd Party Candidate
  • Jesus Loved Everybody
  • Call it what it is.
  • Belgium vs. Turkey. Which One is Worse?
  • Barack, Fidel and Che
  • How He Gonna Get His Money pt. 2
  • How He Gonna Get His Money
  • The Turn of The Screw
  • Dear America: Now, about Trump....
  • The Attack of the Anti Trumpers
  • Did You Know that America is Socialism....and boy, ain't it Swell
  • Trump - Prophet or Blowhard?
  • Black Lies Matter, All Lies Matter
  • The Donald and the Debate
  • Leonardo and The Bear
  • The Thunder Rolled and the "Trump" Blows em all to Hell
  • Fragmented Fairytails
  • Cars That Never Were but Should've Been, Part 6
  • Building The Perfect Beast
  • America: A Tale of Two Cities, Part 1
  • Uncle Bernie in New Hampshire
  • The Big L
  • The Diary of a Former Leftist
  • Free Speech not Hate Speech?
  • State of the Union
  • Losing My Religion
  • Don't Take Our Guns Away Until We Kill Those Honky Bastards
  • Bye Bye Europe
  • "Trump is a Racist!"
  • "Hell Yeah! I've Got Obama Care!
  • Trumponomics
  • Woman of the Year
  • Malicious Intent and the Art of the Microaggression
  • Muslim No-Go Zones - Myth or Reality?
  • Donald J. Trump and the Muslim Migration to America
  • There Is No God But Allah?
  • Roadhouse - The Reboot
  • Sometimes You Just Can't Win
  • A Few Thoughts Regarding Trump
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been, Part 5
  • You Can Have My Steering Wheel When You Pry It From Cold, Daed Hands
  • The Great Debate
  • Al, Thomas and Paul - Malthusians Then and Now
  • A Prophet Debates Global Warming and other retated Dogma
  • Memes, Scapegoats, Propaganda
  • Little Hillary and Her Monsters
  • A Prophecy for America
  • The Basketball Metaphor
  • Vladimir Putin: An American Hero
  • Little Things
  • The Democrats Debate
  • It's All Ablout da Benjamins
  • Remember When?
  • Mass Shooter
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been: Part 4
  • Should A Muslim Be President in America?
  • The Strange Case of Ahmed Mohamed
  • Debt and Other Devious Angels
  • Bernie Sanders is Caesar not Jesus
  • An inconvenient Truth
  • Who's really a Native American?
  • The Rebirth of the Silent Majority
  • Money That's What I Want!
  • The Syrian Crisis and the Memeing of America
  • Why Societies Have Generally Valued Men More than Women
  • The Problem of Evil
  • A few Thoughts on a Few Things
  • The Authentic pose of a Black White Man
  • Sweden: Socialist Utopia or Progressive Madhouse?
  • Why Dogs Matter
  • Guilty Until Proven Innocent
  • Was Jesus a Socialist?
  • "The Donald" A Man for the Ages
  • Harvesting the Wheat - or - Karma's a Real Bitch
  • Cecil The Lion
  • Cars That Never Were but Should’ve Been, Part 3
  • Secrets and Lies
  • Can Minorities Be Racist?
  • I Was Just Thinking....Hmm?
  • Iran Deal - Good or Bad?
  • Jihad or Not Jihad? That is the Question.
  • "Let's Do Lunch" with Planned Parenthood
  • America The Contemptible
  • Marriage, Bigotry and Cooties
  • The Things We Care About
  • The Simplicity of it All
  • A Dissenting Opinion
  • Cars That Should've Been, But Never Were: part II
  • Live Now, Pay Later
  • I Am, Whatever I Say I Am!
  • Bernie Sanders is the Dumbest Bastard on Earth
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been
  • Bruce Jenner
  • The Good Society
  • A Personal Jesus For My Own
  • Take a Ride on a Hell Bound Train
  • Requiem For a Car Show
  • Obama Channels Neville Chamberlain in Dealing with Iran
  • The Short Life of a Political Lemming
  • The Strongman
  • The Broken Window
  • The Selective Outrage of The Anti Israel Left
  • When the Blind Lead the Blind
  • Top Brass With Class
  • Living In A world On Fire
  • Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell
  • What The Hell Is Esotericism?
  • Unicorns, Free Healthcare and other Mythological Creatures
  • Heroes and Dunces
  • A Few Thoughts On a Few Things
  • The Return Of Super Fly
