Monkey Tales (9.30.07) Weekend Edition

The Washington Post reports that President Bush may well be mankind’s savior in the fight against global warming. “Mr. Bush Gets Warmer” reads the headline and the lede is a positive diplomatic quote from the German foreign minister:

This here was a great step for the Americans and a small step for mankind.

The “great step” is that Mr. Bush is boldly calling for America and the rest of the world to do nothing whatsoever about global warming. In other words, he has made a minor change to his rhetoric, but not changed his position in the least.

The Guardian demonstrates that professional journalism is not entirely dead, at least outside the US:

George Bush was castigated by European diplomats and found himself isolated yesterday after a special conference on climate change ended without any progress.

European ministers, diplomats and officials attending the Washington conference were scathing, particularly in private, over Mr Bush's failure once again to commit to binding action on climate change.

Britain and almost all other European countries, including Germany and France, want mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse emissions. Mr Bush, while talking yesterday about a "new approach" and "a historic undertaking", remains totally opposed.

Congrats again to the WaPo for patriotically reporting the administration's talking points rather than what acutally went down. Bush gives a major speech in which he proposes nothing new and is ridiculed by the rest of the world. and they describe it like this:

Mr. Bush's great step was a small step for humanity because he did not budge from his insistence that whatever action the nations take be voluntary.

A real newspaper, in contrast, actually reports what everyone involved is saying;

It was a total charade and has been exposed as a charade," the diplomat said. "I have never heard a more humiliating speech by a major leader. He [Mr Bush] was trying to present himself as a leader while showing no sign of leadership. It was a total failure."

Humiliation? A total failure? Bush? Who woulda thunk it? Better question: Who woulda reported it?

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The Post also reports that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a stark raving mad wingnut who shouldn’t be allowed to rule on a parking violation.

Justice Clarence Thomas settles scores in an angry and vivid forthcoming memoir, scathingly condemning the media, the Democratic senators who opposed his nomination to the Supreme Court, and the "mob" of liberal elites and activist groups...

Liberal elites? The liberal elites, we’re learning, are the elders of Zion of the 21st century. They secretly control everything, hate their country and conspire with enemies to bring about its downfall, eat Christian babies, and are responsible for all of your problems (pssst, most of them are Jews as well). Good to know one of the most powerful and influential guys in the nation is on top of the problem. And he obviously is settling scores with those liberals, Democrats, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison though his rulings in the Supreme Court, not just through the right wing vanity press machine.

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The New York Times reports that the south is making great strides toward racial equality. In this incident, one of their brown-skinned reporters was handcuffed and thrown face down on the hood of a squad car because he was out after dark.

“This is America,” I said angrily, in that moment supremely unconcerned about whether this was standard police procedure or a useful law enforcement tool or whatever anybody else wanted to call it. “I have a right to talk to anyone I like, wherever I like.”

The female officer trumped my naïve soliloquy, though: “Sir, this is the South. We have different laws down here.”

Note how the cop called him “Sir” as they ignored his constitutional rights and brutally attacked him. Good to see such progress. Better to be called sir than nigger as the cops kick the shit out of you for being black, I guess.

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On the pundit front, New York TIme columinist Frank Rich can’t understand Hillary Clinton:

So far her post-first-lady record suggests a follower rather than a leader. She still can't offer a credible explanation of why she gave President Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq (or why she voted against the Levin amendment that would have put on some diplomatic brakes). That's because her votes had more to do with hedging her political bets than with principle. Nor has she explained why it took her two years of the war going south to start speaking up against it. She was similarly tardy with her new health care plan, waiting to see what heat Mr. Edwards and Senator Obama took with theirs. She has lagged behind the Democratic curve on issues ranging from the profound (calling for an unequivocal ban on torture) to the trivial (formulating a response to the MoveOn.org Petraeus ad).

That’s cause she’s a Republican Frank. A Republican. And it's Bush she's following. Once you come to terms with those facts, it all makes perfect sense.

Elsewhere, Maureen Dowd provides some real insight:

Without nepotism, Hillary would be running for the president of Vassar. But then, without nepotism, W. would be pumping gas in Midland — and not out of the ground.

Yep, in their cases, though I think in the bigger picture it’s going beyond nepotism. With the effective end of progressive income and estate taxes, we are quickly developing a culture of hereditary rule, both in government and industry. As more and more third, fourth, fifth, etc. generations of trust fund idiots replace their already degenerating predecessors, the future will become increasingly bleak.

On a side note, a lot of people wonder how Maureen Dowd got, and keeps, her job. I’m not saying it’s nepotism. My guess would be the old “who you know” or “who was in your ivy league sorority,” but I’m not totally on-board with the Daily Howler or Atrios on the subject. Although it’s true that so many of her columns are superficial and harmful to progressive politics, she is a sharp, funny writer and her quips, like the one above, can be quite entertaining and sometimes illustrate the truth of the matter. Anyway, there's enough dour and serious propaganda in the media. In that context, I don't really mind a place for someone like Dowd who at least brings a bit of levity and bipartisanship to the enterprise.

In other pundit news, Jim Hoagland (who knew he was still alive?) reinforces his frontrunner status (not counting Richard Cohen, of course) in the “most irrelevant pundit on the planet” competition.

Circumstances may be just desperate enough for reason and good will to break out suddenly,

he writes in an articled headlined “A Small Outbreak of Mideast Hope.” Yea, and wishes are fishes. We’ll cast our nets and reap the riches!

Meanwhile, the WaPo’s biggest blowhards (behind Richard Cohen, champ-for-life), George Will and David Broder give the old one-two punch to Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama, pressing them to stop pretending not to know the future and detail exactly what they would do as president. It would, of course, be nice if politicians would stand up for what they believe in, if indeed they believe in anything, rather than tailor non-answers to avoid pissing off key constituencies, but it’s just sick that wankers like Will and Broder routinely make these demands of (nominal) Democrats when they gave Bush--whose policy proposals in 2000 were at least equally vague, obviously disingenuous when not outright dishonest, and the moron couldn’t even remember what they were--a free pass.

Why does the post continue to employ such a stable of miserable failures? Must be a hell of a satisfying circle jerk around there.

And speaking of miserable failures (pundit class), back at the Times, Thomas Friedman notes that it's not 9/11/01 anymore and suggests we move on to 9/12/01. Knock knock, Tom. It's 2007!

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In religious news, the New York Times magazine presents a piece on an up-and-coming evangelical college in Idaho and bemoans their persecution by liberals. There is, of course, no documentation of any persecution of liberals, but the college’s founder claims it, so it must be true. The guy is very serious about his religion, so we must respect his views.

Doug Wilson proudly declares himself more right-wing than most Idaho conservatives. “They voted for Bush; I’d vote for Jefferson Davis,”

Wilson emphasizes his flexibility when it comes to Old Testament law. “You can’t apply Scripture woodenly,” he says; instead of executing them, “you might exile some homosexuals, depending on the circumstances and the age of the victim.” He adds: “There are circumstances in which I’d be in favor of execution for adultery...

An up-and-coming college teaches that perhaps homosexuals should merely be exiled (to where? Dachau perhaps?) rather than tied to a fence and beaten to death and that adulterers should be executed (stoned to death, presumably), and the article leads with their old fashioned classical curriculum and persecution by liberals? Kinda burying the lede, eh? What other kind of violent psychotic crap is lurking beneath the surface?

The article does get to some of it. The college’s intellectual foundation is provided by a real nut case:

a Dutch theologian named Cornelius Van Til introduced a kind of theology called presuppositionalism. He argued that no assumptions are neutral and that the human mind can comprehend reality only if proceeding from the truth of biblical revelation. In other words, it is impossible for Christians to reason with non-Christians. presuppositionalism is a strangely postmodern theory that denies the possibility of objectivity — though it does not deny the existence of truth, which belongs to Christians alone.

According to critics, this school of thought equips young Christians to read and discuss non-Christian ideas without ever taking them seriously. “The trouble is that once you’ve figured out someone’s presuppositions, you can write them off as right or wrong without having to deal with their arguments. . . . It becomes anti-intellectual,” says Darryl Hart, a historian...

All aboard the Dark Ages Express. Next stop Inquisition.

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And finally, in news that brings together religion and sports, Notre Dame’s football team went 0-5 yesterday and has yet to even be competitive in a game. This is notable because three years ago they were a program on the rise, with a great coach and top recruits, poised to reclaim their dynasty. The problem was, the good Catholics who run the university had not realized that the great coach, Ty Willingham, was black. Apparently, spending so much time in their cloisters, they did not know that Ty was short for Tyrone.

They were embarrassed, of course, but they couldn’t fire him immediately. And after three years, the situation was becoming dire. Willingham had a veteran team led by the nation’s top quarterback and they were sure to challenge for a national championship during the next two years. The good Christians at Notre Dame couldn’t let that happen. If he won a national championship, they’d be saddled with the nigger for the devil knows how long. So they fired him and hired some white guy with no college coaching experience. With Willingham’s very well-coached players, the inexperienced white guy was able to do okay for a couple years, but the good Christian folk who run the university realized that things were going downhill fast, so they gave him a lucrative ten year contract.

