Notes on photography

These photographs are work from yet another one of those days that I was totally bereft of any creative gumption. As I've mentioned before, on those days I often photograph a color, just to have something to do, kind of like whittling. Today, I chose the ever-popular pink. Go pink.

Rush Limbaugh is a ...

What's the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg? One's a flaming Nazi gasbag, the other is just a dirigible.

I think it's very sad that flaming Nazi gasbags have now officially taken over the Republican party. Whither the moderates? Will they form a third party? Come out of the closet and declare themselves Democrats? Become independents? Or will their families simply put them on a chunk of ice and float them out to meet their lonely fate?

Rush Limbaugh and his wife are divorcing and experts say this could get ugly. I'm confused, are they splitting up or having sex?

I still can't believe no one ever investigated exactly what Limbaugh was doing in the Dominican Republic with a bottle of Viagra. Of course he was whoring around, but with what kind of whores? The D.R. is a mostly black country where sex tourists go to make it with underage girls and boys. So was Limbaugh fucking little black boys? That's what it sounds like. Where's the moral outrage from the Bible belt faction of the party? Or was it just young black girls? The fantasy of every true conservative. To play master and slave with a nubile young thang.

Rush Limbaugh admitted that he is addicted to pain killers and I'm sorry to say, hoagies. Limbaugh blames his addiction on a botched back operation and lesbians.

I have nothing against people using drugs, but dude ratted out his supplier. Dude's a narc. Nazi gasbag racist pedophile narc. And leader of the party of morality, no less.


Update: Oh god, sweet jesus, merciful Rush, I am so sorry, so terribly sorry, I am crawling on my hands and knees, heartbroken if anyone were offended by anything I wrote. I'd be happy to let Rush put on black face and suck my cock while calling me master if only he would forgive me. Please, please, please, forgive me. Please. Forgive. Me. Oh, please. Ho, please. Forgive.

Recommended reading

Haruki Murakami in Israel.

My answer would be this: Namely, that by telling skillful lies - which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true - the novelist can bring a truth out to a new location and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth lies within us. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.

Hat tip to Jim Johnson.

Apotheosis now

There's an interesting interview with Laurence Fishburne in today's Guardian. What struck me about it was his repeated references to his intelligence.

“I'm black, smart and I don't hide my intelligence, I lead with it. I have very strong opinions about shit and I don't have a problem saying what I think. I'm thoughtful. But you know... I can't play dumb. A smart black guy is confronting for most people. But that's on them, not on me... And they didn't hire me because I'm a black guy but because of my intelligence."

Sounds to me like Fishburne had some bad experiences with people questioning his intelligence. That wouldn't surprise me. Wouldn't surprise me at all.

I don't think that anyone who knows the details of my life could accuse me of being a racist these days. I am about as color blind as one could possibly be without actually being blind. For whatever reason, genetic probably, I just don't spend a lot of time thinking about what people look like. Of course I notice superficialities when I first meet someone, but I quickly forget about those things and interact with people based solely on their personalities.

For example, I used to work with a severely deformed guy. His forehead was gigantic and malformed, each eye roved in a different direction, he was very short and had a hunched back. He was very smart and good at his job, albeit something of an asshole. We often clashed professionally and sometimes it degenerated into unprofessional shouting matches. I remember one day I went off on him in front a very nice, very liberal woman. Afterward, she asked me how I could talk to him like that. He was being an asshole I said, didn't you notice? Well, yea, but still. Still what? You know, his face... What's wrong with his face? I asked, genuinely not understanding what she was talking about. I had long ago forgotten what he looked like. And that's someone with truly freakish abnormalities. When it comes to something as superficial as the shade of one's skin, I forget about it almost immediately (culture is something else, but that's a different story).

But I was not always so blind. I come from a terribly racist time and place and as a child I was guilty of horrific racist behavior. I don't remember if I was actually racist in thought--I don't think so--but I was certainly racist in word and deed. Back then, pretty much all the kids in my little town and my little school were horrible little shits. Everyone tried to hurt everyone else almost all of the time. People were attacked for being black, for being blond, for being rich, for being poor, for being fat, for being skinny. Whatever a person was was cause for ridicule. Hurling racist crap at a black kid was just another way to hurt him. The words didn't have any meaning. Not for me, at least. Of course now I realize those words probably had all too much meaning. Although it no doubt hurt rich blond kids at the time, it's unlikely that being ridiculed for being rich and blond caused any lasting damage. But a black kid being ridiculed for being poor and stupid when that was what so many idiots thought to be the natural order of things was no doubt much more harmful. All of the black kids in my class ended up doing a lot of jail time. Some for stupid crimes like armed robbery and rape. I don't think it's crazy to suspect those outcomes were influenced by their sense of self worth which had to have been severely damaged by all the racist crap they suffered. The lives wasted and lost in that manner are uncountable. It's a terrible tragedy.

Laurence Fishburne is about the same age as me. Given his apparent preoccupation with people knowing he is intelligent, I wouldn't be surprised if he suffered those same kinds of taunts as a child. I'm sure that kind of thing makes some people stronger. Not most though. Not most.

I wonder how much of that is still happening out there in the boonies. It's hard for me to tell. I live in a liberal wonderland where everyone is nice. I know it's not like that everywhere, but I also have no doubt that things have improved significantly. Kids these days can't get away with openly hurling racist epithets in school. They would be counseled. They would be punished. And there are so many more role models now than there were back then, Laurence Fishburne being one of them. With so many incredibly smart, successful people on the tv, only a genuine idiot would believe the old racist tripe about intelligence. Hopefully, we've reached the point where the black kid who is called stupid and inferior realizes the obvious; that it is the racist who is stupid and inferior.

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Chuckling copy edits the Times

From one of today's editorials:

By defining Negroes not as human beings but as beasts, the nation rationalized subjugation and cruelty — and justified laws that stripped them of basic human rights.

Should read:

By defining some people not as human beings but as...

The Times, in that context, demonstrates the same mindset as those they criticize, though, granted, not anywhere close to the same degree.

Notes on photography

This was just one of those days when I was sick of New York and totally bereft of creative ideas. On those days I often spend a few hours walking around the cemetery, which is the quietest place in town and has a lot of interesting trees. So rather than do nothing, I worked on photographing the color brown. I don't know what it is about digital cameras, but they typically just don't get brown. I think I made a little progress.

Clowning around

In the space of twelve hours, I came across two references to The Day the Clown Cried, an unfinished and unreleased 1972 film directed by and starring Jerry Lewis--allegedly one of the worst films ever made. In addition to sounding interesting, the clown-in-Nazi-Germany angle reminded me of a real life clown I met who had worked the Nazi circuit back in the day.

The plot synopsis sounds great. A washed up clown in Nazi Germany gets sent to prison for making fun of Hitler. He's so bad he can't even make his fellow prisoners laugh, but the Jewish kids at the camp find him funny and he has a creative rebirth. The Nazi's, of course, don't like this so they simultaneously punish him by sending him to Auschwitz and offer him freedom if he is willing to put the kids in the gas chamber. As he's about to close the door on them, he has an epiphany and joins them in the chamber. He does his shtick as the gas envelopes them. They all die laughing.

Audiences, reportedly, were not so amused. Harry Shearer (Bassist for Spinaltap), said this about it in Spy Magazine:

With most of these kinds of things, you find that the anticipation, or the concept, is better than the thing itself. But seeing this film was really awe-inspiring,in that you are rarely in the presence of a perfect object. This was a perfect object. This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is. Oh My God! - thats all you can say.

The backstory is as interesting as the plot. The financial backer couldn't cover costs, they lost the rights to the script during shooting, and Lewis was going broke and strung out on Percodan the whole time. So it's got an Apocalypse Now on prescription pain killers thing going on as well. It was never released due to the intense loathing it created in everyone who saw it. Lewis, however, considers it his lost masterpiece.

Sounds like my kind of movie. I hope to see it someday.

On a loosely related note, that reminded me of a clown I met in Italy a few years back. I was living in a VW Bus with a friend and his father. We were stuck in Genoa waiting for a boat to North Africa. In those days I would just drive off into random parts of cities to find a place to eat, drink and sleep. That night we ended up camping outside a small bar/restaurant in a working class part of town. Dry red wine was served in earthenware jugs on long wooden tables. The wine was so cheap it was almost free. Spaghetti was the only thing on the menu. The crowd was old and generally hostile towards us. We drank a lot of that wine.