  • Should You Ever Bet On A dead Horse?
  • Money For Nothing
  • Across The Great Divide
  • Tom, Jerry, Eddie & Sydney
  • The Folly of Foibles
  • Who really killed Eric Garner?
  • The Art of The Sale
  • Political Bullshit and All That Jazz
  • Oh, The Horror of It All
  • To Torture or Not To Torture, That is The Question
  • Selective Justice
  • Executive Action
  • Give Us Your Tired, Poor and Ambitious
  • Johnny Winter, Ahhh-Yeahh!
  • Homeless and Transgender "Let My People Pee!"
  • Are We Insane? You Betcha!
  • Ebola and Racism
  • You're a Racist, Just Admit It!
  • To Discriminate or Not to Discriminate, That is the Question
  • The Life of an Imaginary Historian
  • Why Most Debates About The Minimum Wage are Bullshit
  • The Return of the Infinite Monkeys
  • Politically Correct Genocide
  • Language and the illusion of Meaning
  • Obama vs. Reagan
  • Is Barack Obama our Most Successful President Ever?
  • White Racism Black Racism
  • The Race
  • Should People Be Free to Discriminate?
  • Science, Religion and Brother Neil
  • Welcome To America
  • The Reincarnation of Jimmy Carter and the Return of Scarface
  • SCOTUS, Condoms and Collateral Damage
  • The American Dream
  • Attack of the Bloated Leeches or "Why Does the Economy Suck pt. II"
  • Why Does the Economy Suck?
  • Jaco Pastorius - A Passage in Time
  • How can we save the world, from people who want to save the world?
  • A Short Political rant: pt I
  • Jerry Reed, Tom Jones and the Original Guitar Heroes
  • Part Two: The Politics of the Eloi and the Morlock
  • Angel: part 7
  • Wayne Cochran "Going Back to Miami"
  • Blessed Assurances and other Iron Clad Guarantees
  • James Brown & the Art of the Indefinite Rhythm
  • If the Bible Say's it, I believe It!
  • Go For a Jog, Go to Jail
  • Life as Theatre and The Well-Intended Sociopath
  • Rory Gallagher & Taste
  • Utopia and the Militant Socialist
  • Matt Damon & the Teachers Union vs. the Capitalist Pigs
  • The Fight of the Century
  • The Last Damned Healthcare Article You'll Ever Need
  • The Gospel According to Mark
  • You Might Be an Idiot if.....
  • How To Interpret Political Speech and other Forms of Gibberish
  • Polygamy and the Search For Morality
  • The "Big" Gulp
  • When a Lie is the Truth and the Truth is a Lie
  • Jim Hall - The Subtle Radical
  • Making Deals With the Devil in Iran
  • Dennis and Mary
  • Thank You Lord For the Good Things You have Done
  • Excersise In Futility
  • Is Obama The Antichrist?
  • The Case for Limited Government (and that includes a limited military)
  • The Weekly Southern Blog
  • Angel: part VI
  • The Esoteric Agenda
  • Ted Bundy & The Hunt For The Devil
  • Things I wish the President Knew Pt. 3
  • Really Now, I'm Syria
  • What Will You Do?
  • Charlie & Clint: Dead & Deader
  • God Loves Me and Has a Plan For My Life...Right?
  • Trayvon & George : An American Hate Story
  • Is God's Grace Ecclesiastical White-out?
  • Jury Duty
  • The Left's Contradictory Love Affair With Gays & Muslims
  • Hee Haw and Grandma and Grandpa
  • Little Tommy & The Blues Kings
  • Gay Marriage: Part II
  • Kayaking "The Big Cypress" with Crocodlies
  • The Birth of The Jazz Guitarist
  • Running With The Bullshit In Pamplona
  • Divided By Abortion
  • Gay Marriage
  • Life on the Fault-line
  • Out of the Wild
  • A Generation Out Of Touch
  • Morning Faith with a Cup of Joe
  • For The Children
  • Made up Facts & True Beliefs
  • The Unforgettable - Nat 'King' Cole
  • Slavery Was Big Business....and It Still Is!
  • Garage Band - The 1960's
  • A Man's Best Friend is his Dogma
  • Voting With Our Private Parts
  • Investors of the World, Unite
  • Good Intentions...bad results
  • The Plural of "You"
  • How to Get God to Give You What You Want: Redux
  • We Have Not Yet Begun To Fight
  • Polls–Divination or Manipulation?
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        The Million Dollar Store

