♬ Spread the word around Guess who’s back in town ♬ — “The Boys Are Back in Town,” Thin Lizzy[footnote]Picture a person who lacks every ounce of the charisma, raw sexuality and artistic talent of Phil Lynott and you have a good mental image of your returning WPT essayist.[/footnote] Two score and fourteen weeks ago, your hortatory Weekend Politics Thread host hung up his quill and sleeve garters. He returns for one-time only to fill a gap created by the retiring-on-his-own terms Cajun Clearwater,[footnote]holds for applause[/footnote] to shill for pending 50th birthday upvotes, and to answer a riddle that plagues … Continue reading The Weekend Politics Thread Speculates on Sycophancy

Fill-in PTs are getting to be a habit. Do your usual. Continue reading The Wednesday Politics Thread Comes in With a Wimple

♫ I say history never repeats I tell myself before I go to sleep Don’t say the words you might regret I lost before, you know I can’t forget ♫ –“History Never Repeats,” Split Enz Elliott Abrams returned. Silvio Berlusconi returned. Charles De Gaulle returned, but only because no one else would. Listing other political revenants extending back to Aragon at Gondor.[footnote]Possibly mythological.[/footnote] Uvular adds his name to this illustrative[footnote]See what he did there by substituting a near-homophone for “illustrious”? Genius, that guy. Yeah, you missed him.[/footnote] roll call. Try not to repeat yourselves too much as you post in … Continue reading The Tuesday Politics Thread of the Living Dead

I’ve always been a quitter. I quit the Boy Scouts, the glee club, the marching band. Gave up my paper route, turned my back on the church, stuffed the basketball team. I dropped out of college, sidestepped the army with a 4-F on the grounds of mental instability, went back to school, made a go of it, entered a Ph.D. program in nineteenth-century British literature, sat in the front row, took notes assiduously, bought a pair of horn-rims, and quit on the eve of my comprehensive exams. I got married, separated, divorced. Quit smoking, quit jogging, quit eating red meat. … Continue reading The Weekend Politics Thread in Disarray

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round; And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. — “Kubla Khan,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge[footnote]Not even the most-committed democratic socialist has ever achieved a progressivism as pure as Rush’s late-70s discography.[/footnote] Your disabused Weekend Politics host has previously shared generalities about his beyond-comfortable … Continue reading The Weekend Politics Thread Grew Incommoded

♪ Do you come from a land down under? Where women glow and men plunder? Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder? You better run, you better take cover ♪ — “Down Under,” Men at Work     Another cool Australian band called Hoodoo Gurus recorded another cool song called “My Caravan” that would provide several apt epigrams with which your 80s-addled Weekend Politics Thread host could set the tone for the present header.[footnote]To say nothing, except for what appears in this easily ignored popup footnote, of Van Morrison’s “Caravan,” The Who’s “Join Together,” or Duke Ellington’s “Caravan” — … Continue reading The Weekend Politics Thread Psychically Perambulates Through Perversities in the Predawn Hours

♪ Fifteen years later Caught in time’s incinerator Yesterday’s worries are today’s But the good times are so near just sitting back and drinking beer You know I’m halfway down the road. But I know that I still ain’t there ♪ — “Can’t Go Back,” Soul Asylum No, not that unholy offspring of a Ben Folds Five and Maroon 5 hate fuck after too many tequila shots, but four unjustly forgotten Minutemen musical meisterwerks plus one apt introductory track from the greatest post-punk power pop band not named Hüsker Dü that Minneapolis ever produced.[footnote]Uvular offers five bucks American, payable upon … Continue reading The Weekend Politics Thread References Five for Fighting

♬ I might not know what a friend is All I know is what you’re not Cause you’re one of them Them ♬ — “My War,” Black Flag     Proto-Emo Henry Rollins[footnote]Hank to his friends from back in the day like Uvular’s SST staffer/SoCal punk journeyman drummer cousin-in-law, which makes Uvular cool by double marriage.[/footnote] captured the false friend trope as well as anyone ever. And what tales that tells. From the Serpent duping Eve to Mohammed bin Salman ordering the torture and execution of Jamal Khashoggi, amigos often compel their compadres to demand better. But MBS BFF, the … Continue reading The Weekend Politics Needs Enemies Like These

Lacrimosa dies illa | Full of tears will be that day Qua resurget ex favilla | When from the ashes shall arise Judicandus homo reus. | The guilty man to be judged. — “Lacrimosa dies illa,” Requiem in D Minor, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart     Liberal democracy has taken it in the balls so often lately that one might mistake C-SPAN for an America’s Funniest Home Video greatest hits compilation.[footnote]Insert the George C. Scott football to the groin Frinkiac here.[/footnote] Yes, a white Chicago cop who pumped a dozen rounds into an already fallen and dying black teen will go … Continue reading The Weekend Politics Rises From the Ashes

Cry havoc! and let slip the dogs of war. — Mark Antony, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene I Oy, gevalt! After the week U.S. and UN politics put us Politicadoes through, we deserve a cute critters break. *pregnant pause for comedic effect* So let’s talk no-kill animal shelters.[footnote]Holds for groans turning to respectful chuckles.[/footnote] The next city over from where your buzzkilling Weekend Politics Thread host types this header recently triggered a teacup poodle-sized tempest by refusing to euthanize a 13-year-old boxer who spent a day-and-a-half suffering a cascade of strokes and seizures. A concerned citizen witnessed some of the … Continue reading The Weekend Politics Thread Revels in Its Animal Nature