An old man joined us with an empty glass and introduced himself as Tony. We were happy to share. He spoke English and, according to him, seven other languages. He said he had been a circus clown and as the jugs of wine came and went he told us stories of his travels around the world. Of particular interest were stories he told about traveling circuses in Nazi occupied parts of Europe during the war. Of course the chief problem with heavy drinking and storytelling is that it's very difficult to actually remember the stories. Unfortunately, the only thing that's stayed with me is that they were fascinating.

Well, not entirely. By the end of the night we were so drunk Tony had us practically weeping into our glasses. We could barely get our heads up off the table to wipe our eyes and have another drink. At the end, Tony summed up his life by waving his hands toward heaven and declaring(imagine heavy Italian accent): "It is all remember. It is all so beautiful."

It is all remember. It is all so beautiful. Now them's some words I want carved on my tomb. At the time I was thinking I could say the same thing, but then I made the mistake of moving to New York. And yes, now that I think about it, I remember a little dream I had when I fell asleep on the road while driving here. There was a clown, he had buck teeth and a nasally whine, and he was leading me into some kind of room, and some kind of smoke was enveloping us, and I was laughing...

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Kill chimpy, story on page 23

I wasn't bothered by the aroma of racism in the NY Post's infamous cartoon. Cops really did shoot a chimp. The basic premise of the cartoon didn't just come out of right field for no obvious reason. And many on the left have spent the past eight years calling George W. Bush “Chimpy.” If we don't like calling people chimps, we shouldn't call people chimps. And why are so many liberals so quick to identify chimps as blacks? Seems to me there's a lot of unconscious stereotyping going on here.

No, what bothers me is that the chimp representing Obama was lying dead in a pool of blood. It appears to me that the NY Post is calling for Obama's assassination. They certainly don't seem to be perturbed by the possibility. Calling for the president's assasination is bad enough in the best of times, but right now it is an active fantasy of a disturbingly large number of heavily armed Republican nutcases. Why isn't anyone in the media talking about that angle? It seems that there is some kind of unwritten rule against criticizing Republicans for inciting murder.

Hell, it appears there's an unwritten rule against criticizing Republicans for actually committing murder. When Republican Jim Adkisson recently shot up a church with the explicit intention of killing liberals, it made only the smallest ripple in the national news. As much as Bush and his sycophants bragged about the lack of terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11, you'd think a terrorist attack on American soil would get quite a bit of airplay and analyis. And this Republican terrorist has since published a manifesto aimed at getting other Republicans to go on murderous rampages. Where's the outrage? Can you imagine the reaction if a Democrat shot up a megachurch and called on other Democrats to kill conservatives? Yes you can.

And worse, a Republican terrorist was recently found to have the ingredients for a dirty bomb and he was actively planning to build one. He wasn't even caught by the police. Had his wife not killed him, he may have realized his dream. As far as I know, this has gone completely un-commented on in the media. Think about it. A Republican terrorist actually has radioactive materials and is building a bomb and that gets no media attention. How can that be?

And you have morons like this guy, publicly calling for mass murder and ruminating about what to do with all the dead bodies. Chances are, these guys are little tips of big icebergs. How many of these Republican nutcases are out there plotting.

It's monumentally irresponsible for the media to ignore this groundswell of Republican terrorist activity. Hopefully, the police are doing a better job.We need a national campaign to expose these assholes and pressure their enablers to stop their hateful nonsense. Anyone who advertises with the NY Post, Fox, or any other Murdoch property should be boycotted. Let's see how much money they can make from people who are unashamedly pro-terrorist, who don't hide their desire to assassinate Obama behind lame non-apology apologies.

(Links via Sadly No)

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An illustrative example

I overheard two wingnuts discussing taxes as I was having a coffee at the botanic garden this morning. One said that on a $50 million profit, even a tax increase of one tenth of one percent(at this point he paused and you could see little gears spinning behind his eyes), which would be $500,000, could seriously harm business in this country.

Well, the little gears started spinning behind my eyes. I'm not a math wiz, so I started with 1 percent of $100 equals one dollar, then one percent of $1000 equals $10, until I eventually worked my way up to one tenth of one percent of $50 million is $50,000. That's $50,000 not $500,000.

I think that's just about right. The difference between $50,000 and $500,000 quite tellingly illustrates the vast chasm that separates wingnut beliefs from reality.

Update: Fixed my embarrassing math error. I knew the formula, just got confused about how many zeroes are in $50 million.

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A pinch of the stupid

The New York Times reports that New York City is trying to persuade the makers of processed food to reduce salt content in their products by more than 40 percent over the next 10 years. The hope is that such a reduction in salt consumption would likewise reduce the number of strokes and heart attacks. The article, written by a professor of medicine, argues that there is no proven correlation between salt intake and cardiovascular disease. It points out that in some cases, reduced salt intake can actually cause health problems.

For reasons not entirely clear, I recently cut way back on salt. I don't have high blood pressure or any other indications, but I hear enough about the alleged link to health problems and I do eat a crazy amount of salt. For example, I almost always salted things that were already salted. Even potato chips. How nuts is that?

Anyway, the first thing I noticed once I recovered a normal sense of taste was how much salt is in other foods. I'm not even talking about what we normally consider processed foods. For example, we eat hot sauce on just about everything and I found that there was enough sodium in the hot sauce that no additional salt was needed for the rest of the food. We don't eat a lot of processed foods, but yes, when we do I now taste that they contain way too much salt. And I used to add pretty much the daily recommended allowance on top of that.

So I'm thinking it might not be a bad thing to get government involved. I'm not sure that having government dictate recipes is the best solution, though I'm not sure it's not. But I see no harm at all in requiring big loud warning labels that whatever food contains way, way , way more sodium than is wise for anyone to ingest at one sitting.

Still, I'm not sure, so I ask myself what do right wing idiots think about it? This letter to the Times gives a good indication:

I’m not sure I like the idea of the government’s telling me what to eat. No, let me rephrase that: I do not want the government in my kitchen.

If I want to eat salt, that’s my business. Yes, some people have a problem with salt. Some people also have a problem with cholesterol. Some with sugar. That doesn’t mean the government should be sticking its nose in everyone’s pie, sampling the soup and telling us what we can eat.

Too many cooks spoil the broth. The government is one too many for sure.

I often find it useful to test my beliefs against those of right wing morons and find it disconcerting when they coincide. In this case, note the problem with the wingnut's logic. Limiting the amount of salt a corporation can put in processed food is not telling people they can't eat salt. We would still be free to add as much salt as we please. What such regulation would do would let people make their own choices about how much salt they add to their meal.

That's often the case with wingnut "logic." Their self-deluding rhetoric aside, they pretty much always come down against freedom of choice for individuals. For them it's all about freedom of choice for authority whether that authority be corporate, religious or governmental (as long is they are the ones running the government).

So since my inclination to keep the government out of the kitchen failed the right wing smell test, I guess I'm okay with New York City's crusade against excess salt. And think about it. Why do big corporations put so much salt in everything anyway? I suspect it's more than just making food taste better. I think one of the side effects of excess salt is that it causes people to eat more, and it certainly causes people to drink more. Would McDonald's sell less corn syrup water if their customers were free to salt their own foods? I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

Now let's re-examine the good professor's argument in the Times. He seems to be saying that since there is no definitive proof that salt increases the dangers of cardiovascular disease, and that not getting enough salt may even increase it, then it's okay for McDonald's to decide how much salt people should consume. First, his argument sounds a bit too much like all those tobacco industry scientists who for so many years were unable to definitively prove a link between cigarette smoking and cancer. I would feel much better if the Times were to assure me that their guest columnist is not somehow funded by the processed food industry. Secondly, it still comes back to personal choice. Who is going to decide how much salt goes into our food? Is government going to ensure that we can make our own decisions? Or should we trust the corporations?

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The smell test

The New York Times business section has an article about how many financial supporters of California's Proposition 8 (homo-hatin law) have been harassed due to public disclosure laws that allowed them to be identified as donors. I'll leave it to others to make the argument that the majority of the fear is caused by the threat of boycotts and that it is perfectly legitimate to boycott businesses that support political movements one opposes -- and a good thing for a democracy to have transparency when it comes to money and politics.

