A day at the beach

Today, continuing my thanksgiving vacation in New York City, I went to Coney Island.






It's not all fun and games. Most of it is quite desolate. Especially in winter.






Outside the amusement park area, Coney Island is predominantly black and Latino. It's one of the more dangerous parts of the city. And unlike the Flatbush area where Obama's face is plastered everywhere, I didn't see a single image all along Mermaid Avenue. Does that say something about the relative presence of hope in these communities?

A day in the city

I think I mentioned that I'm vacationing in the New York City area this thanksgiving. As far as vacations go, that's akin to eating shit for thanksgiving dinner. Certainly not one's first choice.

On a photography note, I need to go back to this place when those smokestacks are smokin.



Actually it is a lot of people's first choice. Why? Beats the hell out of me. But I had nothing else to do so I went to check out the phenomenon.

You know there's a lot of controversy as to the precise location of the asshole of the universe. Well, I've been to a lot of the contenders and can't imagine there being anywhere more excremental than Times Square. People pay incredible amounts of money to come here and look at advertising. How crazy is that? Pretty crazy, that's how. Future historians will wag their heads in disgust.



Then I popped by Rockefeller center. I actually enjoy this area at night during the Xmas (we here at chuckling on-line magazine believe in taking the christ out of christmas) season. Cynical I may be, but there's a happy vibe about the place on december nights. But it's not even past Thanksgiving and this crap just feels excremental. Still, I found myself wanting to buy something. Damn the costs.




Then I went to church at St. Patrick's cathedral. Talk about excrement. Made me want to high tail it back to Brooklyn toot sweet.




That's more like it.



Yep.



Speaking of worship, I belatedly took an interest in the African American community's genuine pride in Obama's election. If it's not too late I may put together a show at some point. It's probably too late. It seems a lot of street vendors are going to be stuck with nicely framed portraits.



I've never understood why anyone goes to Manhattan. Except maybe to work. Or museums. And for nightlife. Granted, there's that.

Obla di, obla da, oble ah

Kia has a nice essay about ultra-violence, religious stupidity and intolerance in the Caribbean. Includes a link to a coupla great statues that are (allegedly) responsible for much of the violence.

W(h)ither the 800 pound gorilla?

I can't help but noting that in all this talk of out-of-control budget deficits and cutting wasteful spending, I have not heard nor read a single person mention the defense budget which is what? Half of all spending, much of which is total fucking waste and corruption.

Sure, the old Soviet Union went bankrupt and collapsed, partially due to the devotion of too many resources to military spending. But that can't happen to us now, can it? We're different. Exceptional, you might say. And our imaginary enemies might develop awesome capabilities for which we must be prepared, no matter the cost. Of course if they want to just buy us, that's a different matter. Rope is selling cheap these days.

Another day in the life

I've given up color photography. Just so you know. I'm like totally sick of color. It's just a trick the brain plays on the eyes and I've had it up to here with stupid brain tricks. From here on out, all I do is black and white. And many shades of gray. At least sixteen. No fewer.


I had to get a specialized black and white camera, which was expensive. That and the price of travel these days resulted in me staying home for Thanksgiving, doing my part to tank the economy. I'd already taken the vacation days at work, so here I am playing the tourist in Brooklyn on a rainy November day. Today I saw Flatbush Avenue.


Figuring it's going to get even colder before it gets warmer, I hiked to Sears and bought some long underwear. When I got home I put on a top and threw a t-shirt over it. My teenage daughter said I looked like Kurt Cobain if he had lived to be old and fat. Kurt Cobain, I thought. Cool. Anyway, after shopping I had a bite to eat.


Then I did some window shopping. The Xmas season is upon us.



I felt safe with the NYPD watching over me.



Getting tired, I stopped by the orgy for some relaxation.



Then I took a picture of a tree.



That got me thinking about nature so I went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It's free on weekdays all winter.



Afterward I walked back home through Prospect Park. Tomorrow I'll probably do the same. The same. The same. The same.

What's in store

A sign went up for the new business that will be replacing the recently closed Halal meat market in my neighborhood. Fortunately, we were all wrong. It is not a pawn shop, nor a pawn mall. Not a storefront church, though that was a very good guess. Could have been a storefront mosque as well, but no. And it didn't turn out to be a Mexican or Chinese restaurant either, though I got a bit scared when I saw two Chinese looking guys installing a steam table.

No, it turns out to be a place called Basmati, specializing in Curries, Shwarmas, and Falafels. Praise be to Allah! Something to balance out the dreaded Pizza or Chinese on eat in Fridays.

There are already plenty of curry places down the street and around the corner, but we never eat there because we are sure they rip us off. None of the prices are posted. The rooms are full of Bangladeshi and Pakistani laborers and taxi drivers. And they're asking me to believe a shriveled piece of Tandoori chicken is nine dollars? No way Bub. And a Jewish Falafel place opened recently, but they are closed on Friday nights and Saturdays, which are the only times we ever order out.

So my pessimism was over the top, as is not unusual. But the recently closed 99 cent store is now gutted, and whoever bought it also took over the recently deceased cheap furniture place right next door, so something big is coming.

Normally, I'd guess something that size would be a drugstore but it's right across the street from a Walgreens, caddy corner to a Rite-Aid, and just down the street from at least two Russian pharmacies, so I'm not as confident in that prediction as I might otherwise be.

It's almost big enough for a burger joint like Wendy's or McDonald's. That would be a horror. The first fast food place on the strip. Or it could be a porno palace. We don't have any of those nearby. Storefront church or mosque is still a good possibility.

But I'll still guess drug store. That smells most like capitalism these days.

Photo of the day

It's the stupid, economy

You can’t accuse me of being a conservative. What is a conservative? Someone who is wrong again and again and again yet keeps believing in the value of his or her analysis. On economic questions, I have been wrong again and again and again. But instead of trying to get myself appointed secretary of Treasury as if I were a conservative, I quit making economic predictions a long time ago. At least short term economic predictions.