Notre Dame has taken a lot of abuse over the years for the perception that winning football games was more important than any nonsense about Christian values. This incident shows just how wrong that accusation was. It’s clear now that they would rather field the worst team in the country than win national championships with a black coach.

Willingham, meanwhile, is successfully rebuilding the University of Washington program and their future looks bright. The U-Dub is obviously lacking in Christian values.

Monkey tales (9.28.07) - america first edition

War crimes and murder? Old news, even when made new again. The recent revelation (what’s it been? Two days?) that the U.S. military systematically shoots Iraqis for sport has already faded from the national consciousness.

US soldiers are luring Iraqis to their deaths by scattering military equipment on the ground as "bait", and then shooting those who pick them up... The highly controversial tactic, which has hitherto been kept secret, is believed to have been responsible for the deaths of a number of Iraqis who were subsequently classified as enemy combatants and used in statistics to show the "success" of the "surge" in US forces.

Yet again, we wring our hands and whisper the horror, but on we move confident that tomorrow, or next week at the latest, will reveal a new atrocity. Murder. torture. war crimes, chemical weapons, kidnappings, secret prisons, secret trials, and so on. Nothing is shocking anymore. We might as well steel ourselves to the inevitable reports of cannibal battalions eating the entrails of Iraqi children. National security, you know. If we don’t eat their children’s entrails over there, they’ll be eating ours over here.

This morning, however, I will indulge in a thought exercise and, like most people, try to examine things solely from the American point of view. I mean, fuck a bunch of Iraqis. They are evil, dirty things consumed by hatred and envy at all things good and holy (i.e. us) and shooting them for sport is probably the cost of a bullet more than they deserve. Okay?

But what about our troops? What about these fine young Americans who shoot these “people” for sport? How will it affect their psyche? Will murdering unarmed civilians be a character building experience that will contribute to the commonweal? Will our citizen soldiers return radiating moral strength gained from that experience? Will they wear their medals proudly?

Or will they be weaker types, you know, those who might become psychologically damaged by participating in mass murder, torture and oppression. I know it’s hard to believe, which is probably why nobody ever talks about it, but historically, there are those who don’t find serving their country by murdering unarmed civilians morally uplifting. Some become consumed with guilt, have nightmares, or commit suicide. Others try to numb the pain with drugs, alcohol or other self-destructive behavior. Some will become deranged and live on the street. A small percentage will become sadistic, or hardened in the sadism that was already there. They might beat their wives and children. A few will no doubt take up arms against their fellow citizens. Go postal on our asses. We have every reason to expect some negative fallout.

It’s unfortunate, I know, but murder is often not good psychologically for the murderer. Experience tells us that many of these fine young men will be seriously fucked up. Doesn't anyone care about our troops?

And I dare say it’s not good for the society either. When we put a gun in a young man's hand, or a bomb at his fingertips, and tell him to murder civilians, or a cattle prod in a young woman's hands and tell her to shove it up some brown guy's ass, it doesn't just harm them (and who cares about the Iraqis), it harms all Americans.

There are so many ways Bush’s stupid wars are damaging to our national security. It’s unfortunate that we rarely consider that one. But we will, we will.

Update: Krugman fleshes out the story a bit, focusing on our mercenaries.

What we do know is that more than 20 civilians were killed, including the couple and child in the car. And the Iraqi version of events is entirely consistent with many other documented incidents involving security contractors.

For example, Mr. Singer reminds us that in 2005 “armed contractors from the Zapata firm were detained by U.S. forces, who claimed they saw the private soldiers indiscriminately firing not only at Iraqi civilians, but also U.S. Marines.” The contractors were not charged. In 2006, employees of Aegis, another security firm, posted a “trophy video” on the Internet that showed them shooting civilians, and employees of Triple Canopy, yet another contractor, were fired after alleging that a supervisor engaged in “joy-ride shooting” of Iraqi civilians.

Perhaps those individuals are all ready too morally fucked up to save, but the point remains about the damage they do to our society and national security.

Monkey Tales (9.27.07) doormatocrat debate edition

The Washington Post reports that Hillary Clinton, the Republican front runner in the upcoming presidential election, would staunchly defend and perpetuate Bush’s policies of war and economic insanity.

“...the candidates debated how to make the Social Security system solvent. Clinton refused to point to specific remedies.

"I think it's important that you cannot give away what you're going to be negotiating over when it comes to Social Security until you make it clear that fiscal responsibility has got to be the premise of the negotiation," Clinton said,

Must fiscal responsibility be the premise of the negotiation? Yes, if you are a Republican. That little social security check won’t even cover the champagne and caviar budget. Who needs it? Better to invest in a hedge fund, oil companies and defense contractors and/or buy another summer home.

Normal people, however, think that providing social security, you know, enough money for the elderly to cover their basic needs, should be the premise of any negotiation about Social Security.

Regarding Bush’s war in Iraq, Clinton stressed that she would continue his policies.

saying those combat missions would be aimed at eradicating al-Qaeda in Iraq...

Yes, it’s necessary for the Bush/Clinton war strategy to keep al-Qeada in Iraq active and the only way to do that is to keep troops there as targets. If we were to remove the troops, there would be no al-Qeada in Iraq and we would need to find a new excuse to stay there and feed the ”defense“ industry trillions of dollars.

Clinton also stressed her support for Bush to expand the war to Iran, defending her vote for a law that designates a large part of their armed forces as ”terrorists,“ a bill widely acknowledged as laying the groundwork for war. John Edwards, rushing to her defense, claimed that she simply did not understand the issue, that she had learned nothing from her support of Bush in the lead up to the Iraq war. Realistically however, she’s demonstrating that she learned a lot from how Bush got us into it, that she has learned an effective way to start a disastrous war for no good reason (for the majority of Americans and mankind) and that as president she would use that experience to start one with Iran.

If a war with a much smaller, largely disarmed Iraq costs $200 + billion a year, how much would a war with the larger, better armed Iran cost? Would fiscal responsibility be the premise of the negotiation? If that war spawned tens of thousands of new terrorists and made the world a much more dangerous place, how many terrorists would a war with Iran spawn? We could have virtually countless excuses for countless military opertaions. From the Republican point of view, fiscal responsibility is cutting social security so we can afford endless, stupid wars that pad the portfolios of their investors, err campaign donors, err constituents. It’s reassuring that Hillary Clinton, the Republican front runner has her priorities straight.

In the same article the Post reports that Gov. Bill Richardson and Rep. Dennis Kucinich were somehow allowed to participate in the Republican debate, but patriotically doesn’t report anything that they had to say.

Monkey tales (9.26.07)

The Bush administration and their Republican cohorts are responsible for so many splashy, headline grabbing catastrophic failures--tales of death, destruction, and economic ruin--that the depth of their crimes often goes unnoticed and uncommented upon. And even when the major media does notice, they jump through rhetorical hoops to cover for them.

The Interior Department’s program to collect billions of dollars annually from oil and gas companies that drill on federal lands is troubled by mismanagement, ethical lapses and fears of retaliation against whistle-blowers, the department’s chief independent investigator has concluded.

You see? In the New York Times Stylebook, rampant corruption becomes mismanagement and ethical lapses.

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It’s still too soon to tell, but the early returns are encouraging that the Bush administration’s plan, along with the toadies at the Ny Daily News and Post, to bolster the power and status of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been a success.

Mohsen Rezai, a former head of the Revolutionary Guards, denounced on the state-run news channel the inhospitable treatment of Mr. Ahmadinejad. “He is the president of a country,” he said. “It is shocking that a country that claims to be civilized treats him that way.”

Bush is criticized, and rightly so, for many of his miserable failures, but you have to give credit where credit is due. His administration has certainly been successful in helping out Mr. Ahmadinejad politically and furthering Iran’s interests throughout the middle east and Afghanistan.

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In religious news, a prominent Mormon, considered by many to be a prophet, is convicted of aiding in the rape of a 14 year old girl. The rapist, a cousin she was forced to marry, was not charged.

The polygamist Warren S. Jeffs, hailed by his followers as a prophet but denounced by critics as a tyrannical cult leader, was convicted here on Tuesday of being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old church member.

That is just another incident that demonstrates what a decadent society we have become. The Bible is full of prophets and heroes who married their 14 year old cousins (plural). When you consider how far we have gotten from the Bible, it’s no wonder there is so much wrong in the world. If people really believed in their religion, just about everybody would get stoned.

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In sports, it turns out that the New England Patriots cheated their way to their Super Bowl victories and actually cheated during them.

But if the Patriots' tapes and documents contained no indication of cheating in the Super Bowl, it would be strongly in the NFL's interest to publicize this. Instead, the New England documents were shredded within roughly 48 hours of the NFL receiving them -- see timeline below. The rapid shredding occurred although Goodell said nothing about plans to destroy the materials when he was on national TV vowing his purpose was "maintaining the integrity of the NFL."

