Plus, Hair Totally Ruined American Musical Theatre For A Decade.

It's really good that Senator Obama wished that bad Mr. Sixties into the cornfield.

GOD help me, I didn't read the Lapel Pin speech. It didn't even occur to me; for one thing, the only way I'm getting through the next four months is by not confronting the very real possibility that what should be the single greatest instance of widespread political clarity connected to a U.S. Presidential election since 1932 had, perhaps even before I started paying attention to it, devolved into a choice of which party, and whose candidate, is less beholden to the crackpot narrative of American current events, and which side is a skosh less mendacious in its pursuit. I can't be betrayed by the Democratic Party, because I left it in 1978, or about six years after it kicked me out. I don't think much of the Presidency; the last President I'd have even wanted to have lunch with died a decade before I was born, and the one since then who did the most for the country also mired us in Vietnam. Roosevelt and LBJ are the twin poles of the massively expanded Presidency that began with Wilson, and they are, respectively by their rarity and their tale of best intentions gone screaming to Hell, on greased rails, initiating, in the process, the Third Great Awakening of Dumbass Bronze Age Superstition, thanks a lot, the argument for its curtailment. The best thing we could do with the Oval Office is shrink it, say, to the size of an Indy-car cockpit, or, even smaller; something approaching George W. Bush's grasp, but maybe still observable without special optics.

I happen to believe that, the matter being settled anyway, it's much less important that Barack Obama will apparently say anything or reverse any stated position to get elected President than it is that so many self-described Progressives with internet access will excuse whatever that might entail. (It may be nearly as troubling that Senator Obama is getting the worst campaign advice of an actual candidate since Michael Dukakis without anyone seeming to notice, but I'm not really an inside baseball type.  Fun fact: Dukakis was leading at this point in the race.) I spent no small amount of time last evening reading post after post and comment after comment praising the man's wholly gratuitous (and whoringly gratuitous) plan to fund employment discrimination by religious organizations, on the grounds, I guess, that they're really nice once you get to know them. This morning I saw the man praised for telling a reporter who asked him to twist the knife he stuck in Wes Clark's back the day before--or to apologize to John McCain in case any blood got on McCain's shoes--that he (Obama) thought it was beneath him to be asked the question again. Swear to God. It turns out that the Left Blogosphere, as an alternative to Big Media, consists of the same goddam trumpet section playing in a slightly different register. Yes, it's the silly season; yes, this, too, shall pass. But so too has the golden opportunity to force the Democratic nominee to take, and hold, positions more closely resembling those of, well, actual Democrats, unless they've all lost their minds. Instead they spent the time arguing just what sort of racist Geraldine F. Ferraro is.

Anyway, I don't know what possessed me to read the thing, but, Oh brother:

Meanwhile, some of those in the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties reacted not merely by criticizing particular government policies, but by attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself - by burning flags; by blaming America for all that was wrong with the world; and perhaps most tragically, by failing to honor those veterans coming home from Vietnam, something that remains a national shame to this day.

All righty, then. I'd pretty much forgotten the Dirty Hippies and their filthy Excesses ruined America for the Rest of Us bit, not because I'm magnanimous, but because my memory's shot and he's screwed up so many times since then. So let's rewind, Senator. (By the way, if this is over with, why do you keep coming back here?) Did you actually study political science at Columbia, or did everything you know about the subject come from Ronald Reagan? I asked yesterday who it was who'd questioned your patriotism; now it's time for you to explain who you're throwing shit at, and why. Don't ask me why I didn't stand and cheer as the parade went by. Ask the people who supported that war where the parade was in the first place. Maybe instead of asking why we hippies aren't out celebrating war, we could ask why you who could do something about one aren't busy trying to stop it, or prevent further needless slaughter and the accumulation of more "patriotic" symbols on more graves. Fuck you, Senator. The friend of a friend of mine left his legs in that goddam jungle. The people who cared for him--for the rest of his unnaturally-short life--were mostly dirty hippies, sir, the same people who'd opposed the war before he left and argued into the night about his intention to go. Hold your own fuckin' parades. Demonstrate how proud you are to live in a country where mouthing empty platitudes is more important than being smart, or being honest. Oh, and thanks for answering the question. Patriotism is that vital wellspring of emotion we all should fake, and some of the other us should die for.  Got it.  

"How's The Head?" "Still Bleeding." *

I'M from Indiana, in case that's not abundantly clear, specifically Indianapolis, a state and a city where a massive, collective inferiority complex is on display like bluegrass in Kentucky or bluebells in Texas. This used to sit like a light wool sweater on a crisp night, all snuggly and bemused against the outside world, the close-fit knowledge, warmed to body-temperature, that something in the soil yet had spawned George Ade, Booth Tarkington, Theodore Dreiser, Kurt Vonnegut, and Claude Akins.

