J'Arrive!

Back in the windy city at long last. Came home to sunny skies and mild weather... So much better than had it been a gray, cloudy and cold "fuck you." The house is a mess and now I'm already running late for my first day back at work. But to Hell with all that, right? One more cup of coffee one more browse through these vacation pics and then, then I'm off.

Convergence

Old friends roll into town and the good times build to a fever pitch. My beach house bliss fades away more and more with every old face I see. Once again, I've got no new material so a picture will have suffice. Cheers.

Goodbye Mr. Sunshine

As this wonderful vacation comes to a close we're left sundrenched and fished out. One last blast at a wedding in Gainesville should seal the deal and then it's back to the tail end of winter in Chicago. But as Sarah reminds me, when it's pushing 100 and Floridian souls boil out of bodies like teakettles, we'll be enjoying the glory that is a Chicago summer. And on that note, another vacation photo:

A Bad Day Fishing Is Better Than...

Another vacation photo. It'll have to take the place of politics, news or opinionated rants. Cuz we're just maintaining some kinda Margaritaville-esque good vibes and staying the hell away from current events.

Beach Time, Moderate Climes

Life's but a dream. The beach house has no phone, tv or internet. But it does have a boom box and fishing gear and downtown New Smyrna has free internet. We're doing just fine. The humorous, ten year old vacation journal entries will have to wait a few more days. So, in the meantime, here's a pic from one of our night time crab hunting forays.

Time To Get Away

Holy Crap, I'm on Vacation.

It's wonderful. We're at the beach for two weeks of sun, seafood and quiet.

So, in the spirit of all this away from home bliss, I'll be posting pieces of my vacation journals from 10 years ago throughout this next week. The funnier bits of my travels overseas and through the US. Oh, the hilarity.

Join me, won't you?

Abandoned at the Gates

Just as they reach the gates of the palace, Feingold and his censure movement are abandoned by fellow Democrats. (Is it just me or does it almost seem like they’re afraid to kick GWB when he’s down? Jeez, talk about your bleeding heart liberals.) And in a sublime piece of perfect timing, the Daily Show aired a piece last night with Paul Hackett that speaks to that very topic.

Check out some of the excellent commentary about our impotent/inept Democratic party floating around the web today. Molly Ivins is royally pissed. The Existentialist Cowboy ponders their Faustian bargain. Robert Parry checks the rear-view mirror. Maureen Dowd doesn’t know where to turn. Glenn Greenwald hashes it out. Mr. Chuckles makes a prediction. Americablog calls bullshit. Stephen Elliot puts it in perspective while Shayana Kadidal takes it out of legalese. And, finally, David Corn explains their jobs to them.

Thoughts on "The Assassins Gate"

As I’m going back through George Packer’s excellent taxonomic account of our monumental failure in Iraq, The Assassins Gate, and revamping my notes, I’m even more shocked than the first time through. Packer’s invaluable work at reconstructing the pathology of the double-super-secret Bush régime from the roots to the fruits will, I’m sure, become the gold standard of investigative texts from this period of time. It rises above the slew of books that emanate partisan hysteria simply on its preoccupation with pure facts. And unlike the handful of other well-received administration dissection texts, Packer has no particular axe to grind and has put in the hours investigating, interviewing and fact-checking. The book gets very name and date heavy, but it’s entirely to his credit that he keeps it moving at a fast clip and those names and dates never threaten to make the read too abstract and boring.

But it is, after all, the facts that are important here. Though they get equal billing with the scene-painting interviews and anecdotes, the facts are what cut so close; what keep me up at night, trying to keep track of all the lies coming out over the TV and the internet. Through chasing down official documents, reconstructing timelines, and interviewing a massive number of players—both major and minor; Iraqi and American—the truth of the situation emerges out of the litany of perspectives, philosophies, and histories. Packer never pretends to entirely pulled the veil off, but what he gives us is an appraisal of the situation that rises high above the million little sandstorms kicked up by the spinners in Washington. And, sadly, it becomes painfully apparent that most of America is lost in those storms, kept factually blind by an intentionally deceptive government and a criminally complicit media.

Needless to say, I can’t recommend this book enough. And I’ll let you in on a little secret. After reading it, I’m far more comfortable with the altruistic reasons for the US going into Iraq, but far more dismayed, far more enraged by the Bush régime’s willful ignorance, sickening contempt, and overwhelming stupidity. It’s become obvious that theirs is a catastrophic failing of theoretical thinking over empirical thinking. The wide-eyed, GOP, right-wing, ivory-tower thinkers had more power to actualize their theories than any single ideological group in the history of mankind and they’ve completely shit the bit. Think about that the next time Fox News goes after some lone-wolf, powerless lefty professor like Ward Churchill. These sons of Leo Strauss were no sooner given the wheel than they steered this great vessel up onto the rocks.

“Sending out an S.O.S….”
---------------------------------------------------
*UPDATE: Of course, Cursor has a piece relevant to today's theme:

The Memory Hole unearths reports on the State Department's "almost wholly ignored" Future of Iraq Project, and Raw Story parses National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley's 2005 revisions to a 1997 document spelling out the guidelines for determining access to classified government information.

Photo Post

"All Aboard For Capitol City"
A.K.A.
"Architectural Model for the Year 3003 #2"
Newspaper Collage with Watercolors
(Copyright 1999, B. Hoben)

His Name Is Lost (Updated 3/9)

For various reasons today hasn't been the best day of my life. It started with the dog getting the runs at 3AM (and subsequently needing to go out to poo every hour and a half or so) and went quickly, sleeplessly, downhill.

So cue the music, fire up the TV, because I need diversion.

1) His Name Is Alive, who in 1993 put out one of my favorite albums of all time, the unclassifiable Mouth By Mouth, has finally put out a worthy follow-up to that gem. While last month's Detrola doesn't come particularly close to the greatness that is MBM, it's still a great album in its own right. HNIA's several years of misfires and uninspired releases has left fans like me understandably cautious and skeptical.

The years after MBM did see some wonderful cassette-only releases (later put out on CD) on the band's Time Stereo label, but their big releases on the 4AD label always seemed to be over-reaching concept albums that put more importance on ideas and conceits than on the art itself. Never was this more apparent than when brains-behind-the-curtain Warren Defever turned the entirety of the singing duties over to girlfriend Lovetta Pippen. While technically well-presented and aesthetically lush, Defever's songwriting seemed to play too much to Pippen's distinctive, gospel-informed crooning. While this worked for many fans, many more felt the music's odd mix of styles delivered an air of abstract blandness. In this respect, the whole became decidedly less than the sum of its parts. And, really, it's not to Defever's detriment. HNIA had already become stagnant and a change of direction was probably a healthy endeavor. But the experiment like so many experiments, looked better on paper than in practice and after the disappointing reception of their last two albums, to all but die hard fans, HNIA seemed terminally out of gas.

Four years and a handful of obscure self-released ep's and collector's items later, His Name Is Alive resurface with their best major release since 1993. On Detrola Defever and the rotating cast of singers (all three of HNIA's past songstresses are well-represented here) capture much of the inspiration from their early days without becoming a paean or a throwback. It washes over us with the same breezy unselfconsciousness found on those homemade cassette releases of the early 90's and the same transporting and creepy, pop-song sculptures that made them heroes on Mouth By Mouth and Livonia. But never do the songs feel like a continuation or redo. Detrola very much exists in and on its own. It was a long journey, but His Name Is Alive is finally back.

Toolshed Media is hosting a slow-loading MP3 from the album. Check out: "Get Your Curse".

