I think I should reread The Neddiad.  Or maybe get the book on cd and have a listen.  Then I can ascertain the answer to the question:

So, where does The Neddiad fit in the Pinkwater canon?

Once I ask myself that question, I can slap myself silly for asking myself a ridiculous question.  What the heck is a canon?
Lizard Music garners critical respect, and is sort of unofficially titled The Best Thing Pinkwater Ever Wrote.  Alan Mendelsohn is the fan favorite, though I have some serious problems with that book, but those may be just as well because Pinkwater seemed to work out those “flaws” when rehashing the formula in later books.  I am partial to the second Snarkout Boys book, which sort of captured a certain elan of my high school years — perhaps just a trick in the book on tape’s rotation with my Talking Heads cds.   What I can say about Young Adults is that at the end of a particularly dreadful day (the one that involved law enforcement officers), I read and reread the 2 page chapter “Zen Christmas” for about half an hour.  Borgel is somewhat the most Douglas Adam-y of Pinkwater’s books.
I suspect The Neddiad falls somewhere between that bunch of books and Yobgorgle.  I forget just about anything about Yobgorgle.  Did I ever read that a third time?
I see some comments that The Neddiad shows that Pinkwater seems to be writing these days for his loyal fans as opposed to a more general audience, a half-criticism.   I think I would go ahead and give my “aye” to that proposition if the Chicken Man had somehow made an appearance, but as it is I shake my head “no”.  Perhaps the blogger I’m thinking of who made such comments was thinking in a general arc that spreads back to The Education of Robert Nifkin and goes more specifically to Looking for Bobowicz and The Artsy Smartsy Club, as well the audience for the online serializing of The Neddiad.  Looking for Bobowicz and The Artsy Smartsy Club (the latter of which I did not particularly like and don’t think my ten year old self would have liked either — ’twas didactic) were sequels to a 30 year old book.  We could be only so lucky to find that rumored third Snarkout Boys book released — which probably would find the audience of not much more than Pinkwater’s loyal fan-base.

By any measure, Rudy Giuliani had a horrible week.  It is bad enough that some oxygen was sucked out by the edging toward presidential campaign of his successor, Michael Bloomberg.  (I think there’s a limit to New Yorkers that the nation is going to be able to tolerate.)  Also bad is that his South Carolina adviser was indicted on cocaine charges.
Probably most importantly in the matter of policy decisions, Rudy Giuliani just pulled the “You Can’t Fire me.  I quit.” card on the Iraq Study Group, after the Iraq Study Group noted that he had opted out of their study sessions in favor of speaking engagements at those wacky “Get Motivated” Motivational Speaking tours.

Cue Fred Kaplan:

It was not as if Giuliani feared the group might take positions that conflicted with his own. For, as Josh Marshall and his researchers at Talking Points Memo discovered (to their surprise), Giuliani has no position on Iraq. He has long supported Bush’s decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein. But on the question of what to do now, he’s been mum. Last week, Giuliani issued “the 12 Commitments,” a document that lays out the agenda of his presidency. The First Commitment concerns terrorism (“I will keep America on offense in the Terrorists’ War on Us”), but Iraq isn’t mentioned at all.

First, what a bizarrely evasive comment, even by politicians’ standards. Second, does Giuliani have the slightest doubt that, whatever happens in the next 19 months, Iraq will remain one of the most urgent topics that a new president will have to confront? […]

His shrugged blow-off of Baker-Hamilton offers a glimpse at the darker side of America’s Mayor: that he’s in it not for the country, but for himself.
To be fair, they all are in it “for him(her)self”, and it’s a little too easy to see the sleights of hands the politicos are pulling on us, papering over their lack of policy acumen.  But something here, by a man who so easily pounces on the “absurdity” of a policy approach to the middle East that is not composed of a simple “Stay on the Offense”, who could have picked up some pointers from the Iraq Study Group for something that doesn’t redound back to Bush the Next.  I suspect a President Rudy Giuliani would do Dick Cheney one better.  Cheney, when convenient, declares that the vice president is not part of the Executive Branch, thus not subject to particular aspects of oversight.  When convenient, ie: for uses of power, it is.  Giuliani, I imagine, will just do the same with the Presidency: no longer part of the Executive Branch.  We’ll have to figure out a new name for it.

