Washington generals blow big lead, again

The Times reports:

The confirmation of Michael B. Mukasey as attorney general appeared to be all but certain on Friday after two key Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee announced they would support the nomination despite complaints over Mr. Mukasey’s refusal to clarify his views on what amounts to torture.


The announcements by the senators, Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles E. Schumer...

"Democrats" abjectly surrendering to Republicans is easily predictable, but I'm curious about the process. Do they draw lots to see who will pull down their pants and lie down in the middle of the road or is there some other mechanism to determine which ones will throw the game on any given issue?

Is there any significance to the fact that New York and California "representatives" tanked on Bush's new torture guy? Do big states have to succumb on big issues?

World premier video, gratis

You may recall that chuckling on-line magazine commissioned some projects for this year's Burning Man festival in the Black Rock desert. This is a clip from the video, which was shot and produced by Dan Webster, an artist and videographer living somewhere circa de San Diego. In the coming weeks we will be premiering the rest of the video, likewise in small chunks. Fascinating stuff.

The video quality in this example, however, is not remotely as good as the original, due to fairly extreme compression necessary to show it on the web. Personally, I like the effect, but you certainly can't trust my aesthetic when it comes to photography. It does not do justice to the original.

If you missed the still photography, see it here. I had some complaints about the audio accompaniment and have made the player visible so you can turn it off.

Earth to media

The media gravely report that President Bush's nominee for Attorney General, Michael B. Mukasey, is in danger of not being confirmed by the Senate because of his refusal to acknowledge that waterboarding is, indeed, torture.

But here at chuckling on-line magazine we can see the future as though it were the fourth quarter of a Harlem Globetrotters show. Bush will stand firm. The Democrats will crumble. Torture guy will be Attorney General.

Sports note

According to ESPN, the New York Yankees are prepared to offer Alex Rodriguez a contract that would pay him $230 million over the next 8 years.

That's two hundred and thirty million dollars to a guy for playing a ball game.

If the top income tax rate were 70 percent he would still get $69 million. If it were 91 percent, like during the Eisenhower administration, he would get nearly $21 million.

$69, even $21 million? With that kind of money, a person could do whatever he or she wanted on this earth. Is A-Rod really worth a quarter billion dollars? Compared to so many normal decent people who won't make .001 percent of that over eight years?

Or are there better things that society could do with that kind of wealth. Of course there are. Time to tax those fuckwads back to reality. Well, if not reality, at least sanity. And to reality for sure for their children and grandchildren. Let them work like everyone else. They get more from America, they should pay for what they get. A Meritocracy can be a good thing.

Stupid is...

It's well established that rank and file conservatives are functionally stupid. Witness this quote from an article about right wing evangelists in the NY Times Magazine:

But just as many people ruled out Obama because they suspected that he was not Christian at all but in fact a crypto-Muslim — a rumor that spread around the Internet earlier this year. “There is just that ill feeling, and part of it is his faith,” Welsh said. “Is his faith anti-Christian? Is he a Muslim? And what about the school where he was raised?”

“Obama sounds too much like Osama,” said Kayla Nickel of Westlink. “When he says his name, I am like, ‘I am not voting for a Muslim!’ ”

Or watch the stupid, if you dare, in this video via TBogg.

Yes, stupid they undeniably be, but our understanding of why they have become so stupid is incomplete.

We know all about the conservative leanings of the Washington Post and the New York Times. We are familiar with Fox News and their stable of demagogic blowhards. We have second or third hand knowledge of the big fat fool infested hate radio. We know that hate spewing right wing evangelists are out there spewing right wing evangelism. And those things explain a lot, but they do not explain all of it. There are plenty of people out there in the heartland who don't read the Times, who don't have cable, who don't listen to the radio, who don't go to right wing nutzo churches, yet they are just as functionally stupid, if not more so, than their more conventionally indoctrinated brethren.

As I've noted before, there is an anonymous organization working down deep in the conservative cesspool that crafts sophisticated screeds and distributes them through email networks throughout the heartland. You can see it referenced in the Times Magazine quote above - a rumor that spread around the Internet earlier this year. Yes rumors spread about the internet. This much is true. Where do they come from? No one knows, or at least no one says.

