Alabama and them nasty queers

From AMERICAblog comes this CBS news item about how a politician in Alabama wants to ban works by gay authors.

Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen says homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle. As CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, under his bill, public school libraries could no longer buy new copies of plays or books by gay authors, or about gay characters.

"I don't look at it as censorship," says State Representative Gerald Allen. "I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children."

Do the people of the good state of Alabama know what they voted for? Being told what you can read was a staple of the Goebbels media machine in Nazi Germany. (And yes, Jerry dude, it is censorship. Look it up in a dictionary. Are dictionaries acceptable? I bet they have words about queers in them. Uh-oh! They must go!)

Books by any gay author would have to go: Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. Alice Walker's novel "The Color Purple" has lesbian characters.

Oh my God! Lesbian characters?!

Allen originally wanted to ban even some Shakespeare. After criticism, he narrowed his bill to exempt the classics, although he still can't define what a classic is.

I bet he can't. (I know, that's a cheap shot, but these NewAgeNazis make my skin crawl.)

Librarian Donna Schremser fears the "thought police," would be patrolling her shelves.

"And so the idea that we would have a pristine collection that represents one political view, one religioius view, that's not a library,'' says Schremser.

Jerry can't define a "classic," I rather doubt he can define "library" either. In Jerry's world, a library is endless shelves of enriching tales like My Pet Goat, no doubt.

But in book after book, Allen reads what he calls the "homosexual agenda,"
and he's alarmed.

You know, generally speaking & all, people tend to see what they want to see. Jerry, honey, you married?

"It's not healthy for America, it doesn't fit what we stand for," says Allen. "And they will do whatever it takes to reach their goal."

They sure will. It's just that we're thinking of different groups of people here. You define "they" one way, and I define "they" as "go look in the mirror, buddy, you know you want to ..."

Is it too much to ask for protection against those who desire nothing more than to impose their rigid will and "value system" on the rest of us? At what point will this be a problem recognized for what it is, a particularly nasty form of theocratic fascism?

Normally I Ignore Ann Coulter, but ...

The Suburban Guerrilla has a link for Ann Coulter slashfic that is as fascinating as it is terrifying. (TOTH: The ever excellent Sideshow.)

Mercy!

Since we need all the help we can get ...

I took this photo of a stained glass window in the Christ Church Cathedral in Montreal last September and added a slightly unearthly veneer with the help of Photoshop.

Maureen Dowd on John Bolton

She has a nice op-ed piece in Wednesday's New York Times, in which she manages to compare John Bolton to Naomi Campbell. Anyone that can do that deserves the big bucks.

... his [Bolton's] raging-bull temperament is ideally suited to an organization steeped in global pettifoggers and oil-for-food pilferers.

The uncombed, untethered Mr. Bolton is fabulously operatic - the Naomi Campbell of the Bush administration, ready at a moment's notice to beat up on underlings.

Who doesn't want to see Old Yeller chasing the Syrian ambassador down the hall, throwing a stapler at his head and biting at his ankles?

Who doesn't want to see him foaming at the mouth - yes, it will be hard to tell - at the Cuban delegate over Castro's imaginary W.M.D.?

Picture

Bush and Terrorism

In a poll earlier this week in the Washington Post, Bush's numbers were deservedly abysmal in every category except for how he is handling the "fight on terrorism." Personally, I think this is human nature (American-style) -- a sort of "rallying around the flag, boys!" left over from the actual 9/11 attacks. In truth, there has been absolutely nothing Bush has done to improve the safety of America against further attacks, and much that he has done to make things worse (like, you know, invade Iraq on false, trumped-up "intelligence").

Further, he has done his best to dissipate the overwhelmingly sympathetic reaction of the rest of the world toward the US, post 9/11. Way to go, guy.

Now we have concrete proof that terrorism, far from being "well-handled" by the Bush regime, is actually spiralling ever-further out of control. The problem is, the numbers are so bad the State Department won't be including them in their report on terrorism.

Um. Does this make sense to anyone who is not a Bushie?

Unhealthy & Extreme Persecution Mania

Paul Waldman has an excellent article on the peculiar mentality of the right-wing religious zealots.

Look at some of the titles offered by Regnery, the right’s premier publishing house: Invasion Within: Overcoming the Elitists' Attack on Moral Values and the American Way; Epidemic: How Teen Sex is Killing Our Kids; Mugged by the State: Outrageous Government Assaults on Ordinary People and Their Property; Outrage: How Gay Activists and Liberal Judges Are Trashing Democracy to Redefine Marriage; Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity; Power Grab: How the National Education Association is Betraying Our Children; Reckless Disregard: How Liberal Democrats Undercut Our Military, Endanger Our Soldiers, and Jeopardize Our Security .

(Note to you folks: you guys control all three branches of government and most of the fourth estate, and have basically cowed the rest of the fourth estate into terrified submission. The victim card you play is counterfeit.)

As anyone who has listened to right-wing radio or tuned in to Fox News knows, the angry cry of the victim is the lexicon of the conservative media. As the novelist David Foster Wallace recently wrote in the Atlantic Monthly , “It is, of course, much less difficult to arouse genuine anger, indignation and outrage in people than it is real joy, satisfaction, fellow feeling, etc. The latter are fragile and complex, and what excites them varies a great deal from person to person, whereas anger et al. are more primal, universal, and easy to stimulate.”

This is an excellent point. But I suspect that many of the rank and file that fall into the trap of agreeing with everything the "christian leaders" tell them are not smart enough to realize they're being used and had.

Deconstructing Wingnuttery

From Sadly, No!

(Is this for real?)

Best Reason to Live with a Cat

(as the title says)

LA Book Fest

The wonderfully snarky James Wolcott posts his take of the festival on his blog.

Remember the Alamo!

Bush has decided to carry on with his campaign to travel from state to state and lie to pre-selected audiences about Social Security.

Isn't there anything we can do to stop this? Taxpayers are footing the bill for this insanity (yet many of them -- the ones that don't agree with Bush and most likely feel that he has no utter clue what he's talking about). It's a waste of money. It's money flushed down the toilet. Isn't there any way to get the guy to stop recklessly wasting money that isn't his to spend in the first place?

(Silly me, what am I saying? Why should he change now?)

Comixxx

Via the Sideshow comes a link for "Unintentionally Sexual Comic Book Covers (part1)."

A must read, filled with fascinating insights like:

It's every man's dream to have a penis so large that he must hire a small boy to carry it.

(Boy, does that explain why some of my dates went so horribly wrong!)

And:

I can only imagine the condition of a society in which a comic featuring wet, well-trimmed, virile young man gazing romantically in a monkey's eyes could be published without raising some serious red flags.

(Ditto!!)

Support the Troops

You know those ubiquitous yellow magnets that folks buy & stick on their cars & SUVs & monster trucks? Support The Troops. Those bother me. I tend to think of the people who stick them on their cars as indulging in "patriotism-lite" whereby they assuage their conscience for driving gas-guzzlers and show their neighbors how civic-minded and patriotic they are, how sensitive and aware of the supreme sacrifice they know our fighting forces are making: by putting a magnet on their freaking car.

Boy, I know I'm moved. Go USA! We're number one!

Such displays are especially moving when accompanied by those W04 or Bush/Cheney campaign stickers. I mean, the message is clear enough, isn't it? The zombies who embellish their wheels thusly, brains long since sucked away from too much Fox News viewing without protective tin-foil beanies, are stating their belief that to support the troops and to support the Bush regime is the same thing.

Those nutty peacenik liberals on the other hand want to "suppoort the troops" by bringing them home! What a nerve!

There is a long and damning article in today's New York Times about how our troops are being "supported" by the Bush regime. The article opens with:

On May 29, 2004, a station wagon that Iraqi insurgents had packed with C-4 explosives blew up on a highway in Ramadi, killing four American marines who died for lack of a few inches of steel.

The four were returning to camp in an unarmored Humvee that their unit had rigged with scrap metal, but the makeshift shields rose only as high as their shoulders, photographs of the Humvee show, and the shrapnel from the bomb shot over the top.

"The steel was not high enough," said Staff Sgt. Jose S. Valerio, their motor transport chief, who along with the unit's commanding officers said the men would have lived had their vehicle been properly armored. "Most of the shrapnel wounds were to their heads."

Of course, the folks that complacently put silly yellow magnets on their cars proclaiming their proud "support" won't be the ones reading the article and getting steamed at the way the Bush regime is pissing away the country's lifeblood. Of course, it's just the lifeblood of the poor, and they only count when they're unborn fetuses. But it bothers me. A lot.