What strikes me as wrong is the allegation that people are receiving numerous e-mails containing death threats and that nobody is apparently doing anything about it. Unless the sender is some kind of super hacker, it is a simple matter for police to trace an email. So if people really are sending death threats, why aren't they being arrested? Do the recipients report these alleged threats to their lives to reporters but not to the police? Do the police consider death threats not worth investigating? Do they come from sophisticated internet users who can hide their identities from all but the most thorough investigation? I very much doubt it. If these alleged threats are real, it would be easy to track down and arrest the perps.

So why don't our super reporters from the NYT and such prominent publications ask such glaringly obvious questions. Are they incompetent, forced to be incompetent by management or circumstance, or do they have an agenda? Stupid or evil? Or just a bunch of banal tools? The age old questions, eh?

Farm living is the life for me

There's something about chuckling's particular demographic that makes people mistakenly think he's inordinately wealthy and quite possibly a patron of the arts. Due to this demographic anomaly, I'm often invited to events targeted at rich people who may be inclined to write a big check for a good cause. Normally, I politely decline, but I was recently offered the opportunity to dine with two famous authors and, on a whim, accepted.

To tell the truth, I didn't even want to meet the famous authors. Nothing against them, but I am simply not the fan boy type. I am perfectly content to let celebrities and other talented people live their lives without the benefit of my company and astute observations on the merits of their work. But in this case, I accepted. I blame my daughter Jane Bob. She's always ridiculing me for being such a hermit and encouraging me to socialize more. But that wasn't all. It's even worse than you think. I didn't accept the invitation to bask in the glow of the famous, It occurred to me that it might not be a bad idea network with the rich people on the mailing list. In these sweet economic times, knowing some hiring types may come in handy. Could be very soon.

So how did that work out for poor chuckling? I woke up early on the day of the big event, drank too much coffee and then found I had way too much time to kill. Hey, it's Saturday, chuckling is supposed to be some kind of photographer. I figured I'd just walk there and maybe add some images to one or more of my ongoing photo projects. My first mistake was not checking the weather. It's been very cold recently and we're in February, so I bundled up real good. But it turned out to be unseasonably warm and I'm sweating uncomfortably before I get two blocks from the house. And still two more miles to go. Then I choose to work on my evolving Gowanus project. The Gowanus canal is an ecological disaster, one of the filthier places in the United states. I say evolving because it didn't start out as a project. I just walk around there a lot for a variety of reasons and I've usually got cameras so over time I've accumulated quite a few photos. When I'm working I tend to forget about everything else, so I'm kneeling down in some kind of ugly green muck to get a ground level shot and I shimmy up a filthy pole to get a higher perspective. Then I realize I'm going to be late for the lunch and have to walk fast to get there. I arrive, sweat-soaked, filthy and smelling of industrial slime. The famous authors give me some kind of look, then quickly avert their eyes.

It turned out all right though.. Most of the filth was on my coat, which a nice waiter took to a back room and I eventually cooled off. I guess the organizers had figured out that I wasn't on the top of the list because I was seated at a different table from the famous authors, but that was fine with me. The people I dined with were gracious and made interesting conversation, which I've always found to be the case with people who are also on my mailing list. I've never failed to be impressed by the table manners of wealthy art patron types. As far as I can tell, they are genuinely decent people.

And lunch was excellent. We had the entire restaurant to ourselves. It was a four course meal with wine, then coffee. The famous authors read appropriate selections from their work. Personally, I've never cared for literary readings. Well, not entirely. I like doing them, but don't really see why anyone would want to go to one. I guess for most authors it's just an ego gratification thing. It's never been like that for me though. My gratification always came from providing thought provoking entertainment for my appreciative audience.

But I wasn't the star of this show. I was the sweaty guy trying to disappear into the corner. I never even said a word to the famous authors. The wine was free. I'm a real writer. The first rule of an artist is to take free drinks where you can get them. I had a glass of wine. I had another. And another. And another. Not only was I the only person in the room with the stink of Gowanus, which is kind of a sad statement considering the identity of one of the famous authors. I was the only one drinking red wine. Twenty white wine imbibers, four drinkers of sparkling Italian water, and me. That's when I relaxed. Why the fuck should I be intimidated by people who drink white wine? Why the fuck indeed? I felt like proposing a toast to red wine, black women and rot gut fucking whiskey. But somehow, I restrained myself. It was tough, but probably for the best.

Surprisingly, as the event wore on I found I really wanted to talk with Jonathan Lethem. I'd read a lot of Paul Auster's work but hadn't read anything by Lethem Although I'm a great fan of Auster (search this blog if you don't believe me), I have no desire at all to speak with him even, as it turns out, when I'm standing right next to him. But Lethem is roughly my age and we have some things in common. I'd not read any of his books when I accepted the invitation so I picked up “Fortress of Solitude.” It was slow going at first, but turned out to be, I think, a great novel. It's set in a Brooklyn neighborhood I know quite well and is like a funhouse mirror to much of my childhood. I thought he might appreciate my aroma of Gowanus and I was curious how he, a child of Gowanus, felt being in that restaurant in that situation.

Well, I guess I didn't want to speak with him badly enough to actually walk a few feet and speak with him. My rule against bothering celebrities is so strong I don't even have to fight it. But I'm hep to read his other novels. Everyone says “Motherless Brooklyn” is great. And Auster's got several new books I need to catch up on as well. Gives me something to look forward to.

Final Score

Looks like Bruce Springsteen won the super bowl. My football-hatin family are all in agreement. And usually they don't even like Bruce.

More Pics of the day

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More news from nowhere

A new character has appeared on our block. He's an old short fat round guy with typically east European features. I first passed him Sunday as I was walking to the liquor store. He was propped up against a tree eating cake with his fingers. It had white icing and some kind of bright red filling. The white and red were smeared all around his mouth and on the tip of his nose making him look like some kind of debauched clown. Crumbs and a few large chunks clung to his shirt. That's a bit different, I thought. Brooklyn rules.

When I passed him again on the way back he was lying on his side, his puffy right hand stretching for the remains of the cake just out of reach. He wasn't moving but he wasn't dead. Some kind of dull life was apparent in his eyes. I called 911 when I got home. You never know. He was probably just drunk. But maybe he had had a stroke or heart attack. Anyway, it was cold. He could get frostbite or freeze to death. I've heard stories in which a lot of people witness someone in trouble and everyone just assumes someone else called it in. The paramedic told me that several others had called it in, though. Good for them. Brooklyn cares.

I think I've mentioned that at any one time we have two to four ethnic meat markets on the commercial strip between my house and the subway. This is Brooklyn, so there aren't a lot of back alleys. It's not the least bit unusual to see big guys in blood soaked white aprons lugging skinned sheep, goats and other large haunches of meat between the curb and whichever meat market. The kids used to think it was really cool, but these days they don't even notice. Me too, but just when you think you're used to that kind of thing, something new comes along. The other day it was snowing. I half-noticed the guys carrying the skinned sheep. Then I saw a garbage can leaning up against the truck by the curb, one of those big green plastic jobs. It was full of internal bodily organs. Mostly livers, I think. They were kinda sloshing around. Vibrating like. Then, the truck started moving. The garbage can full of livers got hooked on the back of the truck. It looked like it was going to tip over. I instinctively went for my camera. I could see the livers sliding across the snow in a small river of blood. Man, how I wanted that picture. But one of the guys with a sheep caught and steadied it. At least he could drop the sheep. But no. Still, it was a sight to see. If I ever make a big budget movie, I'll find a way to put a garbage can full of livers in it. You can be sure.

The mystery store that's replacing one of the 99 cent stores was finally revealed. Not another 99 cent store. Not a storefront church. Not another Chinese or Mexican restaurant. Not another Russian drugstore. Not a porn palace. No, and this was a giant letdown, it's a T-Mobile store. In retrospect, I should have added that to the speculation. There have been at least three cell phone stores that have opened and closed in the last few years. But this one is big--there are six cash registers--and is only T-Mobile. What a downer. Meanwhile, a few other little stores have gone out of business and we can spend at least a few of our dreary moment wondering who will replace them. Maybe nobody, eh? Maybe the new economy is catching up with New York and these streets will turn into the urban equivalent of abandoned strip malls. We've got a new Ikea nearby. Dominoes are appearing all over. Papa Johns is making a big advertising push. It seems there just can't be too many banks or drugstores. WalMart is knocking insistently on the door. MacDonald s eats our babies. The future seems bleak.

