Too Much Bloody Perspective

Special Note to My Three Readers

2007-03-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

There are probably better ways to relieve stress than walking around with a meteorite, some chewing gum, and thin wire filament shoved up your rectum.

Link

...especially if you're trying to get through security at LAX.

...especially if you're a Middle Easterner -- an Iraqi named Fadhel Al-Maliki.

[ I'm not certain it's a meteorite. Al-Maliki claimed that the rock was from outer space. ]

Puckish

2007-02-18T16:38:00.000-08:00

Here's Mando Diao doing "Welcome Home, Luc Robitaille."

This is to honor the fact that H-Bomb and I went to Staples last night and watched the Kings lose (barely) to the Quacks from Ana-fucking-heim. This was my first ever live hockey experience, and I've gotta say that it was totally awesome. And very white. The people, that is. The ice too.

Cheney, the Wrath of God

2007-02-10T15:00:00.000-08:00

"If I, Aguirre, want the birds to drop dead from the trees, the birds will drop dead from the trees. I am the wrath of God! The earth I walk upon sees me and quakes!"
- Klaus Kinski as Aguirre in Werner Herzog's Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972)

Jesucristo!

Te-Le

2007-02-10T14:48:00.001-08:00

This is very cool.

UPDATE:
Shit. The above video has been pulled from YouTube.
Well, here's Te-Le's "Biomusicology" as the score to some geekdom. Enjoy.

I'm not drinking any fucking merlot!

2007-02-07T16:36:00.000-08:00

I agree with the general thrust of what Markos is trying to get at in this post, which goes on to provide some very positive national poll numbers for Nancy Pelosi courtesy of Rasmussen:

It looks like people are realizing that it's not so bad having leadership that represents a corner of the country that has brought us the personal computer, iPods, Pixar movies, Star Wars, Google, eBay, Yahoo, the mass blogging tools (like Blogger, MovableType, and TypePad), NetFlix, TiVo, WiFi, Treos, Palm, Levis, Gap, LeapFrog, Charles Schwab, Wells Fargo, Ghirardelli, sourdough bread, the best wine in the world, redwood forests, and all kinds of other goodness.

I'll begrudgingly grant him Charles Schwab and Wells Fargo for the furthering of his point. But "the best wine in the world"? Sorry. Any even-wannabe oenophile knows that the California wine industry's willing catering to (or worse, collusion with) the dull-tongued masses' penchant for varietals has led to a dearth of truly fine wines coming out of the region. Maybe, and it's a big maybe, Sonoma County has by concentration the best wines in the country (Fuck Napa). But the world? Oh, Lordy. Let's just hope that not too many French folks read Daily Kos.

It reminds me of the "conventional wisdom" that New Yorkers espouse as to their city having the best Chinese food in the country. Even the New York Times concedes that it's not even a close call. The best Chinese food outside of China is right here in sunny Southern California in the San Gabriel Valley.

Boffo Borat

2007-02-07T15:58:00.000-08:00

[ Note: I wrote this back in Novemeber when the movie was all the rage. I didn't publish it at the time for reasons that remain mysterious to me. I have to say, though, that at this later date, I haven't noted any particular hipster backlash against Cohen. ]

Now seems the appropriate time to gird myself against the hipster backlash that Sacha Baron Cohen's great success makes an inevitability. It's a tricky thing to like something so popular, a tricky thing that takes some guts. Only recently has it become properly hip to acknowledge one's admiration for Bruce Springsteen -- this largely, I think, due to his (relatively) advanced age and perceived irrelevancy. This perception allows one to look back (ever backwards) at his career and tip one's hat to that which one never allowed oneself to enjoy at the time of his (perceived) relevancy. Bob Dylan had it a little easier by way of his acid temperament and cultivated enigma -- plus, until recently, his lack of visibility. Kurt Cobain died, so he got a pass. I wasn't around, so I don't know what it was like in the sixties when the Beatles wore the two seemingly mutually exclusive hats of experimental artist and teenage sex idol. I know that for my generation, though, or at least my peer group, it endears you not to be overly successful. Oh, what sacrifice it takes to be cool.

This, though, is to be expected, and this I will endure. What I will not endure, however, is the type of critique that I found in an article by Richard Goldstein writing in The Nation, a meta critique wherein he admonishes his good and sensitive readers to dare to examine at what they laugh and why -- and, lo, if you find yourself laughing at/with Borat, you might not be the good liberal that you thought you were. As with so many like articles about Borat and other "controversial" artists, it is resoundingly clear that Goldstein et al don't get the joke. That's fine and dandy. But instead of accepting this simple fact, Goldstein throws accusatory insinuations at his readers and wraps himself in a cloak of faux sanctimony. Rather than admit that this form of comedy is not to his taste, he disparages the movie, and by extension, its creator:

This flimsy mock doc, in the spirit of gross-out shows like Punk'd and Jackass, might have faded into dating-movie oblivion but for the vehement reaction of the Kazakh government. It didn't appreciate Borat's references to a national wine made from equine urine, or his observation that "America is strange country: Women can vote but horses cannot." By protesting, the Kazakhs gave Baron Cohen a place on US news pages.

True, the Kazakhs' protests may have landed Cohen "a place on US news pages," but to say that this is the only thing that kept it from "fading into dating-movie oblivion" is quite a stretch. (Cohen also ended up in the news pages for singing a butchered rendition of the national anthem at a rodeo -- a scene that made it into the movie.) I'm quite certain that this is not a date movie. What it is is a very successful comedy -- so funny that the audience with whom I saw the movie seemed to be in a constant state of near asphysia, struggling to muffle the laughs so as not to miss the next one. And this comparison to Punk'd and Jackass is simply smug snobbery, a way to express his disapproval of the Borat movie by linking it with these shows/movies that he assumes are slightly higher on the grand minaret of taste than porn or soaps. There are some similarities in approaches, but that's about it. I love Jackass. But Jackass doesn't have as its centerpiece a very gifted comedian playing a fictional character.

And in homage to Atrios's "simple answers to simple questions" bit:

Sacha Baron Cohen is pretty much the hottest thing in sketch comedy now. One reason is the question his shtick poses: What are we laughing at?

Answer: A hilarious comedian... who puts himself in hilarious situations.

Situation Normal... All Fucked Up

2007-02-06T21:06:00.000-08:00

Just a reminder:
Almost four years into this geopolitical experiment.
But, you know, we really had to do it, for reals.

Days: 1,420
Civilian Lives: Anywhere from 58,517 to 655,000+
Coalition Forces Lives: 3,357
Cost of War: Anywhere from $364,375,000,000 to $2,000,000,000,000+

The scales have fallen from the eyes of all but the most psychotically deranged and their ever-shrinking cult of obsequious fanboys. Unfortunately, that probably won't stop 'em from doing the same thing in Iran, what with the instant atavism that will surely possess the TV Heads as they engage in their ritualistic summoning of Joe Schmo's precious tribal and hormonal fluids.

And Joe Schmo won't care. He just got off.

And Some Fed

2007-02-06T11:17:00.000-08:00

This is from a few years ago. Tony Roche recently said that this is the one shot in all of Federer's substantial oeuvre that he wishes he would have seen live. This was, of course, before Roche was Fed's sometimes coach.

Some Shred

2007-02-06T11:12:00.000-08:00

Groundhog Day

2007-02-02T18:13:00.000-08:00

It hasn’t been a very good last couple of years for me. I could go through a veritible laundry list of reasons for this downswing, but I’d rather just leave it at that. I avoid looking at this blog much like I avoid looking at old yearbooks, redolent it is as a reminder of my own idleness, not to mention my self-perceived impotence and creeping obsolescence. Perhaps it’s the effect of a psychological tic by which I’m afflicted that keeps me from doing this work, one that holds me hostage to a certain nihilistic vanity – “Why, oh, why should I jot down these meaningless musings… in this meaningless medium… in this meaningliess world?” Why, indeed?

Well, for one thing, because it’s there. And another: When I read through the archives of this blog, as I have just now done, I am reminded of another, happier time (and lest the D-ster protest that I wasn’t happy, let me just say: Believe me, baby, I surely was). Maybe, just maybe, I’d be happier if I were writing again. Maybe that would ease the throbbing dullness I feel throughout my dreary daily existence. Maybe it would alleviate my concern that I am regressing intellectually while rapidly aging physically – on death’s fast track, as it were. As we know, time ticks on and new wars are begun.

I don’t know whether or not there has been suicide in my family, but there has certainly been depression. But is it depression, really, to have no motivation to endure yet another early-morning wake-up to move the car for fear that it will be ticketed or towed; yet another day slogging away at this computer at which I am currently perched; another day spent in this windowless and inconceivably drab room; another day smoking far too many cigarettes, feeling the grease gradually accumulate on my scalp; another day working solely to collect my biweekly paychecks, checks which have diminished in their monetary value of late; another day to fear going home, a fear based as much on a very acutely experienced awareness of “it all” as it is based on simple loneliness? Perhaps it’s not depression, but rather sanity.

I stopped taking the antidepressant I was on sometime last year due to my impression that its flattening psychological effects were dampening my overall vigor. Nonetheless, I haven’t yet climbed out of that hole. I don’t see the light, folks. But I swear I’m looking. And here’s to future posting on this blog.

The Caption Jockey

I'm Turning Into My Dad

2006-09-16T18:57:00.000-07:00

I fucking hate U2 too. They're impossible to like. But credit where its due: Achtung Baby! is an unqualified masterpiece. The funky, dance-rock riffs, the drums-as-drum-machine beats, the spit-polished production glint, and the cutting, astute lyrics about love and Judases. And I really like Loveless, an auto-erotic fugue in F demolished minor (Thanks, Booksie). My dad used to complain about Andrew Lloyd Weber and Michel Schonberg and the like by saying that you don't leave the theater whistling their tunes as you would a Cole Porter program, for instance. Well, I can't whistle, but after listening to Loveless, I invariably can't wait to put on some Ramones. All apologies to Kevin Shields for the tortured analogy that makes MBV out to be ALW.

$$$$----$$$$

2006-09-16T17:20:00.000-07:00

[I'm not linking to anything. The Web is vast and friendly, like a crenellated vagina]

Lists. I can't resist. Yes, they make me insane, but I can't resist. After seeing Pitchfork's recent (and maddening) list of the top 100 songs of the '60s, I perused their site to see if they had any more lists to offer. Lo, they had a top-100 albums list each for the '70s, '80s, and '90s. I know, they make me insane, but read I must. Or skim. At least the '90s list. And it didn't fail to bring the bile. Okay, OK Computer was number one. Who can argue? It would certainly make my top ten of that decade's best. But the review of the record consists of little more than a defense of its placement above My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. In fact, the meat of the review is little more than a review of said penultimate pick. In fact, here, the Loveless review is a better piece about Loveless than their actual Loveless review. In fact, I can't tell what most of the reviewers are talking about most of the time. They seem to hate music. Or something. They clearly love to write. One reviewer/music-hater writes this about Slanted and Enchanted, their number 5 pick for decade's best (Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain ranks eighth): "Pavement's most danceable and puzzling album contains segments of sassily oblique spoken-word, patches that go down like prog played at 78rpm, and jams that crucify humorless punk on a whittled Slinky." Or, in same review: "Meanwhile, frontboy Stephen Malkmus made the preemptive Stroke: a cute diva who could scream as if he suffered from womb envy, his meticulous apathy "paved" (har! oh shit!) the way for Julian Casablancas' blase ferocity." Wow! How reflexively cute. Two words later, the reviewer, William Bowers, henceforth known as Pedantic Cocksucker, affixes the adjective "crenellated" to the "toss-offs" (songs) that comprise the LP. I don't know why everyone grows up to be assholes. Meanwhile, the OK Computer review does allow this assertion: "It should be reiterated, however, just how much better OK Computer is than Loveless, and why people somehow forget this." They seem to forget this simple truism, the reviewer suggests (this, by the way, not Pedantic Cocksucker, but Dick N. Mouth), because inspired as Loveless's beauty, tension, artifice and art are, it cannot compare to "Thom Yorke singing on his back staring at Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman's castle ceiling." This last sentence is quoted in the piece, which seems to suggest that he ripped it from some press release or another (and Mr. Mouth obliquely suggests same). Its inclusion in this review is baffling nonetheless. I'll tell you what, though, "God Only Knows" is certainly not the best song of the '60s. And neither is Loveless the second best album of the '90s. And Crooked Rain is better than Slanted and Enchanted. I was relieved to see that no Oasis album made the cut. But so many other omissions, sinful omissions, remain. No To Bring You My Love. No Achtung Baby! (though it gets at least one negative reference in one of the reviews, probably P.C.'s). Alas, I'm not as young and cool as these whippersnappers at PF are. I'm a lowly caption slinger. If I had my finger on the pulse of cool, I would surely know that it will not be cool to like U2 for another decade or so at least. Though they will never be as cool as Daniel Johnston or Brian Wilson or Syd Barrett or Can or dead and/or disturbed people everywhere. Only one Polly Jean album, Rid of Me. And no Afghan Whigs. And about six Stereolab records. And at least 17 Aphex Twin records. And The Lonesome Crowded West ahead of, in order, Exile in Guyville and Summerteeth. I don't know. It's supposed to be fun. But I can't enjoy myself. Well, it's kinda fun.