The US lag in TECHNOLOGY?! Never!

The current political climate makes furthering any sort of science or technology here in the US difficult. In this essay, it is suggested that this technological lag will help hasten the demise of the US as a global leader regarding online communications, ultimately creating huge problems for the future.

Luddites, religious zealots and morons shaping our "science" sector seems to be taking a toll that, like much else in the Bush regime, will only become truly apparent at some future time.

(Going out on a limb, I expect the democrats to be blamed for this.)

Papa Ratzi

A former Hitler Youth who has repeatedly shown himself to be stridently anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-contraception, anti-modernist, anti-reform, and in every possible way a Mel Gibson Wet Dream.

Good god almighty, is there any way the Vatican could be more out of touch with reality? If you aren't already shaking your head in amazement, take a deep breath and check this out.

Gee, I wonder what one wears to an Inquisition?

Bush shows his respect for the UN

Via Daily Kos, comes this story of one person's run-in with the diplomat/madman-psychopath John Bolton:

Within hours of sending a letter to US AID officials outlining my concerns, I met John Bolton, whom the prime contractor hired as legal counsel to represent them to US AID. And, so, within hours of dispatching that letter, my hell began.

Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel -- throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a madman. For nearly two weeks, while I awaited fresh direction from my company and from US AID, John Bolton hounded me in such an appalling way that I eventually retreated to my hotel room and stayed there. Mr. Bolton, of course, then routinely visited me there to pound on the door and shout threats.

When US AID asked me to return to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in advance of assuming leadership of a project in Kazakstan, I returned to my project to find that John Bolton had proceeded me by two days. Why? To meet with every other AID team leader as well as US foreign-service officials in Bishkek, claiming that I was under investigation for misuse of funds and likely was facing jail time. As US AID can confirm, nothing was further from the truth.

He indicated to key employees of or contractors to State that, based on his discussions with investigatory officials, I was headed for federal prison and, if they refused to cooperate with either him or the prime contractor's replacement team leader, they, too, would find themselves the subjects of federal investigation. As a further aside, he made unconscionable comments about my weight, my wardrobe and, with a couple of team leaders, my sexuality, hinting that I was a lesbian (for the record, I'm not).

Of course, this was some years ago and one can only hope that the meds have kicked in since then, but one has to question the competentcy of an administration that makes such a nomination, and further (and ultimately more troubling), the republicans who will rubber stamp it. (Analogous to our current system of checks and balances is what occurred after Hitler stacked the deck back in the 1930s in Germany and from then on was allowed what amounts to a totally free hand.)

For me, someone more interested in the state of my country than in whether someone is a democrat or a republican, this whole charade of theocratic fascism intent on domination that is being played out under the guise of "democracy," this whole sorry situation has long since stopped being about politics. It's about what is right and wrong, about what it best for the country. Can anyone truly believe that the sort of thing we've seen -- just in the last week with the bankruptcy bill and the repeal of estate tax -- that the voting going on right now is in the best interests of the country? Does anyone elected as a senator or representative remember that his or her vote should be predicated by the best interests of the people they represent? Can I be the only person who feels her interests (health care, civil rights, the economy, disability rights) are increasingly unrepresented by those voted into office?

We're living under the most shameful display of non-democracy this country has ever endured and those elected to office should feel that shame, but their comfort and complacency get in the way. They're not hurting so that makes it okay? Shameful.

That Judicial Jihad Ad ...

... you know the one? The clean-cut boy holding a gavel and a bible with a perplexed expression on his face? To advertise the asinine "Justice Sunday" coming up this weekend?

Read a wonderful deconstruction of what you really see in that ad here in a BAGnews post with the lovely title Spoil the Rod and Save the Child.

(And you can see a more honest version of the ad here. (There may be no place like home, but sequins do help dull the pain a little.))

Failure of Representation (ad infinitum)

As it turns out, one of the senators from my state is on the Foreign Relations Committee and will therefore be voting for John Bolton to become our guy at the UN (memo to the security forces at the UN: frisk Bolton thoroughly every time he enters the building).

This isn't going to make a bit of difference, but I'm crankly & depressed & fed up with the way things are going in what used to be my country and I wrote my senator and told him so. Here's what I wrote:

I'm writing to express my dismay over the way the legistlative branch (particularly the Republicans) have been voting recently.

I strongly and increasingly feel as if I have no representation in the system of the federal government. I don't feel my best interests are being taken into consideration, nor the best best interests of the vast majority of the "common man" (& woman) of NH. The bankruptcy bill and the repeal of the estate tax are two especially egregious examples (both last week!).

And I also cannot see how anyone can support John Bolton as our ambassador to the UN. It exists for a reason -- a failsafe against the failure of diplomacy. John Bolton is a failure of diplomacy.

I have been extremely disappointed with your "representation" of the people of NH. You certainly are not representing me.

Bob Herbert of the NYT on FDR

Today's NYT has an op-ed piece by the excellent Bob Herbert about one of our greatest presidents, Franklin Roosevelt. (My personal opinion is that FDR was our best president, and Bush is (by far) our worst president. The irony of ironies is that the evidence is fairly clear (and overlooked by most media) that Bush could only be president by stealing it. TWICE. He wanted it that bad and manages to royally &$*^#-up everything he and his regime has touched. Way to go. Your mother must be very proud.)

As Herbert points out, last week was the 60th anniversary of FDR's death -- an event which went un-noticed by the Bush regime in their headlong dash to dismantle FDR's policies.

His [Roosevelt's] goal was "to make a country in which no one is left out." That kind of thinking has long since been consigned to the political dumpster. We're now in the age of Bush, Cheney and DeLay, small men committed to the concentration of big bucks in the hands of the fortunate few.

Herbert goes on to quote from Roosevelt's last State of the Union speech:

...the president offered what should have been recognized immediately for what it was, nothing less than a blueprint for the future of the United States. It was the clearest statement I've ever seen of the kind of nation the U.S. could have become in the years between the end of World War II and now. Roosevelt referred to his proposals in that speech as "a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race or creed."

Among these rights, he said, are:

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation.

"The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.

"The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living.

"The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.

"The right of every family to a decent home.

"The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.

"The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment.

"The right to a good education."

As a nation, we lurched awkwardly and imperfectly forward toward ultimate attainment of those goals. Now, led as we are by small men whose goals are wholly self-serving, we are taking great strides backward and paving the way for China to gain the crown of Superpower of the World.

Way to go!

Roosevelt was far from a perfect president, but he gave hope and a sense of the possible to a nation in dire need. And he famously warned against giving in to fear.

The nation is now in the hands of leaders who are experts at exploiting fear, and indifferent to the needs and hopes, even the suffering, of ordinary people.

"The test of our progress," said Roosevelt, "is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

Sixty years after his death we should be raising a toast to F.D.R. and his progressive ideas. And we should take that opportunity to ask: How in the world did we allow ourselves to get from there to here?

We allowed this surreal horror to unfold because we got too fat and lazy as a nation. For an average American like myself, I never had any interest in the minutiae of politics. I'd base my voting on what I read in newspapers or saw on the news. I didn't bother to do any more than that. I figured that all politicians were greedy & smarmy & generally not the kind of folks I wanted to waste my time knowing about. It took Bush and his illegal reign of terror (yes, reign of terror -- this man goes out of his way to play the "terror hand" at every opportunity, so that Judy & Joe Regular will have the bejesus scared out of them and allow Bush a free hand to do whatever he wants) to wake me up. And what I saw when I opened my eyes scared the bejesus out of me: bullies and bigots holding sway over the minds of a big chunk of our populace by playing to their "rights" (most of which include guns, for some reason) and natural "superiority." (Spend some time with RedState Harry and see firsthand how superior he is. I dare ya. Hitting his coffee-can spittoon 5 out of 10 tries is the highlight of his day as he polishes up his arsenel of guns and dreams of the day he can, by God, defend himself (probably against some pansy who wants to make a pass at him!) and be a hero and get a mention on Mr Limbaugh's broadcast.)

It's shameful.

But you know what's worst of all?

We have small men "leading" us because we don't deserve the FDRs of the world any longer.

Webcam Link

My own feline companion would never stand for this.

Software Recommendation : Freemind

Mind mapping software (open source & completely free).

(btw, if you've not explored Sourceforge, it's home to some of the nicest and most innovation software available. Many of the abstract images I put up on the blog are created with Apophysis, which is also supported under the aegis of Sourceforge.)