2) Lost has finally found its mojo this season. After spending much of the year mucking around in its more soap-opera-y sub-plots, it's begun to pick up steam and once again, leave us breathless at every commercial break waiting to see which one of us will compose themselves enough to stand up and holler, "Holy Shit!!!" Fun. Fun. There's been some hinting at the secrets behind the major plot-points lately and some sleuthing fans over at The Fuselage have hit on a few very legitimate leads. Namely, this and this. Yikes. My brain hurts and I'm kinda creeped out. New episode tonight. So grab a bottle of wine, turn out the lights and enjoy. (It's been on off day, what can I say?)

Alaska's Black Gold, Creeping Death

Uh-oh. Why, again, was it a bad idea to open the massive Alaskan wildlife preserve to oil interests? This may have somthing to do with it:

MSNBC is Reporting that there has been an oil spill near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. One industry watchdog says the spill could be the second largest in Alaska history.

(Via DailyKos)

From Apathy to Despair to Redemption

I missed last night's incendiary 60 Minutes report about the torture and death of two Afghan prisoners of the US Army. I didn’t even know anything about it till this morning. Instead, Sarah and I tuned in as the Hooray-for-Hollywood, back-slapping, big-time film awards were being handed out live on the TV. It was a decent affair, I suppose, though, I hadn’t been out to see any of the big titles up for a prize. Host Jon Stewart was smartly funny enough but somewhere between the handful of pathetic music numbers and the MPAA president’s scolding of the movie-loving public for preferring DVDs and home theaters to over-priced, cell-phone-beset, multi-plexes, my interest faded out. I eventually wound up catching the Dirty Jobs marathon over on the Discovery Channel.

I tracked down the 60 Minutes piece this morning. You can get the entire report on their website both in video and transcript. It’s about as nauseating as you’d expect. Scapegoating is so IN these days, it seems. And as this administration begins to tank, and more and more evidence surfaces about torture being a cross-agency policy (even an extra-agency policy as there’s been plenty of non-military contractors involved), we’re gonna be seeing plenty more finger pointing and “a few bad apples” speeches. Get ready.

The sickening, end-justifies-the-means, moral-ebola type thinking behind this “information gathering initiative” (aka: torture) has made us no better than our enemies. As a nation, we have become lost in the wilderness*. As our own fear eats us alive from the inside out, what dignity have we left? What claim to morality can this generation possibly make again? Where we were once the shining city on the hill, we’re now the crack house on the block; armed to the teeth and too tweaked to not be afraid of our own shadow, let alone anyone else’s. Indeed, in every way, we’ve become no better than those who wish us harm. And if that's the case, then just what are we fighting for?

Well, shit. Here I sit nearly catatonic. Nihl obstat everything. If only for a few moments. If only cuz that’s how I feel just right now.

And as that Nothing passes, I’m left thinking of the future, redemption, change. Too big to chew on right now. So, let’s take the easy way out. Let’s bring this whole post full circle.

In less than two weeks, the film V for Vendetta will be released. I’m a HUGE fan of the graphic novel. My brother gave it to me for my birthday about ten years ago. And I can’t thank him enough. The book resonated with me emotionally, spiritually, intellectually as it has with so many of its fans over the almost two decades since its first, serialized release. (See the reviews and promo items for a plot summary if you like.) By all accounts, the film treatment has done the book justice for the most part. The heavy political and philosophical implications and questions remain intact if a little more submerged than in its previous form. I find it encouraging and inspiring that politically subversive cinema can still reach a mass audience in this age of institutionalized capitulation to the powers that be.

There. Ending on an upbeat feels much better.

*Yea, yea, I'm well aware of the various Central American ops in the 80's. The election-rigging, the dictator-propping, the death squads. And before that, of course, there was Vietnam and before that Sen. McCarthy, and before that Manifest Destiny, and so on and so on. Nothing exsists in a vaccuum and there's nothing new under the sun. I know. But, like I said, it's just the way I feel right now.

P.S.A. - Roaming Hack

Roaming Hack
There is a little known secret about your cell phone contract that your wireless service provider doesn't want you to know. You can cancel whenever you want without paying a termination fee.

(Via Slickdeals.net & Digg.com)

Essential Viewing/Reading

The Katrina briefing tape is now all over the place . It of course comes as no surprise to many of us that Bush knew about the impending doom all along and that the governmental failure was of a far more complicit nature than they claimed. I guess the only question that remains is whether Bush's abject lack of leadership was due to his fetid indifference to something that wasn't part of the PNAC mission-plan, or whether it's just another example of his administration's ivory-tower theorizing turned to stone-cold turd matter upon hitting the ground in the real world.

In any event, it's another chance to see how every time the curtain does manage to get pulled back, and we're allowed a glimpse at the inner workings of the Bush regime, the first sight is always some example of their rank incompetence and cronyism. With that kind of insight, one really begins to understand the reasons behind their passion for secrecy. Now, if only an administration video would surface where someone desperately yelps, "We've got to protect our phony-baloney jobs, gentlemen," ala Mel Brooks in Blazing Saddles. That might finally spell it out clear enough for the remainder of the deluded American public and those impeachment hearings various people keep mumbling about might actually gain some momentum.

Phone It In, Bry

Busy at work and still a little hung-over after after a late night with a giant bottle of sake and the task of making cd compilations for our impending Florida vacation (where we don't intend to leave the beach all too often). So this one's all via Cursor:

* News. Corp. puts money where mouth is, and Rep. Henry Waxman writes to Florida Governor Jeb Bush, that "e-mails from Mr. Brown ... provide the first confirmation of your involvement in the award of this contract and the first details of your contacts with Carnival and FEMA.''

* An all-you-can-drink Martinifest -- organized by Clear Channel Radio -- reportedly turned unruly at the Milwaukee Art Museum, as drunken guests "accosted artworks" and climbed onto a sculpture, "grabbing the boobs, and ... taking pictures with a cell phone," according to one witness.

Lest Your Bile Subsides

What with all my Rock and Roll postings lately.

The essential cursor.org has, among many worthy overlooked news items, a couple of pieces involving Iraqi novelist and ex-Saddam prisoner, Haifa Zangana. The first is an article at the Gaurdian by Zangana herself about the assassination of educators and intellectuals in Iraq. The second is a 2002 piece by Surrealist Movement USA which heavily references Zangana.

While a piece by a group of obscure American artists/philosophers may seem like an a bit of a stretch in the legitimacy department, I like it for, well, it's absurdity. I like it for the fact that the truth of everyday Iraq has indeed become fundamentally surreal while the declarations from a Surrealist organization come across as being remarkably level-headed and reasonable. Then again, perhaps that's always been the point of the Surrealist movement. Anyway, both are pretty good, quick reads, guaranteed to get your dander up a little bit.

A clip from the Surrealist Movement USA article:

Make no mistake: The proposed "regime change" in Baghdad is solely about replacing a fractious death-squad subcontractor with a more passively compliant one... Carnage apologists, militarist demagogues, war profiteers, and their fundamentalist Christian cheerleaders charge that those who are unable or unwilling to fathom the hateful logic of their policies are plainly guilty of the terrible crime of being "unrealistic." For our part, as surrealists, we readily affirm that we despise the so-called "realism" that is based solely on the clumsy hypocrisy, swaggering boorishness, and ecocidal greed of a few cowardly billionaires along with their political/ military/ journalistic yes-men.

What's That Mommy? Why It's Integrity, Son!

Indie rockers reject big money from the king of gas guzzlers.

Grizzly Man Redux

A buncha people are landing here after doing searches for Tim Treadwell (the poor deluded soul in the film Grizzly Man). For whatever reason the search isn't linking to the actual entry I wrote, just the main page. So, here's a link to my Grizzly Man Commentary.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The legendary Sex Pistols were inducted this year. Please note their response. I wish it really meant something.

Steely Dan Diversion

Dug up this up too. A bloody fantastic two year old NPR interview with Steely Dan. Note the links for the raw unedited interview and for their appearence on the Piano Jazz show earlier that year. Not bad listening for a Friday afternoon.

