the defeatists!

What cold hell is this?

Ok, your son enlists in the Marines. He goes to war. He dies...you deal with it, kind of. Comes time for the funeral, and in addition to the honor guard and the bugler, you get to have a mob of Jesus-Juiced-Up-Troglodytes screaming at you, your family and your dead son and all his dead and shattered brothers and sisters because "Jesus hates fags..." This being the United States, a constitutional government that your son died for in some pissant Arab shitbox, you know they have a right to free speech, but this seems really too much. You take legal action, using the court system. There has to be some sort of protection for you and your family from these reptiles.Then, this happens --

Albert Snyder got a bill for $16,500 on Friday — the latest result of his ongoing legal battle with the Westboro Baptist Church. Church members are seeking to recoup costs from federal appeals court, which dismissed Snyder’s lawsuit against them. Snyder’s lawyer, Sean Summers, said the court declared last week that Snyder was responsible for the costs.

Efforts to reach an official from Westboro Baptist Church were unsuccessful Monday.

Such mandated reimbursements are common after appellate court cases, Summers said. When the U.S. Supreme Court hears Snyder’s case in the fall, its decision will ultimately make a big difference as to whether or not Snyder can eventually recoup that money, Summers said. “It’s rubbing salt in an open wound,” Summers said.

Well, it's always interesting to see the conflict between free speech and civilization roll and tumble. Unfortunately, it may or may not be right. This is pretty definitely not right. While this routine finding should be overturned by the court -- I suspect the Founders would have been split, but this is where Franklin and Adams and common sense would have applied and ideology be damned. Washington would probably have horsewhipped Mr. Phelps and his ilk -- the fact that the Court of Appeals found in favor of these disgusting scum suckers is troubling.

Like it or not, this is a political trial and a trial for civilization. Our civilization -- now, whether it's fat teenage chicks in leatherlink spandex tights rioting for Black Cherry Mochas with extra chocolate but with soy or John Boenher's sun tan, our civilization is pretty much fucked over anyway. However, we have a tradition in the West of honoring our dead and protecting their remains from sacrilege and desecration. One of my biggest complaints against the Clinton administration as both a serving soldier at the time, as a citizen, and as a man is that the Somalians never paid for desecrating the bodies of Mike Durant's crew and the two Delta Force soldiers who volunteered to go to the most dangerous place on that battlefield. Naplaming Mogadishu would have been a start. If that had happened, it would probably have done more for the folks there than anything else done since. It's a problem of boundaries... Allow someone to cross the damn things, and be prepared for bad things to happen.

The only redeeming factor in this disaster is that Mr. Snyder isn't alone. While it would be much more satisfying to bitchslap Fred Phelps and Friends back to the slime pits of Kansas, I strongly suggest that you Read this and using one of the mechanisms, give to the Al Snyder legal defense fund. No excuse for any vet not to...

The young man who died was 20 years old, a Marine Lance Corporal. He died to protect the rights of Mr. Phelps; the war he died in is irrelevant. The sacrifice stands on its own merits. As does the Reverend Phelps. This is a chance to push back, and we should. Hard. If there is divine justice, I have a pretty good idea as to what God has planned for Freddie and his Dreamers...an eternal buttfucking.

Been quiet...

While I've been ruminating, the world moves on. Isn't it interesting that the most horrible terrorism seems to occur in countries with really good political police operations like, well, Russia? We've had isolated moments of horror, and not downplaying any of it, but the fact is that every mover and shaker over there appears to either have been in the KGB or whatever they are calling themselves now, or the GRU, or Spetznaz  or something. Of course, the irony is lost in places like North Korea...I guess the more Stalinist, the more they love Big Brother.

This is...not good? Funny? A mash-up? Or why Simon's leaving...

Well, I read Power Pop. Tonight, Crusader AXE glanced at it and got to see a piece of sheer brilliance from their Rolling Stone tribute show. Dear God...this could send them all to a Zen monastery. Except Mick, of course, who is really all about the money. This guy tries to turn "Under My Thumb" into a Archies-romantic ballad. Power Pop is in pain in his comments, and well he should be.

Very few Stones covers are very good. That's really not surprising. Arrowsmith  or J.Geils or The Chesterfield Kings could do a mean Stones cover. There have been a few others of course. Susan Tedeschi kills on Silver and Gold; Linda Ronstadt gets a slam dunk on Tumbling Dice. But, the malicious humor that Jagger infuses everything with back in the day along with the really great playing on albums like Aftermath really makes several things apparent. A bunch of American IDOL contestants do not make rock and roll...they make Muzak. 