Misunderstanding the General

Fortunately, he clears things up.

The Friday Ark (two days late)

Enjoy. :-)

Bill Frist -- Coughlin Born Again?

From Reuters:

Top Democrats urged U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Friday to withdraw from an upcoming telecast organized by Christian conservatives that portrays Democrats as "against people of faith" for blocking President Bush's judicial nominees.

A couple of comments here:

• why aren't republicans urging Frist toward a saner course of action? (if they're not, they sure should be ...)
• isn't it worth pointing out that the democrats have bent over backwards and jumped through hoops to approve the vast majority of Bush's judicial nominees (a higher percentage by far than Clinton, Bush I or Reagan)?
  
• this sort of thing isn't new -- back in the 1930s the right-wing priest Charles Coughlin accused President Franklin Roosevelt of being "anti-God" and attempted to inflame his flock of followers with lots of rhetoric to back up his claims; what is different, of course, is that Coughlin, though a powerful man of his time, held no political office.
  

Perhaps it's also worth noting that Coughlin was accepting money from the Nazi government for his fomenting of isolationism and anti-Semiticism under the guise of preaching about America's godly superiority.

Kitty Blog

Herself.

That new Google map feature ...

Area 51. Too cool.

Picture of the day

James Dobson...

... his holy war isn't just about Sponge-Bob Squarepants and nasty tolerance anymore.

The always excellent Billmon at the Whiskey Bar dons his toxic-waste-proof coveralls and wades into the latest machinations.

Bringin' Home the BLING!

David Ortiz.

Photo by Ezra Shaw / Getty Images.

If You List It, They Will Bid

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1469&item=5572352443&rd=1


I've got a cat.

I've got a bottle of glitter

I've got a way to fund my retirement.

Bush's Old Prof Has Something To Say

Yoshi Tsurumi taught Bush at the Havard Business School. (I wonder what he gave Bush for a grade?)

He has written an awesome and damning piece about Bush and his "principles" for the Harvard Crimson which was picked up by the Smirking Chimp. (And I found it via the excellent Sideshow.)

Thirty years ago, President Bush was my student at Harvard Business School. In my class, he called former president Franklin D. Roosevelt, Class of 1904, a "socialist" and spoke against Social Security, unemployment insurance, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other New Deal innovations. He refused to understand that capitalism becomes corrupt without democratic civic values and ethical restraints.

Dr. Tsurumi could easily have used the present tense -- refuses to understand.

Bush is the first president of the United States with a Master's of Business Administration (MBA). Yet, he epitomizes the worst aspects of America's business education.

To privatize Social Security, he is peddling a colossal lie about its solvency. Furthermore, Bush, along with today's business aristocrats, shows no compassion for working Americans, robbing them to benefit big business and the very rich. Last year, due to Bush's tax cuts, over 80 of America's most profitable 200 corporations did not pay even a penny of their federal and state income taxes. Meanwhile, to pay for his additional tax cuts for the very rich, Bush is drastically cutting back several social services, such as federal lunch programs for poor children.

The whole thing is worth reading.

And I suppose it's too much to ask that someone in the MSM would actually query Bush about how he really feels about Social Security (& FDR for that matter)? He's been against Social Security and the New Deal programs for decades. Why does no one bring this up? The media should realize that when the truth of this rising tide of fascism becomes known to Judy & Joe Regular in the heartland that they too will be held accountable for their gutless lockstep march alongside the current regime.

Bush doesn't want to strengthen Social Security, he wants to eradicate it.

Big difference, you know?

It's also unconscionable that he is being allowed free rein to take his show on the road on taxpayer dollars to tout what amounts to propaganda.

This should never, ever be acceptable. Read up on your Goebbels, folks ... you can bet Rove did.

From Falsies to Polyurethane

From Slate.

Tom Coburn, eat your heart out.

(Oklahoma has a lot to answer for, voting that idiot into the US senate (where, admittedly, he fits right in).)

New Statesman Book Review

Kirsten Pullen's Actresses and Whores reviewed by Fiona Shaw:

As a member of the younger of the two professions that are the focus of this book, I am not naive enough to be ignorant of the connection between them. The casting lots of Hollywood studios, full of actresses flaunting themselves in their Sunday best, are a sharp reminder of our fleshpit expendability. And one of my colleagues recently told me of a "meeting" with a producer that began with him stepping out of the shower with a towel hanging loosely around his groin. (Oddly enough, she never did tell me what happened next.)

Picture of the day

Picture of the day

Mr & Mrs Duck Cheney search for Bush's approval ratings and in the process display their own mute but trenchant views on what they think of him and what he has done.

From the Washington Post

Via Talking Points Memo.

This is a great article and it deserves wider notice. It compares testimony before the House Armed Services Committee by Richard Perle from September 2002 and last week:

At the September 2002 hearing, GOP lawmakers joined in Perle's dismissal of Clark's argument that "time is on our side" in Iraq and that force should be used only as a "last resort."

Perle said Clark was "wildly optimistic" and called it "one of the dumber cliches, frankly, to say that force must always be a last resort." While Clark fiddled, "Saddam Hussein is busy perfecting those weapons of mass destruction that he already has."

...

He disavowed any responsibility for his confident prewar assertions about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, heaping the blame instead on "appalling incompetence" at the CIA. "There is reason to believe that we were sucked into an ill-conceived initial attack aimed at Saddam himself by double agents planted by the regime. And as we now know the estimate of Saddam's stockpile of weapons of mass destruction was substantially wrong."

Why is no one in the current regime never willing to take responsibility for anything they've done? Who raised these people?

A couple more things...

This blog from the Progressive Women's Blog Ring is wonderful, especially today.

And I think I should also mention the Google Gulp, an idea whose time has come and who better to implement it than the good folks at Google?

Think fruity. Think refreshing.
Think a DNA scanner embedded in the lip of your bottle reading all 3 gigabytes of your base pair genetic data in a fraction of a second, fine-tuning your individual hormonal cocktail in real time using our patented Auto-Drink™ technology, and slamming a truckload of electrolytic neurotransmitter smart-drug stimulants past the blood-brain barrier to achieve maximum optimization of your soon-to-be-grateful cerebral cortex. Plus, it's low in carbs!

I bet it's wicked fizzy too.

Dateline April 1st 2005

Via Sideshow, the NASA Astronomy picture of the day shows water on Mars.

Via Raw Story: the Bush twins find gainful employment at last.

The whole darn page at American Street is worth a look. An excerpt from an article in favor of Social Security privatization:

Let’s discuss the imminent DANGER you are in. Social Security is falling apart. If we do not listen to President Bush and privatize Social Security, everything will fall apart next year. That’s right folks. Read this next bit carefully: I’ve done the math myself. If we do not privatize Social Security TODAY, the planet will LITERALLY implode on July 19th, 2006. Also, your grandmother will be cannibalized by heathens. In front of you. Tomorrow.

Finally. A convincing argument!

Science News for the masses at Daily Kos. I bet you didn't know there was a (cylindrical) molecule called Arsole or a mineral called Cummingtonite (thus named because it was discovered in Cummington, MA, pull your minds outta the gutters here). There is also some great stuff about the IgNobel Prizes, too, including something I hadn't read about before but which makes perfect sense: see this article regarding the link between suicide and listening to country music. I would have read the pdf file about the coordination modes in the multisegmental dynamics of hula-hooping, but it's been some years since I've managed to be multisegmental, much less dynamic ...

Just A Suggestion

OK, so we've got a country where millions and millions of people apparently believe that any day now they're going to be bodily whisked up into the sky to be with Jeeezuz. Among them the President and a goodly number of his gaping, slack-jawed followers, right?

So. This whole Social Security business.

If the members of the Rapture Cult so desperately believe they'll be lifted up and taken away Real Soon Now, well, why don't we just accomodate them -- and cut them out of the Social Security system in toto? Granny Biblethump and Brother Tonguespeak aren't gonna need benefits where they're headed, and taking that money and channeling it over to us heathens and infidels who'll be Left Behind should keep the system solvent for generations to come.

They themselves ought to be leading the campaign to implement this plan. After all, didn't Jesus himself admonish them "Store up not for yourselves treasures on earth..."?

The MTV Generation

US soldiers in Iraq have taken to making their own music videos.

In another video, made by members of the Florida National Guard, soldiers are shown kicking a wounded prisoner in the face and making the arm of a corpse appear to wave. The DVD, which is called "Ramadi Madness," includes sections with titles such as "Those Crafty Little Bastards" and "Another Day, Another Mission, Another Scumbag," came to light in early March after the American Civil Liberties Union obtained Army documents using the Freedom of Information Act.