I doubt I need to tell you this has not fared well in the current age, unlike, say, teevee-set dimensions, marijuana potency, and women made of plastic. The entire state, excepting The Region, and the Amish, was sold one night to souless international corporate entities like Mitch Daniels. Surprisingly few people realized. Whimsy, gentleness, and humor--where understood--have no place in those types' lexicon, and self-deprecation ranks just above "satire" and just below "eroding real estate values" on their Turn-offs List. Beginning in the late 70s sometime you couldn't swing a cat in these parts--not that I ever would--without hitting something which claimed to be World Class in the Making. We're building Indy's first Five-Star hotel! We're The Amateur Sports Capital of the World! It actually saturated things to the extent that Indianapolis Public Schools once claimed to be building a world-class school system, presumably from baling wire, an Amiga 1000, and a set of Collier's Encyclopedia copyright 1960 (missing Volume 12, KRA-MAF). It is, perhaps, fortunate that such occurances are accompanied by the absence of anything resembling humor, or choking deaths might have skyrocketed.

This was probably excusable in its day; after all, someone was paying Barbara Walters $1 M (in bicentennial dollars) to read aloud, and people were hailing Gene Roddenberry as a visionary. Why not fucking cash in under the circumstances? Never mind that the whole exercise somehow required the creation of a quasi-government entity with taxing powers but no accountability, electoral or otherwise. We're goin' to Mars! dude. Stop bitchin' about the uniforms! Of course this revolting set of circumstances would then be seized upon, and improved--the same way the discovery of gold on the West coast improved relations with nearby indigenous peoples--by a generation which had no conception of things ever being any different, leading to the current mouthpiece of the Capitol Improvements Board ("Cosa Nostra") explaining to his taxpaying audience recently that Indianpolis' positioning itself as The Amateur Sports Capital of the Solar System was pretty much just a placeholder until we could land a Super Bowl.

This, then, is the view from The Crossroads of America, a state which now be trippin' to the extent that the We're Relevant To The Political Process! crapola hasn't fucking let up, not in light of the immediate aftermath, when our voting for Hillary Clinton gave the nomination to Barack Obama, and not in the eight weeks after, as Senator Obama's hopeful and sincere campaign ads compete for time with Mitch Daniels' scared-shitless, baldfaced-lyin' ones.  The local teleprompter readers can't fucking get enough of We're Relevant To The Political Process! which is brought up every time one or the other candidate's plane flies into Indiana airspace. (Although, to be honest, they're having a difficult time working up much McCain enthusiasm, for obvious reasons, of course, but also because another Republican win puts this shit to bed for another forty years.) It never occurs to anyone to ask just how much money these people have, or why, or how much it would take to get them to go away, at least for a decent interval.

Now, just so's you don't think this is simply familiarity-bred contempt, my feeling is that the proper response of any state which has voted Republican for the last forty years, in fact any which went (unequivocally) to George W. Bush twice, is not the generation of artificial excitement and self-congratulation over giving some thought to not electing another one while there's still a Republic left; it's to recuse itself in shame. It's the only real response.

I say all this because--okay, it's only the latest excuse--with my Poor Wife at the controls yesterday I sat through three different reports on Obama's I Will Not Stand For People Questioning My Patriotism, And To Prove It I'll Start Wearing A Flag Pin speech, and every one of the three was introduced by a talking hairdo saying, "Today, Barack Obama responded to questions about his patriotism." One waited for an explanation of who had questioned Obama's patriotism, or on what grounds with full knowledge of the futility of the exercise, just as one waited for some context to explain why a retired Major General who had himself run for the office would supposedly say military service disqualified one from the Presidency. One could wish either, or both, had just left it at Kiss My Ass. One could wonder why anyone would want to be President. One could do worse than to say read Glen Greenwald.

________

* dimly remembered comic strip from my youth.  The set up is one character saying to the other something along the lines of "That was a brave thing you did, facing a surly mob and saying, 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.' "  Second panel wordless, as the two look at each other, then the money shot.

Or Maybe Bush's Codpiece Is A Charm Against Falling Objects

CROOKS and Liars, via aimai:

NBC’s David Gregory chimes in at the end of the segment and drops a question on [Obama’s Senior Foreign Policy Advisor Susan] Rice that was pulled directly from Karl Rove’s playbook:

Gregory: “Hello, Susan.  While we are talking about the prospect of nuclear terrorism, which is what is behind the concerns of North Korea and Iran.  I have a broader question for you and really for Senator Obama.  Why is it, does he believe that America has not been attacked in  this country by terrorists since  9/11?  And does George W. Bush, President Bush deserve credit for that?”
Rice: “I think what we have to acknowledge, David, that we haven’t been attacked but we are nonetheless less safe as a sequence of the policies of this  administration has pursued.  Our standing in the world is at an all-time low.  Al Qaeda is more dangerous now in Afghanistan and Pakistan than it has been.  Our intelligence community is warning they are reconstituting and more deadly to U.S. forces than Iraq.”