Actually, I think the more interesting question is "who do they come from?" The best of the right wing internet chain mail is very well-written, poisonously sophisticated rhetoric. I've seen a lot of them and believe that they all come from the same writer. It is strange, very strange if not unprecedented to find a conservative with both high level writing skills and rhetorical sophistication. Personally, I don't believe that the writer is actually a conservative. It's possible they are paying someone with incredibly low moral values to do it. Or there are darker possibilities. They could be blackmailing some poor creative sap to produce these emails, or they may have even kidnapped someone who they waterboard until they cough up an email. I don't know, and I don't want to speculate. It will, however, be interesting when the true story is finally told.

In the meantime, here is another one. Witness and learn:

I know it doesn't mean anything yet but....................

By the time you read through this YOU WILL UNDERSTAND 'TENJOOBERRYMUDS'...

In order to continue getting-by in America (our home land), we all need to
learn the NEW English language! Practice by reading the following
conversation until you are able to understand the term 'TENJOOBERRYMUDS'.

With a little patience, you'll be able to fit right in.
Now, here goes...

The following is a telephone exchange between maybe you as a hotel guest and
call room-service somewhere in the good old U S A today......

Room Service : 'Morrin.. Roon sirbees.'

Guest : 'Sorry, I thou ght I dialed room-service.'

Room Service: ' Rye. Roon sirbees...morrin! Joowish to oddor sunteen???'

Guest: 'Uh..... Yes, I'd like to order bacon and eggs.'

Room Service: 'Ow July den?'

Guest: '.....What??'

Room Service: 'Ow July den?!?... pryed, boyud, poochd?'

Guest: 'Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry. scrambled, please .'

Room Service: 'Ow July dee baykem? Crease?'

Guest: 'Crisp will be fine.'

Room Service: 'Hokay. An Sahn toes?'

Guest: 'What?'

Room Service: 'An toes. July Sahn toes?'

Guest: 'I... don't think so.'

RoomService: 'No? Judo wan sahn toes???'

Guest: 'I feel really bad about this, but I don't know what 'judo wan sahn
toes' means.'

RoomService: 'Toes! Toes!...Why Joo don Juan toes? Ow bow Anglish moppin we
bodder?'

Guest: 'Oh, English muffin!!! I've got it! You were saying 'toast'...
Fine...Yes, an English muffin will be fine.'
Room Service: 'We bodder?'

Guest: 'No, just put the bodder on the side.'

RoomService: 'Wad?!?'

Guest: 'I mean butter... just put the butter on the side.'

RoomService: 'Copy?'

Guest: 'Excuse me?'

RoomService: 'Copy...tea..meel?'

Guest: 'Yes. Coffee, please... and that's ev erything'

RoomService: 'One Minnie. Scramah eg g, crease baykem, Anglish moppin, we
bodder on sigh and copy ... rye??'

Guest: 'Whatever you say.'

RoomService: 'Tenjooberrymuds.'

Guest: 'You're welcome'

Remember I said 'By the time you read through this YOU WILL UNDERSTAND
'TENJOOBERRYMUDS' '.....and you do, don't you!

Now go out and hate some foreigners!

On a side note, people are starting to catch on. But what needs to happen is for someone to use these right wing hate networks to spread truth. The people creating this shit are immoral twats, but the people spreading it are not. They can be co-opted.

Update: Via comments on this article at Making Light, here is a blog that collects those emails.

Another night of nothin

Nothin to say anyway. Still working on the little photo retrospective. This is an exampe of what you can do when you get a decent composition but the color sucks. It's also an example of why some photos need to be big. The couple in the water is an interesting element, but you can't even see them at this size.

Nothing to say

Just look at the pretty picture. Don't let them tell you Brooklyn's like totally ugly.

Schips passing in the night

The SCHIP "controversy" illustrates some very basic differences between conservatives and normal, decent people and provides a clue as to how we could better win a lot of these arguments (in the arena of public opinion, of course, in real life it's not a contest).

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's thought of all the money wasted on our murder spree in Iraq when conservatives complain about a relatively small amount being spent to help hard working families who have suffered devastating medical crises.

It's backfiring on them this time, but in general, the construction "Why should my tax dollars pay for x" appeals to the masses. x can be just about anything and everyone who pays taxes can sympathize.

Still, some x's have more resonance than others. For example, "why should my taxes pay to put out other people's fires?" isn't going to get a lot of traction. What if my house catches on fire? It could happen. Of course I want someone to come put it out.

Same thing with SCHIP. Why should I have to pay for someone else's catastrophic medical condition? Well, that could happen to me as well. The ability to recognize that we are all in the same boat does a lot to bring out the empathy in people.