Support the troops. They'll need all the help they can get.

Links of the Day

TOTH to the Sideshow: a blogger post from Lance Mannion that sums up the Republican party pretty well.

And in the New York Times today there is a long piece about the proliferation of blatant propagandizing by the regime in power here in the US. For any student of what happened in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, it's pretty scary stuff, even in the relatively mild reporting given it by the Times.

Excellent article here

As the subject line states.

Jonathan Schell writes:

The shaky foundations of America's power were on display in the President's recent travels. Shortly before Bush landed in Brussels, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany quietly but firmly repudiated the President's militarized, US-centered approach to world affairs. NATO, he heretically announced, should no longer be "the primary venue" of the Atlantic relationship. Did that mean that Europe would continue to take direction from Washington through some other venue? Hardly: He was, he said, formulating German policy "in Europe, for Europe and from Europe." The superpower's penchant for military action was also rejected. The chancellor said, "Challenges lie today beyond the North Atlantic Alliance's former zone of mutual assistance. And they do not primarily require military responses."

Schröder was standing on solid ground at home. A poll in the German newspaper Die Welt revealed that "Vladimir Putin is seen as more trustworthy than George W. Bush, France as a more important partner for German foreign and security policy than the United States. Closer harmonization of German foreign policy with America is not wanted, either."

Cookie Time!

Here we've been grumbling over the lack of springtime here in northern New England, and yet when I went downtown this afternoon I ran smack-dab into the midst of the surest sign yet that the season's about to change.

Girl Scout Cookies have arrived!

Did I mention that's my *favorite* rite of spring? Last year I bought seven boxes of Shortbread Trefoils, and ran thru all of them before the first of April, but, alas, the Scouts I encountered today were all out. But one of them, who shall go far in this world, pointed me toward the last remaining box of Animal Treasures *FUDGE DIPPED* Shortbread.

Oh my. They didn't have that one back in my day (Brownie Troop 39/Junior Troop 318/Cadette Troop 219, Abnaki Council, 1970-76). Progress is a wonderful thing.

In all seriousness, though, I'm always very enthusasitic about supporting the Girl Scout cookie program, because I sincerely believe in what the organization stands for -- especially its formal policy on non-discrimination. While the Boy Scouts have allowed themselves to be turned into a politicized tool of the Religious Right over the last couple of decades, the Girl Scouts are very clear about not turning anyone away, regardless of beliefs or orientation. And even if I *didn't* have a thing for the cookies, any organization willing to stand up to the Faith Fascisti like that deserves all the support we can give.

Quotes of the Day

"let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself..."
-- Franklin Roosevelt, 4th March 1933

"I like doing this, by the way - I like going around the country, saying, 'Folks, we have got a problem.'"
-- George Bush, 4th March 2005

No Snowe Job Here

I've always liked Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine.

Even though she's a Republican.

We've long had a tradition here of hard-nosed, independent-minded politicians who refuse to dance to the tune of either party, and for as long as I've followed her career -- I interviewed her frequently during my days as a reporter in the 1980s and 1990s -- I've always considered her an open-minded, non-ideological centrist. Not too many of those left nowadays.

And I like her even more now that she's emerging as one of the most vocal GOP moderates opposing the plan to amBush Social Security. You might recall she all but sat on her hands refusing to applaud the Social Security Is In Crisis litany during the State of the Union address, and since then she's spoken out repeatedly against the proposal. Yesterday on NPR, the Senator flat out dismissed the idea that the system is "in crisis," and urged a slow, careful, reasonable approach to any sort of reform plan. She's also noteworthy as one of the few Republicans willing to acknowledge that the Bush plan is tanking miserably in the polls.

"Just in the mail count collectively over the last months, particularly since the President proposed personal savings accounts and the discussion that has ensued in the public domain, more than forty five hundred letters and phone calls in opposition to the plan and only about one hundred and sixteen in favor. So I think that ultimately all of these issues need to be clarified and worked through, and I think it is going to take a much longer process than any one has envisioned."

Little more "reality based thinking" to perplex our president there.

After this past election I swore I'd never vote for a Republican again -- but if Snowe keeps up her firm stand as a voice of reason, I just may have to reevaluate that position.

From the New York Times

A new poll has been released showing that not only has Bush's campaign to destroy Social Security not gained momentum, but more people than ever are against the idea. Good job W.

Some highlights:

• "51 percent said permitting individuals to invest part of their Social Security taxes in private accounts, the centerpiece of Mr. Bush's plan, was a bad idea, even as a majority said they agreed with Mr. Bush that the program would become insolvent near the middle of the century if nothing was done..."
  

In case the Bush regime is too clueless to figure out what this means, the American people would prefer to wait until a fiscally responsible government is in place to repair Social Security.

• "Notwithstanding Mr. Bush's argument that citizens should be given more control over their retirement savings, almost four out of five respondents said it was the government's responsibility to assure a decent standard of living for the elderly..."

It's interesting to note that the Republican ideology that the Bush regime is trying to slip past a largely uninterested nation is exactly about obviating governmental responsibility. This has been something that's given the Republicans wet dreams for 70 years: roll back the clock, put that pesky Democrat Franklin Roosevelt and his wacky, wasteful schemes in their place, and make the people once more accountable for the entirety of their standard of living. If that means increased poverty for the aged and infirm, Republicans are unconcerned. "Not our problem, folks."

• "there has been an increase in respondents who say that efforts to restore order in Iraq are going well, even as an overwhelming number of Americans say Mr. Bush has no clear plan for getting out of Iraq..."

Those unaware of history are doomed to repeat it, as the saying goes. Just because there was an "election" in Iraq does not mean democracy is on the march. South Vietnam held an "election" in 1967 and much good it did them. The recent election in Iraq is every bit as meaningless, but it has been seized upon and churned through the Rovinator to make it sound like, this time, the mission really is accomplished. It's not. And it's depressing to realize that the American public can't see that, but not surprising given the palabum they're forcefed by the media. We've passed the 1500 mark in the US military death count (a death count that is skewed wildly against the truth as it is), thousands upon thousands of Iraqis have been killed. More people die every day. Iraq is no more a democratic nation than the United States is.

• "Sixty percent of respondents - including 48 percent of self-described conservatives - said they disapproved of how Mr. Bush was managing the deficit. And 90 percent of respondents described the deficit as a very or somewhat serious problem..."

When the Bush budget fails to clear the Republican-controlled Congress (and it should fail as it's not just nonsensical but strikes savage blows at many of the programs that exist to help the needy (see Republican ideology above)), you just know the Democrats will be blamed for this. Personally, I hope the Dems stand firm. I'm tired of them enabling the insanities of the neocons because they don't want to be viewed as obstructionist. Here's a tip: worry less about how something looks, and worry more about doing the right thing for the American people.

This is a case in point.

Miscellany

Don't read anything special into the juxtaposing of these stories:

• The Secret Lives of Moody Cows: who knew bovines live out their own special version of Desperate Housewives??
• Sport of Kings (& Queens): I'm sure the president of Harvard has some thoughts about this
  

Shining some light

The Nation has a fascinating article by Brooke Allen called "Our Godless Constitution" that should be printed out and distributed to every member of the supine White House press corps (yes, supine, even without "Gannon").

The erosion of the fourth estate is in its way even more frightening than the Bush regime itself. Mainstream media can no longer be trusted to impart the news. Instead, they parse the news through the Roviator and presto! what comes out is distortions, exagerrated slants, lies ... and anyone who accepts without question (ie, most of the US population) what they see on TV news broadcasts or read in the newspaper is now misinformed. Such restructuring of the news was a hallmark of Joseph Goebbels and it's daily gaining ever more traction here in the land of the free and home of the brave (irony, folks, that's irony).

Child Poverty in Developed Nations

The UN Children's Fund has released a report summing up quality of life for children in developed nations. Denmark, Finland, Norway & Sweden top the list. And the USA and Mexico are at the bottom of the list. (Just some more of that compassionate conservatism shining on through, I guess.)

Kitty Blog

Can't you see I'm trying to rest here?

In Praise of Kate Winslet

Another Oscars show came & went Sunday night, and Kate Winslet, at age 29, is now 0 for 4.

I actually watched them this year, the first time in more than a decade. I'd read about them after the fact, but the show itself wasn't, imo, worth the 3-hour-plus investment of my time (especially since the folks I want to win never seem to -- indeed, they're rarely even nominated).