Going Nuclear

2006-04-16T11:16:00.000-07:00

Kevin Drum has a piece up today highlighting some comments made by "one of the founders of Greenpeace," Patrick Moore. Moore is advocating going nuclear. He says wind and/or solar and/or other sustainables simply will not cut it:

Because they are intermittent and unpredictable they simply can't replace big baseload plants such as coal, nuclear and hydroelectric.

Excuse me if I sound crass, but what the fuck isn't "unpredictable" about going nuclear?

Well, allow me to answer my own question:

It is an absolute certainty that there will be more "minor accidents" like the one in Chernobyl (And, please, no glib retorts filled with annual statistics about car crashes).
It is an absolute certainty that the nuke waste will be here for thousands of years.
It is an absolute certainty that the industry will have praise (in the form of government subsidies) lavished upon it by our neocapitalist/oil baron (cheer) leaders.
It is an absolute certainty that same industry will downplay safety concerns, exaggerate effiiciency claims, cost-cut for profit margin, etc., etc.

And, it is an absolute certainty that there are about a trillion uncertainties in going nuclear on the scale that Moore is talking about, certainly not many of them very pretty.

But what do I know? I'm just a guy that goes to work every day, antes up a third of my income for Internet porn, eats packaged meat products that come from hundreds and thousands of miles away, argues with my wife about things I don't remember saying, pays my taxes, mows the lawn, curses the DVD player, yells at the kids, genuflects at the sight of my boss's posterior, drinks myself to sleep every night, fantasizes about being the hero, dreams of nuke-scorched Armageddons, fills up my gas tank with regular, worries about the kids' futures, worries about my own health, accepts my lot in life, rejects my lot in life, puts money into a 401K, roots for the home team, takes prescription drugs for acid reflux, gout, and depression, is punctual, is likeable, was good-looking, had ambition, wanted more, wants more-- the smiling, wrinkled American face on the one-dollar virtual coin.

Nuclear, though? No, there I won't go. All scientific and cost questions aside, this is a moral issue, and it's time to take a stand for humanity. Reaching peak oil should be a wake-up call, not a call-to-arms for a race to the bottom that will inevitably lead to peak uranium in the not-so-distant future. The denseness in Moore's gray matter must approach that of plutonium-- the plutonium, however, will live a half-life of somewheres-about 35,000 years. These would-be Prometheuses will be long gone. Let's make sure their litter is too.

UPDATE: Go read Hunter at Daily Kos for a rundown on "One of the founders of Greenpeace," Patrick Moore.

Despair Springs Eternal

2005-12-12T18:27:00.000-08:00

So Arnie has denied clemency to Stanley Williams. That should keep the hungry hordes that descended upon the Terri Shiavo exhibition temporarily sated. Some fresh blood for those pious Christians who equate abortion with murder to drink down their gullets. Nancy Grace (is that her name?) must be salivating at the prospect of the poison penetrating Tookie's vitals. I'll probably have more to say about this and about capital punishment generally in the near future. For now, though, I think I'll just drink one for my homey.

My People! My People!

2005-11-17T12:34:00.000-08:00

Andres Martinez is an unspeakable bastard. A spineless suck-up. A douche bag.

After being named Editor of the LA Times' editorial page in September, he has seen fit to rejigger the Commentary page in such a way as to show Robert Scheer to the abattroir, and, in so doing, replace him with that underdone veal chop fresh from grazing the pastures at the National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg. Jonah Goldberg, the privileged prick son of Lucianne Goldberg-- herself, the two of them like to brag, the cow who advised aurally-fixated Linda Tripp to record her conversations with Monica Lewinsky (and to save the blue dress with the white spot on it)-- has repeatedly and publicly trumpeted the Iraqi quagmire as being an absolute good. When asked why he hasn't put his own of-age ass on the line in combat, he cited the fact that he's "35 years old... [his] family couldn't afford the lost income... [he has] a baby daughter." As it happens, MTV has compiled a set of statistics on the 2,000 military men and women killed in Iraq. Guess what, Jonah. Forty percent of these sacrificing Americans left behind spouses, and 30% left behind children. Most, however, stopped sucking on their mama's teet decades ago.

For Goldberg's inaugural column in today's Times, Atrios has bestowed upon him the proud title of "Wanker of the Day." I would nominate Andres Martinez, myself, for allowing this simp to desecrate the Times' pages with his asinine drivel attempting to conflate the public statements with which FDR was able to angle the US into World War II with the whoppers that Georgie told in order to gain public support for his codpiece-clad measure-off against Saddam. As I believe Richard Clark said (and I'm paraphrasing): Going to Iraq in response to 9/11 would be tantamount to us attacking Mexico in response to Pearl Harbor. I've had enough of this bullshit.

And speaking of bullshit, if there's one guy out there who can smell it a mile away, it's Robert Scheer. Robert Scheer was against this gruesome Iraq business from the first. A paragon of erudition he is not. No, he's the no-nonsense intellectual brawler who inspired Christopher Hitchens to storm off from a panel discussion on the war in Iraq in a swirl of invective and expletives at the LA Times Book Fair a couple of years ago. (I'm not saying that's the hardest thing in the world to do. I'm just saying.) He's the kind of common-sense guy that so much of our media ignores-- a New-Deal Democrat who's proud of who he is and for what he stands. He's the kind of guy that might take Jonah by the scruff and push his nose in today's Commentary section, saying, "Look what you did! Look what you did!"

I was pleased to receive a call from my father yesterday. He, too, is more than pissed off about Martinez and his errant calf. Here's the letter he wrote to the Times:

The only thing worse than your paper's letting go of columnist Robert Scheer is the pathetic attempt by Andres Martinez to explain it away in what he calls a "note". That "note" would not get a passing grade in a junior high school journalism class. It explains nothing. All we now know is Robert Scheer is off the list of columnists and conservative Jonah Goldberg is now on it. And, aside from the Scheer incompetence of the "note", there also seems to be a certain lack of information and honesty. Without a doubt, others such as the publisher, Jeffery M. Johnson, must have been involved in this rotten decision.

The L. A. Times may now join the ranks of the New York Times as a once, but not anymore, great newspaper. I have been a subscriber to and reader of your paper for over 30 years. No more. Talk about discounting your readership. Shame on you.

Well said, Dad.

Addendum to Plame Games

2005-10-12T10:11:00.000-07:00

I think I was a little unclear in my previous post about the political wing's (i.e. Bush, Rove, and the White House Iraq Group) motivation for leaking Plame's name to reporters. The fact that Joseph Wilson went public with his criticism of the Bush team for including bogus reports of Iraq attempting to purchase uranium from Niger provided cover for this team, along with Libby, to start talking to reporters about him. Now that he's gone public, they could say, on double-deep-super-duper-background, that he was recommended for the job by his wife, Valerie Plame-- the plausible deniability being in the fact that Wilson went public. Now they could say that they were trying to set the record straight. Oh, she's covert? We didn't know that. And we never mentioned her by name. We just said Wilson's wife recommended him for the job.

She was the target. And this goes a long way towards explaining why Joe Wilson was so very pissed off about the whole thing. But what he has been so pissed off about is classified, so he's had to limit his counter-punching to the leaking itself. He can't very well say that his wife's non-official cover operation for the CIA has been utterly compromised. If he were to do that, then he would now be under investigation for spilling some classified beans. Furthermore, this guy is a true-blue American. He has now been super-duper double-crossed. His wife's lifework in the toilet due to an American government that behaves like Stalinists-- and the very fact that Stalinists are now running the country that he has served for all these decades.

Plame Games

2005-10-11T18:52:00.000-07:00

It was late September of 2003 when I first became aware of the blogging phenomenon. I had never heard the word "blog" before then, so I made an educated guess as to what it meant: Web log. It was the Valerie Wilson story that had my interest piqued. You see, it was late September when the CIA made a referral to the Justice Department asking them to inquire as to whether any administration officials broke the law by leaking CIA OperativeValerie Wilson's (nee Plame) name to Robert Novak, who of course, outed her in a column he wrote in July of same year. So it was then, for the first time, that I saw the bogging wires in all of their superlinking glory tearing ass after the most oblique of sentences to parse, shredding to oblivion the most minor of Administration inconsistencies, suffering no apologias spewing forth from the gutless gullets of the news-spinning windbags, working themselves up into frightful fits over rovers, scooters, picklers, and tweeties-- and then coming back the next day to do it all over again. It really was a gas.

But it was in this story that I, as well as many other folk, identified a dangling thread upon which to yank with the hope of unraveling the whole tapestry of lies, deceits, crimes and misdemeanors that neatly swath this Administration's foreign policy apparatus. Herein lied the lighted way out of this fetid tunnel. It would make a good show for TV, I thought. It all started with a paltry act of political revenge to deligitimize a powerful Iraq war critic; only, as David Corn was the first to point out (no time to find link), whoever committed this paltry act of political vengence just may have broken the law. And, as they used to say before Iran/Contra, no one is above the law. And now, two years later, with Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury set to expire on the 28th, it's looking more and more likely that these creeps may yet be brought to answer for their actions.

Yet, until today, I have held onto a couple of reservations that have nagged at me throughout these two years. Firstly, the act itself isn't one that would generally bother me much-- that is, unless my wife were the CIA operative. No, I've read too much about the CIA's secret wars and black deeds to really care if an operative is outed. Good, I might think. One less spook fucking the world up in the name of manifest US dominance. For me, it was always just getting these bastards one way or another. If they broke the law-- even if I don't believe in the law-- fuck 'em. Let Rove be frog-marched out of the white house, as Ambassador Wilson once famously (and publicly) wished. Having said this, it has been fairly well demonstrated, and indeed made to stand out in high relief due to this very scandal, that it was the CIA, as well as the State Department's intelligence service, that was acting at least as some sort of buffer against the blind, hotheaded fury of the geopolitical jihadists in the Vice President's office hell-bent on taking Saddam out-- or, more accurately, taking Iraq in.

Secondly-- and this is the one that I shared with a lot of pooh-poohing right-wingers-- despite my wanting to believe the eloquent attempts by Digby (no time to find links) and others to try to paint this as just one of many political hatchet jobs orchestrated by Karl Rove, I just didn't see it as a very damaging smear campaign against Wilson. So what if they claim that his wife, Valerie, suggested him for his trip to Niger? I would ask. How does this discredit him? This doesn't sound all that Rovian to me. Swift Boats? Sure. Saying McCain had an illegitimate black child during the 2000 primaries? Sure. But this? I just didn't get it. The smear notion just doesn't compute as a plausible motive. And further, if this was the case, I didn't quite understand why Scooter Libby, who strikes me much more as a neocon neanderthal than cunning political assassin, would be getting his hands dirty in all this.

But today, as I was reading the comments to this post by firedoglake's Plame-obsessed Jane Hamsher, I had one of those moments that were I in a movie, say, The Usual Suspects, I would have dropped my coffee cup, a la Chazz Palminteri, with the realization that I had been talking to Keyser Soze for the last 100 minutes. As it was, I merely prolapsed my entrails. The commenter, Walt, posits this theory: Joe Wilson was not the target of the smear. Valerie Wilson, and her entire CIA operation, was the real target-- and not just of a smear, but a full-on rat-fucking.

Here's what Walt says (I don't know how to link to HaloScan. Sorry, Walt)

Even before Mr. Wilson went public, his wife, her Brewster-Jennings operation, and the CIA task force on weapons were the "entrenched" CIA problems for Vice-president Cheney's attempts to fabricate (fabulize) various tales about Iraq. Valerie (Plame) Wilson & her division of the CIA (I think described as counter proliferation) were a constant, continual & cantankerous pain in the ass for the cabal of neo-cons.

***********************************************************

Taking this approach, that the actual object of the smear campaign was to put Brewster-Jennings totally out of operation, explains many of the functions without having to creat incredible, implausible levels of complexity. Novak made clear that he was "given" the Plame name. He was given the name of the cover company. He was given the weapons of mass destruction tasking information.

I had heard something like this theory a long time ago, but I dismissed it then as poppycock. Now that I've learned a lot more about this case, and Judy Miller's involvement in it (read firedoglake for background), I'm not so sure that this doesn't really tie up some things. If one views the administration, as I do, as a sort of bicameral operation, with Cheney and Libby in the policy wing and Bush and Rove in the political wing, then "taking this approach" becomes very informative. "Taking this approach" also makes clear that a very serious crime was committed.

For instance, when Matt Cooper and Judy Miller were appealing a lower court's decision to find them in contempt, one of the appelate judges, a Judge Tatel "wrote a 41-page opinion in which he seemed eager to make new law -- a federal reporters’ shield law -- but in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to do it in this particular case. In his final paragraph, he says he 'might have' let Cooper and Miller off the hook '[w]ere the leak at issue in this case less harmful to national security.'"* Apparently, there were eight redacted pages in Tatel's 41-page opinion pertaining to classified information. Apparently, they were of grave importance to national security.

So, the scene is set. We have Scooter and Dick wanting to take out Valerie Wilson's CIA operation. We have W. and Turdblossom wringing their hands because her husband has just written an Op-Ed piece in the NY Times criticizing the inclusion of the bogus Niger claims in Bush's State of the Union address. Sounds like a twofer. Let's make some calls. If shit hits fan, plausible deniability becomes our mantra. "We were just setting the record straight on the Niger issue." "I never used her name." "Blah, blah, blah."

