"I think they are all homosexual communists in Satan's army...I espect as well they all live together and bathe together every morning and have the anal sex with one another, with the fisting and the guinea pigs." - Manuel Estimulo
"I can never quite tell if the defeatists are conservative satirists poking fun at the left or simply retards. Or both. Retarded satire, perhaps?" - Kyle
"You're an effete fucktard" - Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom
"This is the most pathetic blog ever..." - Ames Tiedeman
"You two [the Rev and el Comandante] make an erudite pair. I guess it beats thinking." - Matt Cunningham (aka Jubal) of OC Blog
"Can someone please explain to me what the point is behind that roving gang of douchebags? I’m being serious here. It’s not funny, and doesn’t really make anything that qualifies as logical argument. Paint huffers? Drunken high school chess geeks?" - rickinstl
I've been reading Christopher Hitchens more often of late, making the time because I accept that he may not be around much longer, and is still saying things worth saying. I just finished his discussion of Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man and am about to begin his book on Jefferson. In some ways, Hitchens is a spiritual descendent of Paine, Burke and the other 18th century pamphlet writers. His books are generally short, and really pretty topical. Yet, like Paine and Burke, I suspect his stuff will be read for some time to come.
This week, in Slate, Hitchens decides to take the Tea Party apart. He sees it as a racial and religious thing -- as the nation becomes even more diverse, and as the WHITE MAJORITY is faced with demographic demise, they become worried about things that aren't there, missing the things that are.
In a rather curious and confused way, some white people are starting almost to think like a minority, even like a persecuted one. What does it take to believe that Christianity is an endangered religion in America or that the name of Jesus is insufficiently spoken or appreciated? Who wakes up believing that there is no appreciation for our veterans and our armed forces and that without a noisy speech from Sarah Palin, their sacrifice would be scorned? It's not unfair to say that such grievances are purely and simply imaginary, which in turn leads one to ask what the real ones can be.
What indeed? It's 160 years since the Know Nothings burned a Ursuline Convent and Orphanage in Boston out of ignorance and fear of the 1840s Muslims, the Irish Catholics. They had rallies and speeches and things too -- so, I suspect in 100 years people will trace the lineage of the Tea Party to the Know Nothings, the Klan, the America-Firsters, the Birch Society, the YAF and so on and so on. My neice's and nephew's grandchildren, Kwame and Shoiboan Cowmeadow will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about. And, go off to the neighborhood YMCA/Mosque/CYO to play basketball. And, hopefully, to read some Hitchens at some point in their education.
Again, it's confusing. Not many a lesser demon appears from the fiery depths of hell with a penchant for human food. You'll usually find a hell-beast hell bent on devouring souls. Or babies. Or baby souls. Rarely do you find one who wants sandwiches. And when you do, if you're in Washington D.C. to protest taxation (is that why they're here?), well then for some reason the sandwichery strikes a menacing chord.
Well, the demon found the teaparty people he met fairly generous, getting so many sandwiches he fed a bunch of them to ducks. He did not get his ass whipped, although there were some people who discussed it with him. He appears to be David Cross, comedian and cast as a possible homosexual opposite Portia de Rossi in Arrested Development.
At the same time, there was a case of exploitative violence at the George Washington University Deli. Yokels in Tea Bagger regalia supposedly came in, got incensed that the District was going to tax the paper bags that they wanted the sandwiches in, and got so angry one of these fine Americans threw the sandwich in the face of the kid behind the counter...who was probably a student trying to pay the incredibly overpriced tuition and costs associated with going to school in DC, so he can get a good job and live the American dream...which does not include dealing with outoftown assholes. And, the kid was probably from Wyoming or some other goddamn place. If they'd thrown the sandwich at Marion Barry, that might have made sense, cosmicly.