I think just about everybody had picked Hilary Swank to win, with Annette Bening as the possible upset choice. And by most estimates, Ms. Swank gave (another) performance of a lifetime and very much deserved to win. I haven't seen Million Dollar Baby, but I saw Boys Don't Cry so at least I know just how good Ms. Swank can be and I'm sure her performance in MDB is every bit as good. But I was just kind of hoping Kate Winslet would win, especially after re-watching Heavenly Creatures last week.

Awards like the Oscars & Golden Globes & so on aren't supposed to be cumulative, of course. But I look at the career of someone like Winslet and, darn it, it does deserve some sort of cumulative acknowledgment, both for the quality of her performances and the sheer chutzpah in some of her choices (my personal favorite "what the hell was she thinking?" Winslet moment was watching her follow up Titanic with Hideous Kinky, a quirky little movie set in the desert and about as underappreciated as the big boat movie was over-appreciated).

Heavenly Creatures is a superb film. It’s imaginatively written, something rare indeed when recounting a true story; wonderfully staged & shot; beautifully directed by Peter Jackson and featuring two of the most stunning début performances ever given from the young leads, Melanie Lynskey & Kate Winslet. It’s the story of two teenage girls in 1950s Christchurch, New Zealand, and depicts the close bond between them and how it came to be severed forever. The camera serves almost as a sly interloper, weaving, dancing, flying in & around the girls as their imaginations feed one another and they themselves seem to soar with happiness and wonder. The dream world they share is colorful, wonderful, dreadful. Peter Jackson wisely chooses to allow us entry into that world, and the viewer can understand and even envy the girls for the special thing they have. It’s a movie unlike any other, I’d say. By turns tender, sad, malevolent, witty ... the girls come of age, as it were, with something of a splash.

Being such an admirer of that movie, I’m predisposed to like Winslet in just about anything else. She’s done fine work indeed in Sense & Sensibility, Iris, Holy Smoke!, Hideous Kinky, Finding Neverland, Quills, Jude, Enigma, Hamlet. She was the best thing about Titanic. And in the ten years or so that she’s been making movies, she’s been nominated for an Oscar four times, for Sense & Sensibility, Titanic, Iris and this year for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Charlie Kaufman is a god amongst writers). She could easily have been nominated for Heavenly Creatures and Jude.

Give the kid a break and let her win one already, you know?

Back in late 1970s and on through the 1980s, it seemed like there were only about 7 decent parts for female actors (& Meryl Streep got 6 of them). Streep was doing good work, as was Michelle Pfeiffer (hampered, perhaps, by being too beautiful) and Glenn Close. But it was sad slim pickings for the ladies. But something happened in the 1990s. All of a sudden, just when it looked to be an increasingly exclusive boys’ club, meaty roles for women were once more being written. The problem became something different: having those roles be noticed by audiences and perhaps acknowledged by the movers & shakers responsible for various & sundry awards. Many of the most exceptional performances by women in the 1990s received little attention or recognition. If you want to have the ultimate movie weekend sometime, settle in & watch Juliette Binoche in Les Amants du Pont Neuf and Trois Couleurs: Bleu. Both movies feature performances that are much richer than the (perfectly adequate) performance she gave in The English Patient (for which she won her Oscar). Winslet herself gives perhaps her best performance (so far) in the overlooked Michael Winterbottom film Jude, giving us an essentially perfect manifestation of Sue Bridehead as she was meant to be played. Folks might remember Kelly Macdonald from Gosford Park or Trainspotting (her small but memorable début role), but how many folks saw Stella Does Tricks, which features an absolutely devastating performance from Macdonald? How about Mary Louise Parker & Mary Stuart Masterson in the far more mainstream Fried Green Tomatoes? The list can get pretty long fast. (And that’s just the 1990s. Mulholland Drive (2001) features two awesome but overlooked performances from Naomi Watts and Laura Harring, to name just one example.)

In a more perfect world, those performances would have gotten the praise and attention they deserve.

Here’s hoping the world gets a little more perfect soon.

The Warnings of History

From Common Dreams.

Words cannot express ...

... how horrifying this extremely well-documented article is.

Yesterday while talking to Liz, I said that Bush had managed something that Nixon, Clinton, Reagan, , never did, namely make me embarrassed to be an American. It seems like every day there's a new parallel to draw between Bush & Hitler, between Bush's faux "democracy" and fascism. It's awful, it's scary. But though I bellyache & moan about how awful it is, I have never had to deal with anything like this:

Captain Terry Riordon unknowingly brought radiation poisoning home with him from Iraq to his wife, Susan Riordon. As recounted in the November, 2004 issue of the mainstream Conde Nast publication Vanity Fair, Mrs. Riordon was constantly burned by her husband's semen during intercourse.

Seems Terry's semen was turned to a fiery alkali by the radioactive uranium that settled in his testicles. The happily married couple had no idea what this new and horrifying complication was in this intensely private part of their life together. Little did they know the American Department of Defense had hopped into bed with them with a deadly intent.

With her husband slowly dying of radiation poisoning and in intense pain herself, Mrs. Riordon resorted to filling condoms with frozen green peas to use on herself to obtain relief from the internal burning's intense, excruciating, lasting pain. Other couples do that and other wildly frantic and imaginative measures seeking relief. The burning can leave blisters and contamination.

"It hurt [Terry] too. He said it was like forcing it through barbed wire," Riordon says. "It seemed to burn through condoms; if he got any on his thighs or his testicles, he was in hell." In a last, desperate attempt to save their sex life, says Riordon, "I used to fill condoms with frozen peas and insert them [after sex] with a lubricant." That, she says, made her pain just about bearable. Perhaps inevitably, he became impotent. "And that was like our last little intimacy gone."

Bumper Sticker Du Jour

THE LAST PEOPLE WHO LISTENED TO A BUSH
WANDERED AROUND THE DESERT FOR 40 YEARS!

Some thoughts on Bush's Blood Thirst

According to the Washington Post, the Army is having trouble finding new recruits. It seems that fewer kids are willing to engage in a year-long game of Russian roulette for nothing in Iraq (or wherever). The recruiters bemoan this.

"Very frankly, in a couple of places our recruiting pool is getting soft," said Lt. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck, the Army's personnel chief. "We're hearing things like, 'Well, let's wait and see how this thing settles out in Iraq,' " he said in an interview.

"The youngsters that are joining us are spending more time with the recruiters before they raise their right hand," he said. Today, most prospective enlistees contact the Army via the Internet, he said, asking numerous questions that require more recruiters to answer online and follow up with phone calls.

But few candidates will join up before meeting a recruiter in person and spending significant amounts of time with one, he said. "They ultimately want to see a soldier, a recruiter, and talk to them eyeball to eyeball," he said. As a result, "the recruiter who could go out and recruit two people this week might be consumed with recruiting that one."

The average cost of signing up a recruit is also beginning to rise, from $15,265 in fiscal 2001 to $15,967 in fiscal 2004 -- the result of more recruiters, advertising, and increased enlistment bonuses. In January, the Army announced a new six-month advertising contract with Leo Burnett USA worth an estimated $100 million.

I wonder how the recruiters feel as they attempt to talk youngsters into joining up to fight the great fight in Operation Blood for Oil? Do you suppose any of them have a conscience? How many can truly believe that what the Bush adminstration and the US military is doing is the right thing?

Coincidentally, columnist Bob Herbert of the New York Times has a piece about Iraq, in which he compares the voices against the war just before it began two years ago versus the voices now from within the administration.

The Times ran a front-page article on Sunday March 16, in which a senior counterintelligence official said: "An American invasion of Iraq is already being used as a recruitment tool by Al Qaeda and other groups. And it is a very effective tool."

On the same day The Washington Post reported that "specialists inside and outside the government question whether a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq would deliver a significant blow against international terrorism. Experts warn that war and occupation could also have the opposite effect by emboldening radical Islamic groups and adding to their grievances."

The Bush adminstration of course was touting the line that the war would be quickly over -- indeed, that any US forces would be back home by 2005, having been greeted by flowers strewn in their path on the march to Baghdad.

(Okay, so, they were a little off in their estimation of how things would go. )

Now fast-forward to last week's testimony of top administration officials before the Senate Intelligence Committee. If the war in Iraq was supposed to stem the terrorist tide, the comments of these officials made it clear that it hasn't worked.

Porter Goss, the C.I.A. director, told the committee, "Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists." He added, "These jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced and focus on acts of urban terrorism."

