George Gershwin
September 26, 1898--July 11, 1937
Tuesday, September 26
That's Fucked Up
Channel 13 Hairwitness News intro: "Some Colts fans upset over alleged halftime music."
No, it's about the story, not just the hair-brained [sic] use of "alleged" there, which is an actual quote. Local news actually made a story out of this:
Item: I haven't attended a game in about three years, but it's a goddam Dome, and the sound is cranked to 11, and my guess is it's still louder than the Blue Angels taking off directly over your head *. Loud enough that unless you know the words I'm guessing you'd be hard-pressed to pick any out.
Item: Sample:
Yo if you're fucked up, put your cups up
Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg, nigga what's up
See he's a gangster, I'm a hustler
Yo it's either thank ya, or it's fuck ya
[Lyrics courtesy songs-lyrics.blogspot.com]
And the thing about that is I could have cut-and-pasted practically any four lines at random. So:
Item: I'm guessing that is not the version they played. Which seems to be backed up by what the Colts' spokesman said, and I'm paraphrasing here:
"That's not the version we played."
Item: So my sense here is that maybe, just maybe, the folks at Channel 13 knew all along they didn't play any motherfuckin' obscene lyrics but the story was just too good not to use. Call me a cynic.
Item: The Colts also announced that, despite the apparently misunderstanding, they would never, ever, ever, play that song again, because "We want to see kids at our games and we want them to have a good time and we want parents to not have to worry about what songs are played. We have to be more diligent in just screening the songs." Because God knows when you take the kids out for a wholesome afternoon of sitting just in front of several half-naked beer-swilling sports fans in blue body paint and silver glitter, the last thing you'd expect is to hear any profanity.
*Actually happened to me, May 1964, when my Dad took me to see them at the airport, for some unknown reason, although now that I think about it watching planes take off was still a popular spectator sport in the Midwest in them days. There were about six cars parked at the end of a runway and a bunch of guys milling around, and I figured we were about to see them take off across our line of sight when suddenly they roared off maybe a hundred feet over our heads. Two hundred decibels, easy. It would have drowned out the Who.
No, it's about the story, not just the hair-brained [sic] use of "alleged" there, which is an actual quote. Local news actually made a story out of this:
The Colts' play on the field gave fans plenty to cheer about, but there were jeers when it came to one of the songs played inside the RCA Dome.
The song "Go To Church" by Ice Cube, Lil Jon and Snoop Dog contains profanity and fans thought some of that bad language aired on the in-house sound system.
Item: I haven't attended a game in about three years, but it's a goddam Dome, and the sound is cranked to 11, and my guess is it's still louder than the Blue Angels taking off directly over your head *. Loud enough that unless you know the words I'm guessing you'd be hard-pressed to pick any out.
Item: Sample:
Yo if you're fucked up, put your cups up
Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg, nigga what's up
See he's a gangster, I'm a hustler
Yo it's either thank ya, or it's fuck ya
[Lyrics courtesy songs-lyrics.blogspot.com]
And the thing about that is I could have cut-and-pasted practically any four lines at random. So:
Item: I'm guessing that is not the version they played. Which seems to be backed up by what the Colts' spokesman said, and I'm paraphrasing here:
"That's not the version we played."
Item: So my sense here is that maybe, just maybe, the folks at Channel 13 knew all along they didn't play any motherfuckin' obscene lyrics but the story was just too good not to use. Call me a cynic.
Item: The Colts also announced that, despite the apparently misunderstanding, they would never, ever, ever, play that song again, because "We want to see kids at our games and we want them to have a good time and we want parents to not have to worry about what songs are played. We have to be more diligent in just screening the songs." Because God knows when you take the kids out for a wholesome afternoon of sitting just in front of several half-naked beer-swilling sports fans in blue body paint and silver glitter, the last thing you'd expect is to hear any profanity.
*Actually happened to me, May 1964, when my Dad took me to see them at the airport, for some unknown reason, although now that I think about it watching planes take off was still a popular spectator sport in the Midwest in them days. There were about six cars parked at the end of a runway and a bunch of guys milling around, and I figured we were about to see them take off across our line of sight when suddenly they roared off maybe a hundred feet over our heads. Two hundred decibels, easy. It would have drowned out the Who.
Monday, September 25
Herbert Lee, Died September 25, 1961, Amite County, Mississippi
He'd been born there just short of fifty years earlier. He farmed and raised nine children. He joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. When SNCC brought its voter registration classes to southwestern Mississippi, Led attended, despite his wife's opposition.