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chuckling digs a deeper hole

You may not know this, but chuckling is a regular reader of Pandagon. If you are unfamiliar with the publication, I think it’s safe to describe Pandagon as a leftist/feminist blog, or maybe feminist/leftist. Virtually all of the posts fall into one or both of those categories. Though I am in general agreement with both leftist and feminist critiques of American society and politics, I don’t read writers simply because they agree with me. I read writers because they write well; writers who are able to make their stories compelling through some combination of story structure, subject knowledge, insight and humor. I never just decide I’m going to read a blog because of its ideological content. It’s the quality of the writing that either draws me back or doesn’t. So I like Pandagon as a publication and Amanda Marcotte as a writer.

As you might expect, Amanda’s writing attracts a lot of right wing kooks and anti-feminist misogynists. Because she is so effective a writer, she is one of the most hated characters on the political internets and has taken a sickening amount of abuse over the years. Of course I’m not in agreement with her, or anyone else, about everything. But given the amount of abuse she gets from nutzis of various stripes, I am hesitant to publicly argue with her. I have, for the most part, stayed out of Pandagon’s comments section even though I am often tempted to write something.

Anyway, by now you’ve probably figured out that all this explication is a preamble to me criticizing something on Pandagon. Yep.

As you would no doubt expect from a feminist blog, abortion is not an uncommon topic. Amanda regularly observes that most, if not all, of the men she has interacted with who are opposed to legalized abortion are also misogynists. And the way I read it, she goes further and argues that it is not possible to be opposed to legalized abortion without being a misogynist.

An important premise of that argument is that there are no rational secular arguments against abortion.

One of the reasons I suspect this issue fascinates me so much is because it’s one of those issues where there’s not actually a legitimate disagreement, so long as everyone in the debate accepts the idea that ours is a secular government and religious oppression is wrong. There are no rational (secular) arguments against legal abortion …especially with current restrictions that protect the fetus after it really has developed into a baby that feels things and could survive outside the womb.

Well, I disagree with that. Although I am pro-legalized abortion, I can see how someone could make a rational, secular argument against it. All it requires is the premise that a fetus is a living human at the time of the abortion. If that premise is true and is coupled with the premise that killing innocent humans is wrong, then it logically follows that legalized abortion is wrong. That is a rational argument. It may not be valid. The first premise may not be true. But the argument is both logically sound and secular.

From there, the argument at Pandagon moves to the question of whether a fetus is a living human. Or more precisely; when a fetus becomes a living human. I think it’s safe to say that the general agreement is that a fetus becomes a human when it is able to feel things, and possibly when it would be able to survive outside the womb. And that makes for a logically sound argument as well. If the premise is that a fetus that cannot feel things is not a human, then one can believe that it’s wrong to kill innocent humans and still rationally believe that legalized abortion is not wrong.

Note two things: One, in both examples, the agreement is that it’s wrong to kill an innocent human. Two, the first premise in both cases requires a definition of what constitutes the beginning of life.

As far as I know, the identification of the precise sequence of events that must occur for human life to begin has not been settled scientifically. "Somewhere around 29 weeks" is neither precise nor anywhere close to being universally agreed upon in the scientific community. Hence, it is a matter of educated opinion and well-meaning people can disagree without the burden of any kind of religious mumbo jumbo.

My personal opinion is that life begins before a fetus can feel or survive outside the womb. Admittedly, since science is not definitive, I base that opinion largely on what it felt like to take part in an abortion. I favor legalized abortion because I reject the second premise that it’s necessarily wrong to kill an innocent human. In the case of an unwanted fetus, I think it’s often a greater wrong to bring it into the world. That, plus the same logic that was used in Vietnam when they gave new recruits the most dangerous combat assignments. The veterans, it was reasoned, had already suffered and deserved a chance to return to a regular life more than someone who had yet to suffer.

But even if I didn’t believe those rationalizations, greater principles are at stake. Given that so many issues surrounding the abortion argument are ultimately a matter of opinion, it would be wrong for me, and certainly for the government, to dictate what people, particularly women in this case, should do with their lives. I recognize abortion as a matter of privacy and personal conscience.

Nevertheless, it’s clear that one can make a rational, secular argument against it. I just did.

The question then, in Amanda’s framework, becomes whether having that opinion marks one as a de facto misogynist.

Anti-choicers like to defend themselves against the charge of misogyny by saying they simply believe that life begins at conception. What they fail to understand is that “life begins at conception” is a misogynist statement.

Why is that a misogynist statement?

It’s the erasure of a woman’s role in making new people, and a claim that the only effort that counts is the effort a man put into ejaculating. Abortion is horrifying because it’s a reminder that men do not actually make babies, but that women do through a 9 month process, and that if a woman chooses to interrupt that process, there will not be a baby. Which is pretty conclusive proof that men don’t make babies. Which directly contradicts the misogynist belief that only men are capable of really doing jobs worth doing. Really, it should be blatantly obvious that women make babies, not men, but psychologically distracting ourselves from this truth is the whole reason we even have a patriarchy and traditions like naming children after their fathers and not their mothers, as if the fathers were the ones who deserve the credit for making the baby. Even writing this paragraph is hard for me, because I know that saying something like, “Obviously, babies come from women supplying every bit of the material and energy except for 50% of the DNA,” will not be a statement that’s greeted with open arms. It may be a bona fide taboo.

Although some form of that logic may be valid when limited to strict biology; the myriad realities of human interactions introduce a staggering number of complexities based on the perceptions of individuals, individual couples, and the legal apparatus of the state. And that ability to divorce biological from social truth is a big part of what separates humans from other mammals. The social truth is that society functions better and people are generally happier when men take personal responsibility for their offspring and participate in their development. And legally, that is a very good thing. Without the perception that men are as responsible for pregnancy as women, there would be no such thing as child support. If the biological truth of the matter were enshrined in law, women would be a helluva lot worse off. We all would. I don’t see how that argument is misogynist?

I think a big part of the problem is that the definition of “misogynist” is a bit slippery. As far as I know, the only universally agreed upon definition is “someone who hates women.” I suspect a lot of people, particularly over at Pandagon, use the term “misogynist” when the mean “sexist,” which is commonly defined as prejudice or discrimination based on sex ; especially discrimination against women; or behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex.

I can see several ways in which someone could rationally make the argument that shared responsibility for pregnancy is sexist. Same thing with being opposed to legalized abortion. But necessarily misogynist? And theocratic? I don't see any valid logic to support those theses.

So then, perhaps, the question becomes: why do I care enough to spend so much time arguing these points? Am I just another insecure male with an incurable need to put a strong woman down? Am I like all those other nutzis trolling over at Pandagon?

Well, you can argue amongst yourselves on that one. But I don’t think so. You know I’m a sucker for questions regarding logic and rationality and Amanda provides an interesting context in which to play those games. I also have some personal experience in the matter which has caused me to think deeper about these issues than I otherwise might. And as I stated at the outset, I like to read good writing. One of the common aspects of good writing is the presentation of an argument that raises important questions and causes the reader to think more deeply about the given subject. That’s why I enjoy reading it. That’s why I enjoy responding to it.

Sheer heart attack

I saw "The Wrestler" last night. I'm not exactly the fanboy type, especially towards actors or actresses, but Mickey Roarke was always a bit of an exception. I'm not qualified to make statements such as "greatest performance ever," but Roarke's work in "Barfly" has to be up there. And I think "Angel Heart" would rank somewhere among the better films of all time had they not cast Lisa Bonet in such a crucial role. Roarke has a tragedian charm that, at least for me, is unmatched by any other actor. At the moment, I can't think of anyone who comes close.

So I was naturally interested in seeing "The Wrestler." But I was beginning to be put off by the hype. Had I waited another day or two, I might not have seen it until it played on FX or AMC. I'll bet you, reader, have heard all about it as well. A stunning comeback performance. Roarke inhabits the character. Roarke is the character. A tale of redemption in which real life mirrors fiction. I think if I would have read another glowing review of his performance, I'd start calling it "Barf Fly."

Nevertheless, I was able to overcome my revulsion at all the hype and see the movie. And I'm glad I did, even though it's not exactly what I'd call a pleasant experience. The earlier wrestling sequences rank among the most gruesomely violent that I can recall. The lead-up to the wrestler's heart attack was so intense that a member of the audience had some kind of medical emergency at the same time the Wrestler vomited and fell to the floor. At first everyone thought it was a heart attack. 911 must have received 100 calls. The lights went up, theater security appeared. The paramedics were on their way. But the guy recovered enough to walk out and the movie continued. Did that episode color my perception of how intense and disturbing that film sequence was? I don't think so. It's really that disturbing. Not pleasant at all.