It's important to remember that John Ashcroft was head of Justice at this time, and he was leading the investigation himself. These guys, I'm sure, were counting on a whitewash. But something happened in Justice, and Ashcroft recused himself. Then they got this pit-fighter Fitzgerald to run the investigation. Shit hit fan.

The attack on Joseph Wilson is tied up with the one on his wife: By outing her, and her whole operation, they have destroyed her career, not to mention decimated an extremely important enclave concerning national security, namely, a CIA operation dealing with counterproliferation vis-a-vis Iraq. And they've removed a powerful obstacle standing in the way of their running roughshod over everything. It's not a smear. It's a fucking war! It's the act of naming her-- an undercover CIA operative-- that is the attack. That's gotta hit a nerve. His wife is fucked, and the country is run by a group of thugs. Endgame.

* The Huffington Post Laurence O'Donnell, 07.07.05

A Movie Review

2005-10-08T16:11:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen A History of Violence, you shouldn't read this.

I heard David Cronenberg being interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air the other day, so I knew going into the movie that I would see two sex scenes-- one in which Maria Bello wears a cheerleading outfit, and one in which she and Viggo Mortensen do it violently on a wooden staircase-- before I set foot in the theater. What I didn't know, however, was that the first sex scene, the playful encounter, would exhibit the two players ensconced in a fantastic, though fleeting, fete of 69-- a rarity on the screen, even in porn. (As my longtime readers probably know, this is one of my favorite acts of sexual contortion.) The scene takes place in the first act of the film, setting up the house of cards, both in terms of mood and substance, that we would see getting obliterated through the remainder of the picture and complements nicely the darker, more desperate scene on the stairs that occurs at the beginning (by my reckoning) of the third and final act at a moment when the truth has been laid bare and sides have been chosen. These scenes-- the before and after-- are fundamental to the movie's thematic exploration of our primal impulses, most poignantly demonstrated through the nexus of sex and violence.

These are Americans-- a married couple, happy parents of a teenage son and young daughter, owners of a local diner-- who live in a nice house in a small town in one of the Red states (Indiana, I think). But these two were no high school sweethearts. No, it is for this reason-- that they didn't grow up together-- that Maria Bello's character dons the cheerleading outfit in an effort to act out a fantasy that they never had the opportunity to realize. It's a very passionate and believable scene between these longtime lovers-- the ease and comfort with which Maria Bello swoops around to gorge on Viggo's member attest to this-- and it succeeds marvelously in illuminating the facade of the American dream, with all of its dangling prudishnesses and civilities and niceties, when juxtaposed against the bottomless depths of the human heart: The prom queen in her iconic regalia giving the QB a BJ in the back of the Beemer. But our QB isn't who she thinks he is.

No, our QB will kill eight men (by my count) before we leave the theater. He will kill them because he has to. But he will do it efficiently, brutally, professionally. He will do it because he can do it. And he will enjoy it. He will break limbs, crush noses, and shoot brains. He will become a hero and then become hunted. He will kill his own brother. He will slap his son. He will become a man that he thought he had rid himself of in another life. He will be stabbed and shot. He will be saved by his son, who will now know himself what it is to kill a man. He will kill and he will be caught-- not by the bad guys, though, but by his family, their American dream now shattered. And ultimately they will forgive him. They will forgive him for he is too who she thinks he is.

I've been irritated by Viggo Mortensen in the past, notably by his performance in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He was often flat, too understated, I thought, and I was irritated by his constant expression of quiet awe. The fact that he was once married to Exene Cervenkova did little to turn me around on the guy. This film allows him to show off a fuller range of his acting skills, though, and he excels in the part. He pulls off a nice shift as his Tom character morphs into undead Joey-- little things in the way he says words, a glint in the eye, a confidence in manner-- and he seems more than willing to let the big boys, Ed Harris and William Hurt, chew up the scenery around him. It is the very thing that previously irritated me-- his inscrutability-- that serves him well playing a man who is caught in an existential crisis relating to who he really is. Though in the end he is redeemed and forgiven, what devils, now lurking in some Freudian nether region, will yet come to visit?

Stuff, or Why the Black Lung Is Good for You

2005-08-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

First off, this post by Digby is a must-read. Digby is probably my favorite political blogger on the Web these days. He's very astute as an observer of the "kabuki," as he calls it, that we are all subjected to by way of the ruling class suck-off comprised of the elites in Washington-- politicians and their swooning cabal of "journalists"-- think Andrea Mitchell; think Chris Matthews; think JUDY Miller; think Matt Cooper. In typical fashion, he eviscerates these punks; and, also in typical fashion, he is very insightful about the psychology of these great protectors of our democracy.

***

This strikes me as an unqualified good first step towards energy self-sufficiency:

The Fischer-Tropsch technology, discovered by German researchers in 1923 and later used by the Nazis to convert coal into wartime fuels, was not economical as long as oil cost less than $30 a barrel.
But with U.S. crude oil now hitting more than double that price, Gov. Brian Schweitzer's plan is getting more attention across the country and some analysts are taking him very seriously.
Montana is "sitting on more energy than they have in the Middle East," Schweitzer told Reuters in an interview this week.
"I am leading this country in this desire and demand to convert coal into gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel. We can do it in Montana for $1 per gallon," he said.
"We can do it cheaper than importing oil from the sheiks, dictators, rats and crooks that we're bringing it from right now."
The governor estimated the cost of producing a barrel of oil through the Fischer-Tropsch method at $32, and said that with its 120 billion tons of coal -- a little less than a third of the U.S total -- Montana could supply the entire United States with its aviation, gas and diesel fuel for 40 years without creating environmental damage.
An entry level Fischer-Tropsch plant producing 22,000 barrels a day would cost about $1.5 billion, he said.

(Could that be a quasi-liberal Jew [Schweitzer] at the helm of deep-red Montana?)

I'm sure there are myriad drawbacks, environmental and otherwise, to the notion of spinning coal into gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel. Nonetheless, if you have, as I have, spent much time hanging around working-class bars, channel-surfing on your television, or chillin' with your white-trash relatives, you've gotta know that the motorhead mentality is as ingrained in the fabric of this country's collective consciousness as the tattoo of "Mom" is on your uncle's deltoid. So, viewed as an evolutionary step towards the vaunted hydrogen-based economy that I hope to see in my lifetime, this seems like a good one. And anyway, anything seems better than what we currently have-- I'm sure I have to remind no one of the quagmire we're perpetually in in the Middle East.

[ Via Kos ]

We Are Deeply, Deeply Fucked

2005-07-01T11:16:00.000-07:00

Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring.

Link

Pistons in Seven!!

2005-06-22T12:04:00.000-07:00

Fuck yeah, my brothers and sisters! The Motor City is gonna have their second championship in as many years. Love it.

We Are Deeply Fucked

2005-06-15T20:05:00.000-07:00

I'm a little late with this, but I still think it's worth posting. It's from a series of interviews that the Atlantic Monthly's Neil Bowden conducted with former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who, I'm sure we all can remember was one of the major architects of the war, not to mention one of its loudest and most determined cheerleaders. This excerpt is taken from an interview conducted in November of 2004, just a tad over a year and a half since the invasion took place:

"You were one of those who was most emphatic prior to going into Iraq that Saddam had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction."

"I don't think so."

"I can quote you."

"Okay."

I read him a line from an op-ed article under his byline in the British newspaper The Independent for January 30, 2003:

"There is incontrovertible evidence that the Iraqi regime still possesses such weapons." Wolfowitz had spoken in the same terms on numerous occasions.

"'Incontrovertible evidence' is a pretty strong way of putting it," I said. "How did you feel when you found out they didn't have such weapons?"

"Well, I don't think they don't," he said. "You say it turned out they didn't. By the way, read me the quote again."

I did so. Wolfowitz said he needed to go back and review his prior statements.

"But clearly you believed they had stockpiles of such weapons?"

"You are putting the word 'stockpiles' in," he said.

He was right: "stockpiles" was my word.

This deadpan comedy is wonderful-- post-Orwellian absurdism at its finest. I love how he sneaks in the "sly" self-exculpation by claiming that he in fact still believes Iraq has these weapons. Back in the real world... Oh, I forgot-- the Republicans clearly have been furiously poring over all forms of postmodern theory since at least the first gulf war. They must relish and wholeheartedly agree with Baudrillard's famous pronouncement about that ancient (ancient!) half-assed, pussy-ass foray into the region where we let the bad guy live and didn't turn the desert into glass or anything, when he said: "The Gulf War did not take place." That's right, the first gulf war did not take place. It did not take place, obviously, for if it did, why would we need to invade again? And why did we need to invade again? Certainly not because we went around arguing to the media and to other countries and their intelligence agencies, and, really, anyone that would listen, that Saddam had stockpiles of weapons before this, the only, Iraq war. We never claimed that. Why would we? Even though, for reals, he does have these weapons.

I suppose this disproves the Peter Principle once and for all, being that Wolfie has already moved on from his old digs in the Department of Defense. Now he'll be calling the shots for the World Bank. Expect him to have no hand in causing the next great global depression.

Your Daily Emetic

2005-06-07T13:46:00.000-07:00

Don't read this post by Kevin Drum unless your spittoon is in range to be blasted by a mass of projectile vomitus.

If I Were a Dead Russian Composer

2005-06-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

If I were a Dead Russian Composer, I too would be Dmitri Shostakovich!
I am a shy, nervous, unassuming, fidgety, and stuttery little person who began composing the same year I started music lessons of any sort. I wrote the first of my fifteen symphonies at age 18, and my second opera, "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District," when I was only 26. Unfortunately, Stalin hated the opera, and put me on the Enemy Of The People List for life. I nevertheless kept composing the works I wanted to write in private; some of my vocal cycles and 15 string quartets mock the Soviet System in notes. And I somehow was NOT killed in the process! And Harry Potter(c) stole my glasses and broke them!
Who would you be? Dead Russian Composer Personality Test

[ Via Majikthise ]

Spurs in Six

2005-06-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

Yep. That's my prediction. Too many weapons, too much depth. And the Pistons, despite having the best starting five in the game, had trouble closing out a battered Heats team that's really just a two-hit wonder. Look for them to be able to neutralize Parker, though, and even to a surprising degree, Duncan-- but Ginobli will get his; Horry will pull some magical bullshit out of his playoff ass; Bowan will hit some big threes; Mohammed will have some good games-- too much offense and too much defense. But I'll be rooting for the Pistons, the Spurs having taken out the Suns and all.

James Wolcott

2005-06-07T09:32:00.000-07:00

Read this post. This guy must be the fantastical love child of H.L. Mencken and Dorothy Parker.

Horrible

2005-06-07T08:56:00.000-07:00

This is pathetic. On May 20 John Kerry signed a form allowing the release of his "undeleted" military and medical records. Well, as predicted, they expose him to be a highly commended officer in the Navy-- commended by some of the very same folks who were maligning his good name-- just as anyone with a fucking gram of gray matter could have told you. The problem is that the Swift Boat Cocksuckers for Falsity damaged his campaign, and badly. Why in the name of God did he not authorize the release of these records at a moment when the outcome of the election hung in the balance?

Damn Iowans. Next time have some guts.

[ Via Kos ]

just sucks

2005-05-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

H-Bomb and I were drinking Jagermeister at the Red Lion last night. The bartender, Mona, threatened to cut me off several times. I woke up not remembering coming home. Fortunately, I live within a mile of the Red Lion. H-Bomb, however, doesn't. He blew a .17 in the breathalizer after making it all the way to within a couple of blocks from his house in Van Nuys. The cop, who I'm sure makes it a routine to sit and wait for likely drunken drivers-- people who've done nothing wrong and hurt nobody-- said that H-Bomb swerved. Now he's gonna have to deal with the grinding realities of judicial morality, AA and all. What a horrible fucking drag.

Dateline: Fox News Is Biased!!

2005-05-26T14:02:00.000-07:00

Nice slip, Ass-man. This is a Fox News anchor talking to Trent Lott:

ASMAN: So, Senator, if we should have done it and if we had the votes to do it in the Senate -- if you guys in the Republican Party did -- then why did you need a compromise?

Alive and...

2005-05-01T12:33:00.000-07:00

Here's an artist's rendering of the ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird thought extinct since sometime in the early part of the 20th century. Apparently there's compelling evidence that the bird remains extant.

After seeing the ivory-bill fly across their sight path, one of the researchers broke down and started weeping.

A "missing" family of mountain gorillas has also reappeared in Uganda's Mgahinga National Park. They disappeared five months ago sparking Ugandan accusations of Rwandan primate napping.

They had two new additions to the family when they returned.

Here, at my desk at work, I've affixed a picture of my dachshund to the computer. He's on his back and looking directly into the camera-- a perfect image of contentedness. And then there are the D-ster's dainty little hands in the picture, caressing that little boy dog. Those hands and that dog now reside in Williamsburg in Brooklyn.

I'm still in LA. In place of the dachshund, I have Lexapro; in place of those hands, a therapist. I'm not dead yet.

Friday Bonobo Blogging

2005-04-15T10:38:00.000-07:00

Pan paniscus

And here's a close relative of the bonobo, the chimpanzee.