Lee was shot and killed in broad daylight in the parking lot of a cotton gin in Liberty, Mississippi by state Representative E. H. Hurst in front of several witnesses, both black and white. A coroner's jury ruled the shooting an act of justifiable homicide that afternoon. Hurst claimed that Lee had come at him with a tire iron, that he had hit him with his pistol in self-defense, and the gun went off.
The African-American witness, Louis Allen, eventually told the real story to FBI agents (sent from Alabama for the purpose; there was no FBI office in all of Mississippi). He was found shot to death out side his home on January 31, 1964. Neither crime has ever been "solved".
Lee was shot and killed in broad daylight in the parking lot of a cotton gin in Liberty, Mississippi by state Representative E. H. Hurst in front of several witnesses, both black and white. A coroner's jury ruled the shooting an act of justifiable homicide that afternoon. Hurst claimed that Lee had come at him with a tire iron, that he had hit him with his pistol in self-defense, and the gun went off.
The African-American witness, Louis Allen, eventually told the real story to FBI agents (sent from Alabama for the purpose; there was no FBI office in all of Mississippi). He was found shot to death out side his home on January 31, 1964. Neither crime has ever been "solved".
Thursday, September 21
Yoo Hoo
In case you thought you noticed a listlessness in these parts, a magnification of certain middle-aged tendencies, well, it could be true. Late summer means scrambling to get various projects finished so that weather-sensitive chores can be done on time, generally with the slightly optimistic sense that this time I'm going to get ahead of it all only to realize that it was not just pure laziness that left things undone in previous years but the impossibly complex set of steps which must be completed without regard for anything else. To this one may add a demented mother and the required interactions with doctors and drug peddlers, minor computer glitchettes, football season, cat maintenance, some interesting reading, a bizarre real-life Agatha Christie interlude when I accidentally intercepted a cocktail my next-door neighbor had designed to kill his wife which caused me--so I am told, anyway--to turn ghost white and slump in my chair with my head cocked at an unnatural angle, though I was completely aware of all my surroundings and continued to carry on a conversation, if at a somewhat reduced rate of speed, and stranger still, the recurrence of an eerie psychic phenomenon which has followed me at least since age eleven, wherein I suddenly become irresistible to women. Seriously. Not all women, certainly, but enough. And certainly nothing to do with anything I've done, so far as I can tell, and if I could figure it out, believe me, I'd use it. It's a complete mystery. I'm not a handsome fellow--you can see the picture--and I'm no longer a stylish or particularly fit one, and I mostly mind my own business. I was never particularly flirtatious in my youth. I'd go months without a girlfriend, then suddenly find myself holding two generous scoops of homecoming queen or getting explicit phone calls late into the night from girls I didn't know while my stepfather pounded on the wall. Then it would stop as mysteriously as it started. I exempt my college years from the official history, of course, as the Tee Ball of Sex, but with the first job I took afterwards I slept with all six women who worked in the place without having made a pass at any of them. On one particularly memorable weekend in 1976 I, on successive nights: was thrown out of a women's restroom at last call, together with a woman who was at least five inches taller than I, engendering a standing ovation by the remaining patrons; narrowly avoided being caught in a police searchlight while partly clothed in an alley; was led on a streetlight-running chase across the northside of Indianapolis by a woman I had never spoken to before who walked up and snatched my jacket just for that purpose, and who turned out to be some sort of amateur circus gymnast. She also impersonated my doctor's receptionist calling in sick for me that Monday. In no case had I known any of the women involved two hours earlier, and none of us was drunk, a fortunate thing since I was ticketed for running one of those lights. And those are just the ones I can tell you about.
Now, I've known guys whose entire lives are pretty much like that, but the point is with me it arrives like rain in a Kalahari riverbed, and it struck again last week, a cloudburst of improbably young women standing closer than necessary or holding eye contact a couple seconds too long, and I a happy brimming brook.
It is, of course, a purely theoretical exercise lo these many decades, and, of course, my wife has some sort of natural immunity. Although at one point last weekend I did go upstairs to find the bedroom lit only by Lava Lamp, a bag of clothespins on the bed, and Billy Idol's cover of "To Be A Lover" playing on the dinky bedroom CD player. My wife is no musician, but she does have a particular appreciation of that song's tempo. Think "Bolero" on crank. I'm still having trouble using my left arm.
