Combat! - Page 167 of 406 - A blog by Dan Brooks

Despite panhandling law, downtown homeless remain homeless, downtown

By Dan Brooks in Montana Politics June 2, 2014 5 Comments

Glen Harley Stephens of Ryman Street. Photo by Cathrine Walters of the Indy

I moved into my once and future apartment yesterday, so I am no longer homeless. But the overall vagrancy rate in Missoula remains steady and maybe even climbs, despite such expedients as banning new soup kitchens and making it illegal to sit near businesses downtown. Last week in The Missoulian, the downtown association and various councilpeople complained that our new panhandling ordinance isn’t working. Instead of getting jobs or disappearing to Los Angeles, the bums are doing the same bum stuff, just in compliance with the new law. Even after we made it harder to be homeless, they stuck with it—almost as if they didn’t have a choice.

Friday links! Corporatocracy edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links May 30, 2014 0 Comment

I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy, but “Kleenex” is in the Mac OS spellchecker where “corporatocracy” is not. Postindustrial America is the land of the free, meaning that government has declined to struggle with multinational corporations for control of our lives. Multi-thousand dollar insurance that doesn’t cover doctor visits? Fine, as long as it keeps government out of health care. Refusal to regulate high-efficiency killing machines that the vast majority of Americans want controlled? Whatever you say, paid lobbyists of gun manufacturers. Today is Friday, and the wolves want to set you free from the shepherds. Won’t you bleat plaintively with me?

MT’s ban on gay marriage goes to court

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized May 29, 2014 5 Comments

Protestors in Washington, DC quote their version of the Constitution.

Last week, Montana joined the 29 other states whose laws prohibiting same-sex marriage have been challenged in court. I accidentally typed “same-ex marriage,” which I adamantly oppose for reasons related to reception seating. But gay marriage is fine, and it’s going to happen sooner or later. Even Orrin Hatch admits that, and he’s a stegosaur. But Tim Fox, Republican attorney general for the great state of Montana, wants to defend our constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in court. It’s a losing proposition, and a bunch of people who love each other are going to have to sit on their midcentury modern sofas and wait while we sort it out. Or—and this is crazy, now—Fox could save us all some time and become a hero to boot by declining to defend the ban. That’s what I suggest in my most recent column for the Missoula Independent, although I also make the crucial error of forgetting to specify that I am not gay. Have at it, internet commenters. I should have used the genius hashtag Aaron and I invented last weekend, #YesHomo(NoHomo). Feel free to append that to whatever tweets you twerk on this issue. I’ll search that hashtag at the end of the week and send you all a bill.

Operation American Spring waiting on millions

By Dan Brooks in Tea Party May 28, 2014 0 Comment

Two OAS attendees comfort each other by the reflecting pool, in a photo by Carl Woodward

Two OAS attendees comfort each other by the reflecting pool. Photo by Carl Woodward

Reliable coverage of Operation American Spring has been hard to find, maybe because major media outlets are colluding to cover up a popular movement that threatens to restore constitutional government, and maybe because hardly anyone showed up. Although organizers predicted a turnout between 10 and 30 million, only a few hundred people attended—and that number comes from OAS itself. According to this mean-spirited photo essay by Carl Woodward—in which he congratulates himself on foreseeing “weeks ago” that their plan wouldn’t work—OAS attendees were so few as to be indistinguishable among the families there for a GW commencement.

On a certain feeling in New York yesterday

By Dan Brooks in Existential Dilemmas May 27, 2014 1 Comment

Coney Island 2011, by Sarah Gitin

Yesterday, I took the train to 103rd Street and the Museum of the City of New York, where I saw an exhibit of photographs by Aaron Rose. I walked down Fifth Avenue to the Met, where I looked at 7th-century southeast Asian sculpture and the rooftop installation and the backs of tourists’ heads. I walked through the park, past the boathouse and the longest line for rowboat rentals I have ever seen, to the roller disco area. I watched roller disco for a long time. It was a pleasant day, during which I probably saw more strangers than I see in an entire year in Missoula.