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Back In The Madhouse!

We’ve landed back in the asylum, though hopefully not for long. After three peaceful weeks in Brittany, France, disembarking at Detroit airport was truly like returning to a madhouse. Whoever designed that tunnel between concourses at Detroit must have been out of their minds. Garishly-colored sheets of ever-shifting light covering the walls and ceiling…

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…coupled with a cacophony of discordant noise emanating from all directions, blew my mind long before I reached Concourse B.

Apparently, I wasn’t alone. The airport website sees fit to carry this warning:

While the Light Tunnel is an extremely popular feature, the Airport Authority recognizes that the combination of light and sound may be uncomfortable for some travelers. Customers may suspend the program for a five minute period by pressing the button marked by signage at each end of the tunnel (to the right at the bottom of the escalators). For more details, just ask any member of airport staff inside the terminal.”[1]

If we’d anticipated any degree of sanity settling over this nation while we’d been away, our disappointment would have been palpable. Not that we did. The madness continues, seemingly unabated. The US government continues to stockpile arms in Poland, then expresses self-righteous outrage when Putin counters by announcing an increase in Russia’s nuclear arsenal.

We now learn from the BBC that “The world ‘largely likes’ the US”[2], but the opinion poll that delivered this verdict was run by an American think-tank, so perhaps the result wasn’t entirely surprising. The Pew Research Center is respected by media organizations throughout the world, but it may not be as non-partisan, non-advocacy, and non-policy forming as it declares on its website. The center relies for its funding on the Pew Charitable Trusts (well, it would, wouldn’t it?) and heading that organization is Rebecca Rimel, described by Philadelphia Magazine back in 2004 as:

…one of the most powerful women in
America.[3]

It was she who, according to SourceWatch:

…was instrumental in the legal maneuvering for the takeover of the Barnes art collection — a large prime collection of artwork with an estimated value of $25 – $30 bn[4]

The film documenting the events surrounding this ‘legal heist’ caused the late Roger Ebert to write:

“It is perfectly clear exactly what Barnes specified in his will. It was drawn up by the best legal minds. It is clear that what happened to his collection was against his wishes. It is clear that the [Philadelphia] city fathers acted in obviation of those wishes, and were upheld in a court of appeals. What is finally clear: It doesn’t matter a damn what your will says if you have $25 billion, and politicians and the establishment want it.”[5]

For “establishment” read “Rebecca Rimel”?

It’s general knowledge that Pew, in its entirety, is still owned by oil magnates viz: the Pew family of Sunoco (Sun Oil Co), and given the vast sums of money involved, and Rimel’s cozy relationship with the corporations and Congress, one has to wonder just how “non-partisan, non-advocacy, and non-policy forming” the Pew Research Center can really be.[5]

Only in an insane asylum could the actions of a 21-year-old mentally unhinged youth gunning down nine worshipers in a church result in three hundred million people coming to blows over a flag.

A hearty “Well done!” to the US media and the NRA. It sure took the heat off gun control. (You surely don’t need a link to this one!)

I’ve always considered circuses to be somewhat scary, probably because they’re full of weird clowns. None more so, however, than the political circus presently in full swing throughout the US, as ten (or, is it eleven…twelve..?) Republican escapees from the institution vie to become the next president of the United States.

The Pope recently spoke out strongly about climate change. Every Republican candidate, bar one, basically agreed the Pope should stick to the Bible and keep his nose out of politics. They all believe climate change is a ‘political issue’, which speaks volumes for their lack of mental acumen. Perhaps, it well qualifies them for the post they’re hoping to attain.

If all this weren’t evidence enough that we’re three hundred million living in a madhouse of a country, then the latest news from Congress must surely clinch it. Today it was announced that our beloved and respected representatives in the Senate have voted to “fast-track” that infamous “trade deal” known as the Trans Pacific Partnership, or TPP, through Congress, despite almost all of them being opposed to it last week.[6]

I wonder what changed their minds?

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[1] “DTW-Tunnel”

[2] “The world ‘largely likes’ the US, says global survey” BBC, June 26th 2015

[3] “Philadelphia Magazine” August 2004

[4] “Rebecca Rimel” SourceWatch

[5] “Rebecca Rimel’s Millions in Compensation at Pew Charitable Trusts and Elsewhere” NPQ, March 12th 2015

[6] “Obama’s ‘fast-track’ trade bill clears key Senate hurdle”BBC, June 23rd 2015

5 Replies to “Back In The Madhouse!”

  1. At the top of your game as usual. A point of dispute would be the “mentally unhinged” condition of the murderer. I’d say that it was the knuckle dragging privileged thinking of women ownership that propelled him on his murderous rampage. A black man “stole” his woman. Plus he gets such a weapon as a gift from his father for his 21st.

    The largest open air lunatic asylum in the world. Yup.

    XO
    WWW

  2. Welcome back to the loony-bin, RJ!
    If and when you de-camp to saner climes I hope you’ll continue chatting with sparrows and assorted loonies still trapped in the bin. 🙂

  3. WWW ~ the story of ‘unrequited love’ didn’t get much airtime, and I only found it in two rather dubious periodicals – the Daily Mail and the NY Daily News; to neither would I donate much credence, but I guess I just believe that anyone who can do whatever he did, for whatever reason, has to be wrongly wired somewhere in the brain department. Also, the ‘birthday gift from daddy’ was yet another example of rotten journalism (or, not even journalism!) as it was later revealed he bought the gun himself from a local gun store – more numerous in America than Wal-Marts, of course.
    “The largest open air lunatic asylum in the world.” Without a doubt!

    Twilight ~ definitely not ‘if’, only ‘when’, and that could be before the end of the summer. Sparrow Chat’s wings may have been a bit tired of late, but it’ll fly again before long. How could I forsake you…? 😉

  4. On a more serious note, the Detroit airport tunnel is great. I imagine it’s the atmosphere in which the Beatles wrote Yellow Submarine or Strawberry Fields.

  5. Jonathan – were I as stoned as the Beatles when they wrote those ditties I may have felt the same way. Having just come off a grueling, eight-hour, international flight squashed into a rigid seat with barely sufficient legroom for a five-year-old, fed the most appalling apology for a ‘meal’, and pornographically mauled by some turd from the DHS on arrival, I can honestly say my mood was poles apart from that of the Beatles when they penned either of those songs.
    However, had the grotesque inharmonious noises emanating from the ceiling been replaced by either “Yellow Submarine” or “Strawberry Fields”, I may have found the tunnel experience marginally less mind-shattering.
    It’s good to have your comments again. I apologize for the tardiness of my response. Matters in the Adams’ household are somewhat frenetic at present.

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