But then even at my age physical maladies eventually heal, but the mental torture of reading
John Yoo, "How the Presidency Regained Its Balance", New York Times September 17
has shriveled me up like a spider on a hot stove.* I think I've taken six swipes at the thing over the past four days, and they're all sitting unsaved on the desktop. Let us say that Yoo, our foremost proponent of the idea that the Supreme Court issues suggestions, writes 1100 words on the erosion (!) of Presidential authority and George W.'s selfless battle to reverse it. Let us say that he, a professor of law, manages to do so without ever citing the law but while quoting Dick Cheney, who holds the rare distinction of having served in the three most lawless administrations since Reconstruction and while evoking the well-known principle of jurisprudence (forgive me, I don't know the Latin) of "this leads to pork-barrel spending". Let us note, again, that we live in interesting times.
And just let me say that if the occasion arises again I'll happily try to send Yoo a cadre of young nubiles if it'll cure his problem.
* Little Big Man, 1970
Now, I've known guys whose entire lives are pretty much like that, but the point is with me it arrives like rain in a Kalahari riverbed, and it struck again last week, a cloudburst of improbably young women standing closer than necessary or holding eye contact a couple seconds too long, and I a happy brimming brook.
It is, of course, a purely theoretical exercise lo these many decades, and, of course, my wife has some sort of natural immunity. Although at one point last weekend I did go upstairs to find the bedroom lit only by Lava Lamp, a bag of clothespins on the bed, and Billy Idol's cover of "To Be A Lover" playing on the dinky bedroom CD player. My wife is no musician, but she does have a particular appreciation of that song's tempo. Think "Bolero" on crank. I'm still having trouble using my left arm.
But then even at my age physical maladies eventually heal, but the mental torture of reading
John Yoo, "How the Presidency Regained Its Balance", New York Times September 17
has shriveled me up like a spider on a hot stove.* I think I've taken six swipes at the thing over the past four days, and they're all sitting unsaved on the desktop. Let us say that Yoo, our foremost proponent of the idea that the Supreme Court issues suggestions, writes 1100 words on the erosion (!) of Presidential authority and George W.'s selfless battle to reverse it. Let us say that he, a professor of law, manages to do so without ever citing the law but while quoting Dick Cheney, who holds the rare distinction of having served in the three most lawless administrations since Reconstruction and while evoking the well-known principle of jurisprudence (forgive me, I don't know the Latin) of "this leads to pork-barrel spending". Let us note, again, that we live in interesting times.
And just let me say that if the occasion arises again I'll happily try to send Yoo a cadre of young nubiles if it'll cure his problem.
* Little Big Man, 1970
Tuesday, September 19
Rest Easy, America
Johansson happy with her curvy figure
NEW YORK (AP) -- Scarlett Johansson struts her stuff in cleavage-baring dresses on the red carpet, but in real life, she'd rather remain a mystery.
"I can't stand those articles where people spill their life story," Johansson says in the October issue of InStyle magazine, on newsstands Friday. "After a while I feel like I know more about them than their best friend does - and that's weird. It's better when you don't know everything."
The 21-year-old actress, whose screen credits include "Lost in Translation" and "Match Point," plays a former prostitute in "The Black Dahlia," opposite Hilary Swank and Josh Hartnett.
Johansson says: "Do I ever get nervous about this, right now, being the pinnacle of my career? Yeah, I do. At the end of (filming) every movie I think, `Wow - this is the last one! Nice working with you.'"
She's more confident about her hourglass figure. "I'm curvy - I'm never going to be 5'11' and 120 pounds. But I feel lucky to have what I've got."
And, given the chance, she'd like to trade lives with President Bush. "Whose life would I like to step into for the day? The president's. I could probably get some things done in the Oval Office."
"Mr. Goodwin is not unaware of those attributes of young women which constitute the chief reliance of our race in the battle against insects."
NEW YORK (AP) -- Scarlett Johansson struts her stuff in cleavage-baring dresses on the red carpet, but in real life, she'd rather remain a mystery."I can't stand those articles where people spill their life story," Johansson says in the October issue of InStyle magazine, on newsstands Friday. "After a while I feel like I know more about them than their best friend does - and that's weird. It's better when you don't know everything."
The 21-year-old actress, whose screen credits include "Lost in Translation" and "Match Point," plays a former prostitute in "The Black Dahlia," opposite Hilary Swank and Josh Hartnett.