So the NFL joins the NBA, Major League Baseball, and professional Cycling among the ranks of the cheaters. Who would have guessed that Professional Wrestling’s business model would dominate all major sports?

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In related news, government wants to ensure your right to fast and easy wealth, or a good time if nothing else.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said yesterday that he will propose slot machine gambling legislation "very similar" to a failed 2005 plan that sought to legalize 9,500 machines at racetracks and other locations...

If mom loses the house in the process, well, it was her own fault. Next, Gov. O’Malley plans to introduce legislation to sell drugs to teenagers. “Why shouldn’t we get a piece of that action?” he asked, rhetorically.

*

Ah, time is short and I’ve just started with the Wapo. Bush’s virtual fence isn’t working out as planned. Who woulda thunk it. Romney is embracing change. Of course he is. Airlines are urged to provide better customer service. I’m sure that initiative will produce results as soon as government guarantees their profits. World leaders press U.S. on climate change. That’s news? Episcopalians vow restraint on teh gay. Yep. Nation’s report card shows improvement? We’re #1! We’re #1! Feel better now?

The road always leads west

Just saw Into the Wild, the new movie directed by Sean Penn with my daughter Jane Bob. As regular readers know, I am very shallow as a reviewer, rarely recapping the story on the off chance you, reader, may someday see the movie.

So I’ll just say this: Into the Wild is very well-written, well-filmed, well-edited and well-acted. A beautiful film containing great insight and depth. The soundtrack, largely written and performed by Eddie Vedder, is very good as well. The central theme emerges slowly and is quite poignant when finally revealed. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes great story and cinematography and doesn’t require car chases and explosions. There is very little sex and violence and only a few bits of innocent nudity. As movies go these days, it is all very mild and not at all inappropriate for a mature kid. I’d only say it would be inappropriate for an immature kid because of its length and pacing. It is about two and a half hours,and although it never really drags, it does, as already mentioned, lack car chases and explosions. Jane Bob and I were never bored and I think cutting any of the parts would seriously detract from the whole.

Of course I am just another character with opinions on the internets, not a professional movie reviewer, but for what it’s worth I think Sean Penn is one of the best writer/directors working today. I was shocked the first time I saw Indian Runner on late night cable. It was such a great movie. I had no idea it was by Sean Penn and probably thought of him as Mr. Madonna back then anyway. The Crossing Guard and The Pledge were incredibly well made movies as well. All of his films are subtle and meaningful. The cinematography is often breathtakingly beautiful. And he gets a lot out of his actors. I’ve never had any idea how they go about Oscar nominations, I’d say Hal Holbrook deserves supporting actor consideration for his work in Into the Wild.

And on a personal level, I relate to the main character in Into the Wild. I too went west on spiritual journeys and did a lot of stupid things pursuing whatever it was I pursued. I'm not so sure I've come to the same conclusions as Penn on how we can best relate to incredible natural beauties, but I understand where he's coming from. It's a great place if you can get there. Staying too long... well that could turn into something else.

Monkey tales sunday edition (9.23.07)

In another triumph of the Free Market, a company purchased 49 nursing homes in Florida, cut costs and made millions of dollars for their top executives and investors. Unfortunately, the nursing home residents didn’t fare so well.

“They’ve created a hellhole,” said Vivian Hewitt, who sued Habana in 2004 when her mother died after a large bedsore became infected by feces.

That is truly sad, but you can’t blame the Free Market, much less lack of government regulation. These people in nursing homes should have done a better job taking care of themselves--you know, lived on a diet of fruit and vegetables jogged 10 miles a day, taken their vitamins and used those supplements that stop the aging process. People like us, the voters, realize that we will never grow old and get sick and neither will our parents. Better to have those private nursing home companies in our stock portfolios so we can buy yachts and private jets for our retirements.

*

In Iraq news, beyond the everyday carnage, the Iraqi government is making noises about prosecuting individuals from Blackwater USA, a company that supplies us with mercenaries who are legally authorized to murder people just for the fun of it, and often do.

A provision originally called Order 17, signed by L. Paul Bremer III in 2004, while he was the top American administrator in Iraq, was later enshrined into Iraqi law, effectively giving security companies working for the United States immunity from prosecution here.
Perhaps for that reason, no Western contractors of any kind are known to have been convicted of any crimes in Iraq.

As long as it’s legal and someone’s profiting, I don’t see any problem. What’s the point of conquering a country if you can’t murder people? It’s not just about oil.

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In other Iraq news, President Bush is asking for an additional $50 billion to fund our murder sprees in Iraq and Afghanistan through 2008

The increase would bring the amount the administration is seeking to finance the war effort through 2008 to almost $200 billion.

Spending $200 billion in a year averages out to be over $561 million a day. I wonder how many murders that buys? Good thing there's nothing else we could possibly spend that kind of money on.

*

On the imminent arrival of the anti-Christ front, the Times reports that Jewish and Arab scientists are working together and explains the heretical nature of the endeavor.

as Dr. Sowwan explained to me over the echoing and crackling telephone line to East Jerusalem: “Science and technology are universal languages like music and not connected to any religion or politics. We can do a lot right here with friends around the world.”

That's like dogs and cats fucking. A clear sign that the end times are upon us. and science and technology? Universal languages? Not connected to religion or politics? Friends around the world? Rarely have I seen a sentence that so appallingly captured the socialist/athiest mindset. These people are supposed to be killing each other. Our national security, as well as our future in the afterlife, depend on it.

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In other news on religion, following the lead of our own Republican party, religious fruitcakes are taking over the Russian schools in order to turn Russian children into ultra-nationalist morons.

“Sacred orthodoxy transformed and revived the Slavic soul after becoming its moral and spiritual foundation,” Ms. Telnova said, quoting Patriarch Alexy II. “Through the ages, Christianity helped to create a great country and a great culture.”

Next step: Fox News in the classrooms. That can’t end well.

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And finally, in the Washington Post is the government's butt-boy department, we get this hed and subhed:

Bush Steps Out Front on Climate Issue
But No Policy Shift Is Planned as Nations Begin Debate on Post-Kyoto Accord

Translation:

Bush Keeps Head up Ass on Climate Issue.
Wapo keeps head up Bush's Ass


Then we have the old standard:

Bush, Democrats Duel On Children's Insurance

An article in which the Post reports how the Republicans and Democrats call each other names, but fails to detail what the actual issues are concerning children's health insurance.

*

There's more, much more, but the day is upon me and I have things to do. I saw Into the Wild yesterday and should have a little write-up on it by tonight, if you're interested.

Monkey tales (9.22.07)

Just a few notes from reading the Saturday morning news:

In the ongoing Republican presidential candidates' contest to see who can be the most pathetic panderer to the right wing boobs, Rudy Giuliani attained a new level of absurdity.

Rudolph W. Giuliani yesterday sought to persuade members of the National Rifle Association to look past his lengthy record of pushing for tougher gun control by saying that his views on this issue had been changed by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Yes, if New Yorkers had all been armed on 9/11 we could have shot down those planes before they crashed into the towers. Or maybe if citizens just shot Muslims or other suspicious types on sight, we'd all be a lot safer from a terrorist attacks. Perhaps Rudy will propose a law to make shooting people for the hell of it legal? Something like that would get him that NRA support he craves. And our troops and mercenaries in Iraq, as well as the Iraqis themselves, can shoot whomever they want. Why can't we can't do it here? After all, we saved their sorry asses from Saddam.

*

A lot of people have noticed that Hillary Clinton generally supports Bush’s worst policies. Apparently Bush himself has taken note of this as well.

Bush made no explicit election predictions, according to some in the room, but clearly thought Clinton would win the Democratic nomination and talked in a way that seemed to suggest he expects her to succeed him -- and will continue his Iraq policy if she does.

Of course Bush is wrong about almost everything, and that's encouraging, but I fear his predictions of Hillary carrying on his policies as president may well be accurate.

*

We also learn that Michael Vick has nothing on Orthodox Jews, who apparently don't have anything on the practitioners of Santeria.

The ritual, among the more awesome features of the Days of Awe -- the period of reflection between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur -- works like this: A person buys a chicken for about $7, then waves it in clucking circles above his head or enlists an on-site rabbi to do so. A prayer is said, symbolically transferring the person's sins to the chicken, whose throat is then slit.

Awesome? Not the word I would have chosen.

And religions deserve respect? Why exactly? We should recognize primitive barbarism for what it is and ridicule these people. Brutally killing animals to appease some make believe super being is no better than killing them for gambling purposes.

*

In Iraq news, aside from all the mass murders and cholera epidemic, evidence is presented that we have our priorities in good order.

The money spent on one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity,

Housing, health care for children? Fuck a bunch of that shit. We want murder. It makes us feel so good and manly. And renewable electricity? Without our need to waste so much oil, what excuse would we have for all that murder? Priorities people. Priorities.

*

And the government, ever on the lookout for the stupidest possible means to keep people safe from islamofascism or whatever , is keeping records of what we carry when we travel, including the books we're reading.

Officials yesterday defended the retention of highly personal data on travelers not involved in or linked to any violations of the law.