I'm not sure what I think of Roarke's oh-so-famous and hyped performance. I guess it hinges on the extent to which he really is such a burned out shell of his former self versus the extent to which he was just acting that way. The Mickey Roarke of old appears trapped in an immense, and immensely grotesque body only capable of communicating anything beyond the sheer tragedy of its existence by lumbering and wheezing. Roarke's charm of old only comes out in a few scenes. There's one in which he and Marisa Tomei flirt in a bar that is just sublime in a film appreciation kinda way. And a few other flashes, but for the most part, the Wrestler's face is frozen and his eyes are dead. His body tells most of the story.

So maybe I should give Mick the benefit of the doubt? He was always a great physical actor--"Barfly" being exhibit A--but perhaps that was overshadowed somewhat by his immense charm? Hopefully, the Roarke of old is still in there somewhere, and could come out for more than a few brief flashes. It will be great if he can keep his shit together and get a lot more prominent roles in quality movies. I hate to think what he did to his body for that part. Hopefully, there was a lot of Hollywood magic making him look that pumped, but it sure appears he took a lot steroids. It sure as hell didn't come natural.

Normally, I care much, much more about the story than the acting, really only noticing the acting if it's abominably bad. "The Wrestler" is a great story in a collective unconscious-kinda-way. It's been told over and over and over again in many, many similar forms. Down-and-out hero makes a comeback. That's it. Story-wise, nothing in "The Wrestler" will surprise you. It all hinges on how well the filmmakers pull it off. Roarke comes through. And Marisa Tomei is good as well. She plays an older stripper who is losing her allure. My only criticism of her part might be that she looks way too good for that role. Yep, if you're some kinda crazed Marisa Tomei fan dying to see her spend extended time dancing in a G-string, this is the movie for you. She certainly takes some risks.

Anyway, I thought the filmmakers were doing a good job pulling off the age-old story comeback story until the very end. The final image was too predictable and abrupt, though I guess just about any believable ending would have been predictable at that point. Still, I would have handled it differently.

Picture of the day

Picture of today (inauguration day)

chuckling rues a good thing

Apparently, Supreme Court "Justice" Samuel Alito is a petty little prick as well as a constitutional disaster. It seems he snubbed the President-elect because Obama voted against his confirmation to the court:

But when you look at his record - when it comes to his understanding of the Constitution, I have found that in almost every case, he consistently sides on behalf of the powerful against the powerless; on behalf of a strong government or corporation against upholding American's individual rights.

To put it mildly.

Delving deeper into the Obama's speech, we see that the President-elect is not right 100 percent of the time:

I have no doubt that Judge Alito has the training and qualifications necessary to serve. He's an intelligent man and an accomplished jurist. And there's no indication he's not a man of great character.

Well, he's obviously not a man of great character. He is, as both his official and private actions demonstrate, a small-minded, insecure little man of low character who detests the constitution and most of the rights normal decent Americans hold to be sell-evident.

I trust Obama is right to be publicly gracious to Alito and all the other pathetic right wing gits who have done so much damage to our country and the world, but sometimes I can't help wishing he were not such a better man than I. How great would it be for Obama to respond to Alito's snub by saying that it's a perfect illustration why the man has no business on the Supreme Court? Just say I toldya so. It would be great, I tell ya. Rub their fucking noses in it till they have no noses left to rub. Goddammed miserable failures. Why should anyone treat them with even a farthing's worth of respect? No reason, that's why.

Okay, no reason unless you want to govern effectively. And good luck with that B. Sincerely. But if all that honorable behavior fails, a great opportunity to put those fucking fuckers in their place will have been missed and they'll use the respect you've accorded them to fuck us all over again. And it will no doubt be worse next time. The only thing those fucks ever learn from their failures is to double their bets on the losing strategy.

But perhaps it won't play out that way. If Obama maintains his public graciousness while directing the justice department to thoroughly investigate any crimes that occurred under the Bush administration and relentlessly prosecute any criminals, then perhaps the damage can be contained. But if these scumbags are allowed to get away with it, the Bush-Obama years will, at best, be described as 1078 steps backwards, two steps forward. Then we'll have someone like Palin or another Bush to take us another thousand steps backwards. All that, and without the benefit of a helluva lotta well-earned payback.

Notes on the new economy

A passel of bills arrived at the chuckling household yesterday. A close examination found that Verizon had, yet again, added services which we did not request. For a small fee, of course. And we noticed that Citibank was playing games with our Visa card. Although the interest rate that was listed on the bill had not increased, the actual amount of money we were paying in interest had gone up significantly with no upward change in the balance.

A couple phone calls took care of these matters. Verizon grudgingly reverted us back to the plan for which we actually agreed to pay. Citibank explained that our interest rate actually had gone up, but it wasn't on the bill and they didn't tell us about it because, well, you know, the economy... They grudgingly put us back to the old rate. So, obviously, the policy is to blatantly rip people off and reluctantly make good on it if anyone notices.

Point is, these giant corporations are unregulated criminal fucking enterprises that will rob us at every given opportunity. Our tax money is simply not enough. Sorry, you knew that. Real point is, better examine your bills carefully.

Blessed be

More than a few survivors of the recent plane crash, and a helluva lot of observers, suspect that an invisible being that purportedly created the universe and wields awesome superpowers was complicit in events surrounding the crash.

One gentlemen fervently believes that the invisible super-being put him on the plane specifically to save a baby. Another woman believes this awesome god softened the landing in order to save her life. Countless others offer the survival of all aboard as proof positive that god guided the pilot's hand.

I share these observations as additional proof that humans are, at best, stupid fucking monkeys. First, these idiots don't notice that the awesome super being either caused the crash or was powerless against an evil super being to stop it. Furthermore, they assume that they themselves are the center of the universe. In the verifiably insane worldview created by their feeble brains, invisible super beings use their awesome power to put little people like themselves in specific situations which often include a lot of death and destruction for other people. The result of this is public praise for the invisible super being who created the mess in the first place. The all-powerful creator of the universe simply lives for flattery, and probably a bucket of blood to boot.

Yea, that all makes sense. But I guess the delusion of starring in a drama in which the creator of the universe arranges all of creation to make you feel important is more more rewarding for a stupid fucking monkey than simply eating one's bananas and liking it.

New tune, same old fiddle

Shorter Peter Beinhart:

People (Liberals) who have been prove right on just about everything are dangerous and should be totally ignored until they admit that the surge worked and kiss the asses of all us serious thinkers who so intelligently shilled for Bush through every crime and travesty.

In related news, an intern here at chuckling on-line magazine did a little genealogical research and found that Beinart is related to the little known Roman thinker, Pieter Beinhartodus. As Rome burned and Nero fiddled, Beinhartodus stood on a box in the middle of Rome and screamed that all those anti-Nero fanatics would have to admit that history had proven Nero right about the fourteenth expedition of the Parthinian campaign before they could criticize him about the destruction of the empire.

Picture of today

chuckling digs a hole

I was in southern Illinois a few years ago. You probably don't know this, but that's one of the wilder parts of America. Coal country. If you're looking for a bar fight, you won't have to look far. Shawneetown is legendary in that respect, I almost lost an eye there, but any little town will do. And the strippers? You wouldn't believe. There used to be this place called Le Maroc down near Carbondale (Carbondale? Think about that name). But let's not go there. Not now.

Anyway, I stopped at a liquor store in some little town pop. 150 or so. The guy behind the counter was exactly the kind of fat slob you see in small towns all across the back country. Dressed in camouflage. Beard. Muddy four wheel drive rusting out around back. If he didn't live in a trailer, he lived in a tumble down shack. The only thing out of place was the little Asian woman scrubbing the floor. She didn't look educated. I assumed he'd gotten her from one of those foreign bride services. Probably got sold to send money back to her family. Slaving for that disgusting asshole. Made me sick. It really did. That image of him behind the counter and her on the floor. It lingers.

A thread on Pandagon brought that image back to me. Amanda's original post was about something completely different, but some of the commenters brought up the phenomena of American men importing foreign women, presumably third world women, to be subservient slave brides, free of any kind of feminist mentality. But you know, I've spent a lot of time abroad and have dated as many foreigners as I have Americans. What do I think?

