the defeatists!

Seriously, they need to get de la Dweeb to stop talking...

Ever since TR, people have talked about the President's Bully Pulpit. Now, TR meant something along the lines of "fucking bitchin'" when he used the word bully. People used to listen to the President because he was the President and he knew what he was doing. You might not agree with the guy, but you did the John Wayne about JFK thing, hoping he does a good job because "he's my president." That went south a long time ago, but now...Christ, we just hope that the guy doesn't do something like bomb Mecca or declare speeding a capital offense or pardoning Roger Clemens or something else. Maybe he had a brain anuyerism and he needs to be replaced under that amendment...oh, yeah, that would give us Cheney for 11 months.

But, he said yesterday that it's tough but we're not headed for a recession. If every time the man says something, people react as if the sky is falling, the Republicans in Congress need to get him to stop talking. Seriously. You see, the recession thing is a sign of woeful ignorance -- yes, we haven't had too quarters of negative growth -- the oil companies are carrying the GNP. We've just had a year of foreclosures, job losses, falling sales and fear, despair and depression.

Problem is, we are. Definitely, if we're not already in one. Consumers are not buying anything, the lenders are afraid to loan anything, the whole thing is crazy. When the Fed is less worried about inflation than anything else, and willing to risk it to head off the other things, you're in an economic tailspin. Houses are in free fall and trust me, in good years the President's sale days would be long over or there'd be nothing left to buy on sale. Cars aren't moving, gas is headed toward $4 a gallon by Easter, and the dollar is headed for the drachma level on the international market.

So, the R's need to get him to not talk. To anybody but Laura (Honey, I'm still prezdent,  comprende? So lemme have another pretzel) Barney and Miss Beasley. In fact, just let him talk to Barney. Otherwise, it's not going to be November of 94, it's going to be 32 or even 34. I see myself as at least a sentimental democrat with libertarian-anarcho-leveller tendencies. But, I don't want an absolute Democratic majority. Granted, the R's will still control the court, but with the level of partisanship caused by the R's in Congress over the last decade, I'm not sure Scalia and Thomas are immune from impeachment. 

Shit, not Barney the dog...just let him talk to this guy...

Nothing increases readership like pictures of naked women...

Crusader AXE is old enough to remember pre-teen longings associated with Marilyn Monroe. She kind of personified something, not unlike giant tail-fins on the '57 Chevy. Unnecessarily added, and somewhat vacuous, but kinda bitchin'...Now, she was a pathetic actress, and an absolutely lousy singer and with the exception of Some Like It Hot, I have problems figuring out the endless attraction today. She had a rotten life, fucked some interesting people and died sadly and alone of a drug overdose. Kind of overstuffed, kind of harmless, and the CIA may or may not -- probably not -- had something to do with the barbituates and wine. I can't see why aging queens see her as some kind of icon; while Norman Mailer's fascination sort of makes sense because they both hit the big time at the same time and he didn't get to sleep with her, what the hell was Elton John prattling about? Granted, his "goodbye England's Rose" was crappier as well as self-plagarism, but still...

So, when Paris Hilton did the happy birthday imitation, I figured OK! (like the magazine!!), this has now reached a new epitome of tackiness. However, the news that Lindsay Lohan was doing a photo spread imitating her last photo shoot for New York Magazine was kind of irritatingly interesting. Achieving new nadirs seems to be a preoccupation with our culture. Lindsay has made some really crappy movies and is hell bent on self-destruction. Normally, rehab centers oppose the inmates -- I mean patients -- bonding and having sex and drinks and all. Like Paris and Britney and all the rest, she really hasn't ever done anything except crap. Her acting is less interesting than Marilyn's and she doesn't seem to have fucked anyone like Arthur Miller, JFK or DiMaggio. Hell, she's got less going for her than Jessica Simpson in the cerebellum department. As well as in the voluptuousness department. 

So, I looked at the spread. Marilyn didn't, so far as I remember, have a goddamn butterfly on her panty-line. Frankly, while Marilyn was about yearning, glamour and fantasy, Lindsay is about convenience stores and sluts doing a second shot at junior year. The word SKANK seems very appropriate.

Just to be clear, New York Magazine has a lot of interesting stuff.  Think of it as the New Yorker light, only with music. The web site has a lot more than this bimbo. Like the link to Dead Flowers--Anglophiles Anonymous  where I found this...   

New Velvet Underground Song?

Well, actually it's 41 years old but it's the only recording of the song about Lou Reed being old. Go figure that one -- Lou looks like Keith Richard with botox. Mrs. AXE heard a bit of Ozzie Osborne talking tonight, and being more the Archies/Barry Manilow type, asked what was his problem...well, he's inarticulate. Why? Well, in the day he made Keith Richard seem like a Mormon Barry Manilow...

http://www.mediafire.com/?9zcetzynbvo

Bitched I have not about Hobbits of late...