Crusader AXE was fairly pissed off by the Beckapoloosa or whatever it was to begin with. That said, it doesn't appear that he shilled gold, cried or was annointed by angels. It happened, and I guess a lot of people went home feeling...What exactly? They left the illiterate racist signs home, some we now know who is really in charge...Glenn Beck. No obvious gun violations, which since the Memorial is in the District and on Federal Land, is probably reasonable. No Biker Chicks to suck start your Harley...no Hells Angels providing security. Oh, yeah, that was Altamont. You know what would have helped -- a crowd of drunken frat boys chanting, "SHOW US YOUR TITS, SARAH!"
But, I guess it was what it was; from my point of view, a disappointment. Seriously, it strikes me like a very crowded Hemp Fest -- lots of true believers, some jam-band/wing-nut riffs from the stage, and I'm sure a bunch of people wandering around selling love beads and hash pipes/NoBama and ProPalin stuff. It was about stuff. Not good stuff, not the best stuff, just stuff. And, a lot of people wandering around trying to either figure out what it's all about or trying to score or trying to get laid. Probably as unsuccessfully as at Hemp Fest...
OK, the Typepad Hobbit continue to not fix the link tab. Not sure why -- really don't want us to discuss anything except our own angst? Too dumb to notice? Anyway, this piece from the Scientific American is nice, light summer reading...http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=death-to-humans&sc=physics_20100827
Nineteen Endtimers decide to kill a bunch of people and do so. People die horrifically and on national TV. The local tinpot/tinheaded dictator, Benito Guiliani fucks up the response, ultimately forcing a near riot between his police department and his fire department, both of which organizations largely consist of guys who think he's a tool and his umbrella carrying police commissioner are twits. Body parts are found in landfills. One bunch of loonies blame the Jews; another bunch of loonies blame the gays; the religious right blames the gays, the fornicators and the liberals. A lot of people were killed, injured, psychologically damaged and basically left bereft. The reason it was a target was because it was the psychological symbol of American greed and capitalism. The World Trade Center wasn't devoted to unicorn farms, orphanages, or feeding the poor, or succoring injured eagles -- it was about money, and greed. The response to this attack -- let's build another Temple of Mammon and really charge some rents.
Ok, to a certain extent, that's the American Way. We have lots of hallowed ground in this country that has been under threat by capitalism, and to a certain extent, that makes sense. We are a free people, and free people do engage in something else besides Jeffersonian Democracy and Socratic dialogues about the meaning of love, peace, Woodstock and "Is" -- free people engage in commerce. The difference between 1 World Trade Center and the Gettysburg Battlefield is that no one has put a fucking outlet mall on Cemetary Ridge. Little Round Top itself doesn't have a goddamn Wendy's on it.
If the people who think the World Trade Center is sacred, why are they not furious about what's going to be done. The Twin Towers of Light that was shown for a while was hauntingwas haunting; one of my great regrets as an American is that I haven't been to Ground Zero since the attack. I was dumbfounded by the valor of the cops and the firemen and the people who just did what they were supposed to do, unlike Benito who was bumbling around looking for a camera. Maybe he figured that those working class Irish, Italian, Pole, Puerto Rican and Black guys and gals needed to see his penile-implant-resembling face that day. If the ground is sacred, then nothing should go up there.
So, I'll weigh in on whether or not the Park 51 Community Center should be allowed to go in a couple of blocks away when the people who are acting like assholes and idiots actually do something to make the ground sacred and awesome...crystal towers with no businesses, seperated from the rest of the city by a moat. Until then, it's just a commercial abomination being built on a landfill...
Crusader AXE mad this offer earlier today to Vote Vets, and will make it again here. One of the most awful things that this new Right Tea Party bunch of loonies has hijacked is the Gadsden Flag, the "Don't Tread on Me" banner that indicates the willingness of Americans to fight for their individual rights. They've used it to back corporate capitalism, of course; tax cuts for the rich; denial of care or rights for the poor; the imposition of state religion as a goal; what are the odds that the Gadsden Flag will turn up at Glen Beck's Sausage Fest and Rummage Sale this weekend at the Lincoln Memorial? We need to take back our symbols -- Lady Liberty, the Constitution, and, oh yeah, the Gadsden Flag. The one thing that these yokels have shown is a gleeful joy in saying rights don't matter. To build the Park 51 Project there is within the Muslim Community's Rights, it's just not right and they shouldn't do it within sight of this new finance and banking mega-complex with a few plaques that the developers are putting up...I mean, sacred ground. Fuck you all blind...if the Community Center agrees to fly it, I will gladly purchase and donate a Gadsden Flag to them. All that I have heard is a willingness to trample on rights based on opinions...as Jon Stewart pointed out last night, there's no logic to this. It's simple -- the Jihadis will claim we're wrong and they're right regardless of what they do, so why are we worried about what they think? Fuck 'em -- we need to do what's right. And, since the Muslim Community is willing to raise and invest money and build a community center that I believe is supposed to be open to everyone, why the hell not! More power to them. And less to the bigoted twits who oppose this...