Now don't jump to conclusions. None of the women I've dated were remotely subservient. The subject came up last summer at Burning Man (you'd be surprised how many men daydream about the subservient Asian bride (well, maybe you wouldn't))and my flippant response was I'd rather be with someone I can enjoy wine, cheese and interesting conversation with than some kind of peasant slave girl who would reliably clean up after me and never say no to a spot of boom boom. Seriously. I don't see how I could possibly have a romantic relationship with a woman who isn't a feminist. Not necessarily an academic feminist, but at least someone who believes in basic equality.

But in my very limited experience (considering the population of the world), I do see a difference between third world women and Americans. Basically, my observation is that foreign women realize that men are dogs and set their expectations accordingly, whereas American women expect men to be women. I don't mean that they expect men to be effeminate. I mean that in the idealized belief in what it means to be a woman, that they expect men to be wise, hard working, and selfless. The result of these unrealistic expectations is often disappointment. Bitter disappointment. Better to be realistic, I say, and count yourself lucky if you're wrong and some guy, against nearly all odds, turns out to be decent. But realistically, you'll rarely go broke betting on the perfidy of the human male.

Picture of today

Baseball fans enjoy!. These pics were taken at Ebbets Field, legendary home of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Le cirque qui est nos temps

Just a couple tidbits from our current age of financial insanity. Recent events have brought to light the rents paid by two iconic establishments in New York's Rockefeller Center. The Rainbow room, a spiffy restaurant and dance hall, has been paying $6 million per year while a nearby French bookstore has had its rent raised to $1 million.

Gotta sell a lotta pasta and hoity toity French books to make those rents, eh. Never mind the labor costs. Screwing the help can only get you so far in this unjust world. The landlord can take those small windfalls away no problem.

Yep, our system of oligarchical capitalism is sustainable. Sustainable like a Ponzi scheme. Our economic system? Ponzi scheme? Oh, sorry. Please excuse the tautology.

Le singe de le cirque

The Gothamist reports that management at the restaurant Le Cirque has been stealing tips from their waiters. Le Cirque, you may recall, recently received multiple blessings from Roman Catholic Cardinal Egan, head of the New York Archdiocese.

So not only did this Grand Poobah of Christianity perform like a trained monkey for the owner of Le Cirque (that's The Circus in French, so I'm calling him a circus monkey, get it?), he essentially blessed the practice of rich fucks thieving from the poor. Management reportedly tipped him well for his performance. Wags suspect little, if any, of that silver made it to the poor.

Picture of today

Picture of the day

That piece of shit computer is fucked

Bad news in the computer world. Apple announced that Steve Jobs would be staying on as CEO. Don't get me wrong. I wish him nothing but the best of health, and I know he's made a few good moves in the past, but frankly, these days I think he's bringing down the company and, by extension, the computer industry and the world. Certainly my world. We'd all be better off if he'd retire.

Furthermore, I'm starting to think the government should get involved. Apple's monopoly on personal computers is harmful to the economy. Certainly my economy. And in these tough economic times, we shouldn't permit monopolies to squelch so much productivity. We need healthy competition in the personal computer market and as long as Apple is all there is, the price of a decent computer will remain out-of-reach for too many good, hard working Americans.

As the headline indicates, my piece of shit computer is fucked. A new one costs well over $2500. Why so expensive, you ask. It's because Apple doesn't just make a simple, medium sized box that you can just throw in plenty of RAM and some hard drives. It's either weak-assed crap for people who only surf the web and write email or a supercomputer for people working on high end video projects. Nothing in between. Honestly, the government should step in. It's simply not right that there is no competition in this area which is so vital to the national interest. Certainly my national interest. And don't even ask about Linux. I'm not going there.

Are you listening, Mr. President-elect? Want to get the economy moving? Sue Apple to make them provide an affordable computer that's useful to normal people. Wanna cut some taxes? Start with the Apple tax.

Another picture of yesterday

Picture of the day

Crimes and revelations

The Washington post reports that "More Groups Than Thought Monitored in Police Spying."

Thought by whom? Anyone who's not severely retarded, a major media "journalist" or a conservative intellectual knows that police will monitor any group remotely critical of a radical right wing agenda if given the least bit of leeway. When, in the history of the world, has this ever failed to happen?

One of the possible "crimes" in the file police opened on Amnesty International, a world-renowned human rights group: "civil rights."

No, the revelation that police consider the promotion of human rights, working for bike lanes, treating animals well, opposing war or war crimes or advocating civil rights to be thought crimes, if not terrorist activities is no surprise whatsoever. The surprise would be if they had any concept of constitutional democracy or if they didn't abuse their power.

On a totally unrelated note, our previous three articles were, you know, just jokes we make for the amusement of our readers who may work for police agencies. The editors at chuckling on-line magazine fervently believe the rich should always get richer, we are steadfast in our staunch support of Likud, umm we mean Isreal, and we realize that the only thing Jesus loves better than money is America. Just want to be clear on all that. Wouldn't want any misconceptions, you know.

Poster boy politics

Today we see the first tangible results of chuckling on-line magazine’s crusade to tax the wealthy back to reality. Two-thirds of Britons, it seems, want the rich to face high tax rates not seen since the 1980s. Of course we’re advocating a progressive tax more like the 1950’s than 1980’s, but we’ll take whatever progress we can get.

How many Americans think we should tax the rich back to reality? Hmmmm. That’s not something likely to come up for discussion round here, is it? When it comes to what our rulers quaintly refer to as “class war,” the anti-war movement is strong indeed. In that sense, big business, media, and both (nominal) political parties are all rabid peaceniks. And they agree that the only way to keep the peace is by a policy of I got mine, Jack, fuck you and your’n.

Nevertheless, receptive minds are out there. As the economy settles into each stage of its collapse, the results of our pro out-of-control looting by the rich policy are becoming clear. It’s not only the ridiculous unfairness of using public policy to enrich a miniscule minority of pathological greedheads at the expense of the great majority; or the economic ruin to which those policies inevitably lead: the fuck you and your’n policy is a terminal threat to democracy as well(unless by democracy we mean that every dollar gets an equal vote). Our slide into aristocracy and corrupt oligarchy is a far bigger problem than executive pay.

The current travails of the world’s wealthiest assholes give us a window into this insanity of which we must not speak. They have recently lost billions and billions of dollars, yet remain rich beyond any reasonable dream.The American who lost the most - $24 billion - was casino operator Sheldon Adelson, reputed to be worth $28 billion in March. So he’s still got $4 billion. Do you know how much $4 billion is? If you put it in a savings account earning 1 percent per annum, you’d make $40 million a year. What can you do with $40 million a year? Anything you fucking want. That’s what. And you'll still have a lot left over to give to your worthless kids who would never have to earn a single fucking thing in their entire lives.

What possible good does it do anyone to put all of that wealth in the hands of sociopaths? Little good at all and a whole helluva lot of bad. I realize that it is not exactly a zero sum game, but at some point the pathological greedheads really are taking money away from people who work hard and play by the rules. We are way past that point. It’s time for the pendulum to swing the other way.

Granted, a little bit of progress is on the table. Obama would restore the top two income tax rates to their pre-2001 levels. But that still leaves them at under 40 percent and does almost nothing to address the most egregious forms of excessive wealth: capital gains and inheritance. Obama’s tax plan is symbolic, at best.

What we need is for someone to make the argument, which shouldn’t be that difficult. In essence, it’s about freedom and fairness. Almost all Americans agree that a person should be able to profit from hard work, whether that profit be realized in excess wealth or security. Most people want to live in a meritocracy, not an aristocracy or corrupt oligarchy. We need to demonstrate that our fuck you and your’n regressive tax policies are anathema to meritocracy as well as democracy. And we have to look no further than George W. Bush to find our poster boy.

It may not be quite as simple as this, but it could be a place to start. We should examine George W’s life and figure out what could have been done to keep such a total loser rich fuck from being in a position to become president without earning a single fucking thing even once in his ridiculously privileged life. Once we have identified the necessary policies to keep a total loser rich fuck loser like George W. from being showered with every possible advantage in this life, we need to implement those policies.

Start with the inheritance tax. Check. College legacies. Check. Progressive tax code, capital gains. Check. Strengthened democracy. Check.

And there are plenty of other poster boys out there. Fuck’em, is chucking on-line magazine's editorial position. Before they fuck us (even more).