Of course they did. How could they not defend gathering information that may some day be used against us in a secret trial?

On my recent travels I carried books by Italo Calvino and Michel Houellebecq. Do you think that pegs me as a potential subversive or just another ineffectual English major type?

*

In science news, a study concluded that the little people of Indonesia whose bones were found a few years ago represent a distinct species from homo sapiens. Other scientists, of course, dismissed the findings. I don’t care either way, but the dissenter’s put down of the study is priceless. He describes it as “an exercise in the presentation of misleading ideas in an obfuscatory manner.”

An exercise in the presentation of misleading ideas in an obfuscatory manner. Pretty much sums up the news as a whole, eh?

Are you experienced?

Have you ever been experienced? Well, I have, but that’s a different story. For now let me tell you about the Patti Smith concert my daughter Jane Bob and I saw the other night.

In many ways, this has been my Patti Smithian year. Early on I discovered her recent work and have been listening to it a lot. Her cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Are you Experienced was one of our theme songs at Burning Man (I know it sounds hokey, but it worked out that way naturally). and now I saw her live in New York on what proved to be a special night. There are worse artists to focus on for a year. You can trust me on that. And I’m not so sure there are better.

The night began in strange and disturbing ways. Jane Bob and I went to a Sushi place in the East Village for a light dinner before the concert. I asked for a large Sapporo and we ordered the rest of the meal when the waitress brought the beer. Jane Bob asked for a diet Pepsi. So you won’t be needing that, the waitress asked. What? She pointed to a beer glass I hadn’t noticed she’d brought. What? She’s not having beer, the waitress asked. I was dumbfounded. She’s fifteen, I said. Apparently, they thought she was my date.

I admit that Jane Bob is a mature 15 and she was dressed in a concert-going outfit -- black and white checkered sleeveless top, tight black jeans and black leather boots -- and her hair was real big, but she’s still 15 and they shouldn’t be serving her alcohol. No doubt she and her little friends will be going out for Sushi some time real soon. And it continued when we left the restaurant and walked down St. Mark’s place. At a glance, you probably wouldn’t realize we are father and daughter. I have straight, faded blond hair and hers is black and curly. Guys on the street were giving me approving looks. One guy looked at her, looked at me and gave a thumbs-up sign. I’d always known that it was an ego boost for pathetic old guys to date young girls for the obvious reasons, but I was shocked by the public approbation. There’s apparently a lot more to the ego thing than just sex.

Anyway, we got to the Beacon Theater and Jane Bob wanted a t-shirt. There were four designs. Which one should I get, she asked. I’d go with the Radio Ethiopia one, I said. It was brown and had Aramaic scribbles along with a cool illustration. Or the Twelve. It was grey with the word “Twelve” and a peace sign. Or the green one. What did you get? I got the green one. I was going to get the Twelve but they were sold out of my size. Why didn’t you get Radio Ethiopia? I didn’t like the color. Why do you like it, she asked. I like the design, I said, plus nothing on it says Patti Smith and it’s an obscure album. Only true Patti Smith fans would recognize it. Ah, she said, you like it for the pretentious snob factor? Busted.

Patti Smith was the only act. She came out and told us it was a special show dedicated to her late husband Fred “Sonic” Smith whose birthday it would have been. Most of the songs would have something to do with their life together and she would explain the connections as she went along. I knew this meant that she would be playing a lot of new stuff, which made me happy since I spent several months listening to it obsessively. Earlier in the day I had made a joke at Roy’s blog that I’d be yelling “play the old stuff. Gloria!” I was kidding of course, it was the new stuff that I mostly wanted to hear, but as the night progressed, there were plenty of idiots in the audience yelling for Gloria. Of course I wanted to hear it as well, and I was confident that she would play it during one of the encores, but I thought it was incredibly tacky to holler for it, particularly given the personal, reflective nature of the evening.

The highest of the highlights included a rousing, emotional rendition of Dancing Barefoot and an incredible version of Smells like Teen Spirit. She never did play Gloria, ending the concert (almost anyway) instead with a killer take of Rock and Roll Nigger. There were plenty of other highlights. Gone again, Gimme Shelter and We Three were incredible as well.

I had seen Smith in 1979 and Rock and Roll Nigger transported me back to that night. Back then she was wild and contemptuous of the audience. Her band was very loud and energetic. The feedback was intense, often grating and nearly constant. At one point she put on an electric guitar and played a guitar solo that consisted of one note repeated over and over again. At first it was cool. Then it was funny. Then it was irritating. Then it was excruciating. And still she played it, long past excruciating. That was the spirt. I was glad to get back into it for one song at least. She’s not the only one who is nearly thirty years older than Easter.

The evening ended with Libby’s Song accompanied by her daughter on Ukulele. Her son, who also played guitar (quite well) with the band came out for a group hug and the evening was over. I can’t say that it was a great show technically, but it was a truly great show emotionally and it was Rock and Roll of the highest order. Who gives a flying fuck about technicalities? I’d put it among my top three favorite concerts. On second thought, no, that would knock her 1979 show down to number four. It was a great show though.

And it was a great experience for Jane Bob. As I mentioned, she is a mature fifteen and that is scary when waitresses are going to serve her and guys on the street think she's much older, but she was rapt during much of the show and genuinely did appreciate that she was seeing a special moment in Rock and Roll history. Patti Smith in New York celebrating Fred's birthday. It was a good place to be.

A day in the life

Here is the long-threatened Burning Man photo essay. The attempt is to give a taste of most of the major areas, from dawn to darkest night. Recommended way to view it (if your internet is fast enough): put on some music you like, prepare a drink and/or smoke, click on the first image and sit back and watch the slide show.

Naked white people dancing

This is part of a continuing effort to give you some idea of what it's like at Burning Man. A lot of naked white people dance. Semi-nude white people at least.

These photos, courtesy of Barbie Death Camp.

Think of the children

In one sense, getting a top three Google hit is simply 15 minutes in the 21st century, but put those petty thoughts of fleeting fame out of your mind, I say, and take a moment to weep for the hard working school kid who stays up late at night doing research for the big term paper and comes across poor chuckling as an authority. Do we need any more evidence that computers should be banned from school?

You may think the editors here at chuckling on-line magazine spend our days hitting Google with combinations of words we've used in hope of seeing our name in RGB, but in this case at least, I was just trying to confirm a few facts about Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee before commenting on an article in The New York Observer.

The article goes to great length detailing Huckabee's rhetorical prowess to support its contention that he could emerge as a contender in the Republican primaries, yet fails to mention a single relevant detail about Huckabee's politics. I find that notable because Huckabee is a moral and intellectual cretin who supports torture and denies science, and no doubt embraces most of the rest of the right wing wacko creed.

One would have hoped that after the years of media debacle that enabled George W. Bush to become president, start a stupid war, gut the constitution, and so on, that the media would be at least a bit wary of smooth talking morons and/or nut cases. But the Observer's Mr. Kornacki is having none of that.

Time and again, Mr. Huckabee asserted himself as the strongest orator of the bunch, combining the superficial—but ever vital—charm of Mitt Romney with a remarkable ability, honed during his years in the pulpit, to address bloodless policy topics in a language that is accessible and appealing to the common man.

Yes, charm, a remarkable ability to appeal to the common man. That's what we need. Huckabee's supporters must have to bite their tongues to keep from chanting "four more years!" Meanwhile the media puts on a fresh pair of kneepads.

******

Since I'm on the topic of the Observer, I'll mention that their writing about the arts is often fantastic and share John Heilpern's take on Mel Brooks in this week's edition.

They say he doesn’t care about the little man, but I say Mel Brooks is a little man. There are those who accuse him of not caring about the real theater lovers of this proud city, but I say what’s the upper balcony for? There are even those who call him an opportunistic apostle of unacceptable greed. And to that I say, what’s an apostle?

Great stuff, eh.

Scorched

Chuckling on-line magazine went all out to cover this year's Burning Man festival and has yet to kick much of that fine white dust off our shoes. As a small on-line publication, our resources are limited. Alcohol is far and away the largest item on the P&L statement for each article we publish. Nevertheless, we managed to fly all the way across the country, pick up an entourage and camp in a beautiful desert for a week. We sent a writer, a still photographer and a videographer, as well as a couple Sherpa-like dudes to carry the drugs, light our pipes, fill our cups, call our attention to all the beautiful semi-nude women, find the best parties and generally distract us from our journalistic duties. We were in California much of the time and a California frame-of-mind just about all of the time, so we can say "dude" as long as it's in a sentence that contains some kind of reference to illegal substances.

Anyway, we'll be publishing the results of this project in the coming weeks and months. You can probably expect to see photographs regularly and perhaps a slideshow or two. We'll try to provide a little blog-style commentary to fill the dead spaces. And Chuck has a story to tell, but that could take a few weeks. Don't hold your breath for the video project(s) (unless you want to), but feel free to look forward to them. There is no possible way to understand anything at all about Burning Man without being there, but video is as close as it gets.

