Substitutes

Because God is perfectly holy, He must punish sin-- either the sinner himself, or a substitute to bear His wrath. 

-- From The Seven C's of History, a publication ofthe Creation Museum

Above all, God loves Himself and upholds His glory, and to uphold His glory as infinitely valuable requires that punishment be executed on those who profane, or disgrace, God's glory. 

-- Random wacko on the internets

Everybody writes about this, so I'll limit myself to just a few points that I don't see others making.

The primary function of torture is to punish dissent. Nazi's, Communists, Latin American strongmen, Bush's band of bad men (and Condi)... Doesn't matter. At heart, they cannot stand the idea that someone somewhere disagrees with them and when freed from all legal restraint they ache to make the dissenters pay in the worst possible ways.

It has been noted in the big media, albeit rarely, that torture is more about extracting confessions than gaining useful information. But again, those confessions, false or otherwise, are used to justify the state theology that dissent is wrong and dangerous. And I don't doubt that there is an element of sadism at the highest levels, butI think that kind of sick pathology is more abundant among those who actually carry out the torture. Still, it's not hard to imagine sick fucks like Bush and Cheney relishing in the pain of those weak, powerless peons who disagree with them. You can't deny the element of power.

The second point that is never made is that the U.S. has been a torturing nation for a long time. We have trained and otherwise enabled torturers throughout Latin America and the rest of the third world at least since the beginnings of the cold war. A lot of that is well-documented and supports my point above. There was never any ticking time bomb. 100's of thousands of people suffered horribly and many died to placate the sick egos and insecurities of the powerful. The only difference these days is that we have cut out the middle men.

Oh, we're not Argentina, they say. We're not torturing out own citizens because of their political views. Well, not yet, but now that it's all out in public and nothing will be done to the perpetrators, it's clear we're sliding down that slope. And you must know know it will be worse the next time violent Republican know-nothings come to power. If not next time, the time after. They always believe that anyone who opposes them is unpatriotic. It's a small step from unpatriotic "threat to national security." And they'll get the confessions to prove it. By torture? What of it? These are traitors we're talking about. They deserve whatever they get. You're not one of them, are you? No? That's what they all say, eh? What about your neighbor?

But what I really don't get, and maybe you can explain this to me? is why no one brings up the question of whether it's okay for foreign governments to torture Americans. Would the Republican asshats sing the same tune if Iran wore torturing confessions out of Americans. Probably not. Someone has done some good reporting to let us know that the U.S. has a history of prosecuting foreigners, even executing them, who have tortured American prisoners. Why can't Chris Matthews or any of the other prominent asshats ask that fucking question? How hard can it be?

Springtime is here!

You know I spend a good deal of time reading the lefty blogs and I don't think I've read a word about the arrival of spring. I suspect that illustrates a good part of the problem with political people, all too many seem to be entirely disconnected from the natural world. Not just political people. Just about everybody. The problems that logically ensue. the damage that is done... incalculable.

Nevertheless, it's here. Spring is here and the earth is singing. Get out there and listen. That's my humble advice. Soon it will be oppressive summer with its mosquitoes, spiderwebs, humidity and such. Get out now while you can.

You see? I'm enthused. So fucking enthused I'll leave you with a poem, a Rimbaud poem no less. Can't have springtime without a sappy poem, no? I think this one is an apt metaphor for springtime in NYC:

As from a green zinc coffin, a woman’s
Head with brown hair heavily pomaded
Emerges slowly and stupidly from an old bathtub,
With bald patches rather badly hidden;

Then the fat gray neck, broad shoulder-blades
Sticking out; a short back which curves in and bulges;
Then the roundness of the buttocks seems to take off;
The fat under the skin appears in slabs:

The spine is a bit red; and the whole thing has a smell
Strangely horrible; you notice especially
Odd details you’d have to see with a magnifying glass…

The buttocks bear two engraved words: CLARA VENUS;
—And that whole body moves and extends its broad rump
Hideously beautiful with an ulcer on the anus.

You'll thank me for that. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday and for at least a few minutes. Happy spring!