But I'm an idealist. I think most people can empathize with those who suffer catastrophes that are less likely to happen to them as well, particularly if it is a moral issue. But it often takes more time to for the meaning to sink in and a often a little guidance is necessary.

So although America will not be occupied by a brutally repressive foreign power in our lifetime and the great majority of us will not be secretly imprisoned and tortured by our government or have our family murdered by drunken American mercenaries, errr Blackwater employees, I think most of us would prefer not to spend our tax dollars on murder, torture and oppression, particularly when it is so damaging to the national security, which when the words are not misused, is our security as well.

So maybe decent people should try that old conservative rhetorical strategy and frame the issues we rail against in terms of our blessed tax dollars.

I'll be damned if I want my tax dollars fattening the investment accounts of traitors and murderers that are fucking up the lives of so many people who are ultimately not that different from us. Who does? Particularly when that money could be used to help people, you know, people like us.

Where have all the copy editors gone?

The Associated Press gets caught with a sophomoric copy editing error in a headline for a major story". Someone let slip:

Bush Raps Democrats on Spending Bills

They obviously meant the hed to read:

Bush Rapes Democrats on Spending Bills

Pathetic, just pathetic. And that's just the poor copy editing. Not to mention the dog bites man nature of the story.

Ha ha. The "dog bites man" reference dates me, doesn't it? According to the AP stylebook, the term has been replaced by "Bush rapes Democrats," but their own copy editors fuck up such a simple question of style. Must be Bush appointees.

The nature of kitsch

Since I've been staring at photos all day and have already discussed one with you, reader, I'll share my concerns about this photograph.

It's kitsch, obviously. I feel no guilt about taking it. What can I do? I'm standing there with a camera. I see a white crane scanning the pond, which I know to be populated by many small Koi. I can see what's coming. I consciously line up the circular groups of lilly pads and set the camera to achieve the effect I want with the depth of field. I lock the exposure to ensure the bird is white, but not blown out. I set the autofocus for action. The photo comes out pretty much as planned. It's like winning at the horse races, when you've extensively studied the racing form and the race goes down exactly as you thought. Photography and serious handicapping aren't that different. It feels good to get it right. But do those little victories of predestination have any larger value? I'm leaning towards no, or rarely at best.

I am not a nature photographer, much less a wildlife photographer. Those people camp out for weeks to get the shot they envision. I am more of a photojournalist. I struggle to see what's there from instant to instant.

The problem I have intellectually, and as a photo critic, with unabashedly beautiful pictures is that they rarely tell a story. They are presented solely as objects of beauty. And beauty, by itself, is not necessarily art.

Photographs like this beg interesting questions about the relationships between actual experience and the artistic rendering of experience, or the experience of artistic rendering. To be physically present and witness a lithe white crane fish a Koi out of an in-bloom lilly pond and fly away into a blue sky on a crisp autumn day, now that is a genuinely beautiful experience. Yet, a photograph of the same event is nothing to speak of. Why don't realistic depictions of what we experience as beauty affect us in the same way as art? Why does art look like crap when you're out in reality and reality look like crap when you're in a gallery or museum, or home in the living room? I think it's because there is a physical as well as an aesthetic feeling asscoiated with natural beauty. Appreciating art requires not only vision, it requires a significant ability to empathize as well.

Another saturday at the museum

I thought this composition was interesting in a formal way. I waited quite awhile for the pieces to come to together. It's from inside a small theater in the contemporary Caribbean art exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. It's the second time we've been to see the current exhibitions. In addition to the Caribbean art, there's a great exhibition of the museum's watercolor collection and a major installation of feminist art, including "The Dinner Party" by Judy Chicago, a truly awesome work.

I've been working on photo stuff all weekend and haven't been able to get up the gumption to write anything, so this will have to do. I generally prefer photos that say something, but occasionally I don't mind looking at pretty shapes and colors.

Our tax dollars at work

From a UN report on our Democracy project in Iraq:

The agency said it "remained gravely concerned at continuing reports of the widespread and routine torture or ill-treatment of detainees."

"In addition to routine beatings with hosepipes, cables and other implements, the methods cited included prolonged suspension from the limbs in contorted and painful positions for extended periods, sometimes resulting in dislocation of the joints; electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body; the breaking of limbs; forcing detainees to sit on sharp objects, causing serious injury and heightening the risk of infection; and severe burns to parts of the body through the application of heated implements," the report said.

