Wipe out

Just minutes after I declare for Bill Richardson, he quits the race. Now I've got to fight off despondency and cynicism about the direction of this great country of ours. New Mexico is an incredibly beautiful state. I think Richardson could have made the whole country just as beautiful. Too much of the east is flat and boring. More beautiful mountains and fantastic sunsets would have done us good. Oh well. Que sera sera. Insha'Allah baby.

Arizona is even better, so you'd think I'd be for John McCain, but he is much more a creature of Phoenix than a real Arizonan. Phoenix is a crime against the planet. If there were a just God, it wouldn't exist. And that's what McCain offers the rest of the country. He's probably never even seen a mountain or a sunset even though he's surrounded by them at least once or twice a year. All he sees is enemies. It's not that enemies don't exist, but he sees them in all the wrong places.

Which candidate should I support now that Bill has packed it in? McCain, aside from not really representing Arizona, is too submissive. Ever since Bush beat him like a dog in South Carolina he's acted like one. So I'm kinda leaning towards Giuliani. Not, as you might imagine, because of the New York skyline or ecosystem. Sure, it would be nice if more places were like New York -- Indianapolis, St. Louis, Nashville -- all those hellholes in the midwest could use a little New York style, and that's a good reason to vote for Rudolph, but I'm more drawn to the rotten reindeer because he's such a bizarre fucking psychopath. And in so many ways. If he were elected, much hilarity would ensue, at least until he starts fucking up the lives of his critics, say for a year or so. Still, better to have a few laughs in the meantime.

A lot of people are going to suffer and die for oil and misplaced notions of honor no matter who gets elected.

Catching the wave

Took my son up to New Hampshire today to photograph an Obama rally but the line was too long and his flacks too Bush-like, so we ended up at a Richardson rally in a park (see above photo). Now I'm leaning towards Bill. New Mexico is a beautiful state. Maybe he can make the whole country that beautiful.

Sunday funnies

I caught the end of the Democrat's debate last night. They all seemed like decent enough people and any one of them would be a world of improvement over any of the Republican psychopaths.

Only Obama or Richardson would have the remotest chance of being an effective president. Edwards is too direct in his challenge to corporate hegemony and there are just too many idiots out there with an irrational hatred of Hillary. Either Clinton or Edwards would provoke massive opposition that would be as well-funded as it would be vitriolic. We'd get at least four more years of ugliness, no doubt. With Obama or Richardson, at least there'd be a minute possibility that the tenor of the attacks would mellow.

I say minute chance. Does anyone doubt that if Obama is the nominee, the Republicans will go all southern strategy all the time and the news media will support them?

Already we see that our top journalists in both broadcast and print, perceive "race" as central to all Obama stories. Over and over again they note that in Obama's case "race" is not an issue and that Obama himself never mentions it. Yet for these poor stunted souls, our journalistic elite, it is all they can talk about. If Obama continues to do well, you can count on increasingly idiotic histrionics from the beltway pundits. They will be more than happy to amplify the Republican machine's southern strategy, with a tut tut and a wink of course. Today's topic: should Americans hide the white women if Osama, I mean Obama, becomes President? Fashion industry sees potential cash cow in veils. Meanwhile, latest bloodbath in mideast helps Republicans.

Well, if anyone with African heritage can withstand what's coming, he is Barak Obama. Our prejudices are much more related to culture than color and culturally Obama is white. Here's hoping the coming ugliness backfires on the racist Republican shit heads. Beggarman, get on your horse and ride.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post's Sunday editorial page is always good for a few sad laughs.

David Broder, who is the dean of Washington Punditry as long as you consider "dean" a synonym for "senile" writes:

That search becomes more urgent as the major-party politicians come to understand that Obama could be the most electable candidate the Democrats have fielded in many years.

What planet does this guy live on? Of the last four elections, Democrats won the popular vote in three of them and came close in the fourth. I think Broder and most of his beltway brethren have their heads so far up their beltway asses that they really cannot differentiate between their consensus opinions and the actual results of elections. It's truly amazing.

And finally, old sharp-stick-up-the-ass George Will claims that the middle class is only shrinking because the ranks of the rich are expanding.

Economist Stephen Rose, defining the middle class as households with annual incomes between $30,000 and $100,000, says a smaller percentage of Americans are in that category than in 1979 -- because the percentage of Americans earning more than $100,000 has doubled, from 12 to 24, while the percentage earning less than $30,000 is unchanged. "So," Rose says, "the entire 'decline' of the middle class came from people moving up the income ladder."

Well, you know what they say about lies, damned lies, and statistics.

I have neither the time nor wherewithal to go deep into those particular statistics, but using the $30,000 to $100,000 income range to define middle class strikes me as silly. For one thing, those numbers obviously don't mean what they meant in 1979. And even if they are adjusted for inflation, $40,000 in New York is not the same as $40,000 in Bumfuck.

But the open sore that Will tries to band-aid with income statistics isn't poverty or any decline in the percentage of middle class folk. It's the income disparity between the truly wealthy and the other 95 or so percent of us and what that disparity means for our children. It means that if something isn't done to rein in those greedy fucks, most people's character and abilities, their merit, will have nothing whatsoever to do with their chance of success in this life. The semi-retarded scions of the wealthy who could never make it on their own, the George W. Bush's, Hank Steinbrenners, James Dolans, and so many more faceless others, will have it all wrapped up in tax free trust funds and off-shore accounts. If we don't tax these losers back to competitive reality, your grandchildren better hone their ass kissing skills cause that's where just about the only opportunity for advancement that will be left.