But I guess that this is roughly what the Republican’s rank and file dedicated want.  The ones who figure in Bush’s 26 percent approval rating, similar to Nixon’s 23 percent — and easily transferable as the same group of individuals.  They are the abuses of Power lovers.

For whatever reason, the tax-dodgers in New Hampshire — Ed and Elaine Brown, cause celebres for a narrow audience — have aligned themselves behind neo-nazi Randy Weaver, the Browns desirious of echoing Ruby Ridge. Next they need to find out where the Freemasons are, and we will be off and running!

And where’s Bo Gritz when we need him?

Incidentally, if you look around prisonplanet.com, Alex Jones’s site, you will find an interview with Randy Weaver. One nut deserves another.
I suppose we could revisit the 16th Amendment dealy-do, that being what the Browns believe to be null and void, subject to pretending that it does not exist. It is an interesting bit of history, the process that meted out the 16th Amendment, inextricably linked to the politics of Reconstruction — the, um, Occupied Dixie — and thus the charges of illegitimacy. I really don’t need to watch their video explaining their tax theories on youtube.
I have no special thoughts on the Browns. I trust that they have prepared well enough. Stock themselves with food. Stock themselves with electical generators. Stock themselves with food. Stock themselves with electrical generators. Stock themselves with food. Stock themselves with…

… They remembered their Survivalist training, didn’t they?
Really, if you can hold up against the Police State camped out just outside your compound for years and years, more power to you! It’s a romantic notion, Under Siege. Don’t expect me to have too much sympathy when it ends badly, though.
In the old days of bunkering down in a compound your link to the outside world was ham radios. Today we have the Internet. And so there are the videos floating on youtube.
Catch them while you can. The New World Order Government is going to take them away from us.

As Ralph Nader pushes for a woefully irrelevant run, and as Ron Paul likely campaigns for a vaunted two percent in the Libertarian Party, and perhaps Cynthia McKinley does the same for the Green Party. Michael Bloomberg. He just might get somewhere! Where, I do not quite know. The poll numbers to consider are that the Bush Administration just reached another low, and the Democratic held Congress isn’t any better in the polls.

Something I muse about the Democrats’ plight: I represent this conflicted opinion swatch as this poster at that message board. So she hates Bush. She hates the Iraq War. But when the Democratic House passed a resolution for time lines, she bought into the “Defunding the troops” line and hated that as well. So there you go. A public opinion glitch that has to be dealt with. The Iraqi Study Group has been resurrected. Ignored last time by apparently the only branch that matters (which now apparently excludes Dick Cheney), let’s see where this lark goes this time around.
Another interesting confliction: there was a sense last November by large swarths of the voting public that they were voting for Divided Government, checks and balances. And now that we have the natural outcome of that, with a stalled Energy Bill for instance, it chunks some points off of Congress’s approval rating. Go figure!

Back to Bloomberg. Recall that there was this moment in the 1992 presidential election where Perot was leading Bush and Clinton in the polls. Then he dropped out of the race. And he jumped back in the race to garner 19 percent. Now, the deal with Perot is that he very likely reached his mass vote. He managed to avoid a certain amount of media scrutiny by jumping out of the race when he did, scrubbing some of the second thoughts for much of the electorate.

