Joe Bageant

Cranky Reflections on the Fourth of July

Would somebody pleeeze turn off that goddam radio!

By Joe Bageant

This is the Fourth of July, 2004, it is muggy and judging from the sporadic concussive noises, every small boy in town is trying his damnedest to blow his thumb off. As a lover of anti-personnel fireworks myself, I would be right out there with them if it didn’t look so bad for an unshaven, late middle-aged tub of lard to be setting off cherry bombs along these venerable tree-lined streets. And besides, it would mean getting out of my boxer shorts before 4 PM on a Sunday, thereby breaking my cardinal rule: Never get dressed on the Sabbath until an hour at which it is appropriate to drink.

Is Our President a Wackjob?

Ordinary people are finally starting to ask, but does it really matter?

By Joe Bageant

Supposedly, if you put live frogs in a kettle of cold water on the stove, then raise the temperature very slowly, the frogs will eventually boil to death without trying to escape. I don't know if that is true, but it does seem the perfect, if sometimes overused, analogy for what we see going on around us in America. My guess is that we frogs are about medium done for. Having never cooked frogs or lived in a fascist state, I am not a practiced judge of these things, but I'm quite sure the end result of either is in no way desirable for frogs or human beings.