Pan troglodytes

And here's just a plain Bono.

Pan dering

Let 'Em Fly

2005-04-09T16:19:00.000-07:00

I was living in San Francisco when Willie Brown got nailed with a cream pie. There had been a spate of pie throwing incidents in the preceding weeks masterminded by the mysterious Biotic Baking Brigade, a group whose protesting theatrics had left local leaders and visiting minders of capital wary, to say the least, about making public appearances in San Francisco. It’s been a while, but I think they got Bill Gates; and it was possibly then that they pelted the CEO of Monsanto. Well, Da Mayor didn’t take very kindly to his getting creamed, and he tackled one of the “assailants,” a reaction that I thought was perfectly understandable at the time. However, as I recall, there was talk of prosecution, and, for all I know, some fool or another may have actually ended up doing time over this minor trespass.

Recently, there’s been a new wave of pie throwing incidents—only now, the epicenter seems to be the Midwest rather than the Left Coast. On March 30, neocon mouthpiece Bill Kristol was pied while he was giving a speech at Earlham College in Indiana; Pat Buchanan, hero of the Jews, got it on the 1st in Kalamazoo (though, it should be said, he wasn’t pied—he was doused with salad dressing); and just a couple of days ago, David Horowitz, poor victim of fascist-leftist indoctrination as a college student, got it in the puss while he was speaking at Butler University in Indiana. The subject of his speech: the lack of conservative voices on college campuses. Two points!

Billmon, the blogger, has taken issue with these student pastry launchers for not respecting the First Amendment rights of those that have different opinions than they do. As he says:

“In a civilized society, you don't physically harass or attack people for exercising their free speech rights, even if they are the vile scumsucking lackeys of crazed right-wing multimillionaires -- or even worse, David Horowitz. You just don't do it.”

Interestingly, Billmon can’t quite seem to wholly embrace his own objection to this bit of political theater, and his writing becomes much more sharply focused when it is aimed at the “victims” rather than at the throwers:

“But the thing is, we don't live in a civilized society. A civilized society wouldn't tolerate a lot of behavior that modern conservatives seem to find completely appropriate, or at least not worth protesting -- like harassing teachers protesting Gov. Terminator's slash-and-burn policies in California, or attacking your girl friend because she plans to vote for John Kerry, or threatening to kill people who aren't Second Amendment absolutists.

A civilized society wouldn't allow a bunch of wacked-out vigilantes to appoint themselves border guards and start arresting people with brown skins. A civilized society wouldn't torture detainees within sight of the Statue of Liberty, or ship them off to other countries where they can be tortured by the experts, or tolerate any of the other multitude of ways… that the Bush administration routinely makes a mockery of the concept of civil liberties.”

He goes on to say that he objects to the protests for “practical” reasons rather than “ideological” ones:

“…these kind of moronic pranks play right into the grasping hands of the authoritarian right. Horowitz and Kristol and Coulter and the other members of the RNC propaganda department will be dining well off these attacks for years to come….”

I say let them choke on it.

I’ve noticed a trend towards self-censorship and a “watch-what-you-do, say, and wear-ism” for a while amongst the politically active liberal/left, a trend that came into sharp relief during the presidential campaign—an “anything you do can be used against you” mentality. There were calls from some on the Left to stop the antiwar demonstrations, or, at the very least, calls for folk to wear a suit and tie instead of that old tie-dyed shirt (tie-dyes? pul-eeze). These entreaties were always couched in terms of pragmatism, though it was a pragmatism based on the fear of “our side” being ridiculed by the mainstream press and pundit class as crazy, dope-smoking, wild-eyed lefty terrorists, much as Billmon has outlined above. The more erudite voices among them—Digby and Ezra Klein, for instance—talked about the folly and self-centeredness of those who practice the politics of self-expression, represented, I suppose, by people like Barbara Erhenreich and Medea Benjamin—or even the boogeyman himself, Michael Moore. They argued that they were playing into the hands of our “enemies” by fully embodying the stereotype of the America-hating hippie protester, a caricature that these TV characters know well how to deal with.

Let me just say, then, that I’m not a hippie, but I do hate America, or at least many things about it. And I’m sick of watching my tongue in an effort to preemptively insulate myself against being pigeonholed by any number of simple-minded, lazy, conservative dolts who fail to see all the colors before them. Playing this game of conforming to such a narrow, prescribed role can become dangerously Orwellian, and fast. There comes a point when “winning” becomes something less than optimal, as when one must sacrifice everything that was heretofore innately unique and special about one (or, at least, a miracle of artifice) in order to win, or even to compete—and this all on your opponent’s home court.

No, I say let the pies fly, and come what may. It means nothing that the Right will cry “victim.” They will do that regardless. Rather than play their game according to their rules, I say be true to yourself to an astonishing degree. I say be not afraid to kiss your boyfriend next to the children in the park—just try not to scratch his lip with your mustache. I say wear your tie-dyed shirt if that’s what gets you off. I say be a vegan, or be a carnivore—just do it unapologetically. I say torch the flag—just remember to sweep up the ashes when you’re done. I say wear your “Impeach Bush” shirt to the next Social Security reform event that comes to your town. If you’re escorted out by the Secret Service, beat them over the head with a rolled-up copy of the Constitution. I say live or die, but do it with gusto. This country’s long overdue for another Welch/McCarthy moment, and I just can’t wait to see it.

In his non-movie column in the Sun-Times, Roger Ebert’s cohort, Richard Roeper, has also taken on the pie launchers, only he views them as “cowards” rather than simply misguided. He assails them for being hit-and-run artists and for choosing “victims” who are almost invariably “older, smallish, non-threatening and/or female.” Isn’t this, though, a bit disingenuous? It so happens that many, if not most, of the people that hold the instruments of power in this country conform to one or more of these points of description. It reminds me of the criticism Michael Moore had to endure for challenging the “old man” Charleton Heston at the end of Bowling for Columbine. Old or not, he was still the president of the NRA.

The brilliant conclusion to Roeper’s column goes, “My research indicates that about 90 percent of pie attacks are launched by liberals against conservatives.” Well, I’ve done some research of my own, and it strongly indicates that any “movie reviewer” who included The Terminal and Spanglish in his top-10 list of films for 2004 is deserving of a turkey pot pie right in the kisser. And if that doesn't learn him, well, who cares? It will have been a transcendent moment on its own terms, and that's enough for Medlin and me.

Silent All These Years

2005-03-24T09:59:00.000-08:00

Pointing out the hypocrisy of the right wingers does nothing. They will constantly expose themselves as craven hypocrites because their values are morally, religiously, and ethically misguided—or, to borrow one of their favorite and typically simplistic words—wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. It will be endlessly frustrating for you in your travels through the political and cultural landscape if you fail to grasp this simple point. In fact, they have staked their lives on being wrong. It’s what makes them tick. Being wrong to someone like Sean Hannity is like being black to someone like Richard Pryor. It’s like being gay to Mary Cheney. But it’s even more than being wrong. Their values are based on a top-heavy, trickle-down formula for power, position, and wealth. Nothing more. Nothing less. And they know there’s only so much booty to go around. So they seize, plunder, divide, conquer, shout, scream, torture, rape, and kill for it—at least by proxy they do—and they cloak it all in so much bullshit about American and Christian values.

Please keep this in mind if you inquire of someone of this unfortunate persuasion as to why they’ve worked themselves up into the very same sanctimonious lather over keeping Terri Schiavo alive as they have over killing hundreds of thousands of dark people in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Vietnam; or killing hundreds of people—again, mostly dark, some later proven innocent—in the death chambers of Tom Delay’s and George W. Bush’s beloved Texas penal system. Remember this also if you point out to your hapless friend that maintaining abortion rights is an exercise in compassion for living, breathing, functioning, fallible, unique women—women, yes, that other sex—who must (must!) be allowed to make their own choices about their own bodies. Remember it too when you challenge them to explain why it’s so damned difficult to accept that in this very complex universe in which we dwell some people prefer the conjugal company of others of their same sex. Remember it when you ask the fool what sweet baby Jesus would do.

The stuff between Terri Schiavo’s ears is liquefied brain jizz. There is no higher functioning going on. How do I know this? Because God told me. Apparently, he also told about 99% of the doctors and scientists who’ve weighed in on her condition, too, 'cause they agree with me. The fact that she has become an atrocity exhibition put on by these horrible people is enough to make me retch. They know no bounds. They know no decency. What they know is power.

2005-03-09T22:00:00.000-08:00

2005-03-09T21:56:00.000-08:00

The Old Face of the Republican Party

2005-03-01T11:16:00.000-08:00

Now, that shit is hot!

The New Face of the Republican Party

2005-03-01T11:11:00.000-08:00

Now, that shit is hot!

Fuck you, Antonio! Fuck you, too, Carlos!

2005-03-01T11:03:00.000-08:00

In the comments to the previous post, Winston Plum says:

"My father told me that they didn't let the guy who wrote and originally sang the song from 'Motorcycle Diaries' sing it last night because he was a 'no-name'. Instead, after that bastion of artisitc integriy Enrique Inglasias turned down the producers' requnest to sub, Antonio fucking Banderas scabbed up and sung it!? And then the poor sap who wrote and originally sang it won! What the fuck? And then he sang it and said nothing else when accepting. Now that's a beautiful fuck you. My question is this, though. Who in the hell had Elliot Smith's back way back when?"

A beautiful fuck you, indeed. But one that I was totally ignorant of while it was going on. It was so late in the show that I had long since lost my reason. I remember the performance of the song, though. As I was watching Santana perform with Banderas, I kept thinking, "Why does this suck so badly?" And then I begged E-Dawg to stab me. As for your Elliott Smith question, I have no idea. The Good Will Hunting Oscars was one of many that I missed.

Oscars

2005-02-28T10:38:00.000-08:00

I don't know. I guess I haven't watched the Oscars with any degree of attentiveness in many years. I used to enjoy the Billy Crystal shows in the '90s. And I remember watching Johnny when I was but a wee pup-- my dad laughing and saying things like, "He's very witty." But last night I was reminded about just how stupid these awards shows can be.

I thought Chris Rock was lousy. He had one really good line about Oprah being so rich that during the commercial break John Kerry proposed to her. His opening monologue bit about "real stars" or whatever nonsense was just out of place and unfunny; and I was happy that later in the show Sean Penn stood up for Jude Law.

But what really had me bothered was this: Why was Beyonce in every fucking song performance? Hey, I like her, but shit, there are a lot of talented singers out there. And who did they get to perform the romantic duet with her? Josh fucking Groban, perhaps the most untalented hack to reach this level of success since Tom Arnold was given a career. And romantic? Jesus! He makes Clay Aikens look as though he likes pussy.

Or maybe I'm just bitter 'cause I didn't win the office Oscar pool.

Hit Parade

2005-02-27T12:56:00.000-08:00

Well, Pedestrian Saga's reticence toward actually commenting on my blog hasn't prevented her from asking me face-to-face to write more about music. I just don't understand it, though. The fact that she would actually speak to me rather than typing something out seems so, um-- I don't know-- personal. But since she asked, I'll aquiesce to her prodding and write a bit more about those bands that I alluded to here that are making great rock and roll but are much more likely to be heard as the sound track to a Mitsubishi commercial than anywhere near a top-40 station-- or, for that matter, any station at all, excepting college ones and the irreplaceable Indie 103.1.

I was talking to the Capricorn Kid the other day as the mind-numbing Grammys were on. We were talking about Green Day and their new album and their song "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." He was making the rather quaint point that the lyrics are fundamentally flawed, as they go, "I walk this empty street, on the boulevard of broken dreams."

More to the point, though, after we agreed that Green Day is overrated, I brought up the point that the Grammys simply will not recognize anyone that isn't a platinum-selling artist. And he said that a perfect example of this snubbing comes in the case of Wilco-- not exactly an obscure band, but relatively speaking, they sell poorly.

(I must work. I will come back to this when I have time, 'cause I have a lot to say. But for the time being, please enjoy this picture of Jeff Tweedy.)

Pure Gold

2005-02-25T17:32:00.000-08:00

The Weekly's penetrating and probing gastronome, Jonathan Gold, has been unsheathed to discuss a non-food item in the current issue-- he's been charged with reviewing the new album by the Mars Volta. And what does Mr. Gold think of their new record?

"You’ve got to give it to the Mars Volta. It is unusually difficult to decide whether their new record, Frances the Mute, is amazing, or whether it is the worst fucking thing you have ever heard in your entire fucking life."

And he doesn't seem quite able to shake off the shackles of conflict and uncertainty through the rest of the article. Which makes me want to hear the record. And go eat some shrimp pancreas in Koreatown.

Name That Icon

2005-02-24T16:14:00.000-08:00

Who said this:

"I know there are groups at the top of the charts that are hailed as the saviours of rock'n'roll and all that, but they are amateurs. They don't know where the music comes from," he wrote, adding, “I wouldn't even think about playing music if I was born in these times... I'd probably turn to something like mathematics. That would interest me. Architecture would interest me. Something like that."

And the answer? If you said "Bob Dylan," you would have been right.

After reading this, via the good guys at donewaiting.com, I thought it might be a good time to see just what groups are at the tops of the charts right now.