Johansson says: "Do I ever get nervous about this, right now, being the pinnacle of my career? Yeah, I do. At the end of (filming) every movie I think, `Wow - this is the last one! Nice working with you.'"
She's more confident about her hourglass figure. "I'm curvy - I'm never going to be 5'11' and 120 pounds. But I feel lucky to have what I've got."
And, given the chance, she'd like to trade lives with President Bush. "Whose life would I like to step into for the day? The president's. I could probably get some things done in the Oval Office."
"Mr. Goodwin is not unaware of those attributes of young women which constitute the chief reliance of our race in the battle against insects."
-Rex Stout
photo: KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/AP Photo
Sunday, September 17
Joy of Matrimony, Part 683
Me (calling into the living room from my office while reading the Star online): Honey, [80s Indianapolis mullet-rocker] Henry Lee Summer was arrested for DUI in a Southside trailer park after he careened through the park, bouncing off cars, trucks, and at least one home, elbowed a Sheriff's deputy in the head, and was Tasered. And here I...
Poor Wife: Thought he couldn't even get arrested in Indianapolis any more?
Me: That is so not what I was about to say.
Friday, September 15
Birmingham, September 15, 1963
"That Sunday was the annual Youth Day at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Mamie H. Grier, superintendent of the Sunday school, stopped in at the basement ladies' room to find four young girls who had left Bible classes early and were talking excitedly about the beginning of the school year. All four were dressed in white from head to toe, as this was their day to run the main service for the adults at eleven o'clock. Grier urged them to hurry along and then went upstairs to sit in on her own women's Sunday-school class. They were engaged in a lively debate on the lesson topic, "The Love That Forgives," when a loud earthquake shook the entire church and showered the classroom with plaster and debris....
"Claude Wesley, principal of Lewis Elementary School, did not often subject himself to Sunday-school classes. He had dropped his adopted daughter Cynthia at the church and then escaped to the errands of a pleasant Sunday morning. When the noise of the blast interrupted his shoeshine, he had made his way to the church, the hospital, and finally the morgue, where he and his wife identified their daughter's remains by the feet and a ring on her finger...."
Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters
"As Virgil Ware, 13, soared down a lonely stretch of road outside Birmingham, Ala., perched on the handlebars of his brother's bicycle, he was happily unaware of the carnage downtown. It was Sunday, Sept. 15, 1963. At 10:22 that morning, four black girls had been killed by a dynamite bomb set by the Ku Klux Klan at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. The church was a focal point of Birmingham's civil rights turmoil that year, but that unrest hadn't touched Virgil and his coal-mining family, who lived in a modest, all-black suburb and rarely even saw white people. All Virgil had on his mind that day was the money he and his brothers were going to make with the newspaper route they had just secured....
"Succumbing to peer pressure, [Larry Joe] Sims had gone along with friends to a segregationist rally that day--and now he was holding a revolver that his classmate, Michael Lee Farley, 16, had handed him as they rode home on Farley's red motorbike, its small Confederate flag whipping in the wind. As they passed Virgil and his brother James, 16, Farley told Sims to fire the gun and "scare 'em." Sims closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. Two bullets hit Virgil in the chest and cheek, hurling him into a ditch as the motorbike sped on. "I've been shot," Virgil said. "No you ain't," [his brother] James said in disbelief. "Just stop tremblin', and you'll be O.K."
"He wasn't. Instead, Virgil Ware became the sixth and final black person to be killed in Birmingham that Sunday. (Another youth had been shot in the back by police after he threw rocks to protest the church bombing.) Virgil was the last civil rights casualty of the summer of '63--when the defining social movement of 20th century America became a national concern and not just a Southern one. Network television brought the season's atrocities into U.S. living rooms along with the triumphs, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington 2 1/2 weeks earlier....
"Farley and Sims were charged with first-degree murder, but an all-white jury convicted Sims on a lesser charge of second-degree manslaughter (to which Farley then pleaded guilty). A white judge, Wallace Gibson, suspended the boys' sentences and gave them two years' probation--scolding them for their "lapse"--which made Lorene Ware "break down in the courtroom crying and hollering," recalls Melvin. Says James: "You could get more time back then for killing a good hunting dog."
Tim Padgett and Frank Sikora, "The Legacy of Virgil Ware", Time,
September 22, 2003
"If you're going to blame anyone for getting those children killed in Birmingham, it's your Supreme Court."
Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor, Birmingham Public Safety Director
"Claude Wesley, principal of Lewis Elementary School, did not often subject himself to Sunday-school classes. He had dropped his adopted daughter Cynthia at the church and then escaped to the errands of a pleasant Sunday morning. When the noise of the blast interrupted his shoeshine, he had made his way to the church, the hospital, and finally the morgue, where he and his wife identified their daughter's remains by the feet and a ring on her finger...."
"As Virgil Ware, 13, soared down a lonely stretch of road outside Birmingham, Ala., perched on the handlebars of his brother's bicycle, he was happily unaware of the carnage downtown. It was Sunday, Sept. 15, 1963. At 10:22 that morning, four black girls had been killed by a dynamite bomb set by the Ku Klux Klan at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. The church was a focal point of Birmingham's civil rights turmoil that year, but that unrest hadn't touched Virgil and his coal-mining family, who lived in a modest, all-black suburb and rarely even saw white people. All Virgil had on his mind that day was the money he and his brothers were going to make with the newspaper route they had just secured....
"Succumbing to peer pressure, [Larry Joe] Sims had gone along with friends to a segregationist rally that day--and now he was holding a revolver that his classmate, Michael Lee Farley, 16, had handed him as they rode home on Farley's red motorbike, its small Confederate flag whipping in the wind. As they passed Virgil and his brother James, 16, Farley told Sims to fire the gun and "scare 'em." Sims closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. Two bullets hit Virgil in the chest and cheek, hurling him into a ditch as the motorbike sped on. "I've been shot," Virgil said. "No you ain't," [his brother] James said in disbelief. "Just stop tremblin', and you'll be O.K."
"He wasn't. Instead, Virgil Ware became the sixth and final black person to be killed in Birmingham that Sunday. (Another youth had been shot in the back by police after he threw rocks to protest the church bombing.) Virgil was the last civil rights casualty of the summer of '63--when the defining social movement of 20th century America became a national concern and not just a Southern one. Network television brought the season's atrocities into U.S. living rooms along with the triumphs, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington 2 1/2 weeks earlier....
"Farley and Sims were charged with first-degree murder, but an all-white jury convicted Sims on a lesser charge of second-degree manslaughter (to which Farley then pleaded guilty). A white judge, Wallace Gibson, suspended the boys' sentences and gave them two years' probation--scolding them for their "lapse"--which made Lorene Ware "break down in the courtroom crying and hollering," recalls Melvin. Says James: "You could get more time back then for killing a good hunting dog."
September 22, 2003
"If you're going to blame anyone for getting those children killed in Birmingham, it's your Supreme Court."
Thursday, September 14
Big Deal. There've Been Four Star Trek Spinoffs, And That's Just Since 1968.
George W. "Third Awakening" Bush, the only soap-opera star who takes those "Don't trust Melissa. She's just using you to get to Brad." fan letters seriously:
Yeah. Not to mention everything else.
If there's any similarity between the First Two Great Awakenings and general religious fervor today it would be the rather blasé attitude about theological consistency. Otherwise, one question:
Where is it?
Not in church attendance. You don't have to take Barna's word for that, just drive around next Sunday morning and try to get yourself into a traffic jam. It's not in personal accountability. The public face of religion in America has for thirty years now been about pointing fingers at others' shortcomings and ACLU-led compulsory atheism, and the big box churches now on every street corner are well-known for their over-egged ear pudding messages. It's not in a new inclusiveness, of the sort which reached out to blacks and poor whites in the 18th century, and it's certainly not in the confrontation of anti-Christian treatment of minorities, however much the religious right enjoys portraying itself as modern-day Abolitionists. Christians are still portraying themselves as 1st century lion bait, for that matter, with as little justification.
It's a bit curious, from Bush's stated perspective, that revivalism hasn't done much to boost his poll numbers. On the other hand, it's no real surprise he reports receiving so many letters from Americans of strong religious belief. Why, the very act of writing a letter to George Bush could test the limits of one's faith.
Bush noted that some of Abraham Lincoln's strongest supporters were religious people "who saw life in terms of good and evil" and who believed that slavery was evil. Many of his own supporters, he said, see the current conflict in similar terms.
Yeah. Not to mention everything else.
If there's any similarity between the First Two Great Awakenings and general religious fervor today it would be the rather blasé attitude about theological consistency. Otherwise, one question:
Where is it?
