Originally posted April 29th, 2012
By Michael Konik
You’ve talked to someone thirty-or-younger recently, so you’re aware that we’re presently living in the blissful state of no worries.
No worries, bro.
The problem for those of us who read newspapers and have some time to think is that there seems to be plenty to worry about — if you’re into that whole caring about stuff mode. The world quite often feels like it’s on the precipice of disaster, a calamity (or apocalypse) about to be perpetrated against humanity by humanity. No worries? Well, not really, bro.
But after 4:20PM, when we brooding types might discover a more charitable and optimistic state of mind, the sentient observer begins to understand that, wow, yeah, everything we fret about already has been fully explained to everyone’s satisfaction and there really is nothing to worry about.
Lehman Bros. Bonuses. No worries, bro. Yes, shortly before the firm’s 2008 collapse, which precipitated the . . . → Read More: No Worries, Bro
Originally posted April 8th, 2012
By Michael Konik
Sometimes our chaotic, unknowable, seemingly random Universe arranges itself with perfect symmetry. In these moments of bracing clarity, authored by a Creator (in whatever guise or nomenclature you prefer) whose sense of irony is matched only by her/his/its sense of wicked humor, our innate foolishness and learned stubbornness are robbed of their pretensions. We see what we have wrought – and then pretend we didn’t, because, despite our professed wish for “change you can believe in,” change is the process we’re most unwilling to endure.
Last week provided several of those The Way It Is moments, with several illuminating events happening almost simultaneously, twinned like opposite sides of a coin, as though the worm-hole theories of modern physicists were getting an earthbound demonstration. Our chief prophet of change you can believe in, President Obama, who seems intent on being as big of a disappointment to as many . . . → Read More: Perverse Priorities
Originally posted February 26th, 2012
By Michael Konik
First there was “shock and awe.” Then the counterinsurgency, or “surge.” Now it’s “targeted assassinations.” Evocative labels all, making state sanctioned murder easy to accept, if not easy to understand. But does anyone remember why we commit these acts of violence and commit unfathomable amounts of our GDP to their execution?
Right! Because we’re fighting a war on terror. The crazy thing about this war, like our other multi-decade assault on an intangible enemy, the war on drugs, is that almost no one can define our explicit goal. Ask the average American what we accomplished in Iraq. Did we win? Did we lose? Did the trillions of dollars we spent garner a nice return on investment? Ask her what we’re doing in Afghanistan. (Yes, we’re still there, trying to extricate ourselves from another fine imperialist mess.) And don’t laugh when she guesses, “kill the bad guys?” It’s . . . → Read More: Our Endless War(s)
Originally posted February 12th, 2012
By Michael Konik
Baltasar Garzon, the Spanish jurist renowned for attempting to bring the rich and powerful to justice, has been convicted of exceeding his authority. As part of a comprehensive corruption investigation of Spain’s conservative Popular Party, in 2009 he ordered wiretaps of jailhouse conversations between inmates and their lawyers. The Popular Party is now the Powerful Party; they currently rule Spain. Their country’s Supreme Court convicted Garzon and barred him from the bench past the mandatory retirement age. Though he might still work as an advisor to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, he’s finished in Spain.
And he might even face jail time. He faces two other charges, including one that seeks to punish him for violating a 1977 law that prohibits investigations of political crimes during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and the decades of martial law that followed. Garzon had the nerve to investigate . . . → Read More: The Dictator Hunter
Originally posted January 15th, 2012
By Michael Konik
Aside from their protective utility, latex condoms aren’t anyone’s first choice for a sexual accoutrement. Claims to the efficacy of certain “ribbed for her pleasure” varieties notwithstanding, folks use them to prevent pregnancies and transmittable diseases, not because rubbers enhance sex.
Sure, the old putting-it-on-with-your-mouth trick, redolent of European brothels and Asian massage parlors, has its charms, and, yes, condoms come in all sorts of interesting colors (and flavors). Still, those in a relationship that doesn’t require protection (e.g., sterile married couples) would almost never choose to include condoms in their sex life. Compared to “bareback,” condoms are a drag.
The Los Angeles City Council, whose serial acts of legerdemain and thinly concealed larceny could fill many books, has recently given its approval and support to a local ordinance mandating that those who would make adult movies in our city – an impulse which requires a city . . . → Read More: Matters of Public Insertion
Originally posted December 18th, 2011
By Michael Konik
Women, those creatures from Venus, assume that most men, particularly boyfriends and husbands, suffer from a malady known as “selective hearing.” Other forms of this pervasive syndrome include “selective memory” and “selective comprehension.” A rough description: When the Lakers score is coming over the radio, a man hears like a bat; when the wife is asking him to do the dishes – or massage her bunions, or watch cat videos – he hears like Marlee Matlin.
Selective memory usually kicks in when the subject of inquiry involves ex-girlfriends or number of beers consumed.
Selective comprehension usually kicks in when the subject of discussion involves the operation of the pay-per-view function on the remote when the new “Twilight” sequel shows up on cable.
Though it’s not yet entered in the Physicians’ Desk Reference, we’ve recently identified a new and possibly unrelated disease. This one affects both men and . . . → Read More: Selective Smelling
Originally posted October 30th, 2011
By Michael Konik
Here’s how a noted correspondent for the London Observer recently described one of the world’s great democratic republics: “[The country] has become greedy, obsessed with commercialism at the expense of any other value or norm, xenophobic, belligerent, and hubristic.”