You Can't Keep A Good Man Down

Cleaning out my inbox netted links to two great Alan Bishop (Alvarius B. of Sun City Girls infamy) interviews. Both seem to be email Q and A's about his last solo record, the outstanding, Blood Operatives of the Barium Sunset, the ongoing Sublime Frequencies world archive project and various personal politickin'. The first, from indieworkshop.com, is the better of the two for my money, but they're both very interesting reads. Here's to occluded knowledge.

A sample:
Q: Time and location is ambiguous in the story lines of your songs. It often appears you are speaking both about the past and the present at the same time. Is the ambiguity of time and place in your lyrics something that is important to you?

A: I don’t think along the lines of anything particularly having to be important. Whatever similarities continue to manifest in any of my work throughout the years may result from a variety of phenomenon. I cannot say with any clarity where my ideas originate from. What fascinates me most is why human beings have very little to offer these days. Mankind is weak and shallow. Outstanding beings are difficult to find. Most of what every human says to me, I have already heard via the collective media or from public opinion. They are under hypnosis without realizing it. So I am attracted more to those who can break through the epidemic of hypnosis and operate at much higher levels. Time is an illusion, therefore past, present, and future are only separated by the limits of one’s perception.

1) Indieworks interview.
2) Foxy Digitalis interview.

Photo Post

"Topless at Church"
Poorly Scanned Polaroid
Copyright 2000, B. Hoben

Does Not Compute

All the crap I did yesterday to the layout of the site was looking pretty good on IE5 here at work. I got home and loaded it on Firefox and, of course, it looked like a five-year-old had put the page together. I have no idea how this stuff works or why it won't translate. Any suggestions? I'm trying to avoid paying to get all of Blogspot's special features (like server space for designs, mp3's, etc.) and would gladly settle for a pleasant, if bland, layout.

***Update: Picked a template that looked decent enough. Tweaked it. Done. That's enough of that monkey business.

***Also, it should be mentioned that this facelift was partially inspired by the redux of the mighty Rpoop site. Props.

Construction

Winter is dark and gray enough without having the gloomy color scheme on this blog to look at every day. (What's that Lewis Black bit about opening a vein just to see some color?) So I'm fixing this silly little site up a bit by, of course, ripping off someone else's page and then tweaking some things. Having some issues getting shit where it needs to be and looking how it should. It's a miracle of patience for me. A real milestone. Hoo-ray.

Emo Inferno

Checking the news around my old hometowns on the internet is a good way pass the time on slow days here at work. Today, I went to peruse the happs in ol' Gainesville, FL and found this headline: Fire ravages abandoned building. Thankfully nobody was killed or even hurt as the vacant building went up--a sacfrifice to the student ghetto gods. In fact, several of the locals seem to have enjoyed the spectacle in typical Gainesville fashion, by turning it into a party.

As firefighters tore out the windows of the flaming house, college students with beer cans in hand watched from their carports and back yards. Alex Vranescu, who lives in a house near the one that burned, watched as firefighters prodded and sprayed the still-smoldering house. "I walk outside with a drink and I'm like, bro, check that out!" he said. "The whole tree right there just went woosh."

Ahh, Gainesville.

It was only on my after I'd moved on in my news cruise that the address of the house sounded familiar. I re-loaded the page, Googled the address and, sure enough, I knew that place. It was a house right across the street from a little apartment I spent a year in almost nine years ago now. In the main picture below the headline you can see my old front door beyond a charred wall frame, all lit up beneath the house's crime-fighting spotlight. That goddamned light probably kept more than a few crackhead, would-be burglars at bay with its day-into-night illumination prowess. Which I appreciated even if it gave the constant feeling that a hi-beamed SUV was parked just outside the window. Ahh, Gainesville.

The Enemy Within

Back on my feet today. A little malnourished, a little wobbly, but at least I'm outta bed and not bent over the abused toilet bowl. My own personal enemy within has been overthrown. Cast out. Bested. But, not surprisingly, I emerged from my four day stupor and cruised the headlines and the blogs only to find that the enemy within our great nation remains. Perhaps even stronger than ever. I needed a little pep-talk to help get my soul up to speed similar to the Pepto that helped get my GI up to speed. I found this:


Read "The Enemy" column by William Rivers Pitt at Truthout.org at your nearest convenience. Thanks.

Sick Leave

Been laid up with either a bad flu or bad food poisoning. The first big evacuation party of 2006. All ashore that's going ashore! At least I've finally lost some weight.

Lawnchair Balloonist

The Athanasius Kircher Society has a bit on the Lawnchair Balloonist, Larry Walters, who flew in a lawnchair (tied to 35 helium-filled weather balloons) from a backyard up to 16,000 feet over greater Los Angeles. His uncontrolled jaunt has been wonderfully documneted by Mark Barry, who's apparently writing a book on Larry Walters' incredible but poorly thought-out idea. On Barry's site, be sure to check out the eighteen minute audio file of the radio transmissions between Larry, the ground crew (his girlfriend and pals) and various emergency personnel.

America, Awash in Propaganda

While it's been at us hard and heavy for decades now, the mind-fuck from on-high has been ramped up with the Bush regime's ascendancy. Doubly so now that their agenda has taken on more water than the Titanic. So, it should come as no surprise that, the Swift Boating of Iraq has begun. Try not to get any throw-up on yr keyboard.

(Via Cursor.org.)

Beware of the Blog - WFMU's MP3 Gold

Maverick New York/New Jersey radio station WFMU can be alot of fun. It's a non-commercial beacon for underground music of all stripes and a Mecca for today's armchair cultural archeologists and the ironic psychic surgeons who dust off, inspect and present lost gems and current oddities from across the sonic spectrum. While I haven't met anyone who can stomach all strands from the sheer variety of round the clock programming, there's sure to be a few shows in the schedule that'll catch yr ears.

In addition to their outstanding broadcast radio (both in the ether and on the web), they've been running a top notch blog that really captures the brilliant, twisted thinking behind the station. It's a compact text version of what goes out over the airwaves, all linked up with sound and video files and plenty of arrows pointing to the outside world should you want to learn more about anything in particular. Killer lost rock, funk or dance tunes, art-noise, goofy, camp jingles, assorted web zen and plenty of other, genuinely interesting shit are all presented with the same earnest, if often ironic, care that's made the radio station thrive since it's split from Upsala College in 1994. Most employees rather than being out to climb the corporate ladder or pick up some easy credit hours, work for free out of a love of the mission and the material. It's the sharing of their love of impossibly great songs, odd floatsam and kooky ephemera with like-minded listeners that has built a genuine community around WFMU and kept the 100% listener-funded station and blog afloat.

Check out their blog: Beware of the Blog

And if you've got some time, file through their Audio/Video download page. There's plenty of music and commentary, but more of the gems are hilarious finds like these:

• 
  "GRANDPA PSA" by American Family Association MP3
  The best public service announcement we ever received, which was mailed to every radio station in the country by Donald Wildmon's American Family Association, which apparently still harbors fantasies of liberal Gestapo squads shoveling heaps o' Bibles into the secular humanist bonfire. No word on whether this magical piece of radio theater generated the million signatures they were aiming for.
• 
  "THE THEME" by Aboriginal Peoples Television Network WMV
  Airing Thursday nights in Canada on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network or APTN, Inuit Mittatin's official description reads "This program sets out to find the funniest, quirkiest Inuit in the communities of Nunavut. What is so distinct about Inuit humour? What role does humour play in Inuit life?" We think the following description is more apt: "This program is a lunatic Inuit woman running all over the barren north making up songs and inviting us along as she sinks deeper and deeper into dementia."
• 
  "K-ROCK BRINGS YOU PAVEMENT" by Annoying Concert MC MP3
  Says our friend Bill W.: "I'd like to 'put my hands together', with his neck intervening."