The "groups" that are in the top ten of the album charts are Green Day (#2), 3 Doors Down (#6), and Maroon 5 (#9). Of these three bands, the only one that I can conceive at all as having been hailed as something like the "saviors of rock and roll" is the one without a number in their name, though whoever would make such a claim should probably swear off writing and/or talking about music. And who is number one? That's right, kids. Ray Charles is number one.

As for the singles charts, there's Green Day once again with "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" at number two... And the only other group in the top ten is a hip hop trio called Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz-- and I'm pretty sure this is not who Dylan had in mind.

My point in all this? I don't know. I love Dylan-- his music, ascerbic wit, and his general freakishness. He's one of very few people on this earth that I consider to be a personal hero and idol.

But, Bob, you're really full of shit on this one. In truth, good rock and roll is everywhere these days-- everywhere except the charts. Even the advertisers know this. Every other car commercial it seems features some bitchin'-ass song playing in the background by some new(ish) bitchin'-ass artist. Hang onto your ego, Mr. Z, and spare me the sanctimony.

More Evidence: The Authorities Are Pricks

2005-02-24T11:51:00.000-08:00

For still-unkown reasons, a 425-pound tiger had been wandering around near Copland, er, I mean, Simi Valley, over the last several weeks. When the fugitive was finally caught, justice was delivered the old-fashioned way: Wardens shot it four times with high-powered rifles.

Fucking pricks. Totally needless.

Reporters in the Mist

2005-02-22T22:10:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to really like the woman over at Majikthise, and I've added a link over to the right for her blog.

Here she delivers a surgical-strike indictment against current journalistic standards and procedures in the guise of an obituary for Hunter Thompson, all the while maintaining a proper distance and respect for the lunatic doctor himself. The title of the piece? "Jim Guckert Killed Hunter S. Thompson." And these two paragraphs are bunker-busting:

"Jim Guckert killed Hunter S. Thompson. The good doctor took evasive action because he'd finally had enough. There was no question of a comeback. His natural habitat had disappeared. Today's media industrial complex is gonzo-proof. You can't raise hell anywhere near the press corps anymore unless you're turning tricks. Gonzo journalism today would be as incongruous as gonzo account services or gonzo event planning.

Gonzo is dead because the mainstream media have abolished objectivity and subjectivity--the facts don't matter, but neither does the perspective of any individual. Like gonzo journalists, today's campaign reporters love to tell impressionistic yarns. Unlike gonzo journalists they don't want to talk about their own experiences. Enterprising reporters collect "gaffes" and "coups" and spin them into parables. The winner is the journalist whose just-so story becomes 'The Defining Moment.'"

And here I see she was on top of the "Gorillagate" story several days ago, whereas I only became aware of it today. More importantly, though, than the fact that she is merely aware of this bit of pulp about a talking gorilla with a nipple fetish is how it is categorized on her blog. It's filed under the heading: Monkeys, Apes, and Prosimians. And under this heading you'll find all sorts of entries that might pique the fancies of all you assorted armchair primatologists out there.

Read and enjoy.

Plainspoken, Indeed

2005-02-22T16:02:00.000-08:00

Here's Georgie setting the record straight about Iran today:

"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous."

I don't know about you, but for a nanosecond or two I was starting to feel a whole hell of a lot better after hearing those words-- that is, until I heard the very next sentence:

"Having said that, all options are on the table."

I just hope that Scott Ritter is only right half of the time.

[ Via Kevin Drum ]

Mark Your Calendars...

2005-02-22T10:54:00.000-08:00

WE'RE BOMBING IRAN IN JUNE

At least that's what former UNSCOM weapons inspector Scott Ritter said on Friday. You'll remember that Mr. Ritter was one of many muted voices that maintained throughout the run-up to the Iraqi war that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. Predictably, he was the target of a right-wing smear campaign. The simple fact remains, though, that everything he said vis-a-vis Iraqi weapons turned out to be 100% accurate-- a simple fact that's been lost in the din of apologists and shills going apoplectic over his "treason" and alleged perversion.

He also said the Iraqi elections were fixed.

Scott Ritter is the new E.F. Hutton. When he talks, we should listen.

[ Via Cursor ]

RIP Pacific Lumber

2005-02-21T16:16:00.000-08:00

Well, well, well-- According to the LA Times, Pacific Lumber is on its way towards bankruptcy and collapse. As bad as this will undoubtedly be for much of the working population of Humboldt County, a county that is utterly dependent on logging revenue, I see this as an unqualified good-- that is, unless some other equally reprehensible company comes in and takes over in their stead. But, by the grace of Allah, hopefully this will not happen. This paragraph from the article cuts it cleanly:

"Last summer, Pacific Lumber opened a high-tech $30-million sawmill, which cuts small logs up to 2 feet in diameter. It was the company's way of adjusting to the increasing scarcity of big trees in a forest logged for more than a century." [ My emphasis, CJ ]

This is something that needs to be understood, and immediately, for it's the same thing with the oil in the Middle East. When dealing with such unsustainable and unrenewable products, the jobs will go the way of the trees. It's simple arithmetic. And, yes, these trees are unrenewable even though they grow from the ground. The trees, and the forests in which they are anchored, have been around for millennia. Entire ecosystems get disrupted and destroyed as a result of the clear-cuts, and these magisterial trees are replaced with common shrubbery-- hardly the stuff from which wealthy homeowners want to build their decks.

In other news of the dying, I see that Hunter S. Thompson has killed Will Self.

Ted Leo is so yesterday

2005-02-21T12:12:00.000-08:00

Ted Leo Day has now come and gone. You gotta love a band at this level that acts as its own roadies and techs. There were several highlights; for me, the most notable being their thunderous closer, "Ballad of the Sin Eater." And also Ted's solo performance of (I think) Rainbow's "Since You've Been Gone," wherein halfway through he broke into "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Oh, and he did "Dial Up," "Timorous Me," "Under the Hedge," and the towering "Biomusicology" from The Tyranny of Distance. Such beauty and power. And so many of the great ones from Hearts of Oak and Shake the Sheets. An awesome performance. Please, sir, may I have some more.

Ted Leo Day!!!!

2005-02-20T15:09:00.000-08:00

Tickets are still available for the Ted Leo show tonight at the El Rey, folks. Do yourself a favor and get down there. You must change your life.

More Evidence: They're Insane

2005-02-19T17:22:00.000-08:00

Here is Chris Cox, U.S. Congressman from behind the Orange Curtain:

"America's Operation Iraqi Freedom is still producing shock and awe, this time among the blame-America-first crowd."

"We continue to discover biological and chemical weapons and facilities to make them inside Iraq."

Rarely is the question asked: Is our conservatives learning?

[Via Atrios ]

More Evidence: They're Winning

2005-02-19T16:55:00.000-08:00

"Kyoto Can't Save Us" is the name of this article over at Alternet. It (Kyoto) doesn't go far enough, as scientists have been saying for a long while now. And it doesn't do anything "to remove existing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and 'sequester' them where they are no longer dangerous." It only deals with future emissions.

Of course, our government isn't even participating in whatever bit of good Kyoto is doing. And why should they? Global warming isn't provable. It's just a theory, like that one by that English bloke from the nineteenth century who said we evolved from gorillas. And besides, there's not a single mention of global warming in the entire bible. Well, except for that bit about fire and brimstone.

More Evidence: If You're Poor, You're Fucked

2005-02-19T15:52:00.000-08:00

Or, I should probably say, "If you're not really, really fucking rich, you're fucked."

According to a recent study, high school students have been infected by a species of virus that renders them murky in the noggin when it comes to understanding just what "freedom" means:

"When told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes 'too far' in the rights it guarantees."

Let's just get on with the plutocracy already-- no more euphimisms. In the great, new "ownership society," it will hardly be surprising to find out that some pigs will be more equal than others. Judging by these high schoolers, the future generation of Americans will, after receiving its "good behavior" carrot for the day, lay down in the slop and collectively say, "Thank you, sir. May I have another?"

My People, My People

2005-02-17T13:47:00.000-08:00

I found out last night that my cousin has become a born-again Christian. I can't say that this is an enormous surprise, though it was something of a shock. It's a very strange thing this life. That very same sun that makes life possible will blind you if you stare at it for more than a very few seconds. That burning, vibrating nothingness that we all feel in the deepest pockets of our sensitivities must, for some, be neglected, ignored-- ultimately written away. Religion has always been one of the ways people cope with this existential doublecross. I, for one, certainly don't begrudge religious people their religion. Quite the contrary. However, I do find the modern American form of evangelical Christianity to be not only intellectually stifling and aesthetically stuffy, but a real danger to the hopes of modernity; and even more to the point, a considerable threat, along with other fundamentalisms, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for the rest of us "heathens," or "infidels," take your pick.

Ian Masters, host of the Sunday morning KPFK program, Background Briefing, has now for years been hammering away as to why no one in the Washington press corps will ask the president point-blank if he agrees with the evangelical reading of the Book of Revelation and believes in the rapture and end times and all of that bullshit. If so, then Masters believes this is a fundamental conflict of interest and should disqualify Bush from holding the office. The reasoning goes that if he truly believes in these "prophesies," then he can't be trusted to "preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States," as the oath of office insures us he will.

I tend to see Bush as more of a political opportunist than a true believer, but one can never be sure. Even so, if it is only an exercise in political calculus that compels Bush to posture as a true believer, it doesn't negate the threat posed by having to forever appease this very loud bloc of the Right-wing base. Once you make this Faustian deal with the evangelicals (as the Republicans have), you're pretty much fucked. On so many issues, these mad, "Boschist" interpretations of ancient prophesies can quickly morph into modern-day self-fulfilling prophesies that reap real consequences in real time. Think of Israel. Think of the environment. Think of global warming. Think of science itself. Pretty much every issue imaginable (excepting, of course, anything to do with sex) is rendered meaningless if you've bet the farm on the world coming to a fiery end in the very near future-- an end that you yourself will be spared from as you will be whisked away to some unimaginable paradise.

My cousin's story is probably (and predictably) not very different from what I would guess are many like stories of conversion-- except that he's the half-Mexican grandson of a Jewish refugee and Marxist activist; a bastard-child whose mother used to smuggle drugs to her Black Panther boyfriend by way of her cooch while he was spending time in the big house; and a Jew who, unlike pretty much everybody else in my family that I can think of, actually had a bar mitzvah.

Anyway, the short version: He knocked his high-school sweetheart up while they were both in their teens, married her shortly thereafter, fathered three additional children with sweetheart, got henpecked to the point of scarification by sweetheart, was convinced to become born-again Christian by sweetheart. As I said, a typical story of conversion in the heartland of this ol' America-- in this case, the central valley of California.

Next up: He'll be voting Republican in the next election to the sounds of my grandmother doing the Watusi in her grave.

Beefcake-gate

2005-02-16T09:42:00.000-08:00

Good break down of the whole sordid Gannon affair by Joe Conason that I see via Kos. He hits on the point that really strikes me as most important, and most illustrative of how modern politics and media manipulation work in practice:

"Imagine the media explosion if a male escort had been discovered operating as a correspondent in the Clinton White House. Imagine that he was paid by an outfit owned by Arkansas Democrats and had been trained in journalism by James Carville. Imagine that this gentleman had been cultivated and called upon by Mike McCurry or Joe Lockhart—or by President Clinton himself. Imagine that this "journalist" had smeared a Republican Presidential candidate and had previously claimed access to classified documents in a national-security scandal. Then imagine the constant screaming on radio, on television, on Capitol Hill, in the Washington press corps—and listen to the placid mumbling of the "liberal" media now."

Americablog continues to be the best source for everything Gannon. Scroll down and you can see this former "White House reporter" in all of his glory.

Up In Smoke

2005-02-15T15:56:00.000-08:00

Quitting smoking sucks. I can't concentrate. I can't think. I believe I have a minor case of priapism (and I use the word "minor" advisedly). Too much oxygen. Too much blood. Too much perspective. Drinking will help...

Rapture Index: 152

2005-02-15T12:48:00.000-08:00

Via MyDD I see that the Rapture Index is now at 152, "...which places it firmly in the highest category possible, according to Rapture Ready, the site that monitors it."

Well, hurry the fuck up, God! I can't wait to be left fucking behind. Earth will be a far more pleasant place after all these Christian nutjob freaks are raptured up to Heaven. Jesus Christ! Let's get on with it, for fuck! And while you're busy rapturing up those sick, twisted evangelical Christians, do the rest of us a favor and go ahead and suck up every fundamentalist from every religion. Really, they've been fucking shit up for long enough.

Facelift

2005-02-13T15:37:00.000-08:00

The blog has received a facelift. I customized one of the design templates that Blogger offers. This took some time, as my knowledge of HTML was nonexistent until yesterday. I was happy to see that the comments transferred over.

Also I quit smoking...

Under Construction

2005-02-12T19:06:00.000-08:00

Social Security Breakdown

2005-02-11T16:12:00.000-08:00

If you're anything like me, you've probably suffered a breakdown of sorts in trying to get a grip on just what the hell's going on in regards to all of this Social Security mumbo jumbo being spat out by the bloviating automatons of the pundit class, the sundry politicians, and those crazy trailblazers of the blogosphere. When you hear the blowhards use improvised-yet-somehow-now-part-of-the-lexicon (I.Y.S.N.P.O.T.L.) words such as "clawback," you, like me, probably resolve to leave the tonic out of your next vodka tonic. But such is the world in which we live, and as your ever-suffering host to this blog, I, the caption jockey, will attempt to break down and deconstruct at least some of what this caterwauling is all about.