Bloomberg has one thing Perot has and lacks one thing that Perot does not have. He has the image of Sanity — he’s a, quote-in-quote “competent manager”, who — incidentally — is beloved by the mainstream beltway media. A few year’s ago, when his approval rating was actually in the 20s, one of the newsweeklies (Time or Newsweek) covered him as one of The nation’s Best Mayors. (I remember at the time Jon Stewart actually saying he approved of Bloomberg’s job performance, and found that interesting in light of his poll numbers.) And he was just featured yet again in a cover article with Arnold Schwarzenegger. And Eleanor Clift called Bloomberg / Hagel her “Dream ticket”. Indeed — interesting to note — he was mayor during the vaunted New York City post 9/11 recovery that Giuliani claims credit for, which would undermine Giuliani for his presidential run, methinks.
What he lacks that Perot has is charisma. He is a boring figure who inspires nobody. Which may mean that any support he ends up garnering will crater, crash, and burn from sheer inertia.

And that is where we are at with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who seceded from a Republican Party he was barely and only tactically a part of anyways. I note swirling around the discussions of Bloomberg the question of Ballot access. Well, there’s “Unity 08”, which if you go to their website you will see a slobbering kiss of a press release heralding Bloomberg’s break with a political party he was only tactically a part of to begin with. But Bloomberg could probably just buy off Unity 08 and get rid of the danged contraption. (Seriously: “middle way”? BAH de BAH!) The other answer tends to the simple “He has billions of dollars” mode. Which is true enough, but of some interest is how the tool of millions of his billions of dollars would be used to garner him ballot access throughout the states.

Which leads me to the answer of how a Michael Bloomberg goes about garnering ballot access. The same way Ross Perot did in 1992 — echoing to 1996, after they proved their mettle with the quasi-Marxist “New Alliance Party” in piecing together a 50 state ballot access for 1988 and 1992. The same way Pat Buchanan did in 2000. The same way Ralph Nader gained access to at least New York State in 2004. The same way Michael Bloomberg received the “Independence Party” line for New York for his mayorial runs. (I suppose that requires some explanation on New York’s ballot laws — a candidate can run on several party labels, and it’s a little weird.)

The answer is: by tapping on the shoulders of psycho-analysis -slash- political cult leader Fred Newman and Lenora Fulani. The workings of Fred Newman’s wikipedia page are found here.

In 1994, Fulani and Newman became affiliated with the Patriot Party, one of many groups that would later compete for control of the Reform Party founded by Ross Perot. She also joined with Jacqueline Salit to start the Committee for a Unified Independent Party, an organization dedicated to bringing various independent groups together to challenge the bipartisan hegemony in American politics. During the 2000 election, Fulani endorsed Pat Buchanan, then running on the Reform Party ticket, and served briefly as a campaign advisor. Fulani later withdrew her endorsement of the Buchanan campaign on the grounds that it had “hijacked” the Reform movement in order to further Buchanan’s own right wing^[12] Fulani and Newman then endorsed the Presidential candidacy of Natural Law Party leader John Hagelin, a close associate of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Later, Fulani unsuccessfully sought the Vice Presidential nomination at the national convention organized by a faction of the Reform Party. agenda.

In the 2001 election for Mayor of New York City, Fulani and the Independence Party of New York endorsed the RepublicanMichael Bloomberg. Bloomberg, once elected, approved an $8.7 million municipal bond to provide financing for Fulani and Newman to build a new headquarters for their youth program, theatre and telemarketing center.

[…]

Despite the extended media attention given to the above charges, Fulani continued to broaden her grassroots base of support in the African American community in 2005, forming what she described as a “coalition of outsiders” to organize Independence Party support support for the re-election campaign of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The coalition was described in local press coverage as consisting of “union officials, clergy, sanitation workers, police officers, firefighters, district leaders and others who work at the grassroots level.”^[16] Vocal defenses of Fulani also appeared in the city’s Black press; writing in the Amsterdam News, columnist Richard Carter wrote “there is little doubt that the main reason for the negative press, which, by the way, is not unusual for this brilliant, outspoken political strategist, is because she is a strong, no-nonsense Black woman. So strong she makes the city’s political establishment and lockstep white news media nervous.”^[17]

Actually it’s a strangely parasitic organization, somehow finding its Marxist bearings into the campaigns of Ross Perot and, however briefly, Pat Buchanan. (Incidentally, would somebody please write a book about the 2000 Reform Party Presidential Primary. That one fascinates me to no end.)