Hooky

So, I decided to play hooky from work today. There were so many little errands and chores that needed doing and, quite frankly, I was confident that the ol’ finance department could let a day go by without the lowest guy on the totem pole and the world would continue to spin. I was right.

The alarm went off at 4:30 as usual, I gently woke Sarah and went back to sleep. Actually it was more of a shove and a caveman-esque, yelp along the lines of, “Hurgaah, sheesha larmm,” followed by a fish-flop to face the other side of the room. After a few weeks of her wickedly early classes, I’ve got good at not letting the alarm get my adrenaline pumping, though it does still wake me up if only for a minute or two. Today was no exception. The dog also quickly fell back asleep after a couple of death-breath yawns and a gummy-eyed look around. The two of us eventually woke at our biologically programmed 8:30. We’ve been in some kinda inter-species synch like that lately. I hope that’s not what the President was referring to when he mentioned human-animal hybrids in the State of the Union speech.

It was an otherwise normal start to the day except when I went to swing my legs out of the bed, my knees smacked into something soft yet unyielding. “Hey!” came the voice from somewhere under our six-blanket bed nest. Sarah had played hooky too.

Well, I'll Be Dipped In Shit

An example of the lenghts these twisted bastards will go to these days to bend the weak minds of the nation:

Fox News edits out applause from Rev. Lowery's speech, then they comment on the lack of applause. How positively Soviet of them!

This is, of course, in reference to the GOP manufactured scandal involving the speakers at Coretta Scott King's funeral.


(Via Daily Kos.)

Pat Robertson: Proud Racist

OK, Ok. I'm as shocked as you are to see this boob in the news again. He's apparently so desperate for attention that he's taken to sharing any half-baked, cockamamie thing that pops into that twisted little brain of his.

Actually, I don't think he's dumb at all. I think he very sharply playing to his base with these jaw-droppers. He's stoking the indignation from his true believers who are presumably part of a thinning flock now that the nation is beginning to wake up from its 9/11-induced, pants-shitting, weak-kneed, save-me-daddy, embrace of all things Republican/Conservative.

All pathetic fund-raising gestures aside, it's great to once again see the kind of commitment to balls-out wackiness that died-off with the cancellation of The Three Stooges. And really, Ol' Pat's made each barnburning whopper better than the last. The latest titty-twister from the mouthpiece of God's America:

During the February 6 edition of Christian Broadcasting Network's (CBN) The 700 Club, host Pat Robertson said that "Europe is right now in the midst of racial suicide because of the declining birth rate." Robertson blamed the declining birth rate on the existential philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, which, according to Robertson, "has permeated the intellectual thinking of Europe" and has left Europeans without "a faith in the future." (via Media Matters.)

Did you catch that? The Satre inclusion was sheer brilliance. No doubt. I mean who would've thought to go there? But the real gem here is buried a wee bit deeper. Go on read it again.

There you go. That's right, he said "Racial Suicide." What race do you suppose he was talkin' about? African immigrant Europe? Naah, probably not. Asian immigrant Europe? Doubt it. And he sure as shit wasn't talking about Arab immigrant Europe. Well, perhaps, then, he was alluding to the Jewish or Gypsy or maybe even the Catholic population? Maybe, but I sincerely doubt it. No. I think we all know who he was name dropping here.

Yea, he was giving a shout out to the White Anglo population--or, rather, I should say, he was baiting his followers with yet another variation on an old theme; his golden goose of the last 4 1/2 years: racial panic. The same loopy horseshit tactic that "White Might" groups like Aryan Nation and National Front or whateverthefuck use. The same racial apocalypse sermon that's used to scare dipshit teenage rednecks and braindead, beerbellied yay-hoo's into shaving their heads, hoisting Nazi flags and on occasions, when they outnumber them by about 30 to 1, beat the living shit out of folks with the poor fortune of being different than them. Wow. Think about it. Pat Robertson, close personal friend and religious guiding light of the president of the United States, Pat "drop by the White House on a whim" Robertson and his tax-exempt organization are using the EXACT same tactics that abominable, neo-Nazi thugs and various home-grown terrorists use to gain and keep followers. It's truly amazing.

So, hooray, Pat Robertson. Whether this latest tantrum is a tactic to shake more dough from the pockets of suckers, or you really are afraid that the philosophical legacy of Jean-Paul Satre (and his sinister gang of depressed thinkers) has sent the whole of Europe into a self-loathing, fuckless, downward spiral, you sir, have once again struck comedy gold. Congratulations!

"Grizzly Man" Review

Sarah and I watched the documentary "Grizzly Man" last night. I thought is was a masterfully made film by Warner Herzog. He really took what could have been a hack-assed TV movie of the week and made an incredible meditation on the boundaries of human nature and, well, nature nature. Anyway, this is my Netflix review:

(Note: the addendum speaks to several Netflix customer reviewers who openly complained about not getting to see any particularly graphic footage.)

“Grizzly Man” is an extraordinary exploration of one particular dark avenue taken by one particularly alienated, mentally unbalanced individual. Tim Treadwell’s delusional and daffy behavior among the wild bears of Alaska could, of course, only reach one conclusion. Herzog lets us quickly recognize that Tim is one strange dude who’s destined to die out there in bear country. There isn’t much by way of revelation as the film plays out. We’re left to soak up Tim’s mental and emotional state as it’s bounced off the reality around him--a reality that he, for whatever reason, cannot see to save his life. The two worlds, the human one Tim so wishes to detach from and the unflinching reality of Nature, unavoidably come together like a tectonic collision as Tim’s life reaches its inevitable, gruesome conclusion. It would be nice to imagine that in his final moments Tim understood the chasm between the two worlds could never be crossed regardless the size of his (horribly, horribly misplaced) love for the animal world. It’d be nice, but after the portrait Herzog paints, I doubt it, because with Tim’s divorce from human society came a divorce from reality. In fact, the point of the film may well be the mutual inclusion of the two (one cannot abandon the trappings of human society without abandoning its benefits, both corporeal and psychological). In any event the film remains a fascinating study of human compassion, folly and madness played out against a backdrop of breathtaking beauty.

*For those disappointed no visual or aural human carnage was visited upon Tim during the film, remember, even if you despised the guy he was a real person, this wasn’t a slick Hollywood production. Desiring to witness the violet death of someone you casually dislike is probably indicative of a mental disorder similar to Tim’s. Perhaps you’d do best to learn from him and seek help before it’s too late. Or maybe just go public and petition Netflix to start stocking the “Faces of Death” series.

But What About "The War on Bottled Water"?

Bottled Water - the $100 Billion Fraud Industry

Yea, yea. Sounds a little dumb, or at the very least, innocuous, but it's actually an interesting and relevant article. (I say as I check my pocket protector and push my glasses back up the bridge of my nose.)

From the article:
"...More fossil fuels are used in packaging the water. Most water bottles are made with polyethylene terephthalate, a plastic derived from crude oil. 'Making bottles to meet Americans' demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 U.S. cars for a year'..."

(Via Digg.com)

Pat Robertson: Bloodthirsty Politico In Sheep's Clothing

He's at it again, that goofy nut-job. While some say he's an easily ignored kook or dusty relic, his repeated appearances on various Right Wing media outlets says otherwise. And of course, begs the question, "Who would Jesus assassinate?"

Details at The Carpetbagger Report.

(Note: In any event, he stands, for me, to be a symbol of what's wrong with mixing religion and politics.)

Build Yr Own iPod

My lifelong DIY funk just might come to an end after reading this.

The EchoMp3 is a small DIY* MP3 player. It's cheap and of excellent quality.