Not in church attendance. You don't have to take Barna's word for that, just drive around next Sunday morning and try to get yourself into a traffic jam. It's not in personal accountability. The public face of religion in America has for thirty years now been about pointing fingers at others' shortcomings and ACLU-led compulsory atheism, and the big box churches now on every street corner are well-known for their over-egged ear pudding messages. It's not in a new inclusiveness, of the sort which reached out to blacks and poor whites in the 18th century, and it's certainly not in the confrontation of anti-Christian treatment of minorities, however much the religious right enjoys portraying itself as modern-day Abolitionists. Christians are still portraying themselves as 1st century lion bait, for that matter, with as little justification.
It's a bit curious, from Bush's stated perspective, that revivalism hasn't done much to boost his poll numbers. On the other hand, it's no real surprise he reports receiving so many letters from Americans of strong religious belief. Why, the very act of writing a letter to George Bush could test the limits of one's faith.
Wednesday, September 13
Ask a Chickenhawk
William Kristol and Rich Lowry, "Reinforce Baghdad", Washington Post September 12
As you may have heard, Kristol and Lowry (who should consider writing anagrammically as "Two Rosy Krill") have solved the little problem we're having with that war they've been (mostly) telling us we've been winning all along: more troops. More troops! How do they come up with 'em?
Guys, look. There isn't any reason either of you should be taken seriously, but if we're going to pretend you are then you at least need to pretend to be acknowledging a truth neither of you was willing to acknowledge before it smacked you in the face, repeatedly. Your batting averages on Iraq are not just below the Mendoza Line; they're a challenge to the very concept of Zero. That much should be taken as apparent to anyone who might find himself reading the Post op-ed page. Instead we get this dance about "differing over tactics" in the past. Pure flummery. You been wrong about the war in the past, albeit in slightly different ways simply because Mr. Kristol chose to "differ" with the administration by insisting it should be doing more of what it already was doing. That's permitted him to pose as a "critic" of the administration's handling of the war, but the fact is that as spectacularly wrong as Lowry's "We're Winning" cover story was, and is, Kristol was wrongerer. Not to mention his cheerleadership for the On To Damascus contingent.
But then the game here isn't accuracy, and it's certainly not The Comeuppance of the Neocons, it's the "Conservative editors call for more troops" meta-story, which requires that Kristol and Lowry be accorded the standing to make such a critique. Only problem is, they don't have it.
It's a common theme around here, but however effective bald-faced lying has become in winning elections it still exacts a price. It's the Right, the "conservatives" in this country who are the self-styled guardians of the ancient virtues, but they're also the ones who've twisted the truth beyond all recognition. You listen to Bush's stump speech stirring tribute to 9/11 the other day, if you can, and it strikes you that he's still tap dancing around the very notion of who or what we're supposedly at war with. But there's no difficulty about it. There's no real confusion over whether you can conduct a real war against an idea. The only difficulty is that the war mongers cannot justify in principle what they want to do in fact, which is to take revenge on whomever is easiest and at hand, and use that as a permanent justification for the installation of a government that does their domestic dirty work in an atmosphere where debate is treason. And it doesn't work, and it's not going to work just because they get even more desperate to manage it.
So how, exactly, does this sort of thing wind up on the pages of WaPo? The Iraq war, the idea behind the Iraq war, every justification behind the Iraq war, the execution of the Iraq war, and the positive geopolitical results which were supposed to accrue to us because of the Iraq war are all piles of ash. Is the person who now wonders "Hmmm, what do you supposed Rich Lowry and Bill Kristol make of this" even sane? I know the WaPo is the ultimate Beltway insider, but aren't the editors human, too, at some point?
And that doesn't even touch the substance of their argument, which may be for the best since it's not a good idea to plunge your hands into a pile of crap unless you make a surgeon's salary, or at least a plumber's. "More troops to Baghdad," they say, without being called upon to tell us "From where?" It's been three years since the fall of 2003, when it should have become clear even to those too willfully blind to see it before that we did not have enough troops in Iraq. Three years. In three years we went from Pearl Harbor to Iwo Jima, and were preparing to make the costly excursion into the Philippines on principle, not military necessity. We were about to absorb the last shock offensive of the German army in the West. In three years the Soviets went from shovel brigades blockading the streets of Moscow, to pushing what was left of the German Army into the Baltic and Black Seas. Three years and untold lives sacrificed for half-assed ideas these two supported, and now they're ready to begin looking at the results?