OR we could run with more ancient history:

Newman founded the collective Centers for Change (CFC) in the late 1960s after the student strikes at Columbia University.^[8] CFC was dedicated to 60s-style, radical community organizing and the practice of Newman’s evolving form of psychotherapy which he would term (circa 1974) “proletarian therapy”, later “Social Therapy”.^[9] CFC briefly merged with Lyndon LaRouche’s National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC) in 1974. Within a few months, however, the alliance fell apart, an event which Newman attributed to LaRouche’s increasingly “paranoid”, “authoritarian” direction^[10] and the NCLC’s “capacity to produce psychosis and to opportunistically manipulate it in the name of socialist politics.”^[11] In August 1974, the CFC went on to found the International Workers Party (IWP), an explicitly Marxist-Leninist revolutionary party.

In the wake of another factional fight in 1976, the IWP publically disbanded. In 2005, Newman told The New York Times^[12] This claim appears to be consistent with critical allegations, made many years earlier, that the organization had never actually disbanded and remained secretly active.^[13][14] that the IWP had transformed into a “core collective” that continues to function.

Throughout the latter part of the ’70s, Newman and his core of organizers founded, or assumed control of, a number of small, grassroots organizations, including a local branch of the People’s Party known as the New York Working People’s Party; the New York City Unemployed and Welfare Council; and the Labor Community Alliance for Change.^[15][16][17]

That Larouche – Newman alliance is fascinating, in that the two gurus appear to have learned some tactical and quasi-ideological concepts from one another.  The term “Core Collective” is also interesting.
Okay. This whole fade-away likely doesn’t add up to a hill of beans. It is a strange and ugly underbelly of electoral politics, particularly third party national politics. Likely no worse than Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s bizarre connections with political figures. (See this here.) What does Newman get out of a Bloomberg presidency anyways?

Then again, what the heck do we get? Really? Bloomberg?
Well, Ralph Nader has been kind of obsessed with him, thinking his big money beats the big money of the Republican — Democratic Duopoly.

Dear “lewrockwellians”:

Regarding a stray post on dailykos.com — um, dailykosians?– commented by a blogger at lewrockwell.com:

How do I put this? There is this moment on the recent Ron Paul online video with a woman saying all her Liberal relatives are planning on voting for Ron Paul. It’s a misnomer. If push comes to shove, I believe the Liberal contingency would vote for goddamned Hillary Clinton over sainted Ron Paul. Nor do they particularly owe Ron Paul their vote.

Her ideology, such as it is, better matches them than Ron Paul’s does. And that includes the idea that we might intervene in Darfur.

Actually the linking to that is interesting. I do not think I saw it streaming on the rss roster at bloglines, meaning it’s not a “Front Page” item. I might be wrong about that. But the thing is that these sites are linking to Ron Paul in the media items right and left, left and right. A commenter on Reason posited this tendency as compared with the South Park Underpants Gnome of “Step 1: Steal Underpants. Step 2: Question Mark. Step 3: Profit.”

I. — We discussed the idea of putting together binders full of visuals (recent LaRouchePAC.com slugs, quotes, maps, diagrams, old pamphlet covers, EIR articles if we are low on EIR hard copies, etc.) to help us effectively communicate a single laser focused idea to a contact out in the field, and get them to sign up. —-

Binders of slugs, old pamphlet covers, EIR articles if we are low on EIR hard copies? This looks like more corroboration of problems in getting things printed, now that PMR is gone. (comment from Rachel Holmes.)