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What is money and how does it work?  The usual answer; “I don’t know, but I’d sure like to have some”!  About a year ago, I was at a dinner party with my wife and two other couples.  There was an engineer, an artist/art seller, a pretty-well-known female comedian/writer who had written and published three books, a legal secretary and my wife and I.  The conversation had turned to the overall rottenness of the economy, when the artist spoke up and said “If we’re so broke, why doesn’t the government print some money and just give everyone….oh, a million dollars.  People would spend, the economy would churn, creating jobs, and unemployment would drop, sounds good to me.”  Everyone laughed and said “Sounds good to me too.”  After all, a million apiece could solve a lot of problems.  

So, let’s say tomorrow you wake up and the government has created a lot of money out of thin air and added some extra zeros to your bank account (In my case, it’d have to be a lot of zeros.)—and did the same for everybody else.  You hop out of bed to celebrate, throw on your clothes and head out to fix the economy by spending, spending, spending.  First, a great cup of coffee, a good breakfast and then, off to your favorite stores.  But, you're not alone, everyone else in America has the same idea, why not, they're millionaires too.  You think to yourself, “I bet the mall will be crowded, we better get going so we can fix America."  Damn, it feels good to be so patriotic.  There’s one big problem, however, the mall is closed, so is your favorite restaurant. How about McDonald's? Yep, it’s closed too.  Why?  What’s happened?  Is it the apocalypse?  Not exactly!  Well, maybe it is, at least an apocalypse of the man-made variety—and the why of it should be obvious.  Do you really believe that your average minimum wage worker, or even a well-paid one, is going to go and wait on you in order to serve your interests if they’re millionaires? Would you?  Of course not!  And so, everything would shut down, within a few days a cup of coffee at McDonald's would cost $100.00, and the “Dollar Store” would be renamed “The Thousand Dollar Store.” Inflation would've eroded your million dollars to a much smaller amount.  Within a week, you’d be broke.  Did you expect it to be otherwise? 

As silly as all of this sounds, it’s the way the government frequently works—and a lot of pretty smart people seem perfectly happy when it does.  

The government is about as close as any of us will ever get to an earthly god.  It has the power of life and death.  It can make you rich or poor, a freeman or slave, all with the swipe of a legislative pen.  And, like all actions, there is a consequence, whether for God or government.  A consequence that is indifferent to our deep convictions, but, is nonetheless, deeply rooted in our very complex human nature. 

That is why the government can’t endlessly borrow and spend money, no matter how good its intentions.  It can have an earnest desire to eliminate suffering, ease the burden of the poor, and wish to elevate all mankind in the process.  It can likewise desire to have peace through strength, building military muscle and firepower in order to protect us from the bad guys, but, if  our essential human nature is misunderstood, and it frequently is, it can very quickly have the opposite effect. 