Millinery fears

Poor chuckling on-line magazine has been deluged by emails asking why we haven't written anything about the current crisis in the middle east. Are we not staunch supporters of Israel? Have we become anti-semites? Are we okay with the imminent nucular annihilation of the Holy Land?

No, my friends, it is nothing like that. Rest assured, we still love Israel above all others. But the truth is that we are very much afraid of Hamas and would prefer they take no notice of us. That's because, according to many respectable sources, Hamas has awesome, nearly god-like powers to manipulate both people and nations to do their bidding. Like puppets on a string, I tell ya. Well, we don't want to become puppets. We don't want to lose our free will and become automatons, powerless to resist being mind-controlled by all-powerful terrorists. So we have kept quiet.

I won't bore you with a lot of links. You can go to any major news site and read reports of how Hamas uses their evil mind control to force Israel to attack them. Worse than that, the dastardly villains force Israel to kill women and children. Imagine the power it must take to force someone to kill children. It's horrific.

And their control is not limited to the poor souls in Israel. Hamas has the United States, even George W. Bush, in their evil mind grip. We are powerless to do anything to stop the carnage. Worse than that, we are forced to make it worse. Hamas forces us to supply money and weapons to Israel to kill even more.

You can see why we are scared. Cause if you think Hamas is powerful, don't even get us started about Hezbollah. Or, I shudder to even think the word, Iran. And we've already seen what the mind control masters at Al Quaeda can do. They've made George W. Bush dance for how many years now?

Scared yes, but silent no longer. We are Americans and although we ourselves may not be ingenuous, we can still make use of America's god-given proclivity for ingenuity. We consulted a group of experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and were provided with this important scientific information. Now we are able to write whatever we want without fear of Hamas. And we are starting up a non-profit to use this information to help our good friends in Israel. Something like an airlift. The sooner we can get these items to the Holy Land, the sooner the Israelis can regain their free will. We suggest that you take immediate precautions as well. (Note to our right wing friends, it may even work against Obama.)

Roman catholic news roundup

It seems that Cardinal Egan, head of New York's Roman Catholic Archdiocese, has internalized the Jesus character from the Bible's exhortation to his followers that they suck up to rich people and debase themselves and their religion at any opportunity. First he blessed the tony new restaurant "le Cirque." Then, for the amusement of the gathered celebrities, he blessed the kitchen. Finally, he was taken into the bathroom where he blessed the owner's turds. Presumably he was well paid for his performances.

In other Catholic news, I was flipping the channel the other day and noticed that the Tim LeHaye's "Left Behind," movie was playing on the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), a Roman Catholic propaganda channel. LeHaye is virulently anti-Catholic, describing Catholicism as a false religion and the "Left Behind" series mercilessly mocks Catholic beliefs. But hey, it's probably good for ratings, huh? I guess the Catholics are taking an "if you can't beat them, join them" attitude towards the far right evangelicals these days. Hatred of gays and Obama probably pulls in much better ratings, puts more butts in the pews and coin in the collection plates than all that "prince of peace" bullshit that nobody ever believed in anyway.

In related news, LeHaye and Cardinal Egan were spotted dining at New York's Four Season's restaurant where Egan was overheard blessing LeHaye's butt. Local wags speculated it was because of its close proximity to his wallet.

Picture of the day

The girl on the right looks eerily like someone I almost married a long, long time ago. She was kinda blurry back then, too.

Update:



Ah the memories. Sometimes they're even accurate.

Pentagon: House of War

This video documents Dan Webster's Pentagon: House of War installation at Burning Man 2008. chuckling played a small role as a member of the installation's crew and some of the photos in the video, all of the black and whites, are mine. It's about 25 minutes, so watch it when you have a bit of time (or click on the Google Video link and download it to your IPosd). The poor quality is due mostly to poor chuckling's method of capturing video off a DVD and whatever voodoo Google Video does to allow such a large file to play on the internets.

Caution (and promise): contains nudity.

Hole like my head

Big bucks and an ivy leage education, for this?

There was an electricity outage in Hawaii, which provided the opportunity for one of our titans of journalism to produce the worst writing to appear in a prominent newspaper today (so far):

President-elect Barack Obama has yet to even assume power, but he suddenly lost it Friday night.

Ugh.

New york story

If you don't live here, I bet you'd be surprised by how often I meet people who work trivial jobs during regular business hours and practice their art the rest of the time. I can't tell you how many times during the course of a casual conversation that someone points me to their website to see their painting, writing, photography, music, or some other art. And people give me their music cd's all the time.

So I wasn't the least bit surprised when I asked a young woman I know if she had a business card and she handed me a music cd and said I could find her contact info there. But I was shocked, shocked I tell you, when I listened to the cd and it turned out to be great. Normally they're just okay.

So I encourage you to check it out here or here and maybe buy something (available at the web site or though ITunes) or at least steal a few songs and tell your friends. This is the type of work that should be encouraged.

Sucky bat shit, chuckling

Last night's family ordeal, I mean movie, was the new Batman pic, "The Dark Knight," which my daughter was given for Xmas. Let me tell you, and you can trust me on this, the Batman series is one dead series, at least creatively. Of course that doesn't mean they'll stop making them. I expect we'll see the 23rd installment, "Batman Belches" before too long and it will gross at least $300 million in today's dollars. Artistically though. Dead. Worse than dead. Putrid.

I knew that, but still, I was almost interested in seeing "The Dark Knight" for two reasons: Many people I respect speak well of Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker and a lot of right wing nutcases felt the movie supported their fucked up world view.

As for Ledger's performance, I'm sorry, but unless you are Caesar Romero, how hard can it be to play the Joker? Even the older, washed up Jack Nicholson managed it. You don't have to be a master thespian to pull off a character that wears scary makeup and acts like a total psychopath in every scene. No need for character development or growth. And this iteration didn't even require that the Joker tell jokes, so there was no comedic timing requirement either. I hope they cast Bill Murray in the next remake, but it will be a waste of his talent if they don't get better writers than they had on this one. Or maybe it was some kind of meta joke to have a jokeless Joker? Good concept, perhaps, but it failed in the execution. Failed miserably.

Still, the scenes with the Joker were the only interesting ones in the movie. Homicidal psychopaths wearing makeup are inherently entertaining for the human species. It's an evolutionary thing, I guess. And that explains why the only other remotely watchable Batman movie (that didn't star Adam West) is the other one with the Joker. If the Hollywood Honchos were really smart, they'd find a way to make the Joker a hero and give him his own movie franchise. It shouldn't be that difficult. Homicidal maniacs on insane killing sprees are socially acceptable in the right context. Slap a flag on his ass and send him to Mecca or the like. Blockbuster. Guaranteed.

The Batman character is, as usual, poorly written. They make yet another lazy attempt to portray him as a psychopath instead of a hero, but it comes off as lame as it is half-hearted. Only the real Batman, Adam West, was able to pull of that trick. Michael Keaton didn't do a bad job either. But the Batman in "The Dark Knight" could have been played by an animatronic robot and it wouldn't have mattered a whit. The writing was really that bad.

Why the winguts think the movie supports their idiotic worldview is a bit of a mystery. Yes, there's a scene where a vigilante tortures a defendant while the police watch, and I know that kind of thing turns them on even more than Sarah Palin with a shotgun, but there's also a plot point where people choose to die rather than kill a boatload of African-American criminals, which you'd think would get their liberal hatin dander up. Of course none of it makes any sense. In the end you just have to chalk it up to their penchant for incoherently grasping at imaginary straws cause that's all they got. No reason to expect otherwise.

Boy in the band (wagon)

Poor chuckling doesn't mean to be a contrarian. I'd like to agree with my imaginary internet friends on every issue. I really would. Especially when it comes to right wing scumbags like Rick Warren. Do you know the original meaning of the word "scumbag?" It's Prophylactic. Rubber. Condom. Scum, you see, is slang for sperm. The bag is the rubber. A scumbag, by definition, is a receptacle for jizzem. Is Rick Warren a receptacle for jizzem? I don't know. Seems like most right wing homo-hating preachers are, doesn't it?

Anyway, since I'm already so far off-topic, I'll share a joke from my college days. One of our journalism professors got caught and was arrested for masturbating in a men's room. After that, he was known as the professor emeritus of urinal jizzem. And you guessed it. He was a Republican.