response: I had similar echoes from Europe: they don’t print their newspaper anymore! I suppose this is what “the best economist in the world”‘s solution was all about after their financial/structural crisis last year when the european leadership slammed the door with kingpin Friesecke… The “best economist in the world” thought the solution was to cut down production costs: so why not not printing anymore and have an allout “internet strategy” (the socalled larpac website strategy)?
I suggest even better, why not joining the online “virtual communities” like www.activeworlds.com The youths would have their avatars and their virtual cardtable shrine, trying to make some other avatars to sign up for their virtual copy of EIR? Whenever they organize well they ll win some “virtual credits” to buy some “virtual sandwiches”. Their mission is to save this “virtual 3d world” from the forces of evil.

II. I have gone through the FACTNet posts, sorting them in a most hap-hazard fashion, wanting to but not willing to prune out redundancies and meandering superficialities. One thing that I have done is to place a bunch of anecdotal explanations of life stories of why some posters entered, and why they exited, the Cult.

My cleanest observation is that Lyndon Larouche is a cynical operator indeed.  I suppose a close look at “Beyond Psychology” tells all, but a rudimentary awareness of psychology, and marketing –which is after all psychology applied to commercial purposes– is sufficient.  Here is a post from a LYMer to an exited LYMer:
Cynicism is difficult to combat. It often devolves into existentialism, or even nihilism. The fault dear Scott, lies not in our stars, but, in ourselves that we are underlings.
I am reminded of the fact that professionals who work with schizophrenic patients generally work for six-month stretches, then they are required to get away for six months. This is a standard procedure simply because the condition of schizophrenic patients has a powerful, detrimental effect on the therapist. I fear that if anyone were to spend too much time with you, Scott, they would suffer the same.

That is the craven meanness of a LaRouche follower.  But you already know that if you ever pass by one of their card-table shrines, particularly during crunch-time as they come close to their deadlines for meeting quota lest they be haranged by their orderlings, and they shout out the projection “FASCIST!”

Taking a look at the latest Presidential campaign Youtube spots.

#1: Mike Gravel. Minimalistic, I suppose. I have no explanation.

#1a: Mike Gravel has offered an explanation. It’s a couple of art school students’ art project? I think Gravel overloaded the meaning.

#2: Hillary Clinton. For a second you think she selected Foreigner’s “Don’t Stop Believing”. I can not possibly see Bill Clinton, or for that matter anyone, saying “My money’s on Smash Mouth”. There is no way the voters could have possibly picked that not fully known Celion Deion song, and that is probably as good a metaphor as any.

#3: Barack Obama. Cute. Maybe one of the second or third tier candidates can get desperate and do a video full of strippers.

#4: Mitt Romney. 15 minutes of nausea. The question of “Why?” comes to mind. They eat a Christmas Dinner. It’s a big family. They say “Jesus” a lot. Why do we want tape of Mit Romney’s Christmas dinner?

#5: Ron Paul. Actually, seeing this video, screening at Paul’s campaign website, I am mildly freaked out by the Ron Paul supporters. A bit more freakish is to scan the videos at youtube, and see that they are all bulked up by the same spam-istic messages. Even as I admire Ron Paul, and have for some time, I would not want to be on any email list connected with him.

I have to feel for Abbas right now.  I too would be freaked out if someone in a ski mask, and armed to the teeth, broke into my home and circulated photographs showing him drinking water next to my bed.  Seriously, Hamas has gone too far.

cursor.org punted this letters to the editor page forward.  It is angry denunciations toward Joseph Lieberman for his stance on Iran, which is further on to the path to military action than any publicly elected official I or you know.

The charming thing about this is that the “comments” is abled, even to this paper’s letters to the editor.  There are only two at this point, but they both say what is the first thing on my and what I would bet your mind:

hey connecticut,

thanks for not electing ned lamont !
Ned Lamont, in retrospect an imperfect vehicle for a fairly clear policy purpose.  And a weary Connecticut threw in their lot 50 percent to 40 percent.