About the time of Born in the USA, I kinda lost most of my interest in Bruce Springsteen. The period where he was wandering around, trying different things really resulted in lost interest on my part. The Bruce steroids-Nautilus thing kind of pissed me off. Not sure why...a lot of his performances now are still better than most of the ones you're going to find other places, but the old Bruuuuucccceee mania is not there. I feel the way about a lot of groups that were wonderful and are now just better than the rest but can't quite show the magic.
So, when the Times announced that on November 16, a stack of material related to the Darkness at the Edge of Town album is going to be released, the AXE gets very excited. The Hobbits for some reason have turned off the link toy here, so the Times piece is at http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/back-to-the-badlands-springsteen-finds-more-music-on-edge-of-town/?ref=arts...and, I know what I'm going to do that day or about two weeks prior when I'll be on the Bruce Springsteen Live Nation Page pre-ordering the set with a re-mastered original, two additional CDs of material that didn't make it into the album, and three DVDs. Pre-order, and celebrate...along with a live DVD concert in Houston from 1978. When Bruce was a skinny kid guitarslinger with an incredibly tight band of rock and roll vagrants, a Telecaster, alot of attitude and a tremendous energy that made rock and roll possible, again...
Thanks to Power Pop for this one. This was the second video I ever saw on MTV -- the first was some Genesis tripe that made me wonder what the point was. This added clarity. The singer, Michael Been has recently passed away with a heart attack while running the sound at a festival in Belgium for his son's band, The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club . I kind of think that while dying sucks, that's not a bad way for a rock and roll guy to go... and as PP points out, yeah, that's Garth Hudson sitting in on various keyboards. If you recall The Last Waltz, Garth is a very highly trained jazz and classical musician who agreed to join The Band during their Ronnie Hawkins days, but only if the guys paid him $10 a week for music lessons...which Robbie Robertson felt were well worth it. Although the collaboration didn't last forever, I'm pretty sure that The Call felt the same way.
Now for some reason, I always associated this number with Jim Carroll. I have no goddamn idea how I did that. So, I now have a new old band to listen to. The riff to The Walls Came Down is pretty interesting...
Seriously , Atticus Finch /Atticus Flinch? Dulcinea Dowd is really stretching the Dorothy Parker thing. However, she's still incisive and rapier-witted, as well as Irish and lovely.
The president who is always talking about wanting to be perfectly clear
is ever more opaque. The One, who owes his presidency to the intense
feeling he stirred up, turns out to be a practical guy who can’t deal
with intense feeling.
He ran as a man apart — Joe Biden was enlisted to folksy him up — and
now he must deal with the fact that many see him as a man apart.
Too lofty to pay heed to the daily bump and grind of politics, Obama has
failed to present himself as someone with the common touch. And to the
extent that people don’t know him or don’t get him, he becomes easier to
demonize.
Obama is the victim of the elevated expectations he so skillfully created in 2008.
He came as a redeemer and then — tied up in W.’s Gordian knots, dragged
down by an economy leeched by wars and Wall Street charlatans — didn’t
redeem. And nothing bums out a nation that blows with the wind like a
self-appointed messiah who disappoints.
If we’re not the ones we’ve been waiting for, who are we?