The war, said Mr. Goss, "has become a cause for extremists." In his view, "It may only be a matter of time before Al Qaeda or another group attempts to use chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons."

We invaded Iraq without just cause, we destroyed its infrastructure, allowed looting of its historical relics, hospital supplies, ammunition storage dumps. We leveled whole cities, killing thousands upon thousands of Iraqis (they can't all be insurgents -- yet, anyway). Iraq is in chaos and that chaos is not clearing up. And the farcical and inane recent elections have been a major victory for Iran -- not democracy. We did all these things without having an exit strategy. Basically, the Bush adminstration saw Iraq as an opportunity for a permanent presence of US forces with the lovely bonus of plundering some of the richest of the world's natural resources.

And they not only got the US into a war it didn't need at the cost of thousands of lives and billions of dollars, but they've mishandled every single part of the process.

Between 69 and 82 percent of the (still living) Iraqi population favor a "near-term" withdrawl of American forces. (What do you want to bet that the Bush brain trust interprets that statistic as a sign that, darn it, we've been killing off the wrong folks after all?)

Read Baghdad Burning for a moving account of just what it's like over there for the Iraqis, and how far astray our policies have wandered.

Pity the poor recruiters if the fresh meat they're after at your local high school should actually pay close attention to any of this.

Mr. Herbert also notes:

Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said: "Our policies in the Middle East fuel Islamic resentment. Overwhelming majorities in Morocco, Jordan and Saudi Arabia believe the U.S. has a negative policy toward the Arab world."

Stop the presses.

Magnificent Obsession

Sherlock Holmes had Moriarty.



Batman has the Joker.



And the Boston Red Sox have the New York Yankees.



Winning the World Series, to be honest, was an anticlimax for the true hard-core
Sox fan. You don't hear people at the post office or around the water cooler
or  at the lunchroom counter dissecting the victory over the St. Louis
Cardnials last fall -- to be honest, I had to think a bit to even remember
who it was we beat.



No, what really counts is what we had to do to *get* to the World Series.



We beat the Yankees.



No, we *humiliated* the Yankees.



And it felt so *damn* good.



Unless you grew up in New England, as we both did, you can never hope to
understand this.



There was some concern that with the Sox having finally won it all, that
baseball this year would end up a ho-hum experience. But as they're reporting
at the Boston Dirt Dogs website,
home page for Sox Nation, there isn't much chance of that. We aren't even
a week into spring training and already there's a juicy Yankees-related scandal
brewing.



Is it any wonder I can't wait for Opening Day?

Link of the Day

From Belgium. I can't say I really blame them, either.

"Gannon" article links

The Frank Rich article at the NYT has gotten a lot of attention. So far it's the best thing I've seen from the mainstream media in the US. Worth a read, though unfortunately what Rich writes can hardly be considered "hard news."

Fortunately though, MSM elsewhere in the world doesn't wear the blinders that reporters in this country must don.

Post With No Title

I'm actually not sure what to call this post. What springs to mind first is "Loving Words" since the person who wrote the item I'm linking to very obviously does love words. But it would be ironic in another way, since the piece addresses not loving words, or at least being critical of the way some of us string words together.

So this post has no title, and if you're not interested in writing, or poetry, or words (loving and otherwise), I guess you won't be interested in this link either.

Bush visits New Hampshire

Bush held one of his "town hall" meetings in New Hampshire last week to attempt to scare people into buying into his false claims regarding the imminent demise of Social Security. (Though traditionally a Republican stronghold, it's worth pointing out that NH was the only state to switch from red to blue in the presidential election.)

From the Murdoch rag the Boston Herald, here's an article on how it went. (It's nice to see that folks can be NH people first, and fools & Republicans second. Now if we could just do something about the corrupt state officials we manage to elect ...)

Masterpiece

From the Whiskey Bar, the Creation of Gannon.

(TOTH: The Sideshow.)

Link of the Day

From World O'Crap.

(Going out of town for a while now...)

Compassionate Conservatism

From the Los Angeles Times comes a story about how the White House is trying to overturn compensation promised to American POWs tortured in Iraq during the Gulf War.

(TOTH: I'm Just Sayin')

Thought of the Day

How do you throw away a trash can?

Kitty Blog

"I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille..."

(the reason she looks less than happy is that due to unfortunate circumstance, the cat Jessica has had to go on a diet -- she is not happy about this)

From the Emerald Isle

Here is a post from the blog Crooked Timber about Antonin Scalia's visit to Dublin (one of my favorite places on earth, fwiw).

I'd like to hoist a pint of Guinness to the chap who said this to Justice Scalia:

‘So you’re on the American Supreme Court? What’s all this craic about hanging chads?’

Rumsfield Meets Congress

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post has an interesting commentary piece about our Secretary of War -- ah -- Defense.

End of the Tunnel

This has been an awful winter.

It's been an awful winter on the political level, the financial level, the personal level, and the emotional level. We've spent pretty much all our time and all our energy trying to cope with things we wish we didn't have to cope with.

But as of today, that winter is officially over.

Yeah, yeah, I know what the calendar says. It's still more than a month to go till spring. But that's not what matters.

Here in the wasteland of New England, spring begins on a certain day in mid-February, when pitchers and catchers report to Fort Myers for the opening of the Boston Red Sox Spring Training Camp.

The *WORLD CHAMPION* Boston Red Sox Spring Training Camp.

Sure, it's stupid and superficial and self-delusional to think that makes any real difference -- but we're not talking reality here, we're talking *symbolism.* Indulge me on this, okay?

Spring Training has begun. Opening Day is just a month and a half away.

We survived another winter.

Just barely.

But we survived.

White House Press Credentials

How hard can they be to get anyway?

When the "Jeff Gannon" story started to break there was a rather inane remark from someone defending the idea of a non-journalist with a false name getting access to the White House press room. I don't recall the exact wording or even who it was (someone from the Washington Post, mabye?) but it was something along the lines of oh, there are so many new venues out there, what with the internet and bloggers and so on -- the inference being that bloggers were somehow privy to the same credentials issued to folks working for long-standing news organizations. (I am trying not to give in to temptation and put the word "news" in quotation marks...)

And then the White House's own Scott McClennan commented "when he ["Gannon" or Gluckert] started coming to the White House about two years ago, the staff asked to see that it -- that he represented a news organization that published regularly. And they showed that, so he was cleared and has been cleared ever since based on that time."

This remark wasn't terribly realistic either, since the "news organization that published regularly" turns out to be an internet site with an extreme right-wing agenda with little to support any sort of claim to be a real or primary source of news to anyone (despite rash boasts of large readership, until very recently, site traffic had languished badly). At best, it could be viewed as a partisan op-ed boutique. Wares on display, hefty price tags well-hidden, in the best tradition of the Bush administration itself.

But now there is an interesting op-ed piece in today's New York Times from that reckless liberal Maureen Dowd, who seems genuinely puzzled over the whole affaire "Gannon":

I was rejected for a White House press pass at the start of the Bush administration, but someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem and Internet pictures where he posed like the "Barberini Faun" is credentialed to cover a White House that won a second term by mining homophobia and preaching family values?

At first when I tried to complain about not getting my pass renewed, even though I'd been covering presidents and first ladies since 1986, no one called me back. Finally, when Mr. McClellan replaced Ari Fleischer, he said he'd renew the pass - after a new Secret Service background check that would last several months.

The mind boggles at contemplating the potential skeletons in her closet that must have kept her out of the White House briefing room, eh?



I had no intention of posting about the "Gannon" thing -- it just seemed to be so sordid & low that the story told itself and it sure didn't need my help in any way. But the idea of this non-journalist with a phony name working for a pseudo news organization gaining White House credentials while Ms. Dowd is denied them is just too heinous to ignore.

I have been growing increasingly worried about the trend in the current administration toward ringers -- propagandists masquerading as journalists. (The biggest irony here is that traditional journalists are already so slanted in favor of the Bush regime than they don't need ringers.) Joseph Goebbels was someone who thought the news could be molded and manipulated to serve a political agenda. As a result of his harnessing of whatever message the media could make, a whole population was misled, or even worse, brainwashed into believing and accepting as fact the most blatant lies. For many years I studied this phenomenon with the complacency that comes from knowing that such a thing could never occur in my country.

I'm no longer complacent.

Family Values

You've got to hand it to Alan Keyes -- sure, he's a self-righteous sanctimonious
blowhard, but by golly he practices what he preaches. When his daughter came
out as a lesbian, and then *compounded* the sin by demonstrating against
the Bush inaugural, he threw the little sinner right out on her hiney and
cut off her tuition to Brown.