Time frame is the key. Time and time again I’ve been burned on the short term predictions. For example, Ronald Reagan is running gargantuan budget deficits which means hyperinflation is about to take off so therefore I should obviously use as much credit as possible, no matter the interest rates, because soon the dollar will be so worthless we’ll be using them for toilet paper. Wrong.

Which brings me to today’s topic. The economic crisis. Everyone agrees that in order for us to be prosperous, we must be voracious consumers who spend more and more, exponentially, forever.

Well excuse me. This plan simply cannot work, not in the long term. It is essentially a pyramid scheme: a non-sustainable business model in which approximately 88% of all people will lose, if not more.

The question is not if it will collapse, but when it will collapse. People simply cannot continue to buy a bunch of useless, or at best unnecessary crap until the end of time. Eventually they will have enough. How many Ipods do you really need. Five? Okay, but that’s not enough. No number will ever be enough.

Or the cost to produce crap will become too high. Resources are not infinite. The population continues to grow. A realistic plan to mine the moons of Jupiter is nowhere on the horizon.

But does this economic crisis signal the end is upon us? I very much doubt it. Remember way back in the mists of time, as long ago as June, oil was $135 a barrel and we were doomed to $5 per gallon of gas until prices would go even higher. Yet now the price has been more than halved. Does this mean that we will have cheap oil forever? No. But it demonstrates that predicting the short term economic results of unsustainable economic models is hopeless.

So go ahead, buy an SUV and a 128 inch flat screen teevee with surround sound and invest in GE and GM and you’d better eat out a lot, too. It’s your patriotic duty and who’s to say that you’ll be burned when the insane consumer economy crashes and burns as it inevitably will. It might not be this year, maybe not even this generation or the next. Before you die, you may have a big screen teevee the size of a wall and a wall the size of a billboard in a house the size of a castle, if not in the backs seat of your SUV.

Or maybe not. I don’t know. I’m not making any short term economic predictions, not in public anyway. But there is a shiny new camera I’ve been eyeing, and the old Mac is ready for an upgrade, and I don’t feel like cooking or doing the dishes, and the kids need new toys, and games and I’m bored and just don’t know what to do with myself but shop shop, buy buy, buy.

Everywhere the signs

I went online to rent a car and was shocked to find that the price for an economy car had nearly tripled since last time I rented. But what I really found interesting was that a full size SUV was $15 a day cheaper than the smallest car.

Well, market forces were speaking and I was listening. I checked the airlines, but they were no bargain either. We decided to stay home instead. The economy suffers accordingly.

Meanwhile, changes are afoot on the commercial street between my house and the subway. First, a grouchy old locksmith who had been there forever closed and was replaced by a 99¢ store. Then the leather guy. Another 99¢ store. Then a great Pizzeria that had been there for 50 years. Another 99¢ store. Several middle class clothing stores closed. Several $1 clothing stores opened. We have four nail salons, six drugstores, four Chinese restaurants, two polish groceries and one Albanian. None seem very busy. The Halal meat market just closed and so did one of the 99¢ stores. What could replace them? I don't know. The wife is betting another 99¢ store. The kids are split between a Chinese or a Mexican restaurant.

Me, I'm guessing pawn shops.

Chuckling has a better idea

Word has it that Senate Doormatocrat Harry Reid is offering Joe Lieberman a chairmanship of some committee other than the one to which he has become accustomed.

Well Harry, here's a better idea: Give him 30 pieces of silver, an appropriate length of rope and--in the spirit of bipartisanship--have the courtesy to point him to a good, stout tree.

Changing colors

Happy days. More photos here.

Duty done

I went against all of my best instincts and voted and I swear that will be the last time ever. The polling place, pictured above, was downright creepy and the poll watchers charged me $50 to vote. No way, I said and turned to leave. Sorry sir, it's mandatory, I was told. And they didn't even have ballots. It was verbal voting. Well, enough about that. I reported it to CNN's election irregularity hotline. I trust something will be done.

Anyway, since I've spent considerable time here detailing my indecision, I'll tell you how I voted. Working Families party all down the line. Jewish sounding names when Working Families had no line. Go team!

Pay no attention to the elephant in the rooom

Just saw my first McCain campaign commercial. Some guy was going on and on about how Obama has never operated a small business.

Funny, I don't recall seeing small business owner on McCain's resume. I don't think marrying a big business heiress counts.

How stupid do they think people are. Pretty fucking stupid, that's how.

Hate, injustice, and the (real) american way

The Guardian UK, perhaps America’s most informative newspaper, gets off the campaign bus in the small town (pop. 176) of Hasty, Colorado and informs us:

Times have been tough here for some time, and seem only to be getting worse. "The valley is already hurting," Colleen tells us. "It's really scary for the kids that are making minimum wage and driving 25 or 30 miles a day to work — paying for gas, for babysitters, housing. Hard to watch these kids. It's a struggle. It takes all they've got. They don't have luxuries. They live on $1500 a month - $500 for rent. How can you live on that? They have no health insurance. They can't afford it."

Why are times so tough in these small towns? Well, the answer to that question is outside the bounds of big time journalism. We’ll just have to read between the lines. If we are able.

Not all areas of inquiry, however, are off the table.

She says most of the people in Hasty are for McCain, and she herself will vote for him. "I think they're scared of Obama," she says. Sarah Palin is the one Colleen really likes. "I think Sarah is the closest thing [to us] that's ever arrived in politics. She knows what it's like. She's got family. They [the politicians in Washington] don't know what it's like to live. They don't have a clue. I'd really like to sit down and talk to that woman."

The implication, of course, is that small town inhabitants are dumb. Dumb as a steaming pile of shit. And stinky too. Well, not all that dumb and stinky perhaps, but suffering from the debilitating weight of poverty induced ignorance. More like third worlders than civilized folk on the coasts, you know.

Scared of Obama? Sarah Palin knows what it’s like? She’s got family? Obama doesn’t have family?

And would Colleen really enjoy a sit down with Sarah? Yea, I’d love to observe that conversation.

Colleen (humbly):

"It's scary owning a store. People going hungry." She pauses. "I would never let that happen." She wants to make sure we understand that the locals here take care of one another, are made of strong stuff. We're survivors here. We'll survive anything. Beans and rice," she laughs, "and on Sunday put bacon pieces in it."