Now, we probably would not be remise to point out that most of the best stuff from the Stones is at least 35 years old. Still...

And then there's this...

Talk about potentially having everything blow up and catch fire while everyone dies! The Seminole  Nation has started a new extreme sport, free-style alligator 'rasslin...hilarity will ensue, I'm sure. Coming soon to the WWE, Captain Hook!

The thing is, this guy is kissing that gator. Man-Lizard foreplay? In Florida? Where's that Arizona JD "Consistent Conservative" Hayworth to talk about the Massachusetts Supreme Court, marriage and intimacy when you need him? Voters want to know what Charlie Crisp and John McCain think of man on reptile sex? And, what Indians think about inter-species sexual relations? And, is there a way to envision what the kids would look like. Well, actually, yes -- now say gastric bypass.  

They've replaced Keira with whom...

Keira Knightley adds a bit of fire and class to most things she gets involved with. King Arthur and the Pirates of the Caribbean are two examples. While Clive Owen wasn't the best Arthur they could have had, as Druid Princess/Saxon Bashing/ethereal beauty, Guinevere, Ms. Knightley's layered sexual tension and ethical appeal made the film memorable. As for her role in Pirates, well, that was fairly amazing as well. Frankly, she made a more convincing duelist than Depp or Bloom. The sequels were, at best, sequels. Now, they are getting ready to roll out a new line (of sequels to sequels, so to speak) and she's out for Penelope Cruz. This may be based on a new fad -- non-surgically or digitally enhanced  breasts. I guess to get a PG rating?

Knightley, 24, who was 18 when she shot the first Pirates movie, did not have to face the indignity of an enhancement test. “I am not that well endowed so they literally painted in my cleavage,” she said. “It took about 45 minutes every day for make-up artists to add shade and volume and it looked fantastic until it got too hot shooting. Then the make-up would start smearing and the lines running away.”

She tried alternatives such as a bodice which shrunk her waist to 18 inches. It gave her a tremendous cleavage by squeezing her breasts “up and out” but also left her with only enough oxygen to breathe for 10 minutes: “After that I started passing out.” However, publicity posters for the film King Arthur, in which Knightley played Guinevere, were digitally enhanced to give her bigger breasts.

Now, I think that gritty reality series probably should have people look like they really looked. However, if you had people in films like Pirates look like they really looked, you'd probably mistake the damn thing for a Zombie movie. Between smallpox scars, festering sores, syphilitic deformity and general ill-health, you could probably expect things to be pretty ugly. It's a fantasy, bubba. While women can swoon over Depp's soulful gay Keith Richard deal, men are going to have basically nothing to look at. As for teenage boys, dear god...

Sources said this was the first time such an edict had been passed on a Pirates film: “In the last movie there were enhanced breasts to give that 18th-century whoreish look and men were pretty well padded, too, and no one worried,” said a former casting agent. “But times are changing and the audience can spot false breasts.”...Earlier this month the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (Asaps) announced that while breast augmentations remained the most popular procedure in America, the number of operations had dropped from 365,000 to 312,000 — and is expected to decline again this year. “Not only are numbers down, which can be partially explained by the recession, but women are asking for smaller enlargements,” said Renato Saltz, the president of Asaps and a Utah plastic surgeon. “Women used to want the most bang for their buck, but now I see many opting instead for a C-cup over a traditional double-D because they want something more subtle, not something that stops a room talking.” The former casting agent said: “Directors such as Martin Scorsese already avoid employing actresses using Botox or with collagen inflated lips. They know what they want, which is to avoid vulgar distractions. In Hollywood movies, where everything else is false, nothing is more valued than natural beauty.”

Seriously, folks, reality is overrated.

It's that damn day again...

Seriously, when I see Shane McGowan in his current glory, I see where I probably should have been. When I drank, I never had a St Patrick's Day that I enjoyed after I was about 13. My parents would let me drink some Wild Irish Rose under the mistaken belief that it had something to do with Ireland when I was in my early teens. Graduated beyond it, but never really had fun. Now, I don't not have fun. Yeah, confused, as is my relationship to theatrical Irishness.