We get a bit of burn for our bucks, too.

The U.N. report warned of an increased rate of violence against women, particularly "honor" killings, in the semiautonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. In the first half of the year, regional government statistics counted 23 women killed by "blunt objects," 195 by burning and 37 by gunfire.

Meanwhile, obama is doomed

In contrast to the stories that praise Fred Thompson (see post immediately below) for managing not to fart loudly during debates and interviews, all the stories about Barak OBama detail his many failures (in the eyes of journalists) despite being so incredibly smart and visionary.

David Ignaius types the script in this morning's Washington Post. Witness these tidbits:

"He may be the smartest candidate in either party this year, and also the most visionary... Obama is certainly charismatic, so much so that people often describe him as a rock star... the man gives a good speech... Nobody tells the story of the American dream better than Obama..."

You'd think an article with those quotes would be about what a formidable candidate he is? No. In media world, intelligence, charisma, and vision are horrible handicaps to the presidency, especially when there are so many rivals who got nothin.

There is clearly no way Obama can win. Going up against less intelligent, wooden candidates with no vision beyond their own greed and ambition, he is sure to be slaughtered in any debate. Hillary will be able to read Bush speeches in a robo-voice and the press will praise her seriousness and criticize Obama for making her look dull. And if Obama has a really good day, Fred Thompson could pick his nose and do nothing but grunt and all we'd hear is about how he didn't disgrace himself while that meanie Obama is just too smart to be president.

Yea, if we've learned nothing in the past eight years it's that you don't have to be smart or eloquent to be president. And the media thinks intelligence and the ability to express oneself well are outright handicaps. If Barak is to stand a chance, he'd better learn to pick his nose, fart, drool, and make indecipherable grunting noises soon, or it'll be too late.

The next president of the united states

Of course I haven't been paying much attention to the presidential debates (I have whadayacallit?, a life). But I read the headlines and maybe the first paragraph or two, and maybe skim a little deeper on occasion. Apparently, they can all be summed up as either "Republicans show themselves to be morons without an ounce of morality and promise violent, psychotic acts when elected," or "Democrats emphasize that they are not Bush while promising to continue his policies."

So it's hard to pick a winner among so many losers, but I think I may have decoded the signs and am now able to identify the next president of the United States.

Every blurb I read about Fred Thompson trumpets the news that he did not disgrace himself, that he did not fail miserably, that he managed to get through a debate without blowing snot bubbles or eating wax out of his ear.

Sound familiar? Remind you of how the press treated anyone currently in the white house in recent presidential elections?

Next steps? We'll know for sure when they start criticizing his opponents for stomping him so thoroughly on the issues.

Lathe of hell

Michael Gerson provides us with another one of those “what Conservatism means” pieces that are becoming increasingly popular as everything self-described conservatives passionately believe in changes, often diametrically, from one day to the next. From the party-like-it’s-1999-government giveaways to special interests by their fiscally restrained leaders, to their poorly planned wars to bring utopia to historically disadvantaged foreigners, to the bathroom sex addictions of their moral leaders, it’s no wonder the poor saps have trouble distinguishing up from down these days.

On one hand, Gerson’s article is illuminating in that it shows just how effectively the term “conservative” has been shorn of all rational meaning. On another, it shows how conservatives minds have effectively been shorn of all rational perspective.

It is not a coincidence that the great movements of conscience have generally come not from skeptical traditionalists but from men and women of faith and conviction who taught that loving your neighbor is inconsistent with enslaving him; who rescued children from the nightmare factories of the Industrial Revolution; who asserted that the long tradition of racial segregation created 10,000 petty tyrants; and who believed that the Declaration of Independence is actually true, for us and for all.

Traditionalism can save moralists from a foolish utopianism. But a moral vision is equally necessary to save traditional conservatism from its worst instincts.

Right, Mike. Conservatives have been wrong about almost everything throughout all of history. So what can you do? Re-write history so that conservatives wrote the declaration of Independence, freed the slaves, created the social safety net, bravely forced us into World War II, proudly led the civil rights marches, and now fight mightily to protect us from intrusive government here at home?

Yes, of course, that’s the ticket, but what about when your core values must change from one day to the next, as has happened so often in recent years. Can’t have a commander in chief who dodged the draft, now can we? Criticize the military during a time of war? Forfend!