Sarah (backing away from the table, nasally Ned Flandersish voice):

“Taking care of other people?” That’s socialism. Why your (sic) just a gosh darned loser, Colleen. No wonder you gotcha some of them Socialist notions. Hard work is what you need.

Not that a real life Sarah Palin would actually sit down socially with someone like Colleen. I know because I am from a small town and have been acquainted with plenty of Sarah Palin types. They are the go-getters, attending the right churches, involved in the PTA, cheering fanatically at their kids’ ballgames, running for the school board, plotting to take down that obnoxious Mrs. Smith and anyone else who stands in their, or their kids', way. Small town women like Sarah are far worse than the snobs of Colleen’s nightmares. Rich New Yorkers, for the most part, would treat her well. The small town Sarah Palins, on the other hand, feel the god-driven need to make the Colleens of this world feel small. Really small. That’s one of the things I hate about small towns.

Of course, that alone is not enough to make me vote against the Palin/McCain ticket. I still haven’t made up my mind about this election. There’s a lot to hate about both tickets.

For starters, I hate all the candidates. I hate Obama, I hate McCain, I hate Palin, and if Obama had a running mate I would hate him or her too.

Not only do I hate the candidates; I really hate their followers. The Palin/McCain people are either small minded bigots, drop dead stupid, or sleaze bags wanting to keep their hands in my pocket for another four years. When I think about the type of hateful, divisive campaign they have run, I seethe with anger and want to vote for someone, anyone else. They think that just because I’m a small person from a small town and almost as hateful and angry as they are, that I will vote for them. They take me for granted. You can’t believe how much I hate that. You can't believe how much that makes me angry.

But what really pisses me off about the Obama people is the way they condescend. They are just like the Palin/McCain crowd only the opposite. They assume that just because I’m from a small town and anger and hatred gush visibly from my pores, that I am a Palin/McCain supporter. I hate that, too. It makes me angry. Really, really angry.

Just because I wallow in hate and anger don't mean I’m stupid. Not about politics.

I guess it will all come down to whom I hate most. Right now, I’m leaning slightly for Obama. Maybe it’s because I was never around an incredibly smart, cool and successful black guy when I was a kid so I can only hate him from an intellectual perspective. The Palins and McCains, however, I know all too well. Not only do I hate them, but they hate me as well. Why should I vote for someone who hates me?

Well, there's still time to answer that question. Nine more days to decide.

Gawd, I hate this election.

Photo of the day

Live debate photoblogging II

Mysteries and conundrums

The above image makes me as red-faced-vein-poppin-crazy-with-rage as John McCain. That is the Obama's campaign giant American flag and those are his followers walking around on it, desecrating it.

Of course Senator Obama doesn't have control over the actions of his followers, and these people are in New York, Brooklyn no less, so they hardly count as Americans, but still, it makes me ponder.

As you may recall, I am an independent and have not yet made up my mind who I will vote for come November. Senator Obama is young and represents change, but I don't really know who he is. Senator McCain, on the other hand, is old and erratic, but he is a war hero and has a lot of experience. And he's a Maverick. His running mate, Governor Palin is also a Maverick, but she doesn't have much foreign policy experience. Senator Obama, as far as I can tell, doesn't have a running mate. What's up with that?

Of course I give a lot of consideration to the candidate that I'd prefer to hang out and drink with, but frankly I wouldn't particularly want to drink with either of them. Senator Obama probably sips some kind of exotic cocktail with fizz in the title and McCain likely rambles like grandpa Simpson, then picks a fight, then gets all emotional, then ends up praying to the porcelain god for forgiveness. But I guess the McCain ticket still wins by the drinking criteria. If I'd already had a few beers, I might not mind getting Governor Palin drunk. She'd forget all about that wussy boy husband of hers.

Still, just because she likes to get drunk and fuck doesn't mean she'd make a good vice=president. What to do? What to do? Should I vote for Ralph Nader or Bob Barr instead? They both have some pretty good ideas. But can either of them win?

Anyway, here are some more disturbing photos of suspicious Brooklynites. What are they all doing outside on such a grey day, besides desecrating the flag? Up to no good, if you ask me.

Update: I just learned that Ralph Nader is an Arab. Hmmmmmm. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It's all so complicated.

Chuckling does live debate photoblogging

Typical brooklyn

Little men

Someone please come over and kick me, I've been watching cable news again.

Lately, I'm struck by the pathetic insecurity displayed by so many of the male anchors, correspondents, and guests. The thing that really jumps out at me is how they describe the McCain campaign's strategy of attacking Obama with lies and nasty innuendo as "tough."

Spreading lies and nasty innuendo is not tough. It is sleazy. It is undignified. It is the opposite of tough. It is cowardly.

Why do they associate cowardly sleaze with toughness? My guess is that they are insecure about their manhood. They think that juvenile taunting is the essence of manliness. How could anyone come to see the world in such a way? Were they mercilessly picked on by the tough guys when they were young? Is that why they think bad behavior is a sign of toughness? That's my guess. They have no clue at all what it means to be a man*.

A second question is how so many of these insecure little men manage to get on television. It must be somehow related to Bill Gates's observation that one should be nice to nerds because you'll end up working for one.

And I'll even go all Utopian on your ass and expand on Bill Gates's idea. Everyone should be nice to all children because if we're not they'll grow up to be Republicans, Christian conservatives, or cable tv news blowhards. Gawd, I know, I sound like Sally Struthers, but it's true, it's true.


*It means one was born that way. Being mean to people is not required.

Miracle at St. Anna

I saw the new Spike Lee movie today. Lee has arrived at the point where there is no longer much recognizable "Spike Lee" style in a Spike Lee film. I don't mean that in either a negative or a positive way. Just an observation.

Miracle at St. Anna is a character driven World War II movie. It lasts about two and a half hours, much of which is devoted to character building scenes that do not really move the plot along. For a story like that to work, we must be manipulated into caring about the characters and there has to be an emotional payoff at the end. I thought the film succeeded very well by those criteria. Although it seemed slow in some of the early parts, as the film progressed I became totally immersed in the lives of the characters and I was very moved by the denouement.