On the other hand, it's not all that big a deal. Kind of a phony deal, and all the folks who suddenly decide to celebrate their Irishness, especially those that aren't Irish. Fuck 'em. If it's St George's Day, should I shove a poker up my arse and call myself Henry Tudor? Columbus Day, should I wear a black suit with a black shirt and a black tie and grease my hair and mutter insanely things that make no sense from old gangster movies? On St Louis'Day, should I refrain from bathing and gargle a rendering of cheap wine, garlic and snails? So, having Poles tell me their name that day is O'Slavikbuggeringnightmarewithnotenoughvowels to pronounce kind of pisses me off.

Anyway, the Catholicism that was traditional to Ireland prior to the great Crusade led by Henry II and Thomas Becket to liberate the Catholic Irish from St Patrick's and the Irish theology which was more liberating and fit the culture. Since it  didn't kick in 10% of everything to the Holy Father , a Nicolas Breakspeare/Pope Adrian whose father, interestingly was a monk either before, during or after or some combination of his boy's childhood and was from Hertfordshire. Not that there's anything wrong with an Englishman who happens to be Pope selling the authority to Crusade against Catholic Ireland...actually, there's a lot wrong with it. The Crusades would be funny if the various things didn't screw up the world and kill thousands if not millions of poor ignorant bastards. There are complaints in mainstream history about the Albignesian Crusade and the sack of Constantinople and various other military adventures that had far less to do with faith than in lust, power and money. Ireland is largely ignored...I guess they figure that the french playwright and   Peter O'Toole screwed over actor enough. Breakspeare may not have been the only Pope from Britain, by the way. Pope Joan who may or may not have existed as Pope John...according to a quote in Wiki

Pope John VIII: John, of English extraction, was born at Mentz (Mainz) and is said to have arrived at Popedom by evil art; for disguising herself like a man, whereas she was a woman, she went when young with her paramour, Frumentius, a learned man, to Athens, and made such progress in learning under the professors there that, coming to Rome, she met with few that could equal, much less go beyond her, even in the knowledge of the scriptures; and by her learned and ingenious readings and disputations, she acquired so great respect and authority that upon the death of Pope Leo IV (as Martin says) by common consent she was chosen Pope in his room. As she was going to the Lateran Church between the Colossean Theatre (so called from Nero's Colossus) and St. Clement's her travail came upon her, and she died upon the place, having sat two years, one month, and four days, and was buried there without any pomp. This story is vulgarly told, but by very uncertain and obscure authors, and therefore I have related it barely and in short, lest I should seem obstinate and pertinacious if I had admitted what is so generally talked. I had better mistake with the rest of the world, though it be certain, that what I have related may be thought not altogether incredible (Bartolomeo Platina

--Vitæ Pontificum Platinæ historici liber de vita Christi ac omnium pontificum qui hactenus ducenti fuere et XX).

Now, Crusader AXE is obviously proud of his Irish heritage, and will easily and gladly stipulate that Ireland is a marvelous place, and at times very friendly to Americans. At the same time, we're an angry bunch of fuckers, and while Seamus the WWE idiot is a parody, there's some truth to the portrayal. I saw the new Prime Minister meeting with Obama on TV today, along with the White House fountain pissing green, and he seems avuncular enough. But, the IRA is not that far behind or buried in all of us; except the Protestants, of course, and there the UVF is fairly close as well. It's not necessarily religion; it's really about anger...and, a lot of that goes back to St Patrick and Breakspeare and Strongbow and Cromwell and the Catholic Church. Without the Church, no Ireland; without no Ireland, probably no Church in Western Europe for another 500 years; and the whole symbiotic relationship has never been resolved.


Well, ultimately it's all about class and power and money. Let Mr. Earle sum it up...

Inattention...or Hello Miss, I have a cold

When Crusader AXE joins the Norwegian Blue, pining for the Fjords and such, it will probably be from someone not paying attention. It may be prosaic, not bothering with a bathmat and falling headfirst into the commode; it may be silly, like some teen driver wetdaydreaming on the interstate at 80 in his Prius and clipping me as I drive by muttering that the kid needs to get off my grass; it may be tragic, somebody in Starbucks not noticing the ground glass in the frappuchino mix. Regardless, some more attention and I'd probably be around longer until some other inattention kills me.

Civilizations tend to go the same way. While there's a revisionist school of thought to the effect that we shouldn't talk about the decline of the Roman Empire and the dark ages, I saw something not too long ago that pointed out that most cities in Europe had running water and indoor plumbing in the third century AD, something that had pretty well vanished by 500AD and was missing again until the 1900s. Even though the Roman sewer system continued to function in a lot of ways, hooking it up just seemed too complicated.