I think the problem Obama faces is the problem of the ironic. He's the guy who sees the absurdity, and refused to act like it's OK to be stupid or to pander. No Bush drumming and dancing day for him -- no Indian feathered bonnet or cowboy hat. He's a skinny black guy from Chicago by way of Hawaii, Indonesia, Columbia and Harvard Law. He knows that he looks stupid with hats and he's willing to be funny, but not stupid. No fish-throwing in Seattle on his recent visit; he was in Pike Place market, but no salmon sailing for him.
The turkey pardoning last Thanksgiving said it all. He knew that it was silly, but he also knew he was supposed to do it. So, "some days you change the world, some days you pardon a turkey." At least, he hasn't pardoned a turkey like Scooter Libby yet.
Dulcinea does miss the point, wondering is so terribly misunderstood. There is a background level of racism that flows in this country -- and probably every ethnically divided country because, as Kristofferson put it 39 years ago, "Everybody's gotta have somebody to look down on/Who they can feel better than at any time they choose/Someone doin' something dirty decent folk can frown on/If you can't find nobody else, help yourself to me."
Well, In the case of this administration, their effort to impose rationality on the bread and circuses of this late Republic has made them the someone decent folk can frown on. They have already got it coming to them because they're black. And, he's got a funny name. And, his kids are smarter than most of our kids. And, their dog is hypo-allergenic. And, and, and...did I mention he's a Muslim?
Yeah. He got bitchslapped two years ago because he was attending a mainstream Black Church. I've listened to Reverend Wrights sermons, and read a few and he's as traditional as Billy Graham or Martin Luther King in his style of homiletics. He has a different perspective, but he's as Christian as they come. There is no difference between his message and that...
BLACK MAN: And now... This weeks sermon is from our Beloved Reverend Cleophus James! REV. BROWN:
And
now people. And now people. When I woke up this morning I heard a
disturbing sound. I said, when I woke up this mornin' I heard a
disturbing sound! What I heard was a jingle-jangle of a thousand lost
souls! I'm talkin' about the souls of mortal men and women, that
departed from this life. Wait a minute! Though the lord take the souls,
without them seein' 'em on the earth, seekin' the fine light! They will
not find! Because it is too late!! Too late!! Yeah! Too late to find the
light, they chose not to follow! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Don't be
lost when the time comes! Dont be lost when the time comes! For the day
of the lord cometh, as a thief in the night! AMEN! Wait a minute! Wait a
minute! Well Well Well!!
Somehow, the Christian who was slapped for listening to someone influenced by Liberation Theology and Martin Luther King has morphed into Obama the Muslim. Yeah. Franklin Graham, who bears more resemblance to Billy Sunday than Billy Graham, babbles some lunacy about Obama is a Muslim because his father was a Muslim because the religion passes through the male line, like Judaism passes through the female line. He then went outside, got upbehind the whore of Babylon and roade off on the beast with many heads leading the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse...only instead of Famine, Pestilence, War and Death they're Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy and Rudolph. My father was a Republican -- does that mean I'm doomed to wear sansabelt style pants up around my armpits and vote for idiots?
President Obama is obviously not a Roman Dictator, yet in a way he reminds me of Caesar. We forget, because it doesn't fit our concept of the man or the times or the mores to steal a line from Cicero --O Tempora! O Mores!" -- but Caesar didn't want to kill people or take power to just take power. He wanted power so he could do things, so he could fix the shit that was all fucked up by the failure of the late Republic to function because of faction, greed, the influence of mystery cults and the disenfranchisement of the Roman people. Nothing worked...He didn't want to kill Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, Pompey or Cato -- he wanted to be in charge but wanted to work together to find bi-partisan solutions. He wept at the deaths of Pompey and Cato. Ptolomey's first mistake was letting his eunuchs plan the murder of Pompey; his second was giving Caesar Pompey's head. Ultimately, of course, it worked out so well for him...
We are blessed with a president who can think coherently, who can think in complete sentences and paragraphs, who can do the math. We are also blessed with a Democratic Republican form of government that protects the rights of the minority. We have recreated a structure that depends on people working in good faith to solve problems. Not for ambition, but for the common good. We're fucked.
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