This latest episode in "Social Security Reform," of course, all started with Bush's "massive" and "unprecedented" electoral victory in November. Well, now that the inauguration is over and the die, as it were, has been cast, let's see just what it is that our plain-spoken president is actually proposing (via Digby):

Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to what has been promised.

Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red.

Okay, better? I'll keep working on it.

That was President Bush last Friday. Methinks the prez better get himself wired again.

There have been several leftish bloggers that have been covering this story quite doggedly, Josh Marshall most notably. But for an easy-to-understand overview, I think this post by Publius is the best I've seen. For a slightly more complex synopsis, try this post by Matthew Yglesias.

Before getting into many of the details of the "Bush Plan" (actually, I won't be getting into many of the details because I don't understand most of the details), I think it's prudent to at least cursorily step back through history and look at some of what was going on when Social Security first came to be. Here is what Wikipedia says:

A limited form of the Social Security program began as a measure to implement "social insurance" during the Great Depression that started following the Black Thursday stock market crash of 1929. The law was passed by Congress at the behest of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1935 as part of the New Deal. Opponents challenged the Social Security Act in court, but it was upheld by a U.S. Supreme Court that had struck down other New Deal legislation.

And here are some of FDR's thoughts:

"No greater tragedy exists in modern civilization than the aged, worn-out worker who after a life of ceaseless effort and useful productivity must look forward for his declining years to a poorhouse. A modern social consciousness demands a more humane and efficient arrangement."

[Albany, N.Y., - February 28, 1929 - Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, Message to N.Y. State Legislature]

It looks to me like FDR's Republican contemporaries in Congress, after much hemming and hawing, caved in and mostly voted "Yea" on the bill. Seventy years later, now in control of all three branches of government, the Republicans finally have their moment to exact revenge on the floating, mocking specter of FDR and are hell-bent on seriously weakening, and ultimately destroying, Social Security. But they have to be sneaky about it, for the elderly in this country represent a very substantial voting bloc and are not to be fucked with.

Why, you may be asking yourself-- that is, if you accept the premise I've laid out above-- do the Republicans want to destroy Social Security? After all, by their own admission, these "reforms" will do nothing to remedy the projected shortfalls that SS will encounter in 2042 (Yes, 2042, for fuck!). So, what's it all about? First off, shifting a large amount of funds from the Social Security Trust Fund into private investment accounts would provide a financial windfall to the prez's friends that make up the Wall Street class. Secondly, in order to make the prez's tax cuts for the rich permanent, they intend to default on those very Treasury Bonds that make up the Trust Fund in either 2018 or 2012 (I can't keep it straight). This (14th amendment, section 4), of course, is illegal, but so is invading a sovereign nation based on trumped-up charges, not to mention outing CIA assets for paltry political gains, holding detainees indefinitely without counsel, torturing said detainees, or stealing two presidential elections in a row. In other words, in the tangle of thorns that represents the illegalities committed by this crew, this would seem a mere trifle.

More importantly, though, than these practical considerations, especially for those of our right-wing brethren closer to the bottom of the food chain (i.e. voters), for gutting SS are the psychological and quasi-ideological components rooted in the mythologizing of the "self-made man." Therefore, by a trick of extortion and rhetoric, the great "Ownership Society" is born. Instead of paying into a collective pool, now workers can take some of what is taken out of their paychecks and put it into their very own private (or, as the Republican monolith has changed the word, "personal") accounts. We are assured that there will be some kind of oversight as to what kind of investments we all can make-- investing, after all, is "hard work." Then, for those of us who are not wealthy, we will be forced to transfer these funds to some kind of annuity once we reach retirement age. In short, they will be private-- excuse me-- "personal" accounts in name only.

It doesn't take much imagination though to envision this as step one of a complete phase out. Again, they say that the kind of investments that will be allowed will be strictly controlled-- tried-and-true conservative stocks and such. Imagine, though, if we again have a great spike in the stock market, like the tech bubble that we saw in the late '90s. I can already hear the protestations of the Republicans that "average, ordinary" people are being hogtied and hamstrung by all these unseemly government regulations. "Let them have full control of their personal accounts," they will say. And then when the bubble bursts, they'll say, "Let them eat cake."

But the kernel of all this miserliness, or at least a rallying cry for the bottom-of-the-food-chain dwellers on the Right, lies in the very petty observation-- I suppose an epiphany to some-- that the money collected via the payroll tax from the current crop of workers (including yours truly and every other Chablis-swigging lefty I know) goes to our current retirees. Again: The SS taxes you pay are not going into a giant pot to be tapped by you and you alone once you reach retirement age-- they're going to today's retirees (and today's disabled folk). YES! YOU ARE PAYING FOR SOMEBODY ELSE!

Well, heavens to Betsy! I've known that since before I reached puberty. But for some folks, this is a revelation, and one they don't take kindly to. Check out this article in that bastion of high-minded intellectualism and good taste, Free Republic, if you don't believe me. That's really all it is, folks. They simply can't support the notion of us collectively tending to the sick and old.

And now I think I'll have that vodka tonic.

The State of the Union

2005-02-04T15:23:00.000-08:00

I didn't see the speech the other night. These events tend to make me very excited-- a strong, almost-Iraqi excited-- and I fear for the public good. Last year, after Bush's speech-capping exhortation for baseball players to stop using steroids, I went up to the roof of my apartment building and unloaded a full jacket of armor-piercing bullets from my AK. I missed the airliner I was aiming for, but nailed an elderly Mexican seamstress. It didn't matter. I don't speak Mexican.

I did, however, just read the prepared text of this year's SOTU. And here is what I found out:

The state of the union is good. To make it better still:

We must eliminate Social Security insurance for everyone under 55 years of age.
We must malign and ridicule those who have suffered from asbestos exposure.
We must rely on fossil fuels and nuclear power for our energy needs.
We must criminalize homosexuality.
We must suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous judicial nominees.
We must continue to neglect the AIDS pandemic.
We must try to stop executing colored folk who've been wrongfully convicted and/or falsely tried. (See? He is compassionate)
We must remain allies with Saudi Arabia.
We must stay in Iraq for a very long time to come.
We must employ the rhetorical device of evoking the words and ideas of FDR whenever we wish to undo everything he did.

And that's about it. My favorite passage, in its entirety:

"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else. That is one of the main differences between us and our enemies. They seek to impose and expand an empire of oppression, in which a tiny group of brutal, self-appointed rulers control every aspect of every life."

Speaks for itself.

From Swastika to Jim Crow

2005-02-01T17:08:00.000-08:00

I was very pleased to see that From Swastika to Jim Crow, a documentary based on the book of the same title which my grandmother wrote (she's also interviewed in the film), was playing on some cable channel called True Stories the other night. It's quite interesting subject matter and well worth watching, even without the familial connection.

Rehab

2005-02-01T16:38:00.000-08:00

P.H.-Unbalanced is in rehab. Good for you!

Food Porn

2005-02-01T11:34:00.000-08:00

Somebody, please, please take me to Urasawa.

The Great Coz!!!!

2005-02-01T11:22:00.000-08:00

My friend, coworker, and fellow blogger, Dennis Cozzalio, dishes out his top 22 movies of 2004. He's an excellent writer. Check him out.

David Corn

2005-02-01T11:19:00.000-08:00

David Corn on Boxer and Feinstein.

Eat the Vote!!

2005-02-01T11:12:00.000-08:00

Via TBogg, I see that many Iraqis feared that their food rations would be cut if they did not vote on Sunday. Ain't Democracy grand?

Ted Leo Is Probably Coming to Your Town

2005-02-01T11:06:00.000-08:00

Here is the list of dates for his world tour. I'll be seeing him on Feb. 2o at the El Rey. I recommend you do the same.

Drumroll

2005-02-01T10:40:00.000-08:00

Kevin Drum links up to an article in the LA Times wherein several experts predict a global pandemic of the bird flu.

He also has alerted me to the fact that Andrew Sullivan is saying au revoir to the blogosphere.

The Krug

2005-02-01T10:31:00.000-08:00

Good piece on social security privatization schemes by the Krug today. (you have to register to read it online)

Resolutions and Lamentations

2005-01-03T13:13:00.000-08:00

I resolve to continue smoking this year-- at least for the time being. I know that cigarettes are bad for me, particularly since I'm an asthmatic, but I really couldn't give a fuck. The world moves on in endless birth and death and rebirthing cycles. Tsunamis, wars, poverty, stress, enviromental holocaust, and bad sitcoms. Tim Russert is the mouthpiece of a criminal and corrupt administration. Arnold Schwarzenegger tells us Californians to tighten our belts. The president of the United States couldn't be fucked to make a single statement for four days after the worst thing that ever has happened happened. My job is futureless. I resolve to take more ecstasy this year. It really is a fantastic drug. The colors blend with the music in swirls of light, love, and hope. And then you wake up to remember that Colombia is burning. That Iraq is burning. That the oil is running out. And how do you engage in a conversation about oil policy with your mechanic cousin who has staked his life on driving and fixing these oil-hungry machines? How do you tell his brother that it isn't "the niggers" who are responsible for the fact that he is poor, sick, unenlightened and stupid? How do you tell the guy you work with that you do not wish to be bombarded with anecdotes about Ronnie James Dio and Kip Winger every time you walk by his desk? How do you tell him that you stopped caring about those guys when you were still in grammar school? How do you tell the kid you work with that his habit of spitting incessantly in the smoking alley is disgusting and unsanitary? How? I resolve to drink less this year. More ecstasy and less booze. I think about the hangovers I've had this past year and I am overcome with a sensation of loss. Brain cells, money, humor, all. Who are those people that flock by the millions to Times Square for the New Year's bash? What compelled them? A compulsion to be part of something? So many of the guys that I know are able to speak forcefully and sophisticatedly about the inside linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, about the point guard for the Miami Heat, about the different coaching styles of Joe Torre and Jim Tracy, about Howard Stern's imminent departure from the radio airwaves, about cars, girls, pot, and beer. I like that stuff, too. But Jesus, man, would you apply just a bit of your gray matter toward the things that actually affect your lives? Politics and reverberations of policies last longer than the duration of the corporate-sponsored presidential horserace. Pay a little attention, please! The meter maids continue to be the bane of my existence. I resolve to punish them by getting no parking tickets this year. Money's tight. I resolve to do less cocaine. R.I.P. Susan Sontag. R.I.P. Johnny Ramone (even if you were a ditto-head freak). You will be missed. For my friend P.H.-Unbalanced: I hope you get your shit together this year. Time's running out, my friend. Get into rehab. Fuck it. Maybe you'll learn something about yourself. The "Deep, Dark, Truthful Mirror" is a bitch that we all try to avoid, but on the other hand, most of us don't live in flop houses and sell Vicodin to sustain our amphetamine addictions either. What compells those millions? I'll never know. They probably all watch Ray Romano's television show. I swear the television stunted at least a whole generation's intellectual capacity-- and the rest are being finished off by Ritalin and Christianity. Take some acid, for God's sake! Do something weird. Wear a sparkly orange beret to work. Eat well. Order your steaks medium rare. Have a colonic. Drink some wheat grass. I'm talking to you, Caption Jockey! Be good to your girlfriend. Be good to your mother. And if you don't have a girlfriend or a mother, find someone to be good to. And when I say "good," I mean tell them you love them. Be kind. Stand up for them. Give them everything you have. Find out what you have. I resolve to get a credit card. No more trips to the pawn shop or Check Into Cash. I'm going into debt the American way-- Visa and Mastercard. I'll hereby join the throngs of debtors that keep Alan Greenspan happily employed, that make the rich richer and keep the rest of us in debt, that makes Walmart the be-all-and-end-all of American style free-market capitalism. What compells me? I'll never know. I was born into this combine-- this swirling, mechanized, broken-down, counter-revolutionary, lifeless thresher that's thrashing about in a last gasp of desperation and disillusion, that's choking on itself and vomitting out tsunami horrors on orangutans and children in Sumatra, that's slouching towards Bethlehem to be born to kill everybody's mother. Happy New Year, everyone! 2005 should be a doozy.

DIGBY!!!!

2004-12-16T20:22:00.000-08:00

For the love of God! Digby breathes fire! Please read him... Every day...

Lameness and Andy

2004-12-14T16:57:00.000-08:00

Andy, Andy, Andy, just how is one supposed to respond to this:

"The striking thing about this piece of video propaganda for the insurgency in Iraq is how Western-left it appears. From the British accent narrating the talking points to the weird challenge to "use the euro!", it's an interesting mesh of the anti-globalist, anti-American ideology in Europe and the murderous, Jihadist creed. The merger of the anti-globalist left and the anti-Semitic Jihadist right was always possible. Maybe this tape is evidence of its progress." [Emphasis mine - cj]

Maybe this necessitates me using the nuclear option. Yep, a close reading is indeed called for. "From the British accent...." Okay, Andy. So, because the chap that's reading this bit of propaganda is English, this clearly gives it the appearance of being "Western-left"? Is that so? Yes, whenever I hear a British narrator, that's the first thing that pops in my mind, too. Western-left. Never mind that you're English, Mr. Sullivan. And never mind that this is the title of the piece: "A Message From The Iraq Resistance Islamic Jihad Army - A message in English." [Again, my emphasis] I suppose if the narrator had, say, a Texas drawl, then you wouldn't have felt the need to bloviate so inanely about such a triviality. But this I excuse, as you're only getting warmed up.