One of my favorite columnists, Derrick Z. Jackson, has an apt commentary
on l'affiare Keyes in today's Boston Globe.



That's doing the Lord's Work there, Brother Keyes. Praise Jeeeayzuz. And
let it be a lesson to Dick Cheney, the limpwristed poofter.

Howdy Dave

Picture of the day

Rockland Maine just after sunrise New Year's Day.

He Yam What He Yam

Ever wonder exactly what it was that Popeye the Sailor might have
been puffing on in his pipe? Well, the investigators at AlterNet have
a theory.

Now, I have to admit that I didn't think too much about Popeye's proclivities
as a wee lass -- my favorite funnybook icon in those days was the wholesome,
clean-living Mary Marvel -- but when I grew up and got all jaded and disillusioned,
I discovered reprints of the original E. C. Segar "Popeye" comic strips
from the 1930s, and immediately fell in love. Segar's characters inhabited
a cold-blooded, cynical world in which one half of the population seemed
perpetually out to swindle the other half, with only Popeye himself standing
as the voice of civil order.

Imagine my dismay, then to learn that Popeye is a pothead.

Sigh. But then, in retrospect, Olive Oyl's no-account brother Castor
always did have the sneaking, fishy eyes and furtive manner of the neighborhood
pusher.

And I guess with all this revisionism of the beloved characters of our
youth I supposed it's only a matter of time before I pick up a comic book,
for old times' sake, and encounter Mary Marvel with a boob job, a belly-shirt,
and stillettos, locked in a passionate embrace with Wonder Woman while
chained to a bedpost.

Hey sailor -- pass that pipe over here.

Oopsie

At the Brad Blog comes this story about CNN photos of nuclear sites in Iran and North Korea.

It's well worth the read, but especially look at the photos themselves, for they tell their own twisted tale.

(TOTH: Democratic Underground. :-)

A Sore "Winner"

Canseco has written a book. He has much to say, most of it quite startling.

Patriots Unite

... to convince the government not to be yes-men & -women to Bush and his hideous, civil-liberties-suppressing Patriot Act.

Bush said the act "has been vital to our success in tracking terrorists and disrupting their plans."

What terrorists? What plans?

There is some evidence that the "terrorists" of Bush's fevered imaginings are no more than a loosely-woven band of mal-contents that apparently aren't going to do anything to rock Bush's little boat because they're utterly delighted with the way his policies add to their numbers. Recruitment has never been easier -- on their side, anyway.

The Patriot Act hasn't brought a single terrorist to justice and stands as one of the most heinous things any US government has ever done to the people they're nominally representing.

Journalism for Jerks

An interesting piece in the current issue of the Atlantic Monthly by media critic Joshua Green takes us behind the scenes of Qorvis Communications in Washington DC -- home of the first real traning school for television pundits.

Here's where business executives and second-rate pols learn how to stand up to such cable-channel smashmouths as O'Reilly, Hannity, and Matthews. Unfortunately the idea seems to be not one of mastering the fine art of debate, but rather, it's all about learning how to out-butthead the buttheads -- out-yelling, out-thumping, out-low-blowing the other guy and then giving a smarmy little smile as he cuts desperately to the commercial.

Ample evidence of the decline of civilized political discourse, sure. But there are some real insights in this piece on the cheesy manipulativeness of these shows. Consider this advice:

"When answering a question, look directly into the camera, put your message in a sound-bite format, and never pitch it above a seventh grade level."

One could suggest that certain members of the current administration are obvious graduates of the Qorvis program.

Pictures of the day

Two more flames. I just felt like sharing them.



Another spiral flame that looks more like a hand-drawn sketch than a math formula.



And something lacking form but not beauty.

Bringing Democracy to Iraq?

According to Robin Wright of the Washington Post, what Iraq will be getting as a result of the recent "election" there isn't quite the democracy the Bush adminstration would have us believe.

"... it [the Bush admin] envisioned a quick handover to handpicked allies in a secular government that would be the antithesis of Iran's theocracy -- potentially even a foil to Tehran's regional ambitions.

But, in one of the greatest ironies of the U.S. intervention, Iraqis instead went to the polls and elected a government with a strong religious base -- and very close ties to the Islamic republic next door. It is the last thing the administration expected from its costly Iraq policy -- $300 billion and counting, U.S. and regional analysts say...

Conversely, the Iraqi secular democrats backed most strongly by the Bush administration lost big. During his State of the Union address last year, Bush invited Adnan Pachachi, a longtime Sunni politician and then-president of the Iraqi Governing Council, to sit with first lady Laura Bush. Pachachi's party fared so poorly in the election that it won no seats in the national assembly."

Boston Globe article

... about how difficult it can be to get Social Security benefits if you're disabled -- a subject of great concern for me, certainly.

Hard to tell, I guess, how much harder the screw will turn for folks like me, post "reform" but it's not likely to be pretty. Probably we'll just have to die off one by one & thus do our part for our Great Nation.

Picture of the day

Created with Apophysis 2.02. A rather lovely fractal flame.

DW Griffith & Ed Wood : a commonality

It's certainly nothing I've ever given serious credence to before reading this.

Sponge-Bob seeks salvation

... and finds it.

View from Baghdad

From the excellent Baghdad Burning blog comes a post about the recent Iraqi vote, unfiltered through liberal media bias.

My personal fave paragraph:

We’re hearing about various strange happenings at different voting areas. They say that several areas in northern Iraq (some Assyrian and other Christian areas) weren’t allowed to vote. They also say that 300 different ballot boxes from all over the country were disqualified (mainly from Mosul) because a large number of the vote ballots had “Saddam” written on them. In other areas there’s talk of Badir’s Brigade people having bought the ballots to vote, and while the people of Falloojeh weren’t allowed to vote, people say that the identities of Falloojans were temporarily ‘borrowed’ for voting purposes. The stories are endless.

Who Does Your Representative Represent?

From the Washington Post comes an article about how Republicans are perfectly willing to screw their constituents in favor of cozying up to big business. And that just now big business has Social Security "reform" in its crosshairs and is willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to have themselves a turkey shoot.

This isn't surprising, of course. But what I'm asking for is that folks who support the Republican agenda (which has nothing to do with democracy) stop and think about how they're willingly allowing themselves to be disenfranchised and lose any voice and, ultimately, say about what happens to this country. Is that what you want? Do you really think that's a good thing somehow?

Rolling Stone, Fair and Balanced

Eric Klinenberg of Rolling Stone profiles Sinclair Broadcasting, that bastion of fair and balanced reportage.

From Democracy Now!

Though I don't always agree with his (strongly held) opinions, I do admire greatly the man's intellect and talent. (And for what it's worth, I certainly do agree with most of what he says in the transcript cited below.)

"The most un-American speech I've ever heard ..."

Gore Vidal on the Coronation of George II.

Quote of the Day

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

-- John Quincy Adams

Justice Is Blind

Or at least he will be if he keeps this
up.

Google Does Maps!

But they haven't lost their way: their sense of humor is alive & well. (From the Dullard Gazette, a very nice blog.)

New Yorker Article by Jane Mayer

... that folks supporting the Bush regime should read. It's about how the US government outsources torture. & how at least some of the captives are wholly innocent. In other words, folks, with a couple of twists of fate, it could happen to you.

Tell me again why we're doing this???

An article in the New York Times states that "the Bush administration now says the proposal will do nothing to solve Social Security's financial problems."

But it adds that "it may offer workers a better deal." [Emphasis added.]

It may. Also, pigs may fly. With the deficit the way it is, and with the deteriorating global situation likely to make things rocky for a couple generations to come (never let it be suggested that Bush's goals won't be far-reaching in impact), the idea that the fiscal world will be robust enough to create the kind of returns necessary for a "better deal" is so much pie in the sky, or pigs in the sky ...

It just won't work. Liberate Fallujah by leveling it. Fix Social Security by eviscerating it. Why doesn't everyone see the pattern? How much clearer must it be?

The Lighter Side

Both Liz & I are currently suffering from colds (I have to thank that "dangerous" made in Canada drug DayQuil for any coherence I possess at all) so we've been sick, in addition to quiet and depressed. (Living under the Bush regime is enough to depress any thinking being. Jessica the cat is depressed too.)

In an attempt to climb back into the blogosphere after a few quiet days, I'll start off with something that caught my eye regarding the recent hoohaa over Spongebob Squarepants (honestly, you can't trust anybody these days, can you?!).

Enjoy.