Goodbye cruel world

FYI, I'll be away until after labor day. I hear there's a big green guy out in the desert that needs a burnin and I'm going to do my part, whatever that turns out to be. On the off chance you are in the vicinity, I'll be hanging out in or around a large, bullet-riddled metal poppy. Should be some photos, perhaps a little video, on my return. Who knows? Maybe even a campfire story.

EULA-Gee for democrats

The New York Times reports that the Democrats are at totally clueless bunch of losers who pass whatever constitution trashing laws that the Bush administration tells them to pass without even bothering to read the fine print:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 — Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans’ business records...

...lawmakers, in a frenetic, end-of-session scramble, passed legislation they may not have fully understood and may have given the administration more surveillance powers than it sought.

Of course it’s not news that the Democrats are pathetically weak and easily fooled, if not outright collaborators playing the same role the Washington Generals play for the Harlem Globetrotters.

No, what’s interesting in this is the modernization their craven ineptitude. The Democrats have entered the 21st century! They are no longer ink stained wretches wielding rubber stamps. Now they simply click the OK button on the computer screen to do what the Republicans tell them, just like clicking Yes to the End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) when installing software. Who the fuck has time to read that shit? Not the Democrats. And so what if they did? They'd click the fucking button anyway.

Murder inc.

I took an unexpected trip back to the heartland last weekend and found it very disturbing. Small town America, that mythical oasis of Christian family values, is becoming a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Most people have nice houses, multiple vehicles, and enough toys and gadgets to fill up their three car garage and 1500 square foot basement. Yet despite all their wealth, they are a deeply unhappy folk most of whom are on a never ending drug and alcohol binge. The great majority of young people’s marriages are ugly and the children suffer horribly. The elders, those who in idealistic times could be counted on to stand as moral paragons and provide wisdom are so tragically ill-informed as to render themselves functionally stupid.

To adequately describe the breadth of the tragedy is well beyond the limitations of chuckling on-line magazine, so for today’s installment we will limit ourselves to the question of how these elders have become so mind-numbingly ill-informed. I will offer these limited observations based on an extensive interview I conducted with the type of man typically referred to as a conservatard. He watches Fox News and listens to Rush Limbaugh and is in broad general agreement with whatever nonsense they peddle on any given day. Yet otherwise he is not a stereotype. In youth he studied economics and foreign affairs at a well-regarded liberal arts college. He is an active member of the Episcopal church and is on the gay-inclusive side of the schism. He is active in the local community, participating in many charitable and community organizations, including the local Republican party. And he is an excellent family man in just about every way you could possibly judge that kind of thing. So by almost any measure, this man--we’ll call him Grampa Bob for the sake of internet anonymity--is a very intelligent human being and a moral exemplar in so many areas of his life. Yet he supports the Bush administration’s insane murder spree abroad and destruction of the rule-of-law at home. Mass murder, torture, war crimes, horrible police state abuses, trashing of the constitution, and all other Bush fuck-ups ad nauseam--he excuses them all with the arguments of Fox News and hate radio. The Sermon on the mount rules Sunday morning. The rest of the week is more about Final Solutions. In other words, he is a moral monster in thought, if not in deed.

Normally we stay away from talking politics, but this time I debated him on a broad range of issues regarding the Bush administration's failures, particularly the Iraq war. For whatever reason (most likely an innovative combination of drugs and alcohol), I was at the top of my game rhetorically. I was unemotional, took nothing personally, was very eloquent, and my poor brain was able to recall and marshal an impressive array of facts to bolster my arguments without becoming the least bit angry or disrespectful.

The first, and greatest hurdle in these conversations is about factual matters. When you get into a discussion with a conservatard, it quickly degenerates into arguing about facts. They will cite things that are factually inaccurate to support their positions and challenge you on the accuracy of the facts that support yours. This in itself is normal, but it quickly becomes apparent that their “facts” rarely have any relation to reality. And these disagreements pile up fast and furious, turning an intellectual discussion into a schoolyard game of “is so!”--“is not!.”

This time I handled it by pointing out that I had neither the time nor the inclination to do the necessary research to prove him wrong on every single point (and granted, I’m sure I was wrong on a few). but that he could pick one thing that we disagreed on and that he was 100 percent was factually accurate and I would definitively prove that it was bullshit. The point of this would be to show how unreliable, to put it kindly, his information sources are and to get him to question his conclusions by proving that the "fact" he was most sure about was pure bullshit. So as the conversation progressed and he disputed indisputable fact after indisputable fact, I’d say “is that the one you want to choose? Is this it?” His pick changed quite a few times, but in the end he chose one, and then he was so sure I was wrong about something else that I gave him two for the price of one.

His first choice was interesting because it was currently being cited by the right wing noise machine and was as easy to disprove as an assertion that Robert E. Lee defeated Napoleon at the battle of Gettysburg and then marched on to take Chicago. He said that we had no choice to invade Iraq because Sadaam had thrown out Hans Blix and the U.N. arms inspectors. Well, no, the U.N. told them to leave after George W. Bush gave them two days to get out or face the threat of being bombed. I remembered this but it took all of five seconds to confirm it on Google.

That an intelligent, otherwise moral, and well-educated man can be so wrong about the recent historical record is a sign of something much deeper than one individual’s intellectual decline. I’m not prepared to go into it here but plan on writing about the phenomena in the near future. If you want to get a jump on it, I recommend Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brain-Washing by William Sargant. It’s an old book, but it explains the “9/11 changed everything” mentality like nothing else I’ve come across.

His second choice was much more interesting. I made the point that if George W. Bush had simply accepted the Taliban’s offer to turn Bin Laden over to a third country for trial, that Al Qaeda would be little more than a bad memory. Grandpa Bob nearly burst a blood vessel when I said that. He was absolutely, positively, 100 percent sure that the Taliban never made such an offer. Why? Several reasons: Bush would have to be a total idiot to turn it down and even if Bush really was that stupid, the Democrats and liberal media would never let him hear the end of it.

Well, yes, if the Democrats were a serious opposition party and the major media were not corporate tools of the government, then of course, there would have been a very serious debate and negotiations about getting Bin Laden into an orange jumpsuit in the Hague without murdering 100’s of thousands of people, squandering 100’s of billions of dollars, and endangering our national security and financial future for the sake of an insane murder spree. But the sad fact is that sensible options were not to be considered. It was all about murder. Buildings were destroyed. People were killed. Therefore, we must destroy more buildings and kill more people. Justice has nothing to do with it.

Did destroying the factual basis of his arguments change his position? Of course not. The next morning I emailed him the evidence. He was very angry when last we met. His last words were that no facts could possibly change his opinions. What can you say to that? No facts can change their positions.

But as sad as that is, their opinions can easily be changed. Not by facts or reality. But a Fox News meme or a word from Rush Limbaugh? The memory keeps the memory hole well fed.

Unibomber babies

Today’s New York Times argues that we shouldn’t criticize President Bush because it hurts the feelings of his poor old papa. I can’t wait to see them drag out the putrefying corpse of Barbara Bush to try and stem Junior’s bleeding when the transparent gambit to get sympathy through doddering old dad fails to win over the general public.

The Democrats, however, fearing they might lose the Bush extended family vote and be accused of partisanship by David Broder, apologized profusely for criticizing the president, released a public statement saying that George Jr. is a very good boy, and passed legislation allowing the federal government to wiretap anyone who criticizes Republicans who have parents.

Although the Democrats can always be counted on to surrender without a fight, I doubt that the argument will fly with normal people. Being the parent of George W. Bush is like having a son who commits a heinous murder or molests a child. We can sympathize with the parents. We can even understand that they may continue to love their son and support him emotionally. But we would have no sympathy whatsoever for parents who believe that their murdering, child molesting son should be allowed to remain free to continue murdering and child molesting--and without criticism at that--which is pretty much the Bush family position as echoed so obligingly by the New York Times.

The Bush family dynasty is sick and so is everything it represents. Reasonable people agree that a just society would shackle them in the public square and encourage the townsfolk to drop by and throw rotten tomatoes. But since that’s out of the question, we should impeach the corrupt cretin and turn the lot of his administration over to the Hague for war crimes trials.

Not going to happen though, I know. Anonymous sources whisper that the Democrats are secretly considering legislation to extend Bush’s term by another four years, fearing they'll be accused of being weak on terror if they don't.

Sunday follies

The Washington Post reports that the Doormatocrats dropped their pants and laid down on the porch for Bush again.

The 227 to 183 House vote capped a high-pressure campaign by the White House to change the nation's wiretap law, in which the administration capitalized on Democrats' fears of being branded weak on terrorism.“

Yea, wouldn’t want to be branded as weak for standing up for freedom against the biggest loser in American history. Strength is capitulation. The Doormatocrats have that branded on their backs as a footnote to their motto”Tread on Me.“

In other news we learn that Denis Kucinich was booed at the Daily Kos convention for suggesting that there isn’t that much difference between the Democrats and Republicans. Wherever would he get that idea? Could it have something to do with the fact that the Doormatocrats have laid down for Bush on every single issue? Naw. It took great strength to support Bush in all his failures. Kucinich is craaaazy. Wiretap the bastard!