(via digg.com)

Bush: Lying Sack of Shit (Another in an Ongoing Series)

The following is from a Wednesday dailykos.com post:

Why are we supposed to believe anything Bush said yesterday [in the SOTU speech] when his own administration claims it was all bullshit?

Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports
By Kevin G. Hall
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.

Maybe the White House press corps can ask Scotty which parts of the speech Bush meant literally, and which parts were, um, not literal.

----------------------------------------------------------------

THIS is also worth a look... and probably a groan.

Photo Post

Somewhere on the Nile delta, Egypt. 1996.

Copyright 1997, B. Hoben

A Night with the Chicago Mud Queens

Saturday was my pal Justin's birfday. A gang of us went out for sushi and (a whole bunch of) sake. Our plan was to go from dinner to a punk rock band/mud wrestling league show at an abandoned office building on the outskirts of Chicago city limits. This proposition was met with a chorus of unenthusiastic maybe's from 'round the table. After everyone else slinked off under the guise of one excuse or another, three of us remained. We set out on that dark and rainy night heading due West outta town, more that a little apprehensive about what to expect.

The building was located without much trouble and we were let in upon paying our $5. As it was, in its former life, a 5 story office building, and we had arrived fairly early, we were left to wander around the dark and empty hallways and rooms in an attempt to find the room where the magic was to happen. It was fun in an unrban spelunking lite kinda way and brought back memories of exploring abandoned factories as a teenager in good ol' Central Florida. Upon finally discovering the rock and roll room, we decided that the situation was more akin to various clandestine parties we'd raged at in Brooklyn or Detroit... though we doubted anyone came here armed.

Gays in the Military played first. Their sloppy take on late 7o's synth punk was made tolerable (hell, fun even) by their crazy faux queer-army guy getups and the low slung ceiling that caused the taller members to cock their heads at funny and uncomfortable angles throughout the performance. Cos' band The Functional Blackouts played the next set. They've settled nicely into the second phase of the band where the guitarist sings and the overall songwriting has grown beyond the spit and bile of their early material. Eager to hear the new album that is being sat on for some reason.

Finally, The Billy Carter Band served as the backing band for the bombast of amateur, league style mud wrestling courtesy of Chicago's Mud Queens. The matches began and very, very quickly, it turned into a wacky, violent, filthy, somewhat titillating evening. Exactly what one should expect, I suppose, from a punk rock, feminist mud wrestling show.

The crowd (pretty equally both guys and gals) were whipped into a frenzy from the start. It was a cathartic whirlwind of violence, nudity, dirt, booze and loud music. Everyone dutifully played along for the seven or eight bouts, cheering and jeering on cue and one "lucky" audience member even won a chance to strip down to his underwear, get up onstage and wrestle two gals. They pinned him immediately into the second round but through the thick coat of mud that covered his entire body, I could see the goofy smile on his face that's probably still there this afternoon. Just a little wider than the rest of ours.

*Note: I was highly intoxicated by the time the wresting started and was lucky enough to have a ringside perch. I left covered in mud. Jacket and jeans probably ruined from massive mud exposure. It was rad. However, at the end of the show, I wound up scooping armfulls of mud from the stage and flinging them all over the crowd and the stage like a two-year-old partying with his poo.

**UPDATE #1: Here's a link to the Chicago Reader's coverage of the event. The tag line in Jessica Hopper's godawful rendering of the event refers to all "The Pigs... in the crowd" but then fails to mention anything about said piggish behavior in the article. Why? Well, probably because there WASN'T any piggish, frat-type behavior to speak of. Everyone was as rowdy as they were respectful. Whatever. While the article does the evening little justice, I'm in two of the pictures, so check it out.

Best Headline of the Day

John Daly shoots 69 as his wife goes to jail

Funny for on a few levels. The story's worth a read as well.

*Note: This was the headline on Yahoo's main page, the headline on the actual story is a bit different, though still amusing.

Can't Maintain This High Blood Pressure

Endless, depressing, bad news. Too much TV news stressed me out this last week. Nothing like standing up in the middle of your dinner and screaming, “BULLSHIT!” at one talking head or another. Gotta take a break from current events and plug back in to whatever it is that fills my tank.

So, where oh where am I gonna turn to lighten the mood? Who's gonna come to my particular emotional rescue? Why, Richard Simmons, of course.

See, back a few years ago now, when I was down and out sick for a time, my pal Carin, sent a care package that included several fun books. One of those books, probably the greatest of the bunch, was Richard Simmons' autobiography, Still Hungry After All These Years. It almost made me burst my stitches with laughter... and that was just upon fishing it out of the box. Reading it* was another matter altogether. Holy crap, the book is the literary incarnation of the "man" himself. I mean, he writes what he thinks in the same way that he says what he thinks regardless of its (usually unintentional) side-splitting goofiness or its (also, usually unintentional) double-entendre laden gayness.

Leaving alone a study of Richard's particular pathology, let's just say that S.H.A.A.T.Y. is cover to cover self-indulgent tripe, typical of the self-congratulatory, Hollywood tell-all. But because it's written by Simmons, in keeping with the rest of his endeavors, it's totally hilarious in spite of his best intentions. An autobiography gives one a pass to paint their own portrait, and here we find him desperately trying to come across as a sympathetic and earnest hero, which, of course, makes him that much funnier.

Anyhoo - I recently remembered that on page 192, he writes about all the mail he began getting after his appearance on the early 80's TV show, Real People. Everyonene wanted a word with the guru of easy, breezy weight loss. So, naturally, he opened a post office box in Beverly Hills which, amazingly, HE STILL HAS TO THIS DAY.

So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Richard Simmons address:


Richard Simmons
PO Box 5403
Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Now, after checking his website, they recommend that all personal letters be sent to the following address:

Richard Simmons
9306 Civic Center Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210

I have no idea which one you should use, should you decide to mail the guru something. I have no intention of mailing anything at this time and only share this info with you because I had nothing else to write about today. Nevertheless, a word of advice: don't send anything you might get in trouble for in this Brave New American World. And don't be too damn jerky. This guy's made us all laugh over the years, but remember, we've been laughing AT him, not with him.

*Note: I didn't actually read the entire friggin' book, OK? In this post-Frey world, I feel I must tip my hand a bit. I did, however, read MOST of the thing. I mean, large chunks. While I was in prison. For derailing a train and killing a young girl. Happy now?

Drunken Record Reviews

Woah. Not feelin' it so far today. Maybe this has something to do with it.

So, what the hell. How 'bout two goofy old drunken record reviews that I posted on Amazon.com?



Karp - Self-Titled Lp
Five Stars - Bank Robbing Music, March 19, 2005
"Play this album extremely loud and just try not to (want to) rob a bank."





Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet - Sport Fishin'
Five Stars - "We're Not A F***ing Surf Band", February 18, 2004
Yup, the song title says it all. To simply narrow down this band to the parameters of a surf band would be slanderous if not plain lazy. This Steve Albini recorded gem lays bare for our ears the heights to which a raw Guitar/Bass/Drums rock and roll combo can soar. Each instrument stakes it's claim without overpowering the others while at the same time dancing arm in figurative arm with a kinda locomotive force hiding somewhere behind all the seemingly thoughtless nuggets. Rock and roll was always about making more of the whole than the sum of its parts and by God the Shadowy Men've cast a golden shadow made whole by the cross-section of masterful Guit/Bass/Drums interplay and solid, solid songwriting built upon a wild library of nuggets, hooks and tearjerkering riffs on this album. Cast off the "Kids in the Hall" pre-conceptions, turn down the lights, turn up the stereo and enjoy.

Spam Poetry V.2

OK, so I don't have any new entries in the series ready to go yet, but boingboing.net just linked to Mark Dery's blog posting about Spam Lit. Of course, he nails it better and classier than I did.