The reason for mentioning this is simple; we've found a similar way to perhaps literally let everything catch fire and all die -- we've ignored the water system for 100 years and now we're shocked, shocked that the fucking thing is falling apart. How could a system of pipes, conduits, basically holes in the ground, pipes, pumps, etc. fail?  Goddamn it, people, heads need to roll. It worked in 1950, why doesn't it work now?

Well, it doesn't work now because we ignored it. We weren't really paying attention, and the maintenance system has consisted of fixing what broke. We're pretty good at handling planned obsolescence and wear and tear in our own lives. I know that the desktop I'm doing this on will probably be obsolete in a couple of years; I know that my shiny new Mustang GT will be kind of clunky in 4 or 5 years. In general, I buy good stuff, try to take care of it -- if I remember to pay attention -- and replace it as I need to. Not a bad way to function as a civilization.

But, tragedy of the commons...water and sewers are cheap and Goddamnittohell, they need to be cheaper. Except that nothing is cheaper. And, here's a thought -- we're dealing with technology not that much more advanced than the Romans in our water systems, installed a hundred years ago, and not significantly upgraded, maintained or even systematically monitored. When a pipe breaks, it either gets noticed or it doesn't. If it doesn't, the road eventually caves in; otherwise, it gets fixed when people complain about lack of water pressure. Or the street floods...

Which makes the current situation in most major cities sort of, well, inevitable...

As city employees searched for underground valves, a growing crowd started asking angry questions. Pipes were breaking across town, and fire hydrants weren’t working, they complained. Why couldn’t the city deliver water, one man yelled at Mr. Hawkins. (AXE comment: Can't you hear it now? Where's Glenn Beck when you need him?)

Such questions are becoming common across the nation as water and sewer systems break down. Today, a significant water line bursts on average every two minutes(!!!!)somewhere in the country, according to a New York Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data.

In Washington alone there is a pipe break every day, on average, and this weekend’s intense rains overwhelmed the city’s system, causing untreated sewage to flow into the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers.

One of the issues Crusader AXE has with this situation is the sheer goddamn lack of necessity to the whole thing. Granted, Washington DC has always been the city of Northern Charm and Sudden Efficiency, as JFK put it in 1960. Still, given the number of Federal Agencies charged with things like public health and environmental protection and housing and urban development, you'd think someone might have noticed that the city they've got in kind of a semi-colonial status was falling apart?

If you'll recall all the nonsense about the stimulus package, I keep wondering where the hell the "shovel ready" projects are. Seriously, I had expected to see the President and everybody else down to the DOD third assistant undersecretary for dog catching running around breaking ground and actually doing something with shovels. Water system projects seem like the kind of things that municipalities, states, counties, the Federal Government should have ready to go. Yet, damn all is being done. Look at the economic stimulus...you gotta dig holes, move dirt and debris, lay pipe, fit the pipe, weld, seal, flush, move connect, fill in the holes, pave the roads, re-route the traffic, lay feeder roads, build switching stations. You're looking at 100 years of family wage jobs. Infrastructure...not sexy, but when the faucets produce brown mud followed by air and nothin', people are going to be pissed that we wasted this opportunity on too-big-to-fail banks while our too-critical to fail infrastructure crumbled...and, everything caught fire and, because of no water pressure, those of us not dying of cholera, dysentery and e coli all died from fire. And water. And not paying attention...but, while it's easy to blame the politicians, and the commentators, and the "guv'ment bureaucrats" the people who haven't been paying attention are the people. We get the government we deserve and We've got a doozy...eight years of incompetence and not caring, followed by caring incompetence.

Here's the deal -- no water system, no cities. There is no "we can't afford this!" Seriously, the power grid, the water and sewer systems, the communications network, the roads, rail and air systems are not negotiable in a real civilization. In much the same way, the school systems and health care systems are not negotiable. It's going to be less expensive than the alternative...which is sitting around in caves, eating raw meat and having sex with woodland creatures.

Just so we're clear...(Update!)

"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."
- Thomas Jefferson 

Texas  is the second biggest state, and most of the people there are at least as rational as the folks in Santa Fe, Philadelphia, Boston, Baton Rouge, Tucson and Seattle. However, there is a texture to the state's politics that is frightening because it's sort of a Right Wing Christian Taliban approach governed by the desires of Big Oil and Big Agriculture. As a result, John Calvin is replacing Thomas Jefferson in the high school system...Jesus, not being a Calvinist, would weep. Jefferson would mutter, in much the way he is muttering metaphysically about his words being high-jacked while his thought ignored by the tea party movement. Which now has an admirer in the wife of Clarence Thomas...I had thought she put on some weight as we all age, from her loving spouse role in his nomination hearings. Now, I guess she has -- in her head. But, focus, AXE...Texas high schools.