Time travels, pt. 1

Editors note: Since I'm not going to finish the entire essay about our visit to the Creationism Museum, and other parts west, anytime soon and I don't want to leave chuckling on-line magazine with no new content, we've decided to publish it as a serial. Below is part 1, which most likely will be some other part in the final essay.
___________________________________________________

For a while, things were perfect in the Garden of Eden. As Adam and Eve lived in a beautiful garden (planted especially for them by God). They could eat of any tree in Eden, except one. This first couple had a perfect relationship with their Creator, a perfect marriage and a perfect place to live. The animals, which Adam ruled over, got along perfectly. But something obviously corrupted this “very good” world, turning it int the world we see today, which is full of sickness and death.

Because of Adam's disobedience (sin), all of his descendants (you and I) are born with sin in our nature. Because of Adam;s sin, our bodies will die. Because of Adam's sin, God cursed His precious creation. The world we see today, while reflecting God's original creation, has been corrupted by sin.

My good friend K. died a couple weeks ago. Or was it a month? Either way, I was unable to attend the funeral and it was too late to send flowers by the time I learned about her death. I knew I'd be visiting the old home town in a few weeks anyway, so I put off making a condolence call to her husband until I could do it in person.

So the first thing on my agenda was to see F. and tell him how sorry I was. Everyone told me he was devastated. I brought a joint along, as is the local custom. F. always liked to get high and that hasn't changed. He had his own dope and wouldn't think of smoking the crap I had managed to bum. I knew it would play like that going in, but I like to follow social conventions and he appreciated my efforts. It's pretty much all we've got. K was 51 when she died. Looked like 85.

K's death was horrible. She. suffered mightily for many years. Oh, I know, the end was sudden. She keeled over from a sudden heart attack and was gone before her head hit the steering wheel. That's what the paramedics said and it made everyone feel a little better. No suffering. Here one minute, gone the next. Poof.

But in reality she had been dying for a long time. Her son was killed a few years ago when the road curved and his car went straight into a ditch and flipped end over end across a wheat field. N was thrown through through the window. He broke his spine and cracked his head, killed when he hit the ground. N hadn't been drinking and only pussies wore seat belts back then, so it wasn't his fault. He had a little weed in his system but that wasn't the cause of the accident. People blamed it on lack of sleep from the messy divorce he was going through. That and working two jobs to support the baby. Sounds bad, I know, but that's pretty much everybody's story back there. K suffered every moment from when she got the call that he was dead to when her heart gave out for real in the plastic factory parking lot.

K had been a beautiful woman, but when I saw her a year after N's death she looked like a meth addict. She was beautiful one year. A craggy faced hag the next. I'm glad I didn't see her at the end, when she had actually been smoking meth for awhile. Must have been the ugliest woman alive.

According to F, she had complained of chest pains and numbness for several days before she died. He told me that during that time she had also drank a big box of wine, took over a hundred Xanax, smoked a little meth and smoked weed and cigarettes pretty much constantly. I was very surprised to hear that. The drug use was nothing new of course, but it was the first I'd ever heard of her drinking. That struck me as odd. Very odd.

But it got odder fast. F told me she had been hanging out at the bar, giving blow jobs in the parking lot and fucking old bikers in their oil stained garages. Said he caught her with some guy, told him, that's my wife, buddy. Here's five dollars, go buy her a beer. Don't ask me what the fuck that meant. I didn't ask him.

As an aside, those guys she was reportedly fooling around with must have been some serious losers. A normal man wouldn't let an old meth hag like that get anywhere near his dick. F didn't see it that way though. He was still in love. She was still beautiful. It wasn't her doing those things. It was the alcohol. As soon as she quit drinking, he would forgive her and they could go back to the way they were.

Although K deteriorated rapidly after N's untimely death, she had been unhappy for the fifteen years she had been married to F. Previously, she had been married to a friend of mine, which is how I had gotten to know her so well. Back then M was a crazy adventurous guy. They were always doing exiting things, having a good time. They seemed like such an ideal family, especially after N was born. But as is only natural, M got caught fucking the babysitter and a divorce quickly ensued. F was right there to catch her on the rebound. I think she complained bitterly about her quick remarriage to F every time I saw her after that. She would have been better off staying with M. So what if he couldn't keep his dick in his pants. At least he was alive. It was better than being with boring old F. Or she could have married me and gone off traveling to interesting places (and it's true, she could have). But no. She was stuck and she hated it.