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One way to give everyone a million dollars and, theoretically, keep inflation in check would be to give the government the power to regulate personal behavior.  The Guv, as he/she will be called from now on, could put the money in your bank account, but, only with the stipulation that you show up for work and do your job.  If you don’t, you don’t get the money.  Of course, you’d still have the problem of inflation.  Why?  Because people could pay more for everything, and in a competitive market, more money means that people can drive up prices by simply paying more to get what they want. 

Back in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates while Congress eased the standard for borrowing money, all with intent of helping the economy grow, which would put people back to work.  With the Congress writing new laws and “The Guv” printing up endless piles of cash, banks could make low interest loans for credit cards, mortgages and auto loans—and the impact was immediate.  This churned the economy, creating new construction, auto companies sold a lot of cars and housing prices went through the roof, which was great if you were selling a house, less so if you were trying to buy one.  But, even then, “The Guv” was there to help.  Before long, prices on houses doubled, and then tripled, and before you knew it, everyone was rolling in filthy lucre.  Man that was easy!  It was an economic miracle, similar to Jesus feeding five thousand people with a few fish and a couple of loaves of bread.  The one part of the biblical story that tends to be forgotten is when a bunch of folk come back the next day and say to Jesus, “Hey, how about another miracle, we’re pretty hungry.”  And, when Jesus doesn’t comply, they get pissed.  “Sure, you did it once, but, what about today, we’re hungry—again”!  Think about Greece or Ireland as a reference point.   I guess that ole saying “Better to teach a man to fish if you don’t want him to become a permanent ward of the state or God” might apply
–in the case of Greece and Ireland, a ward of the European Union—in the case of America, a ward of the banks, by means of “The Guv”.  For the non-religious, think of the concept of "Natural Law" as articulated by deists like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke that undergirds the Constitution.  If that’s still too religious, think about Einstein’s view of the universe, which is a deist one, mind you, but at least you can maintain the illusion of faithful atheism.  Even Darwinian Fundamentalists seem to more or less understand this.

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Anyway, housing prices rose like a hot air balloon going up, and up, and then, like the Hindenburg, burst into flames, a blazing bag of poisonous gas, crashing back to earth!  Why?  Because anything filled with hot, poisonous gas (which is a good description of most political  thinking) will eventually blow up.  It is, however, easy to be blinded by the benefit (cash in hand) while being oblivious to the cost (a whole bunch of personal or national debt).  It is why freedom requires individual accountability—and why neither God nor government can answer all of your prayers without taking away your personal freedoms (I assure you, this isn't a reference to Calvinism).  

Unfortunately, as much as we might like to place our faith in “The Guv,” we should remember that it’s made up of people just like you and me.  Even in the case of God, the principal remains the same. Freedom, or free-will, requires individual accountability.  People must be allowed to fail, so they can learn to succeed.  Once they’ve learned, usually the hard way, they’ll have “real” knowledge that can be passed on.  This is the difference between blind faith and reasonable faith.  Knowledge is always earned.  True revelation is not a sudden epiphany disconnected from the past (Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it) but, a continuous process of growing in our understanding.  Relationship, whether with “The Guv” or with God, may begin with a child-like trust, but should eventually turn into the kind of accountability that is inherent in all meaningful  adult affiliations.

One last point, just in case anyone should ask.  Why didn’t prices on cars rise like prices on houses?  Because, the number of cars could be increased by building more cars to meet the demand, causing prices to remain stable.  By comparison, there’s only so much land on which to build houses and the process is considerably slower and more costly.  For further reading study “Supply and Demand” and how prices are established by real human activity.  Not by childish wish fulfillment. 

 You’ll find, in the end, people spend their money based on their very personal priorities—and their priorities can be manipulated by external things like a government that prints too much money and lends it too cheaply in order to make it look like everyone is rich.  If such principals are good enough for God, nature, natural law, the universe (fill in a deity, deist gods included), I’m pretty sure it’s good enough for the rest of us.


Mark Magula