For the poor conservative, the 21st century is like something out of Ursula K. Leguin’s Lathe of Heaven They never know what kind of new reality they will wake up to.

What these soul searching articles by folk like Michael Gerson teach us is that being a conservative these days is no different than being a Dallas Cowboy fan. Once a person has chosen a team, he will stick with that team no matter what. Maybe he liked the Cowboys because of their old school three yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust offense and hated players like Terrell Owens who were loud braggarts lacking all class. Yet when the Cowboys fired the old coach, became a run and shoot team and overpaid Terrell Owens, that was all okay. No, it was better than okay. It was good. It was the right thing to do. It was the way they had always believed the game should be played. It’s not the style of play that matters. It’s the allegiance to the team. Winning is all that matters.

The owners, of course, have somewhat different goals, or at least different definitions of “winning,” but that’s a different story. One tools like Gerson are only dimly aware of, at best.

Schizo nomos disorder

First we learn that we can’t return this guy to his country because he might be imprisoned and tortured:

A federal district judge has ordered the government not to transfer a Tunisian detainee held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to his home country, over fears that he would be tortured or killed.

Then we’re told that we can kidnap and torture people just for the fun of it:

The Supreme Court declined yesterday to open U.S. courts to a German citizen who said he was abducted, imprisoned and tortured by the CIA because he was mistakenly identified as a terrorist.

Damn, I guess it just goes to show that once your government has abandoned all morality and respect for basic human rights, the slope gets awful slippery. What's that red stuff we keep slipping on?

White chalk

I've been listening to PJ Harvey's new disc, White Chalk for the past few days and have now added the rest of her music to the playlist. You can hear a good song here, just click on the audio/video button.

Unfortunately, my verbal skills have been on the decline lately. As regular readers know, I've always been ambivalent about reviewing other people's artistic output. Lately, I can't even think of anything to say beyond I liked it or I didn't, it was technically well-done or it wasn't, the story was well-told or otherwise.

Fortunately, when my verbal skills fail me, sometimes I can fall back on visual story telling, so the above image is my review of White Chalk.

Do androids dream of big screen beauty?

Yesterday I saw Blade Runner: the Final Cut on the big screen. I trust you all have seen Blade Runner and probably even the director’s cut. Final Cut doesn’t add all that much to Director’s Cut--a little more gore, a little more skin, a little more face time for Sean Young,--but the opportunity to see this film on the big screen should not be missed. It’s a great narrative and the visual story telling remains incredible.

If you’re here in New York, or looking for a good excuse to visit, go see it at the Ziegfeld theater. It’s as beautiful a theater as you will ever see, the screen is as big as they come and the sound is excellent. Wherever you are, try to see it on the best screen possible. This is one movie where it really makes a difference.

Monkey Tales (10.9.07) Columbus Day Hangover Edition

In a rare bout of self-examination, the NYT reports on the latest studies on the behavior of major media folk and their relationship with politicians.

“Monkey society is governed by the same two general rules that governed the behavior of women in so many 19th-century novels,” Dr. Cheney and Dr. Seyfarth write. “Stay loyal to your relatives (though perhaps at a distance, if they are an impediment), but also try to ingratiate yourself with the members of high-ranking families.”

Good to see that scientific method is finally catching up with journalism.

*

The New York Times once again shows their liberal bias by spinning for Democrats:

Democratic Concessions Are Expected on Wiretapping

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 — Two months after vowing to roll back broad new wiretapping powers won by the Bush administration, Congressional Democrats appear ready to make concessions that could extend some of the key powers granted to the National Security Agency.

“Some” of the key powers? Could grant? Some? Yea, right. If we had an objective press, the headline would read something more like this:

Democrats pull down their pants, lay down in the road, and yell, “fuck us up the as Georgie boy, fuck us hard.”
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 --Two months after making lame noises about doing their constitutional duty, Congressional Democrats appear ready to wipe Bush’s ass with it and do what they’re told.

What’s more is there to say? So much, unfortunately.

*

The WaPo reports on another triumph for the Bush administration in their continuing struggle to protect al-Queda. A private company that has had great success providing intelligence on the terrorist group gave the Bushies a heads up on a bin Laden video on the promise they would keep it quiet.

Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.


The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network.

"Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless,"

Yep, as a super enemy, al-Queda’s not much, but from the Republican perspective it’s a lot better than nothing. Without it, they’d have to find a new public enemy number one to justify looting our economy at home and their insane murder spree abroad. Atta boy George!