The film is structured, and advertised, as a mystery, but it didn't really work for me as such. An old man shoots someone in a post office with a German Luger. A valuable Italian artifact turns up in his apartment. Why did he shoot the guy? Why did he have the artifact? Where did he get the Luger? Very soon we are immersed in a flashback to World War II that takes up roughly 98 percent of the movie. The shooter was a member of an all black battalion that fought in Italy. An adventure unfolds. The questions are answered. But none of those larger plot points matter very much. As I mentioned, this is a character-driven film.

The main characters are four black men. I'll refer to them as negros from here on out since that is how they are referred to in the movie. One is the archetypal good negro, one a street negro, another the angelically innocent religious negro, the fourth a negro from the Caribbean that doesn't want anything to do with all that archetypal American shit. They end up in an Italian mountain village where learning experiences ensue.

Sounds corny at that level, which is why I normally refrain from telling anything whatsoever about the plot in these shallow reviews I sometimes do. Why am I breaking this rule now? I don't know. Best not to ponder these things.

Anyway, the character development is incredibly well handled. Little, if any of it is the least bit hokey. Some of it you might expect, other parts you won't see coming, but it all feels true. And when the mystery is solved, it feels okay as well. If you have the patience to watch a serious film, I found this one worth the effort.

Dog bites man, again

The New York Times today reports on further evidence, as if it were needed, that the United States is a one party state in which the constitution is nothing more than a museum piece that serves roughly the same purpose as the bones of a saint. People venerate it, but it has no power in the real world.

Bowing to President Bush's demands, the House passed a mammoth package for the Pentagon on Wednesday that contains a pay raise for troops, billions of dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and some political protection for lawmakers during a tense election season....

To earn President Bush's signature rather than a veto, House and Senate negotiators dropped several provisions he opposed. They include a ban on private interrogators in U.S. military detention facilities and what would have amounted to congressional veto power over a security pact with Iraq.

Not passing it before Congress adjourns this week was not an option...

Note that, worse than caving on the issue of torture, they can't even stand up for their constitutional responsibility to okay treaties. All this, as Atrios so often reminds us, against President 24 percent approval rating.

Time to quit fooling ourselves. It's not because democrats are weak. It's because they are complicit.

Payback time

I think it's time we all recognize that we haven't had a functional democracy for quite some time now. Stupid wars, devastated cities, financial collapse. No one even remotely accountable. What more evidence do you need. Men in uniforms? Well, it's not a junta. Not yet. We are currently "governed" by an oligarchy. One that exists to enable kleptomaniacs.

We will soon have given more than a trillion dollars to millionaires and billionaires while as recently as last year we reportedly could not afford $7 million dollars to help needy children get health care. And the recipients of our wealth are those who have already gamed the system to become fabulously wealthy.

Note that no one has broached the subject of actually making the millionaires and billionaires pay for the calamity they have caused. There's talk of making a few settle for millions in salary rather than tens of millions, but it goes no farther than that.

In a democracy we would tax those people back to reality. Those who have profited so handsomely from looting our economy would have a special 90 percent tax bracket in place until the costs are covered. Capital gains would be taxed at least as much as earned income. And sensible estate taxes would keep them from setting their children up to be inordinately wealthy without having to earn a penny.

Tradgedies

Washington's Dunbar high school quit a football game they were leading against a high school in Cumberland, Maryland because of racial taunts.

"They were trying to upset us, calling my guys the N-word. I had one guy in tears. I had to take him off the field," Jefferies said, adding that as he walked with his team to the locker room he was verbally accosted with slurs. He said the team was forced to stay in the locker room for 30 minutes while police established a secure path for the team to board its buses.

Think about the negative reverberations an ugly incident like that can have in those young peoples' lives. Welcome to christian conservative America boys. Just stay down.

A family friend of ours died the other day after an eight month struggle with cancer. We attended her funeral yesterday. She was my daughter's first friend when we moved to New York and my wife and her mother became friends as well. The girl was 16 years old.

Her drawn out death turned into one of those otherwise uplifting stories you hear about. She maintained a positive attitude and fought it all the way. She became closer with her family and classmates and brightened the lives of her hospital mates. She was a genuinely beautiful individual in every way.

Her family is from Haiti, so I didn't know what to expect at the funeral. I thought it possible that there would be some profound cultural differences between a Haitian family's rites and those of my own family from the midwest. I was right about that,but it didn't have anything to do with voodoo or naked emotion or anything like that. Basically, it was the same except that everyone present acted with a great deal of class. I think it was the first funeral I've been to where at least two people didn't do something to embarass themselves and cause a family rift that would never be healed.

That, and just about everyone was very well dressed. Back where I'm from, most people wear their best Levis or the more fashion conscious among them don their cowboy clothes. The only poorly dressed people at this funeral were some of the dead girl's white classmates and my own son John Bob. On the morning of the funeral, we were shocked to find out that he had no clothes that were remotely appropriate. He ended up going in cargo pants, tennis shoes, and a hoodie. I guess we were the biggest embarrassment.

Another huge difference was the production values. Comparing it to a midwestern funeral is like comparing a Broadway play to a 2nd grade production. They had a keyboard player, a drummer, a choir, and a couple American Idol caliber guest singers. The preachers were very good. Just about the only thing Haitian about it was that there was that the service was bilingual. Two preachers would alternate between English and French. They made it work very well.

The only downer was the next to final preacher. He was an African American from the church where the service was being held and he apparently knew nothing about the girl or her family. He did the fire and brimstone crap just like the country preachers do at the worst funerals back home. Then he suckered some poor saps into pledging their lives for Jesus, made them come up to the front and hug while he kept on talking and talking and talking, then asked them to come downstairs after the service to receive a special gift. I was pleased to see that very few people got up, even though he implored us a lot and threatened us with hell and damnation if we didn't find Jesus. Stupid fuckwit. But what can you do?