Everyone that knew them sided with F. He was nothing but a nice guy who took good care of her and gave her with everything she asked for except excitement. She should be happy, or if that wasn't possible, get a divorce and move on. But soon he got her pregnant and she stuck it out. She regularly attended a right wing evangelical church and had strong feelings about raising children in a two parent family. She also believed in the inerrancy of the Bible and would have enjoyed the Creation Museum. As the years went by she came to believe the most outrageous right wing conspiracies and regularly expressed her hatred of all "niggers" (except those who were her friends). It was due to that kind of degeneration, especially the racist jeremiads,that I hadn't seen her for for about five years before she died. She managed to cope with her marital unhappiness until her son died by going to church on Sunday, smoking prodigious amounts of weed and taking a lots of pills. There was the occasional sniff or two of crank as well. Then later, when crank became meth, she started smoking it.

I wonder now if there wasn't something more wrong with F than anyone believed. All K ever said against him was that he was boring, but who knows what else might have been going on. I know realize that his was probably a “nice guy” in the Pandagonian sense of the term. He was the friend who was always there, then he swooped in when she was depressed about the breakup of her marriage. He was the anti-M. Now I wonder about the deeper details. Sex must have been horrible for her. That's a given.

I don't know of course but he's sure a mess now. That condolences visit was one of the most uncomfortable situations I've ever been in. It was bad enough listening to him go into way too much detail about her fucking and sucking, then alternately going on about how he loved her so much, how it wasn't her doing those things, and that he would have forgiven her if she quit drinking, but I hadn't smoked any dope for a long time and his was pretty good. I wanted to back off and analyze it all intellectually, but with the dope and all I was just horrified and uncomfortable and all I could think about was getting out of there as fast as possible. I know what you're thinking and it's true. I'm not the good friend you want around in your time of need.

Anyway, as I said above, I wasn't surprised that K deteriorated and died young. That has happened, and is happening, to a lot, if not most of my friends and acquaintances from the old home town. Any sane person either gets out or gets fucked up.

Time travels

Sorry for the light posting. I'm working on some stuff related to my recent trip to the real America. I did make it to the Creation Museum and plan to tell you all about it, just not now. And I have some interesting photos, many of which I will show you, but again, not now. Soon though. Soon. For now, this picture, which I'd say is worth about 2000 words (conservative estimate), sums up a large chunk of it.

No left turn on red

I noticed a headline at the New York Times saying that more Americans view "socialism" favorably. The subhed questions if they even know what it means. Two observations: 1. Of course they don't know what it means. I'm sure it's just a reaction to the Republican idiots repeatedly calling Obama a socialist. Even ordinary people who don't closely follow politics realize that conservative retards have been wrong about everything. If they don't like socialism, then hey, must be a good thing. 2. Notice how the media question whether regular people know what socialism means but they never question the meaning of the word when Obama is accused of being a socialist.

More news from nowhere

As you probably know, I'm on a trip that's taking me through large swathes of bumfuck. It's refreshing to be away from the big city media, to see what the small town papers have to say. Things are pretty bad out here, folks, and getting badder every day.

Each morning's news brings stories of child abusers, child molesters and meth labs. The big state news revolves around a serious budget shortfall due to significantly decreased tax revenue. The state's plan is to spend the stimulus money almost entirely on funding the state budget. There will be a little spending for new projects, but the Republican governor and the Republican congresspeople are still hashing out the details. They all agree on building more prisons. They differ in that the governor wants to slash education spending a whole helluva lot and the legislature wants to increase it just a little. Hmmmmm, slash education, build prisons. They've been doing that for years. How's that working out? See multiple stories about meth labs on pages A-3 through A-6. Meanwhile, they're sitting on a giant pile of cash they saved from when times were good. Yep, if this is any indication, not a lot is gonna get built with all that stimulus money.