It's the next statement where you really reach your stride: "...to the weird challenge to 'use the euro!', it's an interesting mesh of the anti-globalist, anti-American ideology in Europe and the murderous, Jihadist creed." Yes, "Use the euro!" was the rousing call to arms in Seattle, in Bombay, in Rio, in Toronto, and in every other city that was host to an anti-globalization demonstration. They used to chant vociferously, "Buy Nike!", but with Michael Jordan's retirement and the dollar plunging, they thought they could use a new slogan. Also, many of their murderous, Jihadist comrades had tons invested in the euro, so changing the slogan was really the least they could do. Recall also that it was the anti-globalization yahoos who first flocked to the malls in droves upon the president's urging to "go shopping" in the wake of 9/11. Some of the money spent could surely have been in euros-- a further indication of the creeping anti-globalist/jihadist alliance.

But, alas, maybe Andy is on to something. And when you're whipped, you're whipped.

Everybody! Together, now:

"We're here! We're queer! We're anti-globalists! And we're anti-Semitic jihadists! Use the euro or we'll decapitate the fuck out of you!"

You've ensnared us with your trenchant sleuthing, Mr. Sullivan. For this, I salute you.

You Have To Learn How To Die

2004-12-13T15:33:00.000-08:00

I'm glad to see that Jesus' General, in typically perverse fashion, has called upon Tom Delay and the rest of the war trumpeters to put up or shut up. This is something that has really been rankling me lately. How many of the folks "who demanded this war" have made any sort of even cursory sacrifice in its name. How many have lost limbs, mental capacity, friends, relatives-- their lives? I'm fairly certain that the very same crowd of racist, fear-mongering, homophobic micro-genitiliites who protested Nightline's hour-long tribute to the American fallen are the last people who would look at these pictures with even an ounce of sympathy-- not to mention guilt. Why should they? They're as removed from anything that happens on the ground in Iraq as they are from appreciating a painting by Francis Bacon, a play by Tony Kushner, an essay by Susan Sontag, a poem by Amira Barraka... or their very own complex biologies, hormonal makeups, desires, urges, compulsions... or the California coastline with its tremendous cliffs, coastal redwoods, coral and seabirds (it's all so much seagull shit to them)... or the heroism of the Stonewall rioters, the "theorizing" of Charles Darwin, the stunning architecture of Frank Ghery, the cryptic brilliance of David Lynch, the hilarious and hammering prose of Phillip Roth, the thundering voice of PJ Harvey, the delicacy of Gong Li's features, the sublime bite of Lagavulin, the revolutionary zeal of the Marquis de Sade, the intoxicant that is love, the scientific method... or dead American soldiers... or dead Iraqis... And on... And on... And on....

These people understand power-- raw power-- and power only, and I've had just about enough of it. I say to these warmongering pussies (and here I'm paraphrasing Axl rose): Get in the fucking ring! Put your life on the line! Put your son's life on the line! Put your daughter's life on the line! This was your stupid fucking war! You die for it! I'm sure the gun will feel good in your hands-- it will make you feel all tingly inside. Strap it on, cocksure closet cases, and be gone with you! I'm sick to death of the lot of you.

"Some brains to go with your sperm sac, sir?"

2004-12-10T16:44:00.000-08:00

E-Dawg and I went to Tama Sushi on Studio City's sushi row (or should I say "roe") last night. We each opted for the $30 B-plan omakase. We split a large Sapporo and a large sake. Katzu-san immediately went to work, delivering to us a fresh squid salad, consisting of the squid itself, wakame, and cucumbers, with a couple of sauces drizzled over the whole shebang-- one based on soy sauce , the other based on the unidentifiably fragrant Japanese citrus fruit, yuzu. The squid was the texture of al dente pappardelle, very much unlike the tire-rubber chewiness of the squids you find at lesser places, and very delicious.

Then came the platter of assorted bite-sized bits of palate-titillating appetizers: steamed okra with some kind of sauce on it, sardine on a slice of tomato and topped with minced ginger, a tiny deep-fried crab to be eaten whole and unaccompanied by sauce, a deep-fried scallop, and something in the middle of the platter that looked like the intestinal tract of a small bird. I asked Katzu what this might be, to which he responded in his heavily accented English, "Mayo egg." "What kind of fish?" "Mayo egg." "Male egg?" "Yes. Mayo egg. What you call?" "Sperm?" "Yes. Fugu. Very good." So it was with this bit of unexpected and exciting news that E-Dawg and I had our first-ever tastes of the sperm sac of the blowfish. I'd had fugu liver before (the poisonous part), at the ludicrously expensive and exceedingly delicious Ginza Sushi-ko, but never the sperm sac. It proved to be no let down.

As part of the B-plan omakase that Katzu offers, you are next delivered dashi in a teapot-- a seafood dashi rich in shrimp, shitake mushrooms, and some kind of whitefish. You sqeeze a lime into the broth, pour yourself a cup, and drink the divine goodness that results when bonito flakes and konbu are brought together in just the right combination and for just the right amount of time.

And then on to the sushi. First were two large cuts of toro-- this was big eye, not blue fin, but it was still terrifically fatty-- one from below the fin, and the other from the stomach itself. Next were two hefty cuts apiece of hamachi and kampachi-- both brilliant, but the hamachi was particularly fantastic. I think it was then that we saw Katzu go to work on a live scallop. After he had shelled the creature and cut it into thirds, he held the pieces over the counter to show us that it was indeed still alive. I was about to eat right out of his hands, but at that moment, he brought them back over the counter, put them on their beds of rice, and seasoned them with lime and sea salt. Then he served us halibut and the saba that caused E-Dawg, once having eaten it, to writhe around in a fugue of semiconscious, semi-orgasmic, semi-breathing euphoria, uttering something along the lines of, "That was the single best thing that has ever been in my mouth... It lingers... It's long... I want to fuck Katzu." And then came the finale: uni with shiso; and dungeness crab atop its own brain. And then it was over.

Or, not quite over. At some point towards the end of the meal, the two of us aswirl in a cocktail of sake and omega 3 fatty acids, E-Dawg endeavored to lecture the Spanish woman sitting to our left about Franco, fascism, and, if I remember correctly, fisting. Oh, but it's all a blur...

The check, with tip, was $110. This is not a cheap meal for two, but I would nonetheless rank it pound-for-pound as one of the best deals in town in terms of getting what you pay for. I know of no other super-high-quality sushi joint that lets you off so easy. A truly delicious, utterly transformative meal. I want to fuck Katzu.

Burbank: Where All the Action Is

2004-12-10T13:32:00.000-08:00

This probably won't be very impactful on any of your lives, but I feel the need to report it anyway. While I was just outside in the alley behind my work smoking a cigarette, I came dangerously close to being run over by a white cow with the number 5 on it. I'm pretty sure that this is what actually happened. There were some cowboys in a great big pickup truck on its tail. They almost ran me over too.

My Cuppeth Runneth Over

2004-12-09T16:56:00.000-08:00

Due to my meteoric rise in the world of blogging and my unprecedented 25% leap in readership-- there are now five of you-- I would like to take this time to say thank you. Yes, thank you, you, you, you, and you (and you know who you are). I do, however, have one simple request. Please, leave comments in the comment section. This is really the lifeblood of this venerable institution of blog. It fuels the raging storm of discourse that takes place herein and reminds me that I truly am a great human being. Again, thank you.

Liberal Hawkus Pawkus, Continued

2004-12-06T18:25:00.000-08:00

I see that the very even keeled, and quasi-liberal hawk, Kevin Drum, tackled the Beinart column Thursday night. Although I disagree with Mr. Drum on a great variety of issues-- usually a matter of degrees, not whole cloth-- he's a very good blogger, and this is another good post that's well worth reading. Today, I see that Atrios has taken a chunk out of the Beinart influence in lefty blogville here, here, and here.

In my previous post, while in the throes of a self-induced froth to take on Beinart, I had determined to dissect his piece argument by argument, word by word. I really haven't the time or energy for all that nitpicking, so I've decided to concentrate on his main thesis, which is that liberals need to purge themselves of the "softs" (i.e. pacifists) among us, and in so doing, promote fighting totalitarian Islam to the top of our agenda, reframing the issue as we do so as a liberal struggle against the ravages of reactionary policy and dogma.

To make his point, Beinart employs the writerly device of conflating the totalitarian threat represented by the Soviet Union with the one that is today represented by totalitarian Islam. He doesn't go so far as many on the Right do when they conflate the "War on Terror" with World War II (Just last week on Meet the Press I heard Jerry Falwell, of all people, respond to a question being asked as to whether the Iraqi war adequately meets the Christian standard of a "just war" by admonishing Al Sharpton that if he had his way then the Nazis would have won the second world war-- or some such nonsense [Surely Russert-- or somebody-- should have jumped in to remind Herr Reverend that the main domestic resistance to military intervention in WWII came from the isolationist Republicans]). Beinart does this by highlighting the ADA's (Americans for Democratic Action) opposition to communism and communists during the Cold War, and then by decrying the lack of a similar group on the Left today-- one that would put anti-Islamo totalitarianism at the center of its radar. He then sheepishly tries to innoculate himself against the obvious criticism of this device-- namely, that the respective threats represented by Soviet totalitarianism and by Islamo totalitarianism are in no way equal-- by offering this caveat: "Obviously, Al Qaeda and the Soviet Union are not the same. The USSR was a totalitarian superpower; Al Qaeda merely espouses a totalitarian ideology, which has had mercifully little access to the instruments of state power." Well, thank you, sir. Our own president frequently espouses a desire to be dictator rather than president, but he has had mercifully little success in running roughshod over the executive limits outlined in the Constitution... D'oh! Bad example.

This, though, is where I tend to disagree with Beinart vis-a-vis the nature of the Al Qaeda threat. Does Al Qaeda really espouse a totalitarian ideology? Maybe. But as Kevin Drum points out, there seems to be nothing fundamentally expansionist about their ideology. And furthermore, I'm really not so sure that what they espouse is any different than what fundamentalists of all stripes espouse everywhere-- and I mean everywhere. Everything I've read about them suggests that they have specific grievances with the ruling factions of various Middle Eastern and Western countries, and that if they were able to procure the instruments of state power somewhere, the resulting state would probably look not that different from what we saw with the Taliban in Afghanistan-- a very strict theocracy that is more than shitty for its women, stifling to intellectualism and the arts, and generally a fucked up isle of Mesozoic sensibilities-- not, though, a highly technical and expansionist Nazi-like army ready to reap carnage and doom on all "evil doers" in every corner of the world (though power does corrupt).

Beinart also has grievances, and these are twofold-- Moveon.org and Michael Moore. These are the twin pillars of the "soft" elements on the Left that Beinart wants to see cleansed from mainstream American liberalism. In another exercise of conflation, he seems to think that these two bodies (and I use the term "bodies" advisedly) are the equivalent of a State Department and Minister of Information for the Left. He is all over them for not supporting the war in Afghanistan, and he throws out the disses in such a way as to suggest that the virtues of that war were/are self-evident. He uses the perjorative term "soft" as a taunt. He seems to have trouble making the crucial distinction between somebody that makes policy decisions and somebody that makes movies. He thinks they are gutless and clueless. He thinks that these flower children prefer "pie-in-the-sky" pipe dreams to serious, well-considered solutions. In short, he thinks these voices must be shut out. (These, of course, are standard rhetorical weapons in the Right's arsenal. They win elections because of this nonsense, and they get to have proxies [poor, brown and black] fight their wars for them because of this horseshit. I'm glad to see that this weaponry isn't solely reserved for use by the Coulterites.)

Beinart, for his part, envisions a new, ambitious, expansionist liberalism in which young people would flock to the Middle East, Peace-Corps-like, and a new Middle East Marshall Plan would be born to try to change the hearts and minds of Middle Easterners on the ground (Neoliberalism wrought large). It's pretty lofty stuff, and I applaud him for that, but it also makes me cringe with the same bile that burbles up when some ass-fuck or another on the Right wants to constitutionally outlaw burning the American flag. What Beinart fails to understand is that many of us on the Left, Michael Moore included, see something much more fundamental, though relationally causal, to the threat posed by Weird Al Yank-Qaeda and its satellites, which is the unsustainable and expansionist thrust of Western-dominated global market capitalism. Yes, it's the oil, douchebag. That was my first thought that Tuesday morning when the planes hit (I've just violated a personal axiom that says, "The next person that tells me what they were doing or where they were on 9/ll gets a fistful of guitar-playing knuckles in the xiphoid process"). It's the fucking oil. And it's fucking Israel. And until mainstream liberals and mainstream ass-bitches learn this from the Left, we, as in all of us, will continue to be on the wrong side of history; we will continue to be a step behind some fucking ass-tards who want to blow themselves up so that they can fuck some virgins in the afterlife (Who likes fucking virgins anyway?); and we, as in me, will continue to be lectured by Peter Beinart on why we need to purge ourselves from something of which didn't even know we were a part.