The New York Times Magazine chips in with one of the more mysterious odes to power we’ve seen in awhile. They argue that Hitler invented vacations and the French like to take them, so Americans should shut up and work harder. Americans, you see, don’t need vacations because they have it all just down the block:

Grasping the truth about why more Americans are taking holidays from their vacations is as easy as stepping outside your workplace (the lushest of which tempt employees to stay inside by offering lap pools, massage rooms and the like) and seeing that the recuperative promises of the old-style extended getaway — the cleansing, amusing, soothing, stamina-raising therapeutic interludes that Eleanor Roosevelt once touted as a way for Americans “to build up health and resistance” — are redeemable everywhere, in every form and so close by that it’s a wonder thousand-mile drives in gear-packed station wagons still take place at all.

Yea all you whiners, just go across the street to the spa, get a massage and get back to work. Chop chop.

It also includs this gem:

...or, perhaps, a complicated bitterness over the fact that surpassing France’s economy will never help us surpass its egotisms, so why bother aping the gourmet loafing that even most Frenchmen must sense has made them poorer?

Are the French poorer? Statistics say otherwise. Do they sense they are poorer? Perhaps, but in my experience with the French, which is not insubstantial, they do not consider themselves poorer than Americans. They ridicule us for our poverty. They work a hell of a lot less and have considerably more.

Michael Moore made the interesting point in Sicko that our powers that be attack the French so relentlessly so that we Americans don’t ask ourselves why we can’t have the same quality of life as the French. The answer is that we choose to have more billionaires. Nyah nyah. We’ve got more billionaires! And our billionaires' health care rocks.

On a similar note, I walked through the living room this morning and caught a few minutes of the Republican presidential debate. One of the loonies says that the federal government does not guarantee cradle to the grave health care and then states categorically that government-run health care has been proven not to work. The crowd, which is dumb as rocks, erupts with raucous applause. Of course he was laughably wrong about effectiveness. The opposite is true. Government sponsored health care works best. It’s cheaper, more efficient, and more effective for far more people. In fact, it is our system of private health insurance that has been proven not to work. Unless of course you are a private health care professional pocketing lots of cash for keeping people sick, ruining them financial, and maybe even hastening their deaths. It also works quite well for politicians pocketing their bribes, I mean campaign contributions, to keep the profits flowing.

He was right though that the federal government does not guarantee health care for all citizens. It could though. Hey Doormatocrats, how bout some government health care?

Hundreds of Democratic bodies simultaneously thud on the porch. Republicans and lobbyists wipe their feet. Hillary stuffs some bills down her bra. The press reports admiringly on her neckline. France sucks.

Elsewhere, the nation’s infrastructure is falling apart. But that’s okay according to the NYT:

Bridges, and their major parts, are graded on a scale of 0 to 9, with 0 requiring a shutdown. If a critical part gets a grade of 4 or lower, the bridge will be judged deficient. The I35W bridge was rated a 4. Dennis W. Heckman, the state bridge engineer in Missouri, offered an example in an interview. “If the paint has peeled off and you get not just a light rust, but rust where you have less steel than originally,” then a bridge is judged structurally deficient, he said. Such a condition represents significant damage, though it is far short of what it would take to make a bridge collapse.

Far short of what it would take to make a bridge collapse? Tell that to the suckers in Minnesota. And not to worry. There are only 70.000 or so similarly structurally deficient bridges in county. I would tell you the percentage of structurally deficient bridges in France, but that information is classified by the office of the Vice President.

And finally, a prominent Democratic strategist writes an op-ed in the Washington Post arguing that the Democrats should stick their naked asses in the air and like totally glue their chests to the porch on the question of high crimes and misdemeanors.

In one of the more bizarre arguments we’ve seen since, oh, earlier this morning, he concedes that the Bush administration is a gang of criminals:

...the bill of indictment goes far beyond Bush's grave lies about Iraq. There's also the arrest and detention without trial of U.S. citizens, the violation of international treaties such as the Geneva Conventions at the prisons at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the "blatant violation" of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Fourth Amendment "by secretly authorizing secret warrantless spying on thousands of American citizens by the National Security Agency."

...Bush and Cheney -- and conservatism in general -- have wrecked our civic institutions and darkened our civic impulses. Nothing is beyond politicization: not the Justice Department; not the worst terrorist attacks on our soil; not the scientists and nonpartisan experts who've been silenced or demoted because they didn't toe the right line; for goodness sake, not the National Park Service, which, in a sop to biblical literalists, was forced to offer pamphlets for sale at the Grand Canyon gift shop putting forth the "different view" that the great chasm was cut 4,500 years ago by Noah's flood, not 6 million years ago, as is the case here on Earth.

He then goes on to argue that the political case is another question entirely. Actually holding the Bushies accountable for their crimes would harm the Democrats’ chances in the next elections you see. Amusingly, he does a quick about face and makes the opposite argument, that when everything is subordinate to politics, civic institutions and impulses suffer. What should the Democrats do about it. Nothing. Subordinate everything to politics.

Yep, when everything is subordinate to politics, we suffer. So the Democrats need to subordinate everything to politics so they can win.

What the fuck?

Yea, what the fuck indeed.

Why we are losing - Part 7056

Below is another example of they type of right wing email campaign that targets the least sophisticated among us. I get them from a person who lives in a small town and belongs to the Moose Lodge. I don’t think people realize the extent to which this kind of virulent propaganda is disseminated among what we call the working classes. It is very effective. Just look:

This a REAL EYE OPENER!!

Hope these 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again
until they are read by the majority of Americans. Then they
will have something to yell at their U.S. Congress
members.

14 Reasons to Deport Illegal Aliens...

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal
aliens each year. http://tinyurl.com/zob77

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance
programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches
for illegal aliens.
http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for
illegal aliens.
http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and
secondary school education for children here illegally and
they cannot speak a word of English!
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the
American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor
babies.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal
aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal
aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for
Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.
http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American
wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime
rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal
aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a
huge additional crime problem in the United States .
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION
illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as
many as 19,500 illegal aliens from ist Countries. Millions
of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroine and , crossed
into
the U. S. from the Southern border. Homeland Security
Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12. The National Policy Institute, "estimated that the total
cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230
billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion
annually over a five year period."
http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in
remittances back to their countries of origin.
http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm

14. "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One
Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The
United States ". http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

So using the LOWEST estimates, the annual cost OF ILLEGAL
ALIENS is $338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR! So if deporting
them costs between $206 and $230 BILLION DOLLARS, Hell get
rid of em', We'll be ahead after the 1st year!!!
Please pass this on. Americans need to wake up!

Please excuse the long quotation. I think it’s necessary to see the whole thing in order to appreciate its corrupting power.

Of course it’s not difficult for people like you or me to pick this kind of thing apart. The blatant logical fallacy of the close--the idea that it is even possible to deport all illegal aliens in a year--is ridiculous. But the 14 reasons that come before add up to more than just money. They provide a thin veneer of scholarship, of pseudo logic and statistics. They don't have to stand up to close examination to bolster the point.

What is the point, you ask. Actually following the links provides some answers.

For example, the National Policy Institute, which estimates the total cost of mass deportation, welcomes visitors to its web page with this:

WHO SPEAKS FOR US?

White Americans have been led to believe that "diversity" and "multiculturalism" are sacred. We're conditioned to be shy when it comes to standing up for our own beliefs. But doesn't every race, ethnic subculture, and special interest—from left-handers to lesbians—have all sorts of organizations working for them?

Isn't it about time someone spoke for us?

And the Dark Side of illegal immigration referenced in reason #14?

They are highly mobile, work in low skilled jobs with their hands, use drugs and alcohol, are generally promiscuous, have little family stability, and choose victims who are easy to attack.

Yes, of course, and they are unkempt as well. Dark side indeed.

But it could be much worse in the future. This link from rense.com that supports reason #13 ponders fates much, much worse than remittances.

If all 535 candidates for Congress were Muslims, and became U.S. senators and House members-- they would dismantle our Constitution in a heartbeat and install Sharia Law. How stupid are we as a nation? How naïve? How bankrupt in our apathy toward Islam and its prime directive?

Yes, that couldn’t be more true. If we elect radical Jihadists to every position in American government, the future will be dark indeed. And egads! That’s not the only danger! Ponder Rod Serling!

Although that's a loony link of the ages, many of the others are transcripts of Lou Dobbs shows or relatively respectable right wing sites. At least one clearly contradicts the point it is supposed to make.

But who reads that deeply anyway? Not the people who get these emails. They don’t click on many links and don’t spend a lot of time pondering them if they do. They see a bunch of statistics proving that they are being ripped off and raped by the dark folk. What's to ponder, ese?

The thing that makes this such a powerful example of why we are losing is that we have no equivalent strategy. Why don’t progressives target these same people with persuasive arguments for progressive positions? As is often noted, it is people living in small towns, the Moose’s, the Elks, the Kiwanis Clubbers, etc. who lose the most from Republican policies, yet they continue to vote for Republicans. We sip our wine and wonder how they can be so stupid out in Hicksville. Propaganda campaigns like the above example provide strong clues.