Back to national news, I inadvertantly read a Mallard Fillmore editorial cartoon. Apparently, conservatives are attacking Obama as a gaffe-prone, lousy communicator. Yea, as Obama moves effortlessly on from one incredible communication triumph after another and people see him speaking well on tv every day, that hardly seems like a smart strategy. But what really strikes normal people as funny is the apparent fact that these idiots appear to have no memory whatsoever. Normal people easily recall a certain gaffe-prone president that couldn't communicate for shucks. What was that guy's name? Wait, it'll come to me. I know, I know. George W. Bush. Ha ha. Obama doesn't really need him to look good, but sheee-it, Bush ain't totally forgotten. Not yet.

Speaking of saps

I was in a liquor store in the midwest today. Beer distributor is talking to the cashier, they're bitching about the economy, complaining about their sales. Beer guy asks the cashier if there's a lot Mexicans in the area. Yea, she says in a nasty tone of voice, they're fucking everywhere. You can always tell, says the beer guy as he sadly shakes his head. God damn Corona's flying off the shelves. Motherfuckers are like cockroaches, or some similar sentiment, hangs in the air, unsaid.

There are important lessons in that exchange, somewhere.

Same old story (to be)

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Pittsburgh police say a man wearing a bulletproof vest opened fire on officers during a domestic disturbance call, killing three of them.

Police chief Nate Harper says the motive for Saturday's shooting isn't clear. Friends say the gunman recently had been upset about losing his job and that he feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.

So where did the gunman get the idea that Obama was going to take his guns and why isn't anyone organizing protests and boycotts against those who spread or sponsor that kind of hateful nonsense? Cause all indications are that it's gonna get a lot worse. How many more massacres by heavily armed, recently laid-off Republicans who have been propagandized into insanity by the Limbaughs, Palins, Becks, and assorted other hucksters making their millions off the poor saps before someone calls them on their crap?

Out of office

I'll be away for the next 10 days or so. My goal is to not use the internet, so I probably won't be posting anything, although it's always possible in this horrible age of mobile computing and wireless networking. I'll be working on a major photo project and also going to the Creationism Museum in Kentucky. Just about everyone I know has asked me to get them a post card from the gift shop. I'm really looking forward to it.

Social democracy rules, oligarchy drools

Robert Kagan, one of the most egregious intellectual failures of the 21st centuries, explains why the European social democracies are so superior to the United States oligarchy:

The Germans and French prefer welfare payments to government stimulus spending, for they are part of the passive system of social safety nets on which their citizens have grown so comfortably dependent. The creative destruction of the business-oriented political economies of the Anglo-Americans is too violent and unstable, too brutal and unpredictable. Better to regulate more tightly the international capitalists who can cause havoc through their inventiveness. Better to be less rich than less secure.

Of course he sees comfort and security as bad things. Better to have a large pool of poor uneducated suckers on the edge of economic disaster to manipulate into wars of conquest and global domination. Duh.

But the glaringly obvious problem with Kagan's analysis is the last sentence in the quoted graph. Better to be less rich than less secure? Thing is, the great majority of people in European social democracies are more rich, not less rich, than average Americans and being a whole helluva lot more secure is largely responsible for that fact. In European social democracies, it's only the super rich that are less rich than their American counterparts. That's a good thing.

Picture of the day

Another from the East New York project.

Dem leader to moderates: piss off you commie wackos

According to Politico, "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday that liberal groups targeting moderate Democrats with ads should back off..."

Two things wrong with that.

The big honking one, obviously, is the Senate Grand Poobah telling the little people to keep their opinions to themselves, to not worry their little heads about government business and just leave it all to the strong, wise men who will handle the situation and do what's best. Yea, well, fuck him and then slash the tires on the limo he road in on. Goddammed plutocrats and oligarchs. More people need to stand up to them, not fewer.

The second, less obvious, problem with Politico's lede is referring to the anti-Obama Democrats as "moderate." They are not moderate. They are right wing. If they were moderate, their number would be more like 30. The word "moderate" comes from the mathematical concept of mode. The mode in a list of numbers refers to the list of numbers that occur most frequently. Since the majority of people support Obama, and the great majority of Democrats, then Obama supporters are by definition "moderate." The Democrats who oppose him, from right or left, are by that same definition "not moderate."