3-Legged Dogs and the Trouble They Cause

It's times like these that I disown my children. Or I would had I any. You see, when the going gets rough and I'm at the end of my patience, all hair-pulling and hand-wringing, our dog becomes her dog. Sarah gets sole custody while I slink on over to the far side of the house and curse the day I ever agreed to bring that squatty, stubby, whiny little wiener dog up here to Chicago with us. Were we to have kids, it would be here, maybe down at the county jail, just before bailing out our troubled, rebellious son or daughter, I'd turn to Sarah and say, "There. That's your kid in there. Look what your spawn has done."

Anyway, that squatty, stubby, whiny little wiener dog of ours broke a foot last week. This was most likely due to her penchant for flinging herself off the bed at all hours of the day without regard for life and (obviously) limb despite recently reaching 13 years of age. (What is that in dog years? 70?) Now, she's peg-legging around on this goofy cast and taking some mild painkillers. Sounds pretty funny, right? It is.

But I've begun to get suspicious about that dog. I think she might be the one holding the leash. Now that she's in a position to get babied, she's milking it for all it's worth. Not only do we have to hold her ass and encased leg up while she pees and poops (stubby-legged wiener dogs do not do so well on three legs, we've discovered), but now she's realized all she's got to do is let out one of her patented, pathetic yowls and she gets carried all over the house, fed, pet, whatever. She knows this little trick gets results and employs it with an eye towards ruling the roost, I believe. She's made slaves of Sarah and I. Or, rather, like I said, just Sarah, cuz she aint my dog, dammit.

Since I don't have any pictures of our goofy little hobbled pain-in-the-ass, how 'bout a crippled wiener dog story? For Wheelie the wiener Dog by Craigslist poster, anon-8822348.

Hotfoot!

The St. Augustine volcano up in Alaska that's been a smokin' and a thundrin' for the past few months has begun what should be a series of fairly big eruptions. Check out nature's violent, chaotic display at the Alaskan Volcano Observatory's site for all the technical jib-jab and the latest web-cam shots. See the archive of web-cam shots here. They end just about the time of the latest eruption. Once you click through a bunch and get them in yr browser's cache, you can go back and click through again real fast and get a good impression of the build-up... lots of ash rain and varied camera angles. While there's no lava yet, pics from the coming days should reveal a massive loss of rock up at the peak.

Question:
What's a good soundtrack for an eruption?
Slayer? Melvins? Earth? Barry White?

Short Story Snip #1

Shelly's dad was a cop at the time. She and her cop dad and her alcoholic shut-in mother and a pair of vicious outdoor Dobermans lived next door to us on one side. On the other side, past a small yet dense patch of trees and scrub was uncle Dale's place. We never really called it Dale's house because it was never exactly a home in the proper sense. Dale bought the land real cheap back when daddy was still alive and I was just taking my first steps. April, of course, hadn't been born yet.

Dale and daddy drew up plans for the house Dale and his third wife, Aunt Dora, would start building in the spring. They had one of those pre-built trailer homes pulled in on a pair of semi-trucks that fall. I can nearly remember sitting there with momma watching them try and turn the truck around so it could back in to the lot and drop the second half of the house next to the first half and fit them together just so. Uncle Dale and daddy were out in the road blocking traffic (or what constituted traffic that far from town). Momma says I laughed and laughed at them out there in the street waving their arms and pleading with what soon became a dozen or so angry motorists after the rig had blocked the road. The driver had inadvertently backed the truck down off the road's shoulder and hung its axle up on the stone wall that ran the length of Zeke and Emma Ezekiel's sheep pasture. Luckily, the noise and bustle of the men and the semi and scared all the sheep to the far side of the hill earlier in the day. They were all safely penned by the time the big-rig tow truck dispatched from neighboring Kensuke County managed to yank the semi and its half-house payload up outta the ditch followed by about twenty feet of hundred-year-old stone wall.

Alito

Apparently, there was, for a brief time, a link to this blog on the Washington Post section of an Alito coverage story. It was a "what are the blogs saying" box with a floating list of blogs that presumably mention the hearings. Wow.

So, let me just say that I don't have much of an illustrative opinion on the hearings. They're a sham. Timid democrats afraid to get mad and starry-eyed Republicans falling all over themselves to show just how well they can suck a man's dick. (Crass, crass, crass, I know.)

It's a joke. End of story. The guy's getting in no matter who says what at this point. And no matter what HE says, he most certainly has an agenda. In the near future, we can expect from the highest court in the land, a sharp increase in corporate favoritism and green lights all the way for unprecedented Executive branch power grabs. That's all I really have to say about it. It's a sad state of affairs.

The fox is in the henhouse, kids.

A few words about commuting.

Either I’ve been a little touchy lately or damn near every single fidgety, pokey, noisy, stinky, cell phone blabbin’, breakfast eatin’, makeup puttin’ on, elbows-out newspaper readin’, rap star in his own mind, openly bitter and hostile homeless, enormous assed, full blast ipod listenin’, shameless personal story retellin’, lead-foot toe stomping, no-room-makin motherfucker in this great city decided to sit, stand or hover next to or near me on the train over the last week.

Ok. I feel better. Thank you.

Today's Alito Roundup

Cursor.org has the latest Alito roundup:

Judge Samuel 'Say Anything Sammy' Alito, is also described as being "like a very, very smart rock. And this stoniness is slowly wearing down his opposition."

'Doing the Alito Shuffle' Maureen Dowd calls the nominee "evasive, disingenuous and deferential. He fits the Bush era like a baseball glove."

"Despite my agreement with Alito on many issues," writes Jonathan Turley. "I have rarely seen the equal of Alito's bias in favor of the government. To put it bluntly, when it comes to reviewing government abuse, Samuel Alito is an empty robe."

LOST

Lost returns to TV this week after six weeks in limbo. I'm no TV junkie, but this show's got me by the short and curlys. After dinner, lights out with a bottle of wine and for 42 minutes of an hour, all seems right with the world.

In the spirit of all that:

* I've been lost in the world of coffee for the last two days. Burned coffee at two of my regular joints had me drinking tea in protest today. Tea. Hot tea. Not southern-style iced tea. Are my loafers getting lighter?

* DJ Leana on the great Boston radio station WZBC has yet to fall into her regular spring semester gig. These days, I am lost if I don't get my week started without that Monday afternoon dose of excellent music rotation interrupted occasionally by that coy, angelic voice. (Update - Apparently, she did her regular set earlier than normal today... Why didn't I get that memo?)

* This great nation's gonna be losing a whole lot if this Alito bum gets installed as the head of the Supreme Court. It only takes a few moments to cut through the spin and the posturing to see this shithead is a tool of our Right Wing corporate overlords. His judicial opinion history almost exclusively finds him siding with government and corporate powers to the detriment of the individual. If he gets passed, we're in for a Hell of a ride, folks.

* If it stays this gray and cold here in Chicago, I'm gonna get on a plane and get myself lost. Preferable somewhere sunny with tequila and loose women.

* If I keep putting off work to type unfunny, uninteresting shit like this, I just might lose my job.

Back From Vacation

And looky here, a New Year's treat:
Abramoff is gonna squeal like the stuck pig he is. I can't wait to see who he brings down with him. Republican, Democrat, shady beltway insider, whoever. While you can bet the biggest of the fish will slip out of the net, it'll nevertheless be a hoot to see who does get snagged.

(Update)
Cursor.org has plenty on this topic:

Reporting that "President Bush and senior Republican lawmakers moved on Wednesday to dump thousands of dollars in campaign donations from Jack Abramoff," the New York Times notes that Abramoff "changed his look" when he "appeared in federal court in Miami to enter two guilty pleas in a related fraud case."