If the tide is ever going to really turn in this country, organizations like Move On need to put together mass emails targeting those same people, only instead of “14 Reasons to Fear the Darkies,” they’ll need titles like “12 Reasons why your jobs are being shipped to China” or “10 Reasons why your Health Care Sucks” or “15 Reasons why your kids are dying for Haliburton.” As is, only one side is fighting for the hearts and minds of common folk. Is it any wonder that they are winning by such a large margin?

Campfire stories

The French writer Michel Houllenbecq writes that at age 47 the only time he doesn’t feel depressed is when his dick is inside a woman. I don’t know when 47 officially became the new 50 but I know how he feels. I too pretty much constantly feel that hollow, empty feeling in my chest. Is that depression or just what it feels like to be heartless? I’ve never been sure.

As I mentioned in a recent article, I went on a trip to the mountains to complete work on a literary project. I’m writing an eight volume critical examination of the Studio Ghibli pictures but have had a difficult time getting started. I don’t think I told you that I would have to take my two sons along. Unfortunately, they proved to be very distracting, especially Jim Bob. For those of you who don’t know, I have three children, two boys and a girl. For the purpose of the internets I refer to them as Jim, Jane and John Bob, or the Bobs for short.

Although the distractions kept me from getting much writing done, I did make significant progress. I managed to solve the riddle of No Face, which made me feel better for a minute or two. I may be 47 but I’m not as dead yet as Houllenbecq. When I had my little insight about No Face, I felt as good as when I have my dick in a woman. Well, maybe not that good, but I didn’t feel bad for a few minutes. No hollowness. No absence in my chest. It was nice to lose that feeling and replace it with something substantive.

In case you haven’t seen Spirited Away, the No Face character first appears as an enigmatic spirit, then he’s standing in the rain, so the girl, Sin, invites him into the bathhouse. No Face becomes angry when Sin doesn’t accept his gifts. He becomes ravenous and eats everything in sight, even some other spirits, all the while dispensing copious amounts of gold to the toadies who run the bathhouse. Eventually Sin gets him to chuck up everything he ate, then tricks him out of the bathhouse and he becomes normal again. I understand him now, she explains. The bathhouse makes him crazy.

I could never figure out the meaning of all that. Finally, in the mountains, I realized that No Face was a metaphor for the failing artist. He comes to the city, tries to give away his work, but nobody he respects will take it, so he gets angry and over-indulges, becomes a ravenous consumer on a monumental binge. The only solution is to get out of the city. The city makes us crazy. Miyazaki uses No Face to make a powerful statement about the nature of art.

I thought getting out of the city would have the same effect on me, but the problems with Jim Bob drove me to distraction. He complained about everything - the packing, the drive, the stopping, the shopping, setting up the camp, the bugs, the food, the heat of the hikes, the cold of the swims, the smell of the toilets, the music of the campers next to us. It was non stop. He made me crazy. Or more accurately, kept me crazy.

John Bob was fine though. He is the good boy, never complains about anything. I often wonder how two brothers born so close together could be so different. The obvious explanation is that we wanted John Bob. Jim Bob was just an accident. Of course we tried to show him all the same love and affection as we do the good kids. But it seems that they can sense when they are not wanted. Even in the womb where they begin plotting the ways in which they will torture you. I wished, and not for the first time, that we would have aborted him. It was strange that we didn’t. We aren’t one of those anti-abortion wacko couples. We’ve certainly destroyed more than our fair share of fetuses. We don’t actually enjoy having abortions, but I have to admit that I do somehow find them fulfilling. I suspect that the Aztecs must have felt much the same way, albeit in their much more primitive fashion, when they sacrificed warriors to their Gods. Of course I’m against human sacrifice, or any kind of religion, but as a metaphor I can see it. We sacrifice these little gobs of goo, these squishy proofs of evolution, to the great God of secular humanism and we are repaid with free time and significantly more discretionary income. But unlike the Aztecs we are not superstitious. We do not believe that our acts of not-yet-human sacrifice will ensure that the sun comes up in the morning. Quite the contrary, we realize that the fact we sacrifice the little buggers and the sun still comes up in the morning is more proof that there are no gods. More proof that if we are to find heaven it will have to be here on earth. And as Houllenbecq teaches, heaven is not so hard to find. Dick in woman, just one example. Breakthroughs on the fourteen volume Studio Ghibli project, yet one more.

But now I’m here in the mountains sitting under a waterfall in a cold mountain stream on a hot summer day, happy and at peace. Poor Houllenbecq should get out more in nature. He’d find that there are more spirit lifting situations than dick in woman.

We headed straight for this swimming hole after checking into the campground and setting up the tents. The swimming hole is just a short drive down a winding mountain road and then a treacherous hike down the side of a cliff. I immediately noticed a big difference since last time we were here. The swimming hole is full of Mexicans. They have taken over the lower part of the valley. Their grills are smoking. Corridos are blasting from cheap boom boxes. Kids are screaming. Young girls are primping in their tight outfits. Chubby moms are stirring big pots of bubbling beans and swatting flies. Old guys drink beer and shoot the shit. Young tattooed guys are drinking lots of beer. Everyone just tosses their trash on the ground and leaves it where it lays. These are not the educated middle class Mexicans you find in the restaurants. These are the field hands.

The whites, who used to hang out in the lower valley where the Mexicans now are have migrated up to the top of the waterfall where they only have to look down on the Mexicans, not sit next to them. The whites drink beer but they do not cook out. Except for a few old guys like myself with kids, the family aspect isn’t there. They are just white kids in their late teens and ealry twenties drinking beer and getting stoned. One guy even has a gas mask bong. Haven’t seen one of those in action for a long time. These kids have a lot in common with their Mexican counterparts below. They too are working class, though their jobs are in the shade. They too drink lots of beer, though they pick up their trash. They too cover their bodies in tattoos, though with the Mexicans it’s only the guys. They too smoke cigarettes and listen to crappy music on a boom box, ruining the glorious silence of the mountain stream. It just makes me more depressed.

Many of the white guys look like marines, like little fascists, future brown shirts, I can’t help thinking. They have huge muscles painted with violent cartoons, close crpopped hair, and assertive jaws. They obviously spend a lot of time in the weight room. Why do these guys want flaming ghouls, dripping blood, fire and dragons, long knives and other violent imagery tattooed on their bodies? Aside from demonstrating an acute sickness of the soul, their body art is so unoriginal. What is it in our culture that makes kids want to look like that? Professional wrestling? Violent video games? Comic books? Scenes from Iraq? Are they taking steroids? Yes, no question about it, they are.

Anyway, I’m not here as a social critic. At this point all I care about is getting under the waterfall and that’s my immediate plan. But Jim Bob jumps in the water, swims out to the deep part of the pool, and sinks. Somewhat reluctantly, I go pull him out. He cries, and cries, and won’t stop crying. John Bob hops in and immediately makes friends with some Mexican kids. They splash around and have a good time. I just want to get my head under the waterfall but Jim Bob won’t shut up. He makes me feel so fucking depressed. Eventually, I just say fuck him and swim out to be in paradise with my waterfall and it feels good. But I’m unable to lose myself totally in the moment for more than a few seconds. I keep half an eye on Jim Bob. He’s still crying. I duck my head under the waterfall and keep it there as long as I can. Then I move my body back and forth under it, getting a deep, healing massage. Then I look up and John Bob is gone from the rock. I catch a glimpse of him sinking again in the deep end and have to go pull him out again. The next time, I tell him, I’ll let you drown. More crying. It just doesn’t stop. I take a few pictures, but the light is all wrong and my heart isn’t in it.

Meanwhile, one of the white chicks has gotten into a fight with her boyfriend. After a lot of drama she comes down and takes a swim in the pool. After floating and kicking around for awhile in the water she starts flirting with one of the Mexican guys. Her boyfriend up top is looking very uncomfortable. She starts touching the Mexican. The boyfriend and a couple of his friend start moving in that direction. I feel that familiar sense of despair hit me like a punch in the gut.

Time to go, boys, I say and we pack up and start moving up the trail. It looked like the situation could turn ugly and I didn’t want to have any part of it. And I was probably right about that. Two days later I heard that a Mexican laborer had been murdered near that very same swimming hole. It was a sensational story. He had been decapitated and after a week they had still not found his head. Some prominent local kids were suspected, but it sounded like the investigation wasn’t getting going to get very far. We went back to that swimming hole late in the week and already there were stories. All the locals were packing up as sunset approached. They told us that the ghost of the Mexican kid was haunting the creek at night, looking for his head. You could be sure he wouldn’t rest until they found it and justice was done. That would be the story anyway. Small towns are like that.