Three years, and I'm sick of pointing out that the warfloggers have been moving the same Vapor Divisions around the same little Risk™ mapboards without ever once being asked where the feet to fill the boots are supposed to come from. If we put 400,000 more troops into Iraq, however you find them--whether conscripts we have no way of training at the rate necessary to get them into the field in 18 months, by stripping our military presence everywhere else in the world, or arming mechanics, computer operators, and the gang at the Corner--what are we supposed to do then if Kim Jong Il decides to cross over into South Korea, just to use one obvious example? Or is your answer "send 400,000 more troops?"
Decisive battle, the man says. Decisive battle. The Japanese used to talk like that in WWII. Lure the US Navy into the decisive battle. Some of 'em were still talking that way as we took Okinawa. And the Victory Disease of the modern American right doesn't even have the benefit of military competence. It's a gummable mash of victory in WWII, out-tchotkie-ing the Soviet Union, an abiding belief in the ability of technology to subdue whatever chaos they've gotten us into, and an unshakable convinction that the election of Ronald Reagan solved everything.
Well, that and the conviction that when all else fails you can blame the Liberal Media, traitors in Congress, and the public schools. One nice thing about Japanese Victory Disease was that most of its proponents ended up at the bottom of the Pacific.
As you may have heard, Kristol and Lowry (who should consider writing anagrammically as "Two Rosy Krill") have solved the little problem we're having with that war they've been (mostly) telling us we've been winning all along: more troops. More troops! How do they come up with 'em?
We are at a crucial moment in Iraq. Supporters of the war, like us, have in the past differed over tactics. But at this urgent pass, there can be no doubt that we need to stop the downward slide in Iraq by securing Baghdad.
Guys, look. There isn't any reason either of you should be taken seriously, but if we're going to pretend you are then you at least need to pretend to be acknowledging a truth neither of you was willing to acknowledge before it smacked you in the face, repeatedly. Your batting averages on Iraq are not just below the Mendoza Line; they're a challenge to the very concept of Zero. That much should be taken as apparent to anyone who might find himself reading the Post op-ed page. Instead we get this dance about "differing over tactics" in the past. Pure flummery. You been wrong about the war in the past, albeit in slightly different ways simply because Mr. Kristol chose to "differ" with the administration by insisting it should be doing more of what it already was doing. That's permitted him to pose as a "critic" of the administration's handling of the war, but the fact is that as spectacularly wrong as Lowry's "We're Winning" cover story was, and is, Kristol was wrongerer. Not to mention his cheerleadership for the On To Damascus contingent.
But then the game here isn't accuracy, and it's certainly not The Comeuppance of the Neocons, it's the "Conservative editors call for more troops" meta-story, which requires that Kristol and Lowry be accorded the standing to make such a critique. Only problem is, they don't have it.
It's a common theme around here, but however effective bald-faced lying has become in winning elections it still exacts a price. It's the Right, the "conservatives" in this country who are the self-styled guardians of the ancient virtues, but they're also the ones who've twisted the truth beyond all recognition. You listen to Bush's
So how, exactly, does this sort of thing wind up on the pages of WaPo? The Iraq war, the idea behind the Iraq war, every justification behind the Iraq war, the execution of the Iraq war, and the positive geopolitical results which were supposed to accrue to us because of the Iraq war are all piles of ash. Is the person who now wonders "Hmmm, what do you supposed Rich Lowry and Bill Kristol make of this" even sane? I know the WaPo is the ultimate Beltway insider, but aren't the editors human, too, at some point?
And that doesn't even touch the substance of their argument, which may be for the best since it's not a good idea to plunge your hands into a pile of crap unless you make a surgeon's salary, or at least a plumber's. "More troops to Baghdad," they say, without being called upon to tell us "From where?" It's been three years since the fall of 2003, when it should have become clear even to those too willfully blind to see it before that we did not have enough troops in Iraq. Three years. In three years we went from Pearl Harbor to Iwo Jima, and were preparing to make the costly excursion into the Philippines on principle, not military necessity. We were about to absorb the last shock offensive of the German army in the West. In three years the Soviets went from shovel brigades blockading the streets of Moscow, to pushing what was left of the German Army into the Baltic and Black Seas. Three years and untold lives sacrificed for half-assed ideas these two supported, and now they're ready to begin looking at the results?