Of course I'm aware that in our right wing propaganda culture the term "moderate" is defined as "Republican." Time to push back on that crap as well.

Picture of the day

Pass it on

I got a wingnut email today. You might enjoy:

THE JOB - URINE TEST (Whoever wrote this one deserves a HUGE pat on the back!)

Like a lot of folks in this state, I have a job. I work, they pay me. I pay my taxes and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit. In order to get that paycheck, I am required to pass a random urine test with which I have no problem. What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don't have to pass a urine test.

So here is my Question. Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare check because I have to pass one to earn it for them? Please understand, I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet. I do, on the other hand, have a problem with helping someone sitting on their rump--doing drugs, while I work.

Can you imagine how much money the state would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a public assistance check? I guess we could title that program, 'Urine or You're Out'.

Pass this along if you agree or simply delete if you don't. Hope you all will pass it along, though. Something has to change in this country --and soon!!!!!!!

Interesting propaganda. Nicely aimed at people who take piss tests, blue collar folk, cops, firemen, the less educated among us, though I don't believe it was written by anyone who actually takes a piss test. The politics of resentment. To work, it's necessary that the suckers have no idea what welfare is these days. If lazy guys could get paid to sit around and do drugs, I'd be there. But the reality is that welfare, such as it is, tends to go to women with kids. Reality, of course, never got in the way of a wingnut mailing.

Still, I can relate to the basic message. It's difficult not to resent having your work support a bunch of worthless freeloaders. Add sociopathic scam artists to the resented and I can feel the pain of the piss tested. The difference between better educated workers like myself and those who take piss tests is that I realize that my work supports a class of wealthy leeches. When it comes to the worthless fucks we should resent, the odd crack whore on food stamps accounts for pennies on the dollar, if that. No, it's the executive that does half of his "work" on the golf course, can barely recognize the difference between his ass and a hole in the ground, and makes more than 200 times my salary for that kind of "work" that our piss test folk should be more worried about. Those people and the trust fund rejects. Talk about worthless shits who sit on their asses and live off our labor. If the piss testers only knew.

It's past time for some lefty organization with gumption to glom onto these email lists and redirect the resentment into more realistic directions.

chuckling on geithner

I've noticed that Timothy Geithner, the United States Secretary of the Treasury, has suffered a lot of attacks from across the political spectrum. He is possibly the only man in the history of the internet age about whom lefty bloggers, wingnuts, Fox News, CNBC, hate radio and the mainstream media have ever been so unanimously in agreement. Dude sucks, they say. Dude sucks big time. Timmeh!

Unlike normal people, poor chuckling does not thoroughly understand the current economic situation, particularly the gritty details of the financial industry meltdown. It's embarrassing to admit that such easily understandable financial instruments such as derivatives or bundles of toxic debt are outside my area of expertise. How to re-ignite the credit markets? Beats me. I have to lean on the analysis of experts on these kinds of complex issues.

Who are the experts in this case? Conservatives? Puh-leeeze. Get back to your golf courses and find the goddammed WMD's losers. And no offense friends, but in this case I'm not going to look to the mainstream media or lefty bloggers to help me form an opinion. Nope. Looks to me like it's Obama vs. Krugman.

I consider past performance. Krugman is recognized by his peers as one of the top economists, he has a history of being right about most everything and he is one of the true heroes of the Bush years. Obama is an awesome strategist and has made an incredible series of bold, innovative decisions that proved to be the right ones. He doesn't have Krugman's expertise in economics, but he is not without high level advice. The lefty blogs seem to think that Geithner is somehow tricking Obama, taking advantage of his naivete. I'm skeptical of that theory. Again and again Obama has proven to be the least naive person in the room.

So Krugman or Obama? Well, since I don't have to choose, and frankly don't know squat about the financial industry, I guess I won't. But I'll tell you this. Although I don't think we should be brain dead Obama cheerleaders, pathetic lefty versions of wingnuts that spout the party line no matter what, I do find it disturbing that so many lefty blogs have found harmonic convergence with wingnut demogogues on the Geithner issue. I'm not saying that should make anyone change their mind, but it would sure as hell make me take a hard look at the thought processes that made my words and beliefs nearly indistinguishable from the wingnuts.