Anyway, it wasn't about him, or us, or fashion, or family comportment. It was about the poor young girl who died so tragically and her grieving family. You would not want to feel the sadness that was in that room.

And it especially hurts when I think of that girl and her family and the other people at that funeral. How she lived her life. How they live theirs. And then to think of those racist scumbag at that high school football game and the small town values that they hurl at those poor black kids. I'm from a small town and I can tell you this. Small town values suck.

DuFuOR for evah!

The New York Times reports that "some lawmakers and experts were considering a longer-term legislative solution that would create a new agency to dispose of the mortgage-related assets at the core of Wall Street’s woes."

Okay, I'll go along with that, but only on the condition that it be named the Department of Corporate Welfare (DoCW).

But an even better idea is to create a government agency that would more efficiently transfer all of our wealth to billionaires. Currently, that responsibility is divided among many government agencies. We could realize a great cost savings if we were to create an umbrella department, something like Homeland Security, that would bring together all of the agencies that exist throughout the government to transfer our wealth to billionaires. They could name it the Department of Fucking us Over Royally (DoFuOR).

The DoCW (Department of Corporate Welfare) would be an important part of the DoFuOR. The savings, of course, would be given to billionaires.

In the meantime,we should all just sell our assets and mail the check to the nearest billionaire. It's our duty to do whatever we can to help "the economy" in its time of need.

BTW, note that all the lawmakers and most of the experts referenced in the Times article are democrats. See how they drop their lame-ass facade of being an opposition party when there's dirty work to be done that only they can do?

Smells like corporate spirit

I've tried successfully up until now to avoid writing anything about computers or technology. Nevertheless, this quote from an article about Microsoft's new in-store "Guru" program painfully illustrates what's wrong with Microsoft as well as failing companies in general. The "Guru" program is in response to Apple's "Geniuses" who provide free in-store tech support. Microsoft's "Guru's," on the other hand, will not provide free tech support. They are there primarily as sales people, secondarily to keep the crap running and the advertising materials clean and straightened.

“The Guru role is to help sell Windows-based PCs. It is not to be an alternative tech support channel for Microsoft as this has no financial return beyond improved customer satisfaction,” Baker said.

"No financial return beyond improved customer satisfaction." Yep. That's the spirit. The spirit that keeps me paying the Apple tax all these years. Seems to be the spirit of those who govern us as well.

Desert storms

Just got back from my vacation out west, which included a week at Burning Man. I plan on writing something more substantial about the experience, but am not quite ready. For now, these lyrics from Shriekback's "The Strongest Wind that Blows" sum it up pretty well.

I start to know
the strongest wind that blows
The thing that until now I only read about
New structure
eating up the old
The process we all have this nameless dread about

Cold shoals
Their bloodless arms enfold
The earthen engines moan
Corruption,
the feast out in the cold
Everybody leaves this dance alone

Lashed up,
clinging to a thing
The nights are drawing in, that there's no doubt about
Wild rapture:
the old familiar code
This brute reflex is nothing much to shout about

Pegged out,
pulling down the stone
Botched, brave and alone
Fierce lustre
blistering the soul
Mourning for those I will never know

Stake out,
cops inside a van
To test a theory that the world is credible
My brains
boiling in a pan
Tests have shown they prove to be inedible

Own up
The terrifying trees
Will shake the leaves around
Dumbstruck
Starts at every sound
Everybody needs somebody now

Apparently, Barry Andrews went to Burning Man this year, wrote that song, then traveled back to the past and recorded it.

One of the best parts of the trip was getting totally cut off from news and current events for a week. I wish I could have stayed out until mid-November.

The important cog in the big story, for me at least, was the conservative reaction to Bristol Palin's pregnancy. Taken along with their criticism of Senator Obama's dedication to physical fitness and healthy eating habits, we can divine that their plan for our nation's children is to make them fat and pregnant. No news yet on the Republican's policy position regarding the availability of shoes in winter.

Seriously though, this is horrible. I am morally outraged that a national party is encouraging teen pregnancy. "It's her choice," they say. Choice? For a child? If my daughter were to come home pregnant, we'd be speeding on down to the abortion clinic before she finished the sentence. Choice? No. She can choose to fuck up her life when she's 18. Until then, that's my job.

The american dream

This is it, baby. I'll be away for a couple weeks, soiling my soul, or whatever's left of it, with fine desert dust and the soot of a thousand fires.

Fiction with russia may spell trouble for us

That's an actual headline from today's NY Times, minus an "r" and a period or two. If Google would let me use more words in headlines, I would have titled this something like "Example #45,890 that humans are an incredibly violent and stupid species of monkeys too violent and stupid to survive for long on this here earth" or "What the fuck is wrong with Republicans? Can they really be that fucking stupid? Is there anything they will not do to maintain power? example #64,876."

I mean, why, oh why, are we so hepped up to install a missile system on Russia's borders? To bring back the cold war? The only rational reason I can think of is to have a seriously scary enemy. Not just another enemy. A seriously scary enemy. The goat fucking al quaeda losers just aren't scaring the real 'Mericans like they used to. But fucking with Russia? Yea, that'll do the trick. Duck and cover motherfuckers. And vote for the tough guy (by tough we mean cowardly tool, you understand).

Is there anything positive that we, as a species, have accomplished that the Republican's don't want to roll back? Anything? Please, help me out here. I'm at a loss.

Bring back the Berlin wall. Only this time without the art.

The Jouvert vibe

Revisiting these West Indian Days photos is really making me regret not being there this year. Taken as a whole, I can't think of a more interesting festival. It starts wit the innocent beauty of the very young, ends with the mature beauty of older folk, and passes the night in between with drinking, dope and sex in the streets. Ya just gotta be there to have any hope of understanding. Well, I'm living. I'm learning. Next year I'll shoot for the definitive.