For a change, we should be happy that our kids isn't learning. Since Texas is the home of bad school law due to bad facts, the School Board's decision to teach American History along the lines of Creationism is not too terribly surprising. What is surprising is that the entire establishment in Texas isn't worried about being laughingstocks. And, since it's not, I guess that they either are so ignorant at Oxford on the Brazos (TAMU, the killer university) that the state that gave a sense of contrarian  thought as to the meaning of facts is now determined to be contrarian on facts, and that's ok with these guys.

One thing that has the good folks on the left in a bit of an uproar is the decision of the School Board to not require the teaching of the doctrine of separation of Church and State. Since Texas has a large born again community, the possibility does exist that they may in fact establish the Billy Bob Church of Foot Washing Snake Handling Tongue Talking Two-Steppers as the official religion. Right after they secede. Given the ascendancy of the Tea Party movement, perhaps they might get away with it...although Scalia has admitted that there is no right to secede. However, Texas is rapidly becoming a state with at least a Hispanic plurality; and, the Czech and German areas are pretty Catholic. I could picture Catholicism becoming the state religion; maybe we'd have to see the place split up, based on plurality, and become something like Germany, where the Evangelical Church is pretty much the established church in the north and the Catholics rule the south. The old east zone is pretty much confused by this...

As are most people -- why should we care? Well, California is too broke to buy schoolbooks, so the books that are going to be available to buy in the next few years to educate high school kids nationwide will be written IAW the Texas School Board decisions on curriculum. I can't wait for Jesus-Calculus...

Canons of Christianity reloaded...

Glenn Beck's performance with Roberto "No Mas" Massa last night proved that Massa is insane, the Navy is 235 years of tradition (rum, sodomy, and tickling in lieu of the lash) untouched by progress, and that the entire process of what passes for journalism in this country is probably broken. However, in the spirit of "what the hell, who cares," I came upon this and feel it's worth paying attention to.

Except for the whole God thing, and the bureaucratic nonsense imposed on it by the nature of being a 1900 plus year old organization based on Rome at the time of Domitian in terms of organizational structure, and the hats, Crusader AXE has no beef with Catholicism qua Catholicism. In practice, it's not quite what it's adherents claim, and there is the God thing that gets in my way. I have pointed out that for good or evil, I am a product of American Irish-Catholicism. Me, Chris Matthews and Clarence Thomas all hung out together years apart and in seperate realities. That said, I particularly have no problems and only admiration for the Society of Jesus. Except for the God thing and the complete and total dedication to the Pope. But, more than a few Jesuits, including the entire order for about 80 years ran afoul of the Pope. So, what the hell...

And, if you want to read a Religious Magazine that addresses the world as it is lived, the Jesuits have been publishing one for decades called America. And, in that magazine, one of the gang, Father James Martin SJ  has taken on Glenn Beck and basically the entire Republican party and most of its stalwarts. Beck has recommended to his readers that they leave Churches that preach the social gospel. This is the article's conclusion:

The attack on social justice is the tack of those who wish to ignore the concerns the poor and ignore the social structures that foster poverty. It's not hard to see why people are tempted to do so. How much easier it would be if we didn't have to worry about the poor!

But ignoring the poor, and ignoring what keeps them poor, is, quite simply, unchristian. For the poor are the church in many ways. When St. Lawrence, in the fourth century, was ordered by the prefect of Rome to turn over the wealth of the church, he presented to him the poor.

Glenn Beck's desire to detach social justice from the Gospel is a move to detach care for the poor from the Gospel. But a church without the poor, and a church without a desire for a just social world for all, is not the church. At least not the church of Jesus Christ. 

Who was, by the way, poor. 

As Dandy Don used to put it, turn out the lights, the party is over. Of course, it's not, but it should be. All those god fearing teabagging Christians need to listen. They won't. But, should...

.

That ain't flying...

Crusader AXE was worried that the world was running out of this sort of thing...you know, ethnic and religious cleansing. And the news that the VA has found a new way to treat PTSD by killing sufferers really should warm the cockles of the Teaparty/No Taxation/People Are Unemployed Because they wannabe movement. At last, a government agency is taking action against all these sniveling assholes.  You know, the one's with Bronze Stars and multiple awards of the Purple Heart. Bastards ought to find Jesus and all move to Nigeria.