The next day was cold and rainy. You never know from one hour to the next what the weather will do in those mountains. So instead of hiking and swimming, I took the boys for a scenic drive and looked for things to photograph. Jim Bob, of course, was fidgety, and he complained constantly, and he cried a lot. We stopped at a diner for lunch. I ate an omelette and fell into gut-wrenching despair. Since it was too cold to get under a waterfall, no woman was available to put my dick in, and I had hit the wall on the Studio Ghibli project, I went back to alcohol to numb the pain. I had a beer with the omelette, then another. We stopped by the liquor store and I rewarded myself with a bottle of 10-year-old Laphroaig. I was hoping for the quarter cask, but what can you expect when you are out in the hills? Then I went to the market, bought some beanie weenies and a six pack that I iced down in the cooler.

By then it was late afternoon and the rain had broken by the time we got back to the campsite. I built a fire and laid into the scotch while the two Bobs went down to play by the stream. John Bob is very good at catching animals. In practically no time he had caught a bull frog, two toads, a couple snails, and a translucent orange lizard. He built a little zoo out of some cardboard he found in the trunk and they contented themselves with poking the animals and watching them move. I put on a pot of beans to cook and went off for a little walk in the woods. Again I felt the overwhelming despair recede as I enjoyed the quiet and solitude. Everything smelled so fresh after the rain and the trickling water in the stream was very relaxing. I took a few long swigs from my flask and despite the pleasant chill in the air felt myself overflow with warmth for the forest and all living things, especially the kids. I thought about how I had been in such a foul mood lately and criticized them constantly, especially Jim Bob. I realized that I need to apologize, to make amends, and to use the rest of the trip to bond with them. When I got back to the camp John Bob was crying. Jim Bob had taken his animals and thrown them into the pot of beans. He’s tortured and dismembered them first. He had even gouged the eyes out of the lizard. But I was in a good mood so I restrained myself from yelling at Jim Bob and comforted John Bob. There there, I said, you can catch more animals. Then I noticed that he had poured my bottle of scotch into the pot and a couple of the beers as well. My anger was so instant and overwhelming that I felt dizzy and darting lights seemed to play in my field of vision. I picked up the pot of boiling reptiles and started to throw it at Jim Bob but caught myself before I scalded the boy. Damn you to hell boy I screamed and threw the concoction in the fire instead. The whiskey made the flames shoot high up in the night and the reptiles crackled and smoked. How could you do something like that? I wanted to hit him, really hit him, but again I restrained myself. My wife and I have strong moral values and have never hit the children. I wasn’t going to condemn my soul over a bottle of 10-year-old scotch. Still, the night was ruined. We cooked the remaining hot dogs on sticks and I finished off the little beer that was left. It started raining again and we all went to bed mad.

The cold and the rain lasted another day. I awoke in a state of excruciating despair and we drove down the mountain to explore one of the tourist villages. The last time we were there two years ago the town had been booming. New restaurants, art galleries and fancy boutiques had recently opened all along the main drag. Now they were mostly shuttered. Everywhere we went the locals treated us like dirt. It reminded me of going to a concert where the once popular band failed to sell many tickets and they take their frustration out on the audience that actually did come through for them. I don’t deny that they’ve got a lot to be pissed off about. Service jobs are all there are around here, they are hard to come by and they don’t pay squat. Nobody makes things anymore. A few people commute fifty miles to work in factories in the nearest small city, but most of those factories have closed and shipped their jobs overseas and the ones that remain cut wages and benefits. With the price of gas so high and the cost of daycare, it’s hardly worth the effort. Serving the rich fucks from the city is about all they’ve got left and not as many of us are visiting as the chamber of commerce promised. It only makes sense that they would feel resentment. They see the rich fucks in their mansions and SUV’s casually spending money as if it’s just so many leaves of grass and they ask themselves exactly what did those people do that made them so much better? Everything in the culture tells them that they get what the deserve. Did they deserve being born in a small town to working class parents? Did they deserve having their decent jobs shipped off to China so that the rich could get richer? Do they deserve making $6 an hour while the fucks they grovel for make 200 time that? Are they really that worthless? They ask themselves. At least subconsiouslly. Well yes, society tells them. They are that worthless. Everyone is not special. Some people just don’t have what it takes. The marketplace tells them what they are worth just as the slave auctions in days of yore pegged the true value of the slaves of yore. Or is it nothing a little job training won’t fix? Job training for jobs that don’t exist? Did they deserve being born to parents of lesser means? Did they deserve the lame ass education they got? That’s a question they ask themselves but they fail to ask the relevant questions on the flip side? Do the rich fucks deserve what they’ve got? Do their children and grand children who didn’t do squat for their money? Do they deserve that compounded interest on the principal in their trust fund? Do they deserve that stock price windfall they got while sitting on their asses in that fine Italian leather? Do they deserve those legacy spots in the finest schools? Just what exactly did these people do to deserve their lives besides being born lucky? Not fucking much, that’s what. So what can the local losers do? Get out and get an education? Yea, theoretically and a few will, but the rest can only take it out on outsiders like myself. I doubt if that rudeness makes them happy, not even for a moment. It’s not like having the proverbial dick in the proverbial woman, or vice versa. Deepening the despair in others is not the answer.

I understand where they're coming from, but still, the hostility drags me down to the lowest levels of despair. That plus Jim Bob will not stop whining. Those things and I fill up the tank and it costs me fifty fucking dollars, over three bucks a gallon, and I have an economy car. So I head back up into the hills. I don’t know where I’m going. I take this turn, then that turn, then another turn. Whatever looks interesting. Then I see a sign that says Arboretum five miles. I like arboretums. I take the turn. But what I see on that road makes me sick. This little road smack in the middle of such economic devastation is lined with mansions. And they are ostentatious fucking mansions. Most of them are built like castles. They even have rook-like towers, apparently designed and built by the same architect. Makes me want to puke. It does.

The last bit before the arboretum turns out to be very steep and all the switch backs make Jim Bob sick and he pukes all over the back seat. That’s exactly what I need at that point. But finally we arrive and it’s a beautiful place, situated in a circular valley surrounded by enigmatic mountains. My spirits lift at the prospect of some peace and quiet in such incredible natural beauty. There is a parking lot with a little information center and maps for visitors. No one is there, but I pick up a map and plot where we want to go.

The walk through the woods looks nice, but it’s a little confusing. I’m not sure which trail is the right one. I take the wider trail and come to a house. An old woman is gardening near the edge of the woods. Is this the forest trail, I ask. No, you’re trespassing. Sorry, I say, we’re just looking for the forest trail. It’s back that way, she says nastily. Get off of my property or I’ll call the police.

Right, I say. Sorry, we were just visiting the arboretum. There should be a sign. But then I look around. I see her house, which is practically a mansion. I look at her. She’s all got up in the latest gardening fashion -- the khaki, the rubber boots, the cotton gloves, the gleaming sharp shears. I can almost smell the dirt under her fingernails. It’s probably imported from France. I can’t believe this rich bitch is being so nasty. What the fuck is her problem? I know what her problem is. A sense of entitlement all out of proportion to her value as a human being. The goddamned filthy rich. We go back to the car and start driving back to the camp. I’m so angry that I totally forget about the arboretum and I drive aimlessly among the mansions.. Then a plan begins to form. I’m going back at night and show the old bitch what’s what. I wait till after midnight then put the sleeping kids and the car and drive back there. I do donuts around the old bitch’s garden. I see her fucking flowers spitting up to the sky in the rearview and I feel good. Much better than having my dick in a woman, which isn’t anywhere near as rare, and even better than losing track of my mind under a cold mountain waterfall. But she comes screaming out of the house in a Victorian grandma-style white night gown, her grey hair disheveled and I feel the familiar drill in the gut.

But enough is enough. The old hag’s going to call the police and I need to get off the mountain before the cops block the way. I haul ass down the steep part and almost shit my pants when I see the old woman in the middle of the road shaking her tiny fist at me. I swerve and narrowly avoid her, then there she is again at the next switchback. The old bitch is running down a steep trail and beating me to the spot. How can she do that? I see her again on the next switchback and I run smack into her. There’s a loud thwank and she goes flying over the cliff. Man, I think, I am totally fucked. Now I have a real reason to be horribly depressed. Then there she is again, right in the middle of the road at the next switchback. I stop the car and we get out. I hold the Bobs close to me. We’ve obviously entered some kind of twilight zone. Might as well stop fighting it.

What do you want, I ask. One of your sons, she replies. Which one. Which one is damned, she asks. We all look at Jim Bob. And smile.

Soon we’re back on our way. Too bad about Jim Bob, says John Bob. Yep, I say. Too bad. But I don’t feel bad. It’s like a great weight has been lifted.

The next day I feel a tingle of regret so we drive back up to the arboretum. We find the trail through the woods, but when we get to the old lady’s place, the garden is just a bunch of weeds and the house is a ruin. We kick around the property and find an old cemetery. Among the graves we find one for Baby James Robert, born and died in 1865. Wow, says John Bob. Wow, I agree, half expecting the headless Mexican kid to wander by.

Anyway, the rest of the trip was great, at least from the perspective you get from being under a cold mountain waterfall. Coming back to the city sucked and, as you might imagine, my wife was initially pissed off about the loss of Jim Bob. But she calmed down and it’s been a lot more peaceful without him. The black cloud of despair and depression that engulfed our little family for so long has lifted. Now it’s back to work.