57th and 7th

Practice, practice. Unfortunately, I'll be missing the West Indian Day festivities again this year. But anyone in New York on Labor Day weekend should consider it. Catch the Children's parade on Saturday, up where it starts (somewhere near Utica and Eastern Parkway) and walk the route to the BMA. Then get up very, very early on Monday morning, or just stay out and party all night on Flatbush (chuckling recommends) and participate in the Jouvert parade. Don't wear any finery though. You are likely to get painted or slimed in some way or other. Then, If you can really hold your liquor, get by on very little sleep and you are a masochist for over-commercialized crap that's not altogether uninteresting, go to the regular West Indian day parade on Eastern Parkway. If nothing else, you can always flip off Mayor Bloomberg. I usually miss that one, but I'm not saying you should. Just don't mistake it for the main event. When done right, I'd consider rating West Indian Day weekend as New York's number 1 experience, though of course there are contenders, more contenders, a hell of a lot more contenders -- it's fucking New York -- contender city, so you may have your own opinion. Still, it's definitely up there. Next year I'll make it a point to be in the city and show you.

Heads and holes

Carnegie hall

I'm sorry for the light posting lately. Flipping past MSNBC last night I saw an insipid hairdo announce something along the lines of "Obama's teenage drug use vs. McCain's messy divorce from his first wife. Stay tuned for the important details." As the election approaches, I'm sre I'll hole up in my room and only come out to watch Avatar reruns. And plenty of others are communicating my political thoughts, so I find it difficult to justify why I should bother adding to the chorus.

Last night I went to a series of presentations at NYU by gifted minority students who have spent the summer studying public policy issues and working at related internships. I wish more people could see things like this. It would wipe the racist bullshit from the minds from all but the most corrosively idiotic rejects. These are the kinds of kids, like Obama, who will get into Harvard Law or wherever they want to go, without identifying themselves as black or hispanic on the application. That, assuming they aren't collateral damage in a ghetto gun fight or shot 41 times by a trigger happy cop who can't tell a wallet from an Uzi.

But mainly I've been practicing photo techniques for an upcoming project. A big part of that has been evaluating different photo workflow and correction software. For anyone interested, I've been comparing Adobe Lightroom, Apple's Aperture, and LightZone. I have my likes and dislikes about each program, but quality-wise they are hard to compare. Typically, my moods change with the breeze and what I like while I'm processing a photo in LightZone might be completely different the next day when I process it in Aperture. Adobe's Lightroom, unfortunately, is such a mess I find it unusable. That's too bad because feature wise it is probably the best.

I'm considering starting a photo blog to discuss this shit, but am generally of the belief that artists shouldn't talk about their art. Best to leave it to the eye of the beholder. So we'll see. Or not.

Pastoral

More evidence that age stupifies

This from an article about how different generations of women perceive Hillary Clinton's recent presidential campaign. It is illustrative of so many issues.

They're hopeful, says the 59-year-old Leet, in part because "we brought them up to believe they can do anything."

Leet has two daughters, both in their early 20s. She says they didn't perceive the anti-woman rhetoric that she sensed during Clinton's campaign.

She got angry in particular with media coverage and was not shy about sharing her opinions with them.

Their response? They rolled their eyes, she says, and said something like, "God, Mom, get over it."

Sunday in the park

Dispatch from a Culture War

Through random browsing, I came across this article about Christian nut cases trying to shut down a porn shop and the lawsuits those efforts have engendered.

In short, a sex shop chain opened a franchise near a small town. Local Christians take pictures of the shop's patrons, publish them on-line, and contact their employers in the hope of driving away business and forcing the sex shop to shut down.

The legal arguments are all about zoning. The county granted the store a license without knowing what kind of business it would conduct. When they found out, they passed a zoning ordinance to shut them down. That case is pending. Meanwhile, the porn store is suing the county for not enforcing its zoning laws, allowing the Christians to build structures on county lands without a permit. They claim the protesters have cost them $300,000 in six months.

Although I am not one to patronize interstate porn shops, I'll make it a point to visit that one next time I'm in the area and get my picture published on line. It's not far from the Creation Museum so maybe I'll take the kids and make it another chuckling family educational field trip. I think it's important to teach young people about Christianity.

Even though I'd like to stop by and moon them, I actually agree with the Christian nuts on this issue. In the United States, they have all the constitutional rights they need to do what they are doing. With few restrictions that don't apply here, they can protest anything they choose to protest, take pictures of anyone who ventures out in the public sphere, and publish whatever they want to this world and beyond. The sad fact that they generally do not support those same rights for people with whom they disagree is not grounds for taking away their rights. Grounds for ridicule, yes. Oppression, no.

And frankly, I think porn shops should be zoned out of residential neighborhoods. Not because of what's inside them, but because of the kinds of people they attract. Of course I'm sure that upwards of 99.999 of porn patrons are not sex criminals, but still, some are and it's just not wise to have a business designed to attract the horny operating in a residential area.

But the porn business does have a point in its lawsuit against the county regarding selective enforcement of zoning laws. If a government does not enforce the laws, or not, the same way for everybody, then that government is not legitimate.

So hopefully all the laws will be enforced in a constitutionally consistent manner. And if the protesters can make the place unprofitable, let it close down. I'm just hoping I can get my ass on their web site before that happens.

Oooga boooga

Today's Washington Post provides a platform for an Alaskan villager to discuss some of the primitive beliefs and practices that make it so difficult for peoples everywhere to get good government. Heather Lende, apparently some kind of village storyteller, provides the same rationale for her continued support of the corrupt Alaskan senator Ted Stevens as primitives all over the world provide for their own personal Robert Mugabe's. At whatever cost to the nation.

Sure he's corrupt, but he buys her things, too.

Brooklyn today

Grandpa chuckling laments

Back to the personal narrative. I don’t think I mentioned that my wife Lola and son John Bob have been out of the country for awhile. Lola returns in a few days. John Bob is gone till September. There was an article in yesterday’s New York Times about how parents have become so insanely controlling that they can’t even send their kids off to camp without harassing the camp counselors pretty much every day. Poor little John Bob is all alone half way around the world with people he doesn’t know speaking languages he doesn’t speak. Most days we can’t even get through by telephone. The article said that one of the purposes of summer camp is to allow kids to deal with the world on their own. My guess is that this will help make him real smart. We’ll see.