As Newt Gingrich claims that Democrats are "much more tolerant of corruption" than Republicans, Hullabaloo's Digby finds the press "already buckling" under "tremendous pressure from the Republicans to report this as a bi-partisan scandal," and David Sirota urges Democrats to ponder the difference between 'Getting caught vs. coming clean.'

A lead that the Justice Department "doesn't want to follow" in the Abramoff investigation, involving the lobbyist's use of a "clearly-phony" non-profit, is said to "threaten the continued existence of the right-wing noise machine itself." Plus: The key to K Street.

Tangentially To Hell

Perhaps an addendum to yesterday's rambling rant. From an interview with Lila Rajiva on DissidentVoice.org:

"There could be no greater irony and hypocrisy than the picture of Saddam Hussein being tried for crimes against humanity -- and his crimes were without doubt heinous -- by an administration that has wrought the kind of carnage and senseless destruction in Iraq that the Bush administration has, and by different modalities, the previous administration as well. Hussein tortured people, no question. But by all accounts, the current Iraqi government is doing worse in that department. And we have increasing confirmation that the U.S. too has a policy of torture, both direct and by proxy. So, yes. Hussein deserves to face his many crimes. But you'll notice that several of the ones most publicized before the war have now vanished from the dossier. Perhaps U.S. complicity and even tacit approval of some of Saddam's worst offenses would be too embarrassing to have dragged out into the glare."

Bush + Republicans + Amway = Fraud

Great article by Evelyn Pringle on New Zealand's indy news site, Scoop.com:
Bush + Republicans + Amway = Fraud

(Via Scoobie Davis)

Follow the Money... Straight to Hell

U.S. stalls on human trafficking
Pentagon has yet to ban contractors from using forced labor

My commentary:

It’s become commonplace for companies who’s primary client is the United States government to send their top officers into politics, and likewise, for career politicians to exit their civil service and fall right into a top post in an organization they’d befriended while in office. It’s even common now to watch these people during the course of their carreers move laterally between the commercial world and that of “public service.” Perhaps not surprisingly, this revolving door between the corporate world and the world of government is almost an exclusively Republican phenomena. It’s a world of favors and privilege; it’s why there is no-bid contracts and unverifiable paperless voting; why K-Street is really a class-5 river rapids and any moral lifejacket won’t save you from being swept away in a current of thousand-dollar-bills; it’s why Abramoff and Scanlon and what appears to be hundreds of others are all clinging to any plea bargain they can get like rats washed downstream in a flood.

So, really, it should come as no great surprise when we get the news that government lobbyists, contractors and even some government officials have recently stood in the way of new regulations aimed at curbing the proliferation of human trafficking among United States contractors (See Chicago Tribune link above). Sex and labor slaves have apparently become a very visible problem to the United States’ international image. Several American contractors have had legal issues in various countries around the globe regarding women and girls being bought and sold for sex by employees on location. These American contractors also continually hire out local sub-contractors to assist their various operations. Apparently many of these sub-contractors use human traffickers to supply their labor. Slave labor.

Just to keep this straight, some bad apple American emplyees are buying in-house sex slaves during their stay overseas. OK, pretty bad. Sick-souled miscreants who need to be locked up. OK. Fine. But beyond that, we see our Government (“We the people”) purchasing slave labor to be able to afford continued—mostly military—operations in various countries. And while it's being done through intermediaries, those intermediaries are government contractors like Halliburton and DynCorp International. Of course we know all about the link between certain privileged government contractors like, say, Halliburton and key Administrative officials like, say, Vice President Dick Cheney. See some pieces falling into place here?

Recently there has been legislation proposed to curb this alarming trend and make contractors officially responsible for the behavior of their employees (both proper and sub-contracted). This move is being met with great resistance by the contractors and thier lobbyists under the reasoning that the laws would be too costly and difficult to enforce. They claim that while they abhor sex-trafficking and slavery, the proposed regulations are just too poorly written from them to endorse. Meanwhile, proponents of the regulation movement have begun to back down under the pressure and, of course, our fearless leader, George Bush, aint touching this one with a ten-mile pole. Shocking, I know.

So, taking the long-view, we’ve got this administration who (barely) rode their big talk about morals and values into power through two highly-contested elections. Amazingly, they continue to pose as icons of holiness and piety throughout endless economic and political scandals. They’d like for us to see them as walking on water, but really, they sail their corporate-funded vessels across oceans of blood pushed by the winds of grief and misfortune. In all of history, it would be surprising to see such a thin line between the war mongers and the war profiteers. Well, maybe not all that surprising, but these guys are right up there with the best (or worst) of them. And now this. Slavery. After all the pining and crocodile tears that were shed convincing the American public that Saddam must go because of his inhumane, barbarous crimes to humanity, those same cheerleaders could apparently give two figs about ending inhumane barbarity in our own backyard.

What’s the lesson here? Morality is a great business to be in as long as it’s making you money, not costing any.

Yuppie Exodus

Slinked in to work today later than my customary lateness. Head is fuzzy and I'm slightly nauseous. Whether this is from the bottle of Effin Black Cherry I split with Sarah last night or just the body's natural reaction upon returning to this inane, mind-numbing joke called work, I can't be sure. I am sure, however, that this place is a ghost town today. Tumbleweed rolling down the aisle past my cube and everything. Had I any balls whatsoever, I'd go cube to cube, desk to desk stealing shit and have a little Christmas - Part 2 tonight.

But, no. Better to stay in here, in my own 12x8, pushpin-safe walled, home away from home. Better to pretend I'm running those year-end reports, sniffing out debits and credits... fixin' it all concisely in an easy to read spreadsheet. I'll get right on it boss. You can count on me.

Your Leader Thinks You're Stupid

From MSNBC six days ago:

Mr Bush, in an effort to force passage of the bill, warned on Friday he would veto any temporary extension of the [Patriot] act.

From AP today:

(White House-AP) December 22, 2005 - The White House is hailing the Senate's vote to extend the Patriot Act for six months, a day after vowing President Bush wouldn't accept a short-term extension.
Press Secretary Scott McClellan calls Wednesday night's Senate vote "an important victory for the American people."

(Via Daily Kos)

Lousy Way To Start the Day

The TV was on for about half a minute when I heard the report on ESPN. Goddammit. Why in the name of all that's holy did the Sox let Johnny Damon get away? They knew the sumbitch Yankees were the only other real contender. They knew damn well what he does for the team in stats, spirit and image. And by all accounts, Damon went to play for the enemy only after giving the Sox several chances to get closer to an agreement. They wouldn't budge, so he left.

Just when I was flying high on the Red Sox's plan to GM by committee and send Theo Epstein packing, they go and do the unthinkable. Their offseason maneuvering was moving along fantastically. They had us all saying, "Theo who?" And now their cocky posturing has twisted the team on every front. Hell, I would've been happy had they traded away crybaby Manny Ramirez for a lesser bat or two, but getting rid of THE BEST LEADOFF HITTER IN THE GAME, a team leader, the face of the team, and perhaps the most popular Red Sox player since Rice or Boggs??? I mean, Damon even took Pedro's place in the hearts of Sox fans in about the time it took the Accella to drop him at Times Square. What gives???

So here we are. The Red Sox are in serious offensive trouble (come on, Mark Loretta? Mike Lowell? Adam Stern???) even if the pitching looks much better than last year. Meanwhile, the Yankees finally have that piece of the puzzle that gives their lineup all the nausea-inducing potential their fans have been claiming for the last two years. There's still a lot of time to make moves and the Sox have the players to make some big ones, but things suddenly look very bleak in New England.