A big shout out to Pablo in San Francisco for his cogent comments in the previous posting on this subject. You're right, Pablo. There are ugly forces that want to do us harm, I have no doubt. I just tend to see this threat as something that can be, as Kerry suggested, reduced to the level of a nuisance. I don't see it as a clash of civilizations, or as the defining issue of the 21st century or anything like that (though our actions, as in our government's actions, are making this an ever-increasing likelihood).

The Great White Dope

2004-12-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

Bush, in his 2004 state of the union address:

"So tonight I call on team owners, union representatives, coaches, and players to take the lead, to send the right signal, to get tough, and to get rid of steroids now."

Just another victory for the administration.

Liberal Hawkus Pawkus, Pt. 1 (Rough Draft)

2004-12-02T18:45:00.000-08:00

cjbeats wants a new post, cjbeats gets one.

I've been directed to this article by "liberal hawk" Peter Beinart in the New Republic by various folks in the blogosphere, Andrew Sullivan, "liberal hawk" himself and former editor of TNR, among them. First, I'd like to look at the seemingly oxymoronic phrase "liberal hawk" itself. So far as I can tell, the term is ascribed to folks who believe in a robust, aggressive, lassoing type of foreign policy. These are people that don't give a second's pause to the absurdity of the existentially deranged verbiage "War on Terror." These people thought that invading Iraq was a great idea, though many of them have since made amends by saying that they didn't actually advocate what they once advocated. Oh, and they were very surprised that there were no WMD in Iraq. "Everyone knew he had WMD" is a common refrain. Except, of course, there were some voices, including the courageous former weapons inspector, former marine, and former Bush voter, Scott Ritter, who always maintained that there were no WMD in Iraq. (Just because the Iraqi Minister of Information says something, it doesn't mean, in every circumstance, that the opposite is in fact correct. For real Bizarro World politics look no further than the current administration.)

Anyhow, these "liberal hawks" like to spill blood and spread Empire around the world, but they also want our environment protected at home, the social safety net to remain in place, and our civil liberties to be protected-- or, in Andrew Sullivan's case, the right to fuck his boyfriend; and, if the courtship proves adequately transcendent, the eventual right to marry him. This crew actually has much in common with the neocons, who also tend to be on the liberal side of things when it comes to social matters, that is, if they give these matters any thought at all.

Time presses. To the article itself. I may have to dedicate some more thought and time to this issue at a later date, because the more I read the article, the more it pisses me off.

Here is the crux of Beinart's argument:

Today, three years after September 11 brought the United States face-to-face with a new totalitarian threat, liberalism has still not "been fundamentally reshaped" by the experience. On the right, a "historical re-education" has indeed occurred--replacing the isolationism of the Gingrich Congress with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's near-theological faith in the transformative capacity of U.S. military might. But American liberalism, as defined by its activist organizations, remains largely what it was in the 1990s--a collection of domestic interests and concerns. On health care, gay rights, and the environment, there is a positive vision, articulated with passion. But there is little liberal passion to win the struggle against Al Qaeda--even though totalitarian Islam has killed thousands of Americans and aims to kill millions; and even though, if it gained power, its efforts to force every aspect of life into conformity with a barbaric interpretation of Islam would reign terror upon women, religious minorities, and anyone in the Muslim world with a thirst for modernity or freedom.

This last bit, "...if it gained power, its efforts to force every aspect of life into conformity with a barbaric interpretation of Islam would reign terror upon women, religious minorities, and anyone in the Muslim world with a thirst for modernity or freedom," is very informative about the inadequacies of the hypothetical. Furthermore, Beinart seems blind to the fact that many of Bush's top advisors, including Sidemouth himself, were both signees to the Project for the New American Century, and longtime supporters of just this sort of militaristic adventurism. Long before September 11, envisioning what it would take to accomplish the neocon goals of American full-spectrum dominance, Sidemouth famously said, “The process of transformation is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.”

Well, as we all know, they got their Pearl Harbor. I bring this up only to refute Beinart's claim that "On the right, a "historical re-education" has indeed occurred--replacing the isolationism of the Gingrich Congress...." As he should know, toppling Saddam's regime has been the glorious trigger for multitudes of Cheney's, Wolfowitz's, Perle's, and others' nocturnal emmisions since the day's of the first gulf war-- and this is not to mention that the notion of toppling Saddam was too titilatingly Oedipal for Georgie to resist: "He trahed to kill mah daddy."

I'll post what I have now, and continue with more, much more, tomorrow. Good night.

To be continued...

Comments Upgrade

2004-11-19T17:20:00.000-08:00

I've just imported a more user-friendly comments interface. You don't have to register with Blogger before leaving comments anymore. Hopefully I've ironed out any technical glitches. So, feel free to be as profane as you want to be.

Senate Bill: 0069 - The Privatization of My Cock

2004-11-18T17:46:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of privatization talk going around lately, what with George W. Bush's landslide pummeling of John Kerry in the polls and the mandate that goes along with a .001% margin of victory. The president, at his first press conference after winning the election, talked of the "political capital" that he was now free to spend.

First on the agenda seems to be his stated desire to privatize social security. I'm all for it. If you're a shitty investor, you don't deserve to be taken care of by the state-- your infirmities and/or your old age be damned. Then there's Bush's "No Child Left Behind" education privatizing scheme. If you go to a shitty school, well, then fuck you. You're shit out of luck, sucker. Your district wouldn't know how to spend the federal funds it received if it got them. And let's not forget the Bush/Cheney accomplishment of further privatizing the military. Hopefully, we will soon have an all-mercenary armed forces. And Gary Jackson, the president of Blackwater USA, one of the top private military firms in the country, is wholly on board. As he put it, "I would like to have the largest, most professional private army in the world." I say, fuck yeah, my brother! If I was rich, I might hire Blackwater myself-- I'm sick of all the graffiti in my neighborhood (I guess there's always the Guardian Angels).

Then there's this from today's Washington Post, which I received via Trapper John at Daily Kos. And this really, really makes me motherfucking happy!

"Officials at Dulles International and Baltimore-Washington International airports said they are considering the replacement of federal airport screeners at security checkpoints with workers employed by private contractors.

The Transportation Security Administration this week invited airports to apply to leave the federal security screener system and return to private screeners. The government took over airport screening after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and is planning a transition for approved airports by spring or summer 2005.
"The issue of the long lines -- that's probably where we're most concerned about customer service issues," said Tara Hamilton, spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority."

Yes! Hell, fucking yes! As long as I don't have to wait in long lines at the airport, I don't care if they let the Iron Shiek, Kamala the Ugandan Giant, and Nicholai Volkhoff on the plane. Just get me to the church on time!

And speaking of getting to the church, I've been so inspired by the recent spike in privatization going on in our country that I've decided to step into the arena myself. That's right, I have decided to privatize my cock. Sorry, bitches, no more BJ's on the subway for the Caption Jockey. No more jerk jobs in the confession booth. No more tea bagging at the opera. No more joint sniffing in the locker room. No more salad tossing at Arby's. No more dick licking in the elevator. No more knob knocking in the alleyway. No more pacifiers for the toothless. No more Indian burns on the member. No more jabbing away in the library. No more. No more. No more.

It's now the private property of the D-ster. And neither of us could be more happy.

Holy Hominid, Batman!

2004-11-18T12:58:00.000-08:00

There have been several articles on subjects anthropological that have penetrated the mainstream press of late. Just a few weeks ago, it was announced that Australian anthropologists had discovered "...a new species of hobbit-sized humans who lived about 13,000 years ago on an Indonesian island." There've also been several items on the ongoing matter concerning the first human occupants of the Americas.

And then in today's LA Times, I see that researchers at Harvard and the University of Utah are theorizing that it is our species' ability to run long distances that set us apart from the other great apes of Africa and led us to developing our modern anatomies. This notion smacks up against the largely discredited aquatic ape theory, first espoused by Alistair Hardy, and then teased out in a series of books by anthropological laywoman and writer Elaine Morgan. I like the aquatic ape theory. It's sexy. It makes for good television on the Discovery Channel. I also like the way it makes "serious" anthropologists whirl around in a dervish-like frenzy of superiority and condescension.

I haven't been keeping up very well with the big anthropological controversy in the last few years, though it appears to me, through various anecdotal sound bites, that biogeneticists and the large majority of anthropologists have further buttressed their "Out of Africa" theory with yet more mitochondrial, DNA, and fossil evidence. Maybe Milford Wolpoff is still holding strong to his multiregional hypothesis, but I wouldn't know. The idea, though, that seems to have all the traction these days is one that I will dub the "Immaculate Cerebrum Flogging" theory. The proponents of this set of ideas, while controversial to a large segment of the scientific community, have succeeded in convincing a great many laypeople that the real story of human origins is quite a bit different than the narrative delivered by the academics. They say that all evidence points to there being an original guy who, with the kindly help of his homely girlfriend--she, by the way, was created out of his extracted rib-- propagated the species in rabbit-like fashion, despite O.G. girl's bearing only two male children, at a far more recent time than the anthropologists would generally put it. It's a truly revolutionary theory, and only time will tell if it will be accepted, grudgingly, by the scientific community at large.

For my part, I've been working on a pet theory of my own that posits that all organic life started out as spores that were germinating in the folds of fat in Frank Black's skin and spontaneously ejaculated into mastigophora, labyrinthomorpha, Ascetospora, and all other types of protozoan life, culminating finally, after a long lunch or two, in the highly evolved hominids that we are today.

Paranoia Strikes Deep

2004-11-14T12:44:00.000-08:00

Here's a delightful piece about the state of our Bill of Rights in our tortured democracy. Via Kevin Drum I see that in Boulder, Colorado a high school band has been paid a visit by the Secret Service for planning to perform Dylan's antiwar polemic "Masters of War" in a school talent show after "some students and adults who heard the band rehearse called a radio talk show Thursday morning, saying the song the band sang ended with a call for President Bush to die."

"Masters of War" is of course from Dylan's seminal second album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, an album fully awash in the current events of its times, and specifically the Cuban missile crisis. On the liner notes to the LP the young Dylan wrote that "A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fall" was his reaction to the crisis and that each line was the title of a song that he would not get the chance to write. The song that got the students in trouble is Dylan's acerbic take on what Eisenhower, in his farewell address to the nation in 1961, dubbed "The military-industrial complex." Eisenhower warned:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. "

Dylan was as caustic as he's ever been, singing directly to the puppeteers, "And I hope that you die/ And your death'll come soon/ I will follow your casket/ In the pale afternoon/ And I'll watch while you're lowered/ Down to your deathbed/ And I'll stand o'er your grave/ 'Til I'm sure that you're dead."

Never mind the fact that this song was written no later than 1963 (the year the album came out). Never mind the fact that the writer of the song has been nominated for a Nobel prize for literature every year since 1997. Never mind the fact that the song is addressed to anonymous illuminati types. Never mind the fact that this is one of the most famous protest songs of the of the 20th century. Never mind the fact that George W. Bush was but a teenager at the time the song was written. Never mind the fact that W.'s father hadn't yet run for public office at the time the song was written. Never mind the song's continued relevance today as our country is engaged in endless imperial wars. Never mind the song's continued relevance today vis a vis Sidemouth's friends at Halliburton. Never mind the the historical artistic trajectory, from de Sade to the 2 Live Crew, of artists coming up against the power of the state. Never mind the first amendment. Never mind it all.

Despite this all, some lunatic students and parents took the last verse of the song to be a direct threat against the president of the United States. But what's even more disturbing is the Secret Service of the United States thought this was something that needed to be investigated. Personally, I don't think that there should be a law against threatening the president's life. (In fact, I'm gonna do it now-- I'm gonna kill me the motherfucking president!) But even so, even if the song's lyrics were explicitly "I'm gonna kill George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States, this Saturday at 2:00 p.m. EST," this still falls under an increasingly threatened pillar of "free" society, namely artistic expression. It's a slippery slope from here to the gulags, I'm afraid, but maybe I'm just paranoid.

The band's name is Coalition of the Willing, and I wish them luck.

Blog On!!

2004-11-12T18:29:00.000-08:00

After spending a good portion of the day trying to get this blog working, I realize I know next to shit about code, templates, and all of the other sundry computer D&D speak that's out there. I have no idea how to link to an Internet item that may or may not be pertinent to any of my current or future musings. I don't know how to customize this blog to whatever specs I want to give it-- I chose the current "Simple 2" design template because it was just that, simple. And it appeared to be a relatively legible format.

It's getting to the point these days where every monkey and his prehensile tail has his own blog (let's see if that experiment in linkage will bear any fruit), but I've decided to throw my hat in the ring in typically tardy fashion and start one of my own. I expect to use this space to meditate on the funk and fire of American life; to riff on the creeping fascism that's threatening our already dead culture; to scream out with delight and rapture, trumpeting the great American rock and roll resurgence of which we're in the midst; to explore the sensuous and the profane, the artful and the inane, the able and the insane; to ridicule the ruling class and their proxies in the public life and in the blogosphere-- in short to write whatever the hell I want, Michael Powell be damned! Michael Powell be double damned with his ass sniffing father! Fuck 'em! Fuck 'em all! Here's to future days...