So I’ve been alone with my teenage daughter Jane Bob. I know that sounds like a recipe for trauma, but we actually get along well. For the most part we don’t even see each other. I’m on an early schedule. She’s on a late. But the other night we went to see Powaqqatsi, the film by Godfrey Reggio with a score by Phillip Glass. Jane Bob is an interesting filmmaker and I thought she might be interested in the visuals. Me? I always like to see ambitious photography and I like Phillip Glass. Reggio's "quatsi" trilogy is very ambitious, and very well done photography.

Glass was there with an ensemble, the Brooklyn Children’s choir and a Muslim man who sang the Adhan with an incredible voice. An unexpected bonus: Glass and Reggio had a little conversation before the performance. I thought it was good for Jane Bob to hear how two very successful artists talked about collaboration. Reggio made the point that of course most serious artists have huge egos or they wouldn’t be taking on ambitious projects, but that for a collaboration to work it had to be done by people without superficial vanity. He said that Glass was constantly asking for criticism while they were producing the film.

But other than that little outing I’ve been more or less dead. It was a big deal getting the night shot of the elusive Totoro, but other than that I’ve just been photographing my windows and chairs. And to be honest, I haven’t actually been doing much of that.

With Lola gone I’ve been watching more tv than normal. Now I get to bitch about 100 + channels and nothing on just like everybody else. Ain’t life grand? I now realize that having her around is what makes me want to get out of the house. Don’t worry. I don’t want to get away from her in a bad, unhappy marriage or sexist way. It’s more that her presence makes me embarrassed to sit around on my ass doing nothing constructive. If I don’t produce art, she gets cranky. And she likes to be alone for long stretches as well. We are both hermits.

Anyway, I’ve mentioned before that I discover most of the television shows I like by walking through the living room and making fun of whatever Lola is watching. After doing that for a awhile, often a year or two, I eventually start liking the show and watch it religiously from there on out. The first one was Friday the 13th, the Series. Not the horror movies but the TV show about cursed objects. Then it was Star Trek the Next Generation. I had a good run of making jokes about how wimpy Picard is compared to Kirk. Usually something like, if that were Kirk, he'd just punch him in the face. Or if that were Kirk, he'd have fucked her five ways to Sunday by now. But eventually I got sucked in. Every two or three years I discover another show that way.

The newest entry in the pantheon is Avatar: The Last Airbender. It took awhile for that one to get to me. Kids' cartoons are such dreck these days that only John Bob pays attention to them so Lola and I didn’t really notice that he had been watching Avatar. It was Jane Bob who first played the chuckling role of walking through the living room and making fun of what John Bob was watching, then getting hooked. Eventually Lola sat down with the kids. Then it was like, all of a sudden, after at least a year, I noticed that all three of them were watching this stupid cartoon. So I thought I’d have a little sport. Now here we are. Again.

But other than Avatar, it’s been 100 + channels with nothing on. My fear was that I’d watch too much sports and, horror of horrors, start watching the cable news channels. I’ve done pretty well, though I have started watching MSNBC some. It’s mildly interesting to see the emergence of a liberal propaganda channel. Personally, I wish they would bring back the equal time law, do away with all these shallow, endlessly pontificating morons and return towards the ideal that journalists should report the news and, if they must analyze, do so with a real effort to be honest and objective. Not gonna happen. I know.

The only other hopes I had for cable were Public Access television and the music channels. I thought that Brooklyn would have interesting Public Access, but such has rarely been the case. It’s almost all religious crap or music videos, mostly from Caribbean people or very urban Americans. The music oriented shows are sometimes interesting at 2 or 3 am on a Saturday night, but I’m not awake during those hours as much as I used to be. Occasionally people try to produce arts oriented shows, but I have yet to see anything compelling.

And it appears I’m either too old or too cool for the music channels. Occasionally I see something I like on VH1 classic, but for the most part it’s crap like Kiss, Poison, or Motely Crue. With all the concert videos out there, you’d think they could do better. And I just no longer relate to the young kids and their videos. It was bound to happen some day. That plus it seems they don’t make them like they used to. From what I can tell, Lilly Allen is the only performer who gets MTV airtime and has consistently creative videos.

Yesterday, however, I was shocked to come across a great singer while flitting upon MTV. I couldn’t imagine how she got on a music channel singing the blues with that voice. Had I heard it on the IPod, I would have thought I was listening to an old recording by someone like Billie Holiday. Turned out it was Amy Winehouse. I occasionally read about her travails in the gossip pages, but had no idea she could actually sing.

Thus wraps up this installment of grandpa chuckling laments. I know, I know. Feel free to drop by and shoot me. On the positive side, there is a fire on the horizon. I can almost feel it.

Why we are losing - Part 7562

Senate Republicans today defeated an increase in aid to low income people who struggle to pay their energy bills. The vote was 35 to 55, with the 35 being the victors. Democrats were reportedly frustrated. Why? You'd think they'd be used to getting their asses handed to them by half as many Republicans. Seems to happen every day.

If it's so easy to defeat legislation, which for Republicans it apparently is, one wonders why the Democrats couldn't manage it when they were so busy giving away the farm during the Bush years. What's to wonder ese? They can't win when they have a majority. Why would they fight when they are outnumbered?

And where was Barack Obama during this important vote? Oh, he is in Europe. Great, but why couldn't the Democrats wait for him to get back. It was a rare saturday session. Were the Democrats trying to lose before he could get back and make an issue out of it? If played right, McCain and the Republicans' failure to help people could be a day's news leader. Obama votes to help low income people with their energy bills. Where is McCain? What's his problem?

A functional political party would be peppering asshats like McCain and his thoroughly corrupt colleagues with valid questions about their actions. Instead, theyare on the defensive. Can it really be that difficult? I don't see how.

Today's photo (totoro)

Who you callin nigger?

Both Jesse Jackson and Whoopi Goldberg made the news this week for using the word "nigger." Jackson, as I'm sure you know, got caught using it in what he thought was a private conversation. Goldberg used it repeatedly on the daytime television show "The View." Jackson has been in the forefront of those arguing that the word should be verboten. Goldberg argues that it’s okay for blacks to call other blacks "nigger." No one else, however, should be allowed to use the word. That's because, according to Goldberg, blacks live in a different world that only those with certain melanin levels can understand.