Another Empty Catchphrase

When I hear the phrase "Ownership Society" I feel the nausea coming back.

When I hear the phrase "Ownership Society" I know the person saying it has
absolutely no clue what it means to live a life like mine -- a life balanced on the thin edge of a single paycheck.

When I hear the phrase "Ownership Society" I refer the speaker to this
commentary from a few months back by former labor secretary Robert
Reich, who says it far better than I could ever hope to say:

The Republican rhetoric assumes most Americans can save and invest. The reality is, most Americans are deep in debt. Before they can join the "Ownership Society" they've got to pay their credit card bills, their rising variable-rate mortgages and their auto loans. After that, there's no money left because jobs are in short supply and wages are stuck in the mud...

It's true that more than half of American households now own stocks in corporations. But for most, it's just a few thousand dollars worth. And the total value of their current portfolio is less than they invested. They got lured into the stock market during the late '90s when stock prices were pumped up with accounting steroids.

The fact is, an Ownership Society based on the stock market would be a casino. The Bush administration would like you to put your Social Security payments into the stock market, but beware. If your timing is bad, you could find yourself retiring in a bear market. It's happened before. That's one of the reasons Social Security's social insurancewas invented.

And when I hear the phrase "Ownership Society," all I can do is shudder, because I know what happens to people like me ina society like that.

I Tried, I Really Did...

But I just couldn't sit thru it.

I managed to last thru 34 minutes of it before the bile started to rise, the room started to go blurry, and the nausea flooded up over me. I managed to get thru the simple-minded rhetoric about Social Security, complete with cooked statistics, but when he started in on "preservation of marriage," I lost it. I snapped it off in disgust and came in here to clear my mind -- but when I opened the browser, the first thing that came up was CNN -- with a big "BUSH DEFENDS MARRIAGE" headline.

And I threw up in my wastebasket.

Sometimes I feel like there's just no point anymore. Sometimes I feel like the lunatics and crackpots and religious fanatics have taken over and there's just no hope for the rest of us.

But then I stop and think.

No way,

I'm not giving up that easy.

This is my country too. I may be powerless and excluded and marginalized and without any kind of a voice in the vast public discourse, but dammit, THIS IS MY COUNTRY TOO.

I'll leave it to the pundits and the analysts to dissect what he said and how he said it. Maybe later I'll even have a thought or two.

But right now, all I want to do is drink a cold glass of water, rinse the foul taste out of my mouth, and go to bed.

And just maybe, dream of a better America.

A Vote for a Republican is a Vote for Torture

An article posted this evening on the New York Times website raises some serious issues about the legistlative branch of the government. The article itself is about Alberto Gonzales and the (pending) Senate vote to confirm him to replace John Ashcroft as Attorney General. It's been well-documented that Mr. Gonzales wrote some memos pertaining to questions of international law which, among other things, sought to render impotent the Geneva Conventions (which exist in part to protect troops engaged in enemy combat) and to gloss over the interrogation methods the United States has been utilizing during the Bush regime -- namely, to re-define torture so narrowly that the word would no longer mean what most people believe it to mean. There exists a firm paper trail suggesting strongly that the torture going on courtesy of the land of the free and the home of the brave is something that is well-known throughout the Pentagon, including the Secretary of War -- oh, sorry, the Secretary of Defense -- Donald Rumsfield. Though the kids at Abu Ghraib were unlucky enough to get caught and made scapegoats, there is plenty of compelling evidence that shows that the incidents there were hardly isolated and that torture has, in fact, become a standard interrogation technique used on certain prisoners. This is not just illegal and disgusting, it flies in the face of what the US is supposed to be about: whatever our shortcomings, we're supposed to be the good guys. Folks who go around invading countries and torturing people are not good guys. Reality check, folks.

Admittedly, as my own personal bitterness toward the horrible mess my country is in grows, it becomes harder and harder to see the alternate point of view. Though I'm hardly in agreement with the Democrats in all things, I find that I am almost never in agreement any more with the Republicans.

According to the article, the Gonzales vote is split entirely along partisan lines. I cannot honestly see that anyone aware of the facts would want a man who flouts the law, imperils the US military and condones torture, as Attorney General. Is it just me? If it is in fact true that all Republicans are lining up behind Gonzales, then any respect I still have for the Republican party becomes nullified. The legistlative branch of the government is supposed to represent the population of this country. Now, I know this is going to sound insane, but it's not supposed to be about what your party affliation is, it's about right and wrong. It's about doing the right thing. It's about doing the absolute best you can for the people you represent. Does that apply here? Does anyone honestly feel that Gonzales is truly qualified for the job based on a well-known pattern of behavior showing a career largely based upon grabbing ahold of Bush's coat-tails and protecting him against all comers, whether it's jury duty or possible indictment on war crimes? How can anyone really truly think this guy would make an acceptable Attorney General?

To all the Republicans who are currently singing his praises, I can only suggest that one day, you will indeed be held up against a harsh light of history and the choices you make will live on, your names linked by the choices you've made to what is happening right now in this country.

Some highlights from the article:

• "Every Hispanic-American in the country is watching," said Senator Orrin G. Hatch
  
• No Republicans have indicated any wavering in their support. Nor, by midafternoon, after more than five hours of debate, had any Democrat spoken in favor of the nominee.
• The senator [Arlen Specter] said it was "not irrelevant" that Mr. Gonzales would be the first Hispanic attorney general, since his background would give him a broader perspective on civil rights, immigration and other issues.
• "The torture policies that Mr. Gonzales pursued on behalf of the administration have done immeasurable damage to American's standing in the world, have undermined our military rules and traditions, and exposed our own soldiers and citizens to greater risks," Senator Boxer said.
• Ms. Mikulski said Mr. Gonzales had "created a whole new framework" that eventually led to the torture of detainees and had failed perhaps the most important test of all, "telling the president 'no' and speaking the truth to power."
• But Senator Hatch said Mr. Gonzales was "a good, decent, honorable man," and that some people were trying to make him a scapegoat for the actions of "renegade soldiers" who had mistreated prisoners.

• The Republican National Committee's deputy communications director, Danny Diaz, made a similar assertion. To block the "eminently qualified" nominee would be "neither good policy nor good politics," he said in a statement.

  "Obstructing his nomination would show that Democrats still don't understand the ramifications of an election where President Bush increased his share of the Hispanic vote by 9 percent over 2000," Mr. Diaz said.

So, if understand this properly, the Republicans are insinuating that the Democrats are against the nomination because they're either: a) racist or b) displaying partisan support for their party.
I suppose c) some Democratic senators simply feel horrified by what Gonzales has come to stand for and want to distance themselves from any association with him at all, simply never occurred to the Republicans who apparently kept straight faces while accusing the Democrats of racism.

Hatch deserves special mention for dusting off the old chestnut that the kids at Abu Ghraib were just a few bad apples, don't you know? and the United States would never, but never, condone any such behavior. Gee, what about those memos? What about the other documentation? Planted by the Democrats to make Gonzales look bad? I don't think so.

I know none of this is going to make any difference. Gonzales will become Attorney General. He is likely to be an even worse Attorney General than Ashcroft, so it will be another four very rocky years for civil liberties already pretty much crushed to powder under the authoritarian boot heel. And the Republicans will congratulate themselves on how they've handled things -- that they showed those pesky Democrats what for, sure enough, and that one of these days, the Democrats were going to wake up & realize that the Republicans hold all the cards and have the deck stacked besides. Heady days for the Republicans.

But I must hold out the hope that at some point in the future, the Republicans will find themselves being judged, and will be found wanting in all respects.

A-C-L-You

I put a sticker on my front door today. I'm not one who goes in much for such displays, ordinarily, but this one was different. It declares, in large, bold letters --

I REFUSE TO SURRENDER MY FREEDOM

It came in a fundraising mailing from the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization of which I'm a card-carrying member. Well, not literally card-carrying -- I have the card stuck to my refrigerator with a magnet. But nonetheless, I have credentials in this organization and am a whole-souled supporter of its goals.

The ACLU tends to get bad press on both sides of the political aisle -- and I guess that's a sign they're doing their job. Anyone can take a stand when it isn't controversial, but these days real civil libertarianism is a deeply threatened cause -- and it takes guts, quite honestly, to be willing to take that stand.

I don't think of myself as an especially gutsy person, not really. But I have a line, and this administration has crossed that line. So I've taken my stand with the ACLU, I'm displaying my views for the world to see -- and I guess when the jackbooted thugs come around to round us malcontents up, the sticker on my door will show them just where I am.