Update: I just learned that Timmeh's middle name is Franz. Sounds like a Nazi to me. Or a silly body builder. Or a gay fashionista. Or a pumped gay Nazi fashionista! Maybe we should start calling him "Franz," just like the wingnuts call Obama "Hussein." Wouldn't that be cul?

Yep.

Photo of the day

I can't really claim this one. My daughter Jane Bob was doing a shoot. She set up all the lighting and directed the model. I just stood behind her and glommed.

Another episode of wingnut wonderland

Charles Murray and the Washington Post ask if America should be more like Europe and not surprisingly answer with a resounding no. But what's fun about the article is its total lack of intelligent reasoning. Trying to follow it is one loop-de-loop after another. But follow it we will.

How do you compare the U.S. to Europe. Well, first you have to define what Europe is like.

In Europe, government subsidizes religion, which Mr. Murray blames (without evidence) for the fact that so many churches are empty. Well maybe. He doesn't mention that most European countries have, unlike most of the United States, excellent education systems which probably better explains why their churches are empty. Education is the bane of religion. Always has been. Always will be.

Also, unlike bootstrap America, the wussy European governments help women with child rearing which results in fewer children. Generous child allowances, free day-care centers and long maternity leaves are responsible, he argues (without evidence), for declining fertility rates. But even if that is true, are low fertility rates such a bad thing. Does this planet really need an ever increasing population? If so, why? Murray doesn't get into this, but since we know that he is a notorious racist and he even admits it in this article, I think it's fair to question his concern over fertility rates for the melanin disadvantaged of Europe. As we'll see later on in the article, he thinks Americans, at least certain a certain type of them, should have fewer children.

Jobs? “They are countries where jobs are most carefully protected by government regulation and mandated benefits are most lavish.” Wow, normal people have well-paying jobs with great benefits. Just like our elected officials here and our corporate elite. That's not fair, obviously, but what's the problem? “A lot of people see work as a necessary evil and many of them say they don't love their jobs? Egads.

"Call it the Europe Syndrome. Last April I had occasion to speak in Zurich, where I made some of these same points. Afterward, a few of the 20-something members of the audience came up and said plainly that the phrase "a life well-lived" did not have meaning for them. They were having a great time with their current sex partner and new BMW and the vacation home in Majorca, and they saw no voids in their lives that needed filling.
It was fascinating to hear it said to my face, but not surprising. It conformed to both journalistic and scholarly accounts of a spreading European mentality that goes something like this: Human beings are a collection of chemicals that activate and, after a period of time, deactivate. The purpose of life is to while away the intervening time as pleasantly as possible.”

Sounds good to me. And “whiling away the time as pleasantly as possible doesn't necessarily exclude work and children. It excludes doing crappy jobs that make idiot sociopaths inordinately wealthy and unwanted children. Most people want to work, to take part in the creation of something they find valuable, and will do so if they have the time and good health. And I think most people enjoy having children. It's certainly added immeasurable value to my life and I simply don't see how the practice will just fade away if we make it less of a burden and more of a personal choice. And I'm talking about normal people. Work and children have always been less of a burden and more of a choice for the wealthy.

After that, Murry goes on to argue that science will soon prove that it is impossible for European-type society to exist at all and that anybody who thinks European-like society could exist is either a stupid liberal or possibly a member of one of the less intelligent races.

His first premise is that people are not equal, therefore they shouldn't be treated as such. His second principle is that humans can't change. Not within our own lifetime. Not as a species through the sweep of history. Therefore government should quit trying to do anything to help anyone improve their lives. “Jails not Schools” could be his motto.

Then Murray provides the obligatory attack on single mothers and comes to the startling, ultra-controversial politically incorrect conclusion that people who grow up in stable families and communities are more likely to have rewarding jobs and stay out of prisons than those who don't. Of course these brilliant insights absolutely slay the dreaded liberal, anti-family straw monster; but he makes no policy proposals to do anything about it. In fact, all of his previous arguments seem to say that nothing can be done. People are not equal and they can never change. Presumably, government only wastes taxpayer money by trying.