Three years, and I'm sick of pointing out that the warfloggers have been moving the same Vapor Divisions around the same little Risk™ mapboards without ever once being asked where the feet to fill the boots are supposed to come from. If we put 400,000 more troops into Iraq, however you find them--whether conscripts we have no way of training at the rate necessary to get them into the field in 18 months, by stripping our military presence everywhere else in the world, or arming mechanics, computer operators, and the gang at the Corner--what are we supposed to do then if Kim Jong Il decides to cross over into South Korea, just to use one obvious example? Or is your answer "send 400,000 more troops?"
The bottom line is this: More U.S. troops in Iraq would improve our chances of winning a decisive battle at a decisive moment.
Decisive battle, the man says. Decisive battle. The Japanese used to talk like that in WWII. Lure the US Navy into the decisive battle. Some of 'em were still talking that way as we took Okinawa. And the Victory Disease of the modern American right doesn't even have the benefit of military competence. It's a gummable mash of victory in WWII, out-tchotkie-ing the Soviet Union, an abiding belief in the ability of technology to subdue whatever chaos they've gotten us into, and an unshakable convinction that the election of Ronald Reagan solved everything.
Well, that and the conviction that when all else fails you can blame the Liberal Media, traitors in Congress, and the public schools. One nice thing about Japanese Victory Disease was that most of its proponents ended up at the bottom of the Pacific.
Tuesday, September 12
Dude, What Are You Smokin'?
Feds: Illicit drug use up for boomers, down for teens
Associated Press
September 8, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The government reported Thursday that 4.4 percent of baby boomers ages 50 to 59 indicated they had used illicit drugs in the past month. It marks the third consecutive yearly increase recorded for that age group by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
All Right! My People!
Okay, you've probably already guessed, but I don't believe there even is such a thing as the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Who'd answer it? Does it come with use immunity? Or samples? My guess is that the major research involves scouring old Dragnet scripts for drug lingo, and they have an intern make sure the fake numbers add up to 100%. But if there really is one then one thing is certain: there's a hell of a lot more than 4.4% of boomers smoking dope.
Not that I have any idea, really; I just know that if the government is actually doing a survey they're underreporting the numbers, because the government, for some reason, is really concerned about this shit, likely for the same reason that people who hate sex rarely stop thinking about it.
So I don't give a shit, either way, until I come to this:
Meanwhile, illicit drug use among young teens went down from 11.6 percent in 2002 to 9.9 percent in 2005.
"Rarely have we seen a story like this where this is such an obvious contrast as one generation goes off stage right, and entering stage left is a generation that learned a lesson somehow and they're doing something very different," said David Murray, special assistant to the director for the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
David Murray, in case you've forgotten, was last sighted in 2003, when he warned Canada not to legalize pot. Back when the Bush administration was just itchin' to find more countries to democratize.
Okay, so, in fairness, I'm one of the few people in this country who will admit to believing that illicit drug use should be mandatory, just as soon as we figure out what to call them besides "illicit". My argument is fairly simple: I don't believe things can really get much more fucked up, and as such I think having a good time and installing interesting lighting is a reachable standard and one worth pursuing as national policy. Just consider how much better Congress would be if every time Sam Brownback rose to speak two people jumped up on either side and shotgunned him.
Right, that isn't gonna happen even if the Democrats do retake both houses, but in the interim could we just agree to put a cork in Mr. Murray? Just what is the malfunction, man? If the youth of America have found a different "kick" than their elders it looks to be lying to them on surveys then enjoying the resultant credulous media coverage of The Newer New Sobriety or Rainbow Parties. If you're reduced to finding silver linings in the things reported by children aged 12-17 to the most authoritarian adults we can dredge up, and if said linings require that you believe those things have some resemblance to the truth, I suggest a trip to the beach. And then keep going.
Is it really necessary to keep taking shots at boomers, now that most of us are barely ambulatory? Can you even find "Freebird" on the radio anymore? That train left the station twenty-five years ago, Mr. Murray. I know you guys would like to talk about anything but your record, but still; we've been playin' your game since Nixon and people still like to get high. And while I've got no real problem if 12-17 year olds smoke a little weed--it's better for 'em than the licit drugs they can get quite easily--I'd be happy to join in a campaign to discourage it, and discourage them from having sex, both for the same reason: aesthetics. They just don't do it very well. Besides, what I say has about as much effect as...what you have to say.
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