Of course, Gregory is incorrect, there HAS been a deadly terrorist attack in the U.S. since 9/11 — the anthrax attacks that killed 5 Americans ring a bell to you? It’s interesting that so many seem to forget this factoid. Speaking of anthrax and Bush failures, you’ll be happy to learn that $5.8 million of your tax dollars were just awarded to Steven Hatfill in his lawsuit against the Bush Justice Department. Hatfill is an Army scientist who was deemed a “Person of Interest” in the anthrax attacks, but was eventually ruled out as a suspect in the Bush administration’s botched investigation. Hatfill’s lawyer placed partial blame on the media for not questioning the Bush administration’s motives in targeting him and for reporting leaked disinformation they could not substantiate.

It occurred to me that this would make a good one of those blog-tag pyramid things: get five people to answer Gregory's question, and they each get five more, and so on, but then I realized I've have to do some work.

Instead, let's just mouth off about it, which should be enough to put the whole canard to rest anyway, the internets being our avenue of self-correction. Yes, it's true that Gregory's question was DOA, which the Hatfill deal, announced the same day, underlines. It's also true that Hatfill--how many of the Press gaggle could have ID'd him before last Friday?  How many now?--reminds us that for dampened-pants America and her Press, the anthrax attacks stopped being terrorism once it became apparent that Saddam Hussein hadn't personally posted the letters (it took Judy Miller and the WaPo a bit longer, but then, it took them a few extra months to actually give up on the Hussein angle, too).

[Excuse the indulgence, but this is one of those stories I'd be willing to undergo fifteen years of dialysis for just to live long enough to hear whatever fraction of the truth eventually gets released. I realize the FBI is hampered, post-Hoover, by its inability to close cases by simply gunning down suspects and calling it a shootout, but I find it very difficult to accept that they seriously entertained the notion that there was a foreign source for the attacks after the first of those risible DEATH TO AMERICA DEATH TO ISRAEL ALLAH IS GREAT letters turned up, unless they suspected a blind (and a good one; remember the misspelling of "penacilin"?). Five years later they'd announce (to the WaPo!) that the previous description of the anthrax as "weaponized" was in error; instead, the unknown perp had just meticulously removed all the stems and seeds. This was curious, seeing as how the Gee must have been the source of the original misinformation, and seeing as how, to the unlettered internet loudmouth the procedure for identifying the weaponizing agent looks pretty straightforward. Not to mention the fact that the two reporters write

Such processing or additives might have suggested that the maker had access to the recipes of biological weapons made by the United States in the 1950s and 1960s.

betraying--or portraying--an innocence of the Army's own admission that the process had continued for decades after Nixon "ended" it. ]

I do apologize for the above; the closer you get to these spooks the more likely you are to inhale something, and it always makes you sound like it was nitrous. At any rate, if Senator Obama announces he'll appoint Glenn Greenwald or Joe Conason to head a blue-ribbon panel he's got my vote. 

Okay, so it's also the case that the "no domestic attack" bit is a canard. The Bush administration, and the American citizens which voted it back into office in 2004, expressly threw caution, international law, and rational practice to the winds in taking "the fight" to "the terrorists", so the subsequent attacks in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Spain, e.g., are to some extent their failures, just as some internet nit-picker might note the 9/11 attacks had been preceded by a warning about some guy named bin-Laden. I am, for example, unaware of a single military historian who claims that Eisenhower's great achievement was that he didn't let the Battle of the Bulge happen twice.

No, if Gregory is justified in asking the question of Rice in terms of Obama's response to a trope, he's clearly off-base in suggesting it as a fact requiring some sort of counter (enough so that one imagines, given his unfortunate and untimely death at his desk, hearing the whole of Inside Washington lionize him for his meticulous preparation). And this is the thing that struck me on further reflection: the self-satisfied assumption of al-Qaeda and International Terror, Inc., as Determined To Attack U.S. on a regular, if not daily, basis, until the whole place is a pile of bricks and twisted steel. Where the hell does that come from, and how does it wind up in the mouth of a "newsman"? It's a surrender to the comforts of hyperreality. It demonstrates a complete lack of appreciation for how complicated the attacks of 9/11 were, how unexpected their physical results (it took considerable study just to explain how the Towers fell; try to convince an engineer the result could have been anticipated), and how successful their political aim--it's terror, Dave!--considering that pants-pissing over possible attacks or negotiatin' with terrists is still a Republican (and H. Clintonian!) rallying point. Future attacks there may be, god help us all, and it's also possible that the Islamic division of SPECTRE would blow shit up inside our borders on a daily, even hourly basis, if it could. But if we got our heads out of comic books, spy thrillers, and our own asses we might at least analyze the threat in a reasonable fashion. Though that would sorta take the advertising quotient and sales potential out of the thing, not something we're especially known for doing.

Fun With Monogamy, Vol. MCCXLV

WE are, you may know already, regular viewers of Jeopardy! chez Riley, which out of convenience has evolved