Oh, yeah, that was Yoda. Anyway, the Hobbits have come out and in their ineffectual, dithering, screwing things way have had their way with her, endorsing Hillary Clinton for President of Middle Earth. Or Texas. Or someplace similar...

OK. This puts her over the edge. Not the top of course. All that's lacking for that is the endorsement of Naomi Judd and Gary Coleman. On the fantasy front, possibly Aaragorn will now endorse Huckleberry. The Dwarf, whatever the fuck his name was, will endorse McCain. The Orcs will caucus and endorse Mitt Romney. Orcs are resistant to change. Legolas will note that  he is cuter than Barrack Obama and will challenge him to an archery contest.

I thought that it would be hard to top the Huckleberry Celebrity Endorsements by Rick Flair and Walker. Obviously, I did not possess the audacity of hope. We can always achieve new summits of the nadir...

Capturing the absolute worthless irrelevancy of the moment

From Slate ...

What was Jesus' score on the front 9 at the Jerusalem open?

There are days that make me miss the Shire of Ectopia. The PBS station would bring in the cast of Red Dwarf for fundraisers, but most of the time it was the Andrew Weil-Suzie Orman and Deepak Chopra show. So, the news that DC is now hanging out in Seattle, swilling coffee, babbling at the UW's Benoroya Hall and talking about exploring Jesus. Based on the Gospel of Thomas, where he says it's obvious Jesus was talking about a shift in consciousness... Note Chopra's resemblance to Arnie Rimmer...

Ok, Jesse ben Joseph has damn little to do with Christianity. We can agree with that. And, the idea that Ghandi had Jesus-consciousness as opposed to Krishna Consciousness is intriguingly amusing...

The Christian seeker who wants to reach God is no different from the Buddhist," he claims. But he does concede that Jesus has the more powerful story: "What could be more dramatic than the Son of God being executed? Buddha mystified people, but he wasn't persecuted." (Yeah, the Greek educated Christians who put the whole mess together had read Aristotle's Poetics...duh.)

Chopra admires the way Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ," made "an emotional connection to Jesus," and he's working on a new book, "The Missing Years of Jesus," that he hopes will also find a fresh way to demonstrate Jesus' impact. (The dude is into snuff films and Entertainment Tonight...)

"It's based on bits and pieces of folklore because about 82 percent of his life is missing," said Chopra, who takes inspiration from his trips to the Dead Sea and Jerusalem. (Seriously, this means that it's based on bullshit and urban legends that survived 2000 years. Jesus was a Greek educated, zealot-essene-zororasterian apostate who had tangled relations with women and may have had a homoerotic relationship with John and Judas. Judas betrayed him because he was a jealous bitch...come on...He's writing a book based on less than nothing.)

Around the time Jesus lived, he believes, human consciousness was experiencing a shift in perception. (Yeah. Been done before. Julian Jaynes and "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Except that didn't have a lot of new age crap involved in what was basically a discussion of evolutionary psychology)

.""The Roman occupation was generating a lot of suffering and despair, the Jews had to flee, and this was the only way to get away from 'an eye for an eye.' " He claims a similar reformation is taking place now, within the church, and that it will triumph because it's based on Jesus' teachings. (Drivel...)

"Did you know, Gandhi carried a copy of the Sermon on the Mount throughout his life, and he lived it to the letter? His Christ-consciousness was so powerful that he brought down the British Empire." (And, he got shot too!)

What can I say? Too easy? Note the cool hat and the clubs...Jesus would have sprung for a caddy or shluffed his own damn clubs...

Caligula and Commodus put on great games too...

Since I'm one of the folks who could have chalked "Clapton is God!!" in my youth, this one stikes me as the logical extension of that thought. Certainly takes the emerging arts and letters diplomacy of the Beloved Leader with the potbelly and the really weird haircut to new levels. Should make a helluva HBO special...

See a recession coming? We're there, idiots...

MSNBC provided this bit, as a piece with an article about how 45% of economists think we're headed for a recession. Sold a house lately? Why are the President's Day Sales still going on? and then there's this gem, the most disturbing piece being that there is a Hot Dog and Sausage Council...

And then there's this which is actually a serious ad.  Calling itself the best credit card for people with bad credit, Orchard Bank is willing to step up-- "Got money Problems?  We'll  eat your lungs!"