I am in the "not okay to call people nigger" camp. Basically, my reasoning is that the word harms people psychologically and keeps a lot of us down socially and economically. How many times do we hear something along the lines of “you can’t imagine how it feels to be called a nigger?” And calling others nigger is widely considered low class for both blacks and whites. It certainly limits one’s job opportunities.

I fear that older African Americans such as Jesse Jackson and Whoopi Goldberg are so damaged by the racism they have experienced in their own lives that some part of them wants the younger generations to experience that same pain. I actually consider Jackson to be the least hypocritical of the two. He knows it is wrong to call African Americans nigger and has fought to get people to stop using it. Goldberg, on the other hand, revels in her right to call black people nigger.

And Goldberg demonstrates a larger pathology. On “The View” she repeatedly referred to her belief that blacks and whites live in different worlds and that there should be different rules for what people can say based on the world in which they live.

Now I’ve lived abroad and traveled quite a bit and have witnessed the fact that peoples often do live in different worlds. And I am aware that, historically, African Americans have all too often lived in a different world from the white majority.

But this “different world” for African Americans is widely recognized as a very bad thing. It is a world in which whites enjoyed significantly more privilege and opportunity than blacks. It is a reality which many people have fought hard to change for hundreds of years. And it is a reality that we have had a lot of recent success in changing. Not for all, but for many. And the trend going forward is very positive.

Unfortunately, sick twits like Whoopi Goldberg (whose different world is upper class New York/Hollywood btw) want to keep blacks mired in that different world; the one in which they most likely can neither succeed nor escape. I trust she doesn't consciously want to keep her niggers down, but that's the result of her beliefs about using the word "nigger."

And who, exactly, is Whoopi calling nigger? She’s calling people who live in housing projects nigger. She’s calling the black working class nigger. She’s calling the African and West Indian immigrants nigger. She’s calling black professionals nigger. She’s calling mixed people like Barack Obama nigger. She's calling Ivy League achievers like Michelle Obama nigger. And she’s calling the cute little Obama children nigger too. That’s what angers me. Whoopi Goldberg is calling innocent little children nigger.

Black children nowadays are very unlikely to experience the trauma of being called nigger from the mouth of a white racist. No, the first, fifth, and five thousandth time they are called nigger will be out of the mouth of an African American. Thanks Whoopi. You are sick

Whoopi Goldberg, and many fucked-up-beyond-repair people like her, argue that calling young children nigger is a form of empowerment. Well, perhaps it gives those who call young children nigger a sense of empowerment, but it certainly doesn’t empower those young children. It hurts them.

The word “nigger” is the opposite of empowerment for blacks, particularly the lower economic classes. It is a wound for all. A shackle for all too many.

Addendum: I am aware that in blog world, it is right bloggers who overwhelming, albeit superficially, share my position on this. I see no evidence that they believe a word of what they are saying. For them, Jackson and Goldberg's hypocrisy is just a weapon. That, and as so many note, wingnuts probably feel victimized and lash out because they want to call blacks niggers and society won't let them.

A commenter at the conservative"Hot Air" blog, responding to Goldberg's idiocy, expresses the conservative mindset quite well:

Can we ship them all back to Africa then? I mean really, how much more of this crap do we have to put up with? It just goes on and on and when you think they can’t be serious you realize they are.

I figured, OK give them Barak Hussein Obama and maybe the deal would be that we no longer have to listen to these people who are so not victims of anything whine about their victimhood...

Victimhood indeed.

Another photo

Window

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The new ballgame

Have you noticed how pretty much nothing remains of left field? The New York Times this morning has a piece about how "far leftists" are abandoning Senator Obama's campaign, yet it never tells us what defines the "far left."

The photo that accompanies the story seems to imply that two young twenty-somethings are far leftists. It's a terrible photo--off kilter with some guy's out-of-focus stomach protruding from the right, but I guess the photographer felt the need to keep his distance in case the leftists were to do something radical. They don't look particularly dangerous though. It's true that one is wearing some kind of message buttons, though we can't make out what they say, and the other has on a green shirt, which is ominous, but otherwise they just look like a couple middle class college kids.

The story's only example of a political belief embraced by the far left is an opposition to warrantless domestic spying. When I was a young'un, the far left wanted to nationalize industry, collectivize the farms and further the cause of international Communism. If opposition to warrantless domestic spying now defines the far left, then everyone in the United States except J. Edgar Hoover was a crazy radical before the second attack on the World Trade Center.

But as many note, we live in a post second-attack-on-the-World Trade Center-world. Americans now share a broad consensus that the police should be able to do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want (as long as it's someone else). Anyone who believes in politically incorrect parts of the constitution such as the First or Fourth Amendments is obviously a far leftist. The constitution, you see, is what the party in power says it is, at least as long as far leftists are not in power.

It's not until the end of the article that we get any other hint of what actually defines a far leftist.

Ms. Shade, the Green-turned-Democrat-returned-Green voter, spoke about Mr. Obama while leaning out her second-floor apartment window, where she has placed homemade signs urging the impeachment of President Bush. Others say “Free Gaza” and “Occupation is Terrorism.” She said twice that the American political system was “rotten.”

Not exactly nationalized industry or collective farms, but with a little analysis the definition of a far leftist begins to take shape.

The word green is the first giveaway. Green is the new Red. Then the fact that the woman has homemade signs. Any decent American would contribute to the economy (even if it's China's) by purchasing their signs. And off course anyone advocating the impeachment of Bush is a far leftist. That's practically the same thought crime as reading the constitution. And anything that remotely smacks of opposition to government-approved military conquest is marks one indelibly as a far leftist.

But while all of those thought crimes might conceivably be excused as legitimate policy difference or the idealism of youth, I suspect the girl's gravest crime, and that of the other far leftists, is the forbidden thought that the American political system is rotten. She didn't just say it once. As the reporter for the NY Times emphasized, she said it twice! That's out there, man. Out in left field.

Picture of today