He was talking about modern Great Britain. But sentient Americans reading the unpleasant description surely identify with the harsh diagnosis. We’ve been this way for as long as I’ve been alive (more than 46 years). Manifest Destiny has always been our credo and American Exceptionalism our rationale. But now, as in Great Britain, our historical mother, the Empire – and the myth of universal prosperity — is crumbling. The belligerence turns toward home.
In London there were riots and looting and violence. In New York (and Los Angeles, Oakland, Atlanta, Denver, Las Vegas, and a growing number of cities in every region of the Unites States) there’s an . . . → Read More: Occupy Everything
Originally posted October 23rd, 2011
By Michael Konik
Finally.
After more than eight-and-a-half years of deadly folly (more than 120,000 lives, most of them Iraqi civilians) at costs that may never be fully counted ($806 billion out of our treasury so far; $3 trillion according to Nobel-winning economists), President Obama announced on Friday that he’ll pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of the year. “As a candidate for president, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end,” Obama said. “So today I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year…After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over,” he said.
Not exactly. The “war” has been over for around 8 years and 5 months. The ongoing (and disastrously expensive) police action we’ve been conducting there will continue, albeit at reduced numbers. The . . . → Read More: Stop the War(s)! Cut the Budget! Restore our Faith?
Originally posted October 9th, 2011
By Michael Konik
The People are occupying Wall Street, or at least some of the space around it. Barack Obama and Department of Justice head Eric Holder are cracking down on state-sanctioned medical marijuana with more aggression and harm than their predeccessors, those renowned drug softies George W. Bush and John Ashcroft. And although it’s more than a year in the future, everyone is acutely aware that there’s an election, a big one, that could be the fulcrum for a second Civil War…of words, and possibly more if the wrong people get power-mad at the wrong time.
In step with global climate change, primaries seem to be happening earlier each year, like great warbler migrations and cherry blossom blooms. Alreadty it’s politicking season again, and as surely as benumbed voters will eventually learn that some (and possibly all) of the candidates running for every office in the land have committed some act of malfeasance, . . . → Read More: What Does the Code Phrase “Family Values” Really Mean?
Originally posted September 18th, 2011
By Michael Konik
At 25 of the 100 largest U.S. Corporations, at places like Ebay, Boeing, and Verizon, the chief executive earns more than the entire company pays in federal income taxes. These patriotic chaps, who, in their defense, are merely competing in the Financial Olympics according to the official rules established by other patriotic chaps, earned on average $16.7 million in 2010. Gaming the system, you see, does not come cheap.
Meanwhile, as stockholders rejoice (or at least tacitly approve) the fiscal legerdemain, the rest of the country, those who lack the capital to gamble with other people’s money, are bracing for another blow to their dignity and their hopes. The number of Americans living in poverty – surviving on around $22,000 or less annually for a family of four – has surpassed 46 million, more than 15% of us. This is the highest total in 50 years.
We're really sorry about our most recent trading loss. People will say we require more oversight, and, in this case, maybe they're right. It shouldn't have happened, and we'll take steps to make sure it doesn't happen for a third time.
The $4,000 or so ($4,882) of your money that we failed to bring back from our annual company trip to Hollywood Park Racetrack and Casino will in... Read More-->
If you’re reading this essay on MichaelKonik.com, you know that this is a reliable place to find “me,” the me who shares his ideas with the world, whether or not any part of the world is interested. This is where I unilaterally invade my privacy, allowing strangers...
North Korea is launching rockets, Syria is slaughtering its citizens, and the Filipino community is organizing a massive get-out-the-vote campaign for a crucial election (not for something boring and unimportant like a public office but a cause that’s got folks passionately engaged: the American Idol finals). So...
Sometimes our chaotic, unknowable, seemingly random Universe arranges itself with perfect symmetry. In these moments of bracing clarity, authored by a Creator (in whatever guise or nomenclature you prefer) whose sense of irony is matched only by her/his/its sense of wicked humor, our innate foolishness and learned...
Poet Robert Pinsky. Pianist Laurence Hobgood. Text, music, and the moment -- what we hear on the new POEMJAZZ recording is two giant artists making something greater than the sum of its parts. While Pinsky recites his lovely words with his unlovely (but weirdly attractive) voice, Hobgood, the longtime arranger and accompanist [...]
Matters of Public Insertion
By Michael Konik
Aside from their protective utility, latex condoms aren’t anyone’s first choice for a sexual accoutrement. Claims to the efficacy of certain “ribbed for her pleasure” varieties notwithstanding, folks use them to prevent pregnancies and transmittable diseases, not because rubbers enhance sex.
Sure, the old putting-it-on-with-your-mouth trick, redolent of European brothels and Asian massage parlors, has its charms, and, yes, condoms come in all sorts of interesting colors (and flavors). Still, those in a relationship that doesn’t require protection (e.g., sterile married couples) would almost never choose to include condoms in their sex life. Compared to “bareback,” condoms are a drag.
The Los Angeles City Council, whose serial acts of legerdemain and thinly concealed larceny could fill many books, has recently given its approval and support to a local ordinance mandating that those who would make adult movies in our city – an impulse which requires a city . . . → Read More: Matters of Public Insertion