The right words are needed, but they don't exist

I think if someone asked a contemporary Frank Capra to do a version of "Why We Fight" for today, they'd go insane. But, today we do not ask for universal sacrifice, and the difference between these young men and the guys playing in the Super Bowl boils down to this: they are paid incredibly less money to do more than Eli Manning ever imagined; few people can comprehend what they do and why; and ultimately, they end up alienated because they think no one cares. And, at times, I think they may be right...

One night while watching a scene from HBO’s “Rome” in which a Roman soldier tells a slave he wants to marry her, a soldier asked which century the story was set in. “First B.C. or A.D.,” said another soldier. The first shook his head: “And they’re still living like this 800 meters outside the wire.”

Absolutely awesome article in the Times. This is reality, and it sucks. Crusader AXE lived throughthe Army shift from an austere warrior approach to a concern for quality of life in combat, and I think that the Petraeus doctrine which reduces the impact of "quality of life" is more likely to succeed than  the other, especially in a counter-insurgency. That said, the impact on the soldiers of that kind of isolation in situations that are not necessarily counter-insurgencies so much as a kind of island-hopping between village and village is not clear. I deal with people with PTSD every day. Contrary to what a lot of people outside think, I believe that PTSD is not so much caused by what is done to you as by what you see done to your friends and how you react to that. The more it happens, the worse it is, the longer it lasts, the more incredible the damage -- and, at a certain point, you have to ask as a citizen and a human being is the ultimate goal worth the cost? Afghanistan should be over, but due to diversion of forces, wealth and intellectual capital as well as the absurdity of the entire mess, our people are still struggling there. As Hillary and Batboy and Batshit occupy the minds of the nation and the mortgage mess continues and we wonder why anyone would pay $70K for a Nissan, we ask this of our young men and women.

The next day I climbed up to the KOP and found Specialist Giunta, a quiet Iowan lofted into a heroism he didn’t want. His officers were putting him up for a medal of honor. Giunta told me the story of that night, how they’d barely moved 300 yards before they were blasted. Giunta was fourth in the file when it happened, and he jumped into a ditch. He couldn’t figure out why they were getting hit from where Joshua Brennan and baby-faced Franklin Eckrode should have been leading up ahead. He knew it must be bad, but as he leapt up to check he got whacked with a bullet in his armored chest plate. It threw him down. They were taking fire from three sides. He grabbed some grenades: “I couldn’t throw as far as Sergeant Gallardo. We were looking like retards and I decided to run out in front of the grenades.” ...

He couldn’t figure out who they were. Then he realized they were hauling Brennan off through the forest. “I started shooting,” he recalled. “I emptied that magazine. They dropped Brennan.” Giunta scrambled up to Brennan. He was a mess. His lower jaw was shot off. “He was still conscious. He was breathing. He was asking for morphine. I said, ‘You’ll get out and tell your hero stories,’ and he was like, ‘I will, I will.’ ”...

They were still taking fire. No one was there to help. Hugo Mendoza, their platoon medic, was back in another ditch, calling: “I’m bleeding out. I’m dying.” Giunta saw Brennan’s eyes go back. His breathing was bad. Giunta got Brennan to squeeze his hand. A medic showed up out of the sky. They prepared Brennan to be hoisted to the medevac in a basket. Soon he would be dead.

As the medevacs flew out, Sergeant Sandifer had talked in air cover: Slasher, the AC-130. The pilot was a woman and, Sandifer later told me, “It was so reassuring for us to hear her voice.” She spotted guys hiding and asked if she was clear to engage. “ ‘You’re cleared hot,’ I told her. And we killed two people together.” But, at this point, the killings were no consolation to Sandifer.

As Giunta said, “The richest, most-trained army got beat by dudes in manjammies and A.K.’s.” His voice cracked. He was not just hurting, he was in a rage. And there was nothing for him to do with it but hold back his tears, and bark — at the Afghans for betraying them, at the Army for betraying them. He didn’t run to the front because he was a hero. He ran up to get to Brennan, his friend. “But they” — he meant the military — “just keep asking for more from us.” His contract would be up in 18 days but he had been stop-lossed and couldn’t go home. Brennan himself was supposed to have gotten out in September. He’d been planning to go back to Wisconsin where his dad lived, play his guitar and become a cop. (Emphasis added.)

Tom Petty does it again

I'd never heard this one before. It made my Thursday...
http://rhaplinks.real.com/rhaplink?rhapid=4406582&type=playlist&title=Playlist&from=real

The best thing on XM is Tom Petty's Buried Treasure. Dylan's Theme Time Radio occasionally comes close, but Petty doesn't act the poet or the seer. Just the musician playing what he likes in a low key, downscale sort of way. I'd kind of like to find some stuff to send him -- maybe a Hawaiian Ukele and slack key band doing American Girl or the Waiting. He'd play it.