Funny, it seems to me there is a model of human society that adequately deals with Murray's concern for keeping people employed and out of prison. That would be, ummm, the European model.

Yep, Charles Murray and the Washington Post. Another episode of Wingnut Wonderland.

Real journalists don't twitter

Just that (okay, and this and this and this).

Children (and) of (watch) men revisited

I recently considered taking my 10-year-old son to see Watchmen. It was my idea, John Bob hadn't asked. It sounded like the type of movie I might like – intricate plot, deconstruction of a popular genre, dark and violent, visually interesting. Of course John Bob would want to see any superhero movie. I warned him that it might be boring or too violent for a ten-year-old, but he was more than willing to risk it.

I, however, had second thoughts. My tendency is to let the kids do whatever they want, even if I know they won't like it. Often best to learn for oneself, I think. But in practice I'm not so confident that's the best attitude. Once I took my daughter Jane Bob to a haunted golf course at Halloween. There were ample warnings against taking young children and the ticket taker begged me not to do it, but she wanted to and I respected her wishes. It was horrible. She screamed frantically the entire time. Not fun screaming. Absolute terror. It doesn't seem to have caused any long term damage,other than an irrational fear of golf, but nevertheless, I now sometimes think twice before exposing the kids to things everybody says they are too young to see.

So I asked a couple of comic book freaks at work what they thought about taking a 10-year-old to Watchmen. I'd have to be fucking out of my mind, they said. Watchmen is way too violent, has explicit sex and there's a blue guy walking around with his penis swinging for all to see.

A penis. Egads. Actually, I don't care a whit if the kids see nude people. We're not full frontal nudists at home or anything like that, but I don't see anything wrong with the human body. They certainly see enough of it in museums and I think that's great. I admit that I am, however, uncomfortable with watching R-rated sex scenes in popular movies with the kids. I don't think that it does them any harm, unless ten-year-olds are harmed by too much snickering. But still, it's uncomfortable for us all. I'd rather they get their jollies when the parents aren't around and I know they feel the same way. That's my general policy, but given the nature of popular movies, it sometimes happens. No big deal.

But what about the violence? The comic book guys from work said Watchmen is ultra-violent. That can't be good for children. But is it really bad for them? Especially if it scares them? I don't know.

So I asked my imaginary internet friend and superhero connoisseur Chrisv82, who had written an excellent review of Watchmen for advice. He basically said, “it's your kid, whatever.” Just what I needed to hear, so I decided it would be okay to take John Bob. He probably wouldn't like it, but it would be his choice to go and he'd have to live with any resulting nightmares. PTSD, or other forms of acute psychosis. It wouldn't be my fault.

But then a funny thing happened. I realized that I didn't want to see a violent movie. And further still, I didn't want to see another super hero movie.

I've apparently changed a lot. I used to really love ultra-violent films, at least well-written ones. A Clockwork Orange and Natural Born Killers are two of my all-time favorites. I'm not the world's biggest superhero fan, but I read and re-read Marvel comics as a kid and up until now had no problem with the various big budget superhero movies like the X-Men franchise or Ironman.

But I've had enough. No offense to my superhero-loving friends. I don't think anyone is crazy or lowbrow or anything negative for liking them. That story just no longer does anything for me. Yes, I know, the premise is interesting. We all dream about saving the world, or at least saving somebody we love, and the superhero stories give us that vicarious thrill. Watching the genre grow from the morally pure D.C. Comics beginnings through the tortured Marvel mutants, to the post-modern Watchmen psychopaths is interesting as well. I get the iconic-metaphorical aspects of the thing.

But now I find that I prefer the more old fashioned story in which ordinary people become heroes in extraordinary circumstances. Not only is it a better story, but it can be told in so many more creative ways.

I was reminded of that as a result of my tortured decision-making process about taking John Bob to see Watchmen. In order to gauge how he would react to violence , I decided to get Children of Men and watch it with him. That was a film I took Jane Bob to see (I thought it was better on second viewing) when everyone would have said she was too young. I don't think it did her any harm other than an irrational fear of England. Unfortunately though, John Bob had a play date and we watched it without him.