What's any of that got to do with President-elect Obama appointing Rick Warren to say a few words of mumbo jumbo at his inauguration? Something, I'm sure. But the important thing is that poor chuckling, unlike nearly everybody else he respects, thinks that President-elect Obama made a wise choice. As far as I can tell, it's just me and Melissa Etheridge against the world on this issue.

And together, we are strong. I think we're already starting to reap the benefits of Obama's ploy of inclusion. Multiple lefty websites report that Warren is trying to weasel out of his anti-gay stances so he won't lose his high profile inauguration gig. Discriminatory directives have disappeared from his church's website. He's publicly backpedaling from his most hateful pronouncements.

And among my imaginary friends, these advances are reported as if they are bad things. No. Sorry friends. When homo-hating right wing leaders back off their idiotic views, that is a good thing. And if all it requires to achieve that self-interested enlightenment is a little symbolic inclusion, well, a little symbolic inclusion is a good thing too. Warrenseems to have gotten the message. Symbolism only goes so far. If his type wants to stay and play, they better play nice.

Literature with interruptions

All those words to say the same sad thing. That’s what these people are like, they’re never quite sure what they mean.

--Jose Saramago from "Death with Interruptions"


I’ve told this story elsewhere, you may have seen it. If so, don't worry, or stop reading. It’s apropos here for entirely different reasons. This time it's about literature, not religion.

One fateful day, I think it was sometime in the autumn of 1999, I randomly picked up two superficially related books that would lead, each in its own way, to a lot more reading over the years. The first was “The Jesus Legend” by George Albert Wells which would serve as my introduction to the study of first century Palestine and the historicity, or not, of the Jesus character in the Bible. The second book was “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ,” a novel by soon-to-be Nobel Laureate for Literature Jose Saramago. The Wells book demonstrated that what so many people take for truth can be mostly fiction. The Saramago book demonstrated how much truth can be contained in a work that is unapologetically fiction. The Wells book led me off in one direction to read a lot more New Testament studies. The Saramago book took me down another path. Reading Jose Saramago.

This passage form “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ” provides a good introduction to Saramago. You’ll immediately note his idiosyncratic style. Long run-on sentences, non-standard punctuation, particularly for dialogue. Quite a bit of rambling. Beautiful language on occasion.The rare flash of stunning insight into the human condition. The following scene takes place at the end of the time Jesus spent with Satan in the wilderness. God has just appeared.

"To hear you Lord is to Obey, but I have one more question. Stop asking Me questions. Please, Lord, I must. Very well then, speak. Can I save my sheep. So that's what's bothering you. Yes, that's all, may I. No. Why not. Because you must offer it in sacrifice to Me to seal our covenant. You mean this sheep. Yes. Let me choose another from the flock, I'll be right back. You heard Me, I want this one. But Lord, can't you see, its ear has been clipped. You are mistaken, take a good look, the ear is perfect. It isn't possible. I am the Lord, and with the Lord all things are possible. But this is my sheep. Again you are mistaken, the lamb was Mine and you took it from Me, now you will recompense Me with the sheep. Your will be done, for You rule the universe, and I am Your servant. Then offer this sheep in sacrifice, or there will be no covenant. Take pity on me, Lord, I stand here naked and have neither cleaver nor knife, said Jesus, hoping he might still be able to save the sheep's life, but God said, I would not be God if I were unable to solve this problem, here. No sooner had he finished speaking than a brand-new cleaver lay at Jesus' feet. Now quickly, said God, for I have work to do and cannot stay here chatting all day long. Grasping the cleaver by the handle, Jesus went to the sheep. It raised its head and hardly recognized him, never having seen him naked before, and as everyone knows, these animals do not have a strong sense of smell. Do you weep, God asked. The cleaver went up, took aim, and came down as swiftly as an executioner's ax or the guillotine, which has not yet been invented. The sheep did not even whimper. All one could hear was, Ah, as God gave a deep sigh of satisfaction. Jesus asked Him, May I go now. You may, and don't forget, from now on you are tied to Me in flesh and blood. How should I take my leave of You. It doesn't matter, for Me there is no front or back, but it's customary to back away from me, bowing as you go. Tell me, Lord. What a tiresome fellow you are, what's bothering you now. The shepherd who owns the flock, What shepherd, My master, What about him, Is he an angel or a demon, He's someone I know. But tell me, is he an angel or a demon. I've already told you, for God there is no front or back, good-bye for now. The column of smoke was gone, and the sheep too, all that remained were drops of blood, and they were trying to hide in the soil.

When Jesus returned, Pastor stared at him and asked, Where's the sheep, and he explained, I met God. I didn't ask you if you met God, I asked you if you found the sheep. I offered it in sacrifice. Whatever for. Because God was there and I had no choice. With the tip of his crook, Pastor drew a line on the ground, a furrow deep as a pit, insurmountable as a wall of fire, then told him, You've learned nothing, begone with you."

See what I mean? Great piece, eh? After “The Gospel” I started reading his other novels. He is most famous for “Blindness,” which is undoubtedly one of the most brutal books ever written. Why anyone would want to see, let alone, make, a movie based on that novel is a mystery. Then there was “All the Names,” “The Cave,” “The History of the Siege of Lisbon,” “The Double” and “Seeing,” which is a sequel of sorts to “Blindness.” If I had to choose, I guess I'd say "Seeing" is his best. I'm not sure a lot of people would agree with me on that.

Much of Saramago’s work seems based on thought experiments. What if everyone suddenly became blind? What if they discovered the poor souls in Plato’s cave living below a modern apartment building? What if they held an election and no one showed up to vote? Maybe you can get away with it once, but after a few novels it starts to get a bit irritating. And the rambling can definitely be a put-off. I'd quote an irritating passage, they're not hard to find, but I figure I'm lucky if you've stayed with me this far. Saramago typically has one major idea whose plot progression could be easily managed in short story, yet he strings it out in sentences that span pages and paragraphs that become long chapters. I often question why I’m reading that shit. But then a passage comes along that just knocks me over. Or the story arrives at an emotional payoff that you don’t see coming but hits you like an oncoming tractor trailer. Reading Saramago, for me at least, is a love/hate kinda thing.

Anyway, his new novel, “Death with Interruptions” begins with one of those thought experiments. What if nobody died? Okay. Think about it. What if nobody died? People would still suffer, wouldn’t they? Suffer horribly, no? How would the government react? How would organized crime take advantage of it? Saramago’s novels are (or maybe they're not) typically strong on what you might (or might not) call “character development,” but most of “Death with Interruptions” has no characters at all. It's all about broad happenings. But slowly death (with a small d) is introduced as a character. After eight months or so she allows people to start dying again, but now she gives them a week’s notice with a violet-colored letter. Another thought experiment? What would happen if everyone received a warning from death?

From there Saramago finally gets to the heart of the story. One of the letters keeps being returned to sender. The appointed hour of one man’s death, an obscure cellist, inexplicably passes. death goes to investigate and make things right and restore the order of things. Before you know it death has become a compelling character. Here’s a good passage. death goes to see the cellist in concert:

“The orchestra has fallen silent. The cellist starts to play his solo as if he had been born for that alone. He doesn’t know the woman in the box has in her brand-new handbag a violet-colored letter addressed to him, he doesn’t know, how could he, and yet he plays as if he were bidding farewell to the world, as if he were at last saying everything that he had always kept unsaid, the truncated dreams, the frustrated yearnings, in short, life. The other musicians stare at him in amazement, the conductor with surprise and respect, the audience sighs, a shudder runs through them, and the veil of pity that clouded the sharp gaze of the eagle is now a veil of tears. The solo is over, the orchestra washed over the cello’s song like a great slow sea, gently submerging it, absorbing and amplifying that song as if to lead it into a place where music was transmuted into silence, into the merest shadow of a vibration that touched the skin like the final, inaudible murmur of a kettle drum on which a passing butterfly had momentarily alighted. the silken, malevolent flight of acherontia atropos fluttered quickly through death’s memory, but she brushed it away with a wave of her hand...”

Typical Saramago. Often frustrating. Sometimes brilliant. Well worth the effort.

Ed. note: Long time readers may note that I've quoted that same long passage from "The Gospel" and made a few similar points in much earlier posts. If so, I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me. One, that passage is just so great, I can't think of any good reason you wouldn't want to read it many times (read it again, tell me I'm wrong) and two, I seem to have a few more readers than I did back then so a few people probably missed it.