I'm running this a second time in case folks missed it over the holiday weekend.

Hey folks, Mark from Queens and I have been discussing a possible C99 meetup at the Philly convention, thinking that a lot of C99ers might be attending.

If you are going to Philly and are interested in a C99 meetup, please use the comment section to discuss when you'll be there and when would be convenient for all of us to meet.

Not so long after I moved up here, they hung the Indian in the jail. Sheriff's deputies. They hung him. Three of them. As inevitably occurs, sooner or later, with everyone who works in law-enforcement, these men, they had decided, that the law, it was them. Not the statutes. Not the courts. Not the system. Not the process. Them. And, according to their law, as they conceived and decreed it, sometimes, someone who came into their jail, that person, needed to be dead.

The first two men they killed, they were locked up on serious charges. However, due to the bungling Barney Fifes and hapless Hamilton Bugers, in the cop shop and in the district attorney's office, it was not at all certain, that they would be convicted. There was also, of course, the possibility they were actually innocent. But these three law jockeys, they paid that no mind. They went ahead and killed them. First the one. Then, a couple years later, the other. "Suicide." Duly pronounced so, by the county coroner. A "doctor," allowed only to examine dead people. Because any live person, upon whom he might "practice" medicine, that person, surely, and soon, would be quite dead.

The Indian, he was not in on any serious charge. He'd been picked up but for public drunkenness. Generally, such a person, he would just be held overnight, and then be released. But, for some reason, the three deputies, they decided to hang him. It's not certain, to this day, why. Maybe, posits one theory, he gave them some lip. The Indian, he was known to have a mouth on him. And, all law-enforcement officers, they believe that they possess, a natural-born right, to harass, intimidate, arrest, beat, and sometimes even kill, anyone who gives them any grief, whatsoever. Who, thereby, refuse to acknowledge, their innate and essential godhood. Bestowed by the badge and the gun. For sure, these deputies, they figured that no one would care. That the Indian had "suicided." For, why would they? After all: he was, just, an Indian.

Those who are concerned that a Hillary Clinton administration will mean expanded US military aggression across the globe, may be closing the barn door after the horse is stolen.

Language is a prerequisite of civilization; literature is a consequence. Fine writing explores, models, and sometimes leads culture. At bottom, however, literature is talk—sounds spoken or written.

Talk has limitations. Vocabulary is ever shifting and is shared imperfectly. Talk is necessarily linear, one word at a time, excellent for lists, describing events in time, cause and effect, but it is clumsy at describing, say, the New York subway system or the liberation of first love.

I have a rather interesting history with Social Security. As my maternal grandmother used to tell me, I was taken off of childhood disability benefits and switched to survivors when my father died. I was 12 at the time so I had no way of knowing about any of that then. Of course, the moment I turned 18 those benefits stopped and I had virtually no recourse for fighting back.

To understand this election debacle and all its ramifications, interconnections, subterfuges, and downright crap, one has to be a master of 9-dimensional chess. I have a hard enough time with the common 2-D version. I thought I pretty much understood how this nomination thingy was going to work out--at least in my own mind. But then Bill Clinton totally clusterfucked the situation. He could easily be the smartest politician on the the planet--or undergoing senile dementia changes.