Children of Men is an incredible piece of film making. The cinematography is first rate. It is a nice telling of the realistic superhero formula in which the main character reacts to an extraordinary situation. And it has one of the greatest ultra-violence sequences in film history. From the entrance into the concentration camp to the ending in the boat, it documents an exquisite decent through the seven circles of hell. The ultra-violence is an integral part of an important story. It is beautiful.

Although I understand that Watchmen may attempt to pull off that trick, I find myself skeptical. Will I take John Bob to see it? On that, I'm still pondering.

Ridiculous measures for ridiculous times

You've all probably noticed the news that AIG, possibly the biggest money losing company of all time, which has received $170 billion in taxpayer money, is paying humongous bonuses to its executives who lost such prodigious amounts of cash. It's easy to see that this latest outrage will result in increased calls for government legislation to limit executive compensation.

I don't think that's a good idea. Government has no business dictating pay scales to private companies. No, what we need to do is return to the days of the ridiculously high tax bracket. Bonuses for already wealthy people should be taxed somewhere around 95 percent. And I propose a special tax rate of 110 percent for executive bonuses at taxpayer-funded loser companies. That would end this particular form of looting toot sweet. No doubt they'd find another way to swindle us, but we can at least make it a helluva a lot more difficult.

He was a nice, quiet kid

Mark Ames has an article up on Alternet about the recent killing spree my a nice youn man with an assault rifle in Alabama which left 11 dead. Ames points out that the authorities promised to reveal the killer's motive then stopped talking about it altogether, claiming there was no motive. Ames then speculates that the killings were attributable to Reaganomics and the economic devastation it unleashed on America's middle class. Perhaps, but Ames wrote a book on the subject so it's not surprising he would find it as the root motive for anyone gone postal.

And perhaps that's true, I have little doubt that it's a contributing factor, but I'm not sure that the sorry plight of the working man in bumfuck is something the authorities would bother to cover up. I'm guessing the self-described survivalist who was obviously a gun nut was a big fan of conservative hate radio and Fox News. If I had to bet on why the authorities don't want to talk about the motive, I'd bet it's something to do with names like Limbaugh, Hannity or O'Reilly, the Republican party, right wing religious nuts, right wing bloggers, or some combination of the four whipping up irrational hatred among poor violent idiots across the land.

Just my guess, but since they ain't saying, guesses are all we got.

Notes on photography

This picture is another example of a practice exercise in lieu of any kind of creative idea. This is just a typical stand of trees. If I were to take this photo with a point and shoot, or even a high end color camera, it wouldn't be the least bit interesting. The composition is too busy, the colors uninteresting. Even the eye is likely to see nothing special here. Yet this is a scene of beautiful complexity. My assignment is to capture something of that. Then take that skill and use it for something more important than a picture of trees. In case you haven't figured it out yet, you can click on the photos and see a larger copy. Though the final product will be a 24 x36 on art rag.



In other photo news, I bought a car. People who have never lived in a great walking city like Paris or New York have a lot of trouble understanding how someone can live without a car. Actually, it's quite nice, especially for an artistic type. Apartments are nice in that respect as well. Never having to go to the dmv, to fuck with a fucking mechanic, no traffic jams, no mowing the lawn, no unclogging the drain. All that time just for art. Or drinking. Whatever. Anything beats drudge work.

Anyway, regular readers may have noted that I'm so fucking sick of New York City. Not having a car compounds the misery. Now at least I can get out for a day. Though I like cities, at heart I am a nature boy and suffer exponentially the longer I am cut off. And as a photographer, although it's healthy to be forced to photograph the same places endlessly, to have to struggle to see the beauty in the familiar, it's also nice to be able to see something different.

Of course what you usually end up with are tourist photos like these. Oh well. Tourists go to these places for good reason. And I do actually have a creative idea, but it requires some planning. Maybe I'll show you something in early April.

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...

Picture of today

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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Pictures of the day

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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Photo of today

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.

Picture of the day

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.