Eventually, this monumental fuck-up on Red Sox management's part will, without a doubt, accomplish two things. First, they will find themselves a legitimate GM and find him (or her) quickly. This little experiment, once a soaring success, has eviscerated the Red Sox and made them the laughing stock of MLB. Second, now backed into a corner, they have no choice but to deal one of their bigger names. Manny? Doubtful, but you never know what this kind of coldsweat desperation can do. Whatever ('whoever' I should write) transpires, this clusterfuck of a situation will have a ripple-effect through the rest of the Red Sox offseason. As for the 2006 season itself, facing the former Red Sox nation hero a couple dozen times will just be salt on the gaping wound inflicted by a fearsome Yankees lineup.

Links:
1) http://news.yahoo.com/s/wcvb/20051221/lo_wcvb/3137474
2) http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=olney_buster&id=2267080&campaign=rss&source=MLBHeadlines

Intelligent Design Trial Over - Good Guys Win

It's done. The whining, conniving and lying on the part of the defendents did noting but hurt their cause. Judge John Jones ended this shameful affair with class and dignity for all including those defendents whom he all but called liars. Check it out here, pick one from here or really get in-depth here.

(Update - Sorry about the dead links... Should be fixed now.)

Dr. Germ

Spam Poetry V.1

Anyone with an email address gets spam. Battle it as we may, much like the cockroach, it aint going anywhere. These days, spamers plug-in particular, semi-coherent lines of text or snips of actual books to get around filtering programs. Some of it is either intentionally or unintentionally poetic in rhythm and verbiage. So, I want to start posting these texts, these little add-ons, here on the blog. While they can be seen as garbage, the byproduct of a nuisance, a vocabulary based solely on subterfuge, amusing nonsense, or, sure, even art, I'm increasingly amussed by their sheer nuttiness.

If anyone would like to contribute to my Spam Poetry Series please email submissions (including the date, email address and "person" who sent it to you) to swindlersfist@yahoo.com with Spam Poetry Series in the title. Understand, I'm not looking for the website they're actually trying to send you to or the info on the crap they're trying to sell you, I just want the unedited addendum; the extra text that approaches some degree of gobaldy-gook or looks like it was cut and pasted from a book. And, of course, you get full props for your contribution.

Spam Poetry V.1

1) Talk crazy to me baby - Swindlersfist
Received: December 14, 2005
From: "Roxie Hawkins" (Lela.Bledsoe@activatormail.com)

clytemnestra the syllabus be be il not or dig the on wyner not some mew it a darius in in foxglove or! dragonhead on.
, bedazzle be but mckee it it cit see , erich or not dichotomy ! may hijack not but mangle onin tid !.
No, so its here

2) Short 'n sweet - Swindlersfist
Received: December 12, 2005
From: FastCreditRepair_9799@gothrough.net

divine blissful slay

3)From a (Lousy) Book? - Swindlersfist
Received: December 13, 2005
From: "Joselyn Roldan" (joselyrol@tert.com)

And youre part of that Paris? I am. Good Christ, lady, he killed your sister! Im aware of that. Still you work for him? There are times when a persons choices are considerably reduced. Say, to live or to die. Until six years ago when Les Classiques changed ownership, it was vital to the monseigneur. I took Jacquis place- Just like that? It wasnt difficult. I was younger, and more to the point I looked younger. The lines in the middle-aged Laviers face cracked with a brief pensive smile. My sister always said it came with living on the Mediterranean. ... At any rate, cosmetic surgery is commonplace in the

What's a One-syllable Word for "Lying Sack of Shit"?

BUSH.

Ready to go nuts? I mean apeshit, ga -ga, fruity pebbles in yr cornhole, golf balls under yr eyelids, shithouse rat crazy?

No?

Well whatever you do, don't click this.

Under Their Thumb

Great commentary on the recent revelations of the scope of our government's spying on its own citizens over on Daily Kos. While things are apparently as bad as we've thought, the details now available are nevertheless disturbing.

Though, shit aint all bad today.

(Update) Aint all bad, Pt. 2.

From the "Give 'Em Enough Rope" Dept.

Former Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed seems to be (deservedly) up to his eyeballs in doo-doo. In a nutshell, this is the guy who married the modern Republican party to religious wingnuts and half-wits. He greased the gears that saw unfathomable amounts of money flow into the pockets of Washington Republicans and their interests. He's the fundamental reason so much lip service, airtime and attention has been given to religious conservatives over the last several years. Of course, it was only a matter of time before such copious amounts of dough began attracting attention. And it's not only Reed who's screwed. His equally slimy buddies Abramoff and Scanlon have been balls deep in their own tangental mess recently. Now, the tainted money threatens to bring down a handful of elected republican officials and cast a pall on the party itself.

Awww. Now that's too bad.

(Props to Scoobie Davis.)

Did I Mention I Had A Posse?

Today, I Finish My Own Wine, Thank You

It's off.

After two months of sporadic work things came down to the wire this week. And now it's over.
Staying up all night staring at the computer screen, writing and re-writing, fact checking, source checking, calling in "sick" to work, worrying that today's snowstorm would ground the FedEx plane carrying that golden package of words. It's all over.

Even though I'm convinced my brain is bleeding and my bloodshot eyes are ready to hop outta my skull and thumb a ride up the coast of Lake Michigan, I'm pleased enough with the product and apparently, the snowstorm blew right over Chicago leaving nary a flake.

Hallelujah.

Forever and ever,
Amen.

The Cold Wind Blows... So Do Deadlines.

Finishing my grad school application this last week. Almost done. My brain hurts.

The ID Debate's New Frontier: Incompetent Design

(Via Daily Kos)

At Seed Magazine, a short interview with Don Wise, professor emeritus of geosciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst on the ID debate. His take? Incompetent Design.

Highlights:

Q: So is there intelligence in the design?
A: Yes! No, no there isn't. The thing that perhaps is closest to all of us is our own skeleton, and there are certainly all kinds of stupidity in our design. No self-respecting engineering student would make the kinds of dumb mistakes that are built into us. All of our pelvises slope forward for convenient knuckle-dragging, like all the other great apes. And the only reason you stand erect is because of this incredible sharp bend at the base of your spine, which is either evolution's way of modifying something or else it's just a design that would flunk a first-year engineering student. Look at the teeth in your mouth. Basically, most of us have too many teeth for the size of our mouth. Well, is this evolution flattening a mammalian muzzle and jamming it into a face or is it a design that couldn't count accurately above 20? Look at the bones in your face. They're the same as the other mammals' but they're just squashed and contorted by jamming the jaw into a face with your brain expanding over it, so the potential drainage system in there is so convoluted that no plumber would admit to having done it! So is this evolution or is this plain stupid design?
Q: You must have received some serious criticism of your somewhat jestful theory?
A: Well, I got one, which I showed at the Geological Society of America (GSA) meetings. An envelope postmarked Minneapolis, with monkeys all over it and inside it, with a great big blue ribbon, a note saying I had been awarded the "Moron of the Month" award, that I was a dork, an idiot, that only someone who thought their ancestors were monkeys would be dumb enough to say what I had, asking me if I wanted to debate it. It left an email address at "darwinistsaredumb@hotmail.com." These are the kind of things you NEVER really answer, but I couldn't resist. So I used the H.L. Menken approach:

Dear Sir,

You should be aware that some idiot is writing absolute nonsense and signing your e-mail address to it. You should take action on this before your reputation is further sullied!

But most of the things I've gotten have been positive.

Busy & Cold Week

Crazy time of year, aint it? Crazy for a million different reasons. And now it's hovering around 0 degrees. Fuck.

An early deep freeze has iced the vapor trapped between the panes of glass on almost every window in the house. We're left with a view as frosty and distorted as George Bush's view on "progress" in Iraq.

Aside from stepping in dog poo and tracking it all over the house, blowing a tire in the wee hours of one of these cold, cold nights and hanging brain at Delilah's, shit's been all business here. More or less.

Here's a photo from the Chicago Tribune:

And while it aint quite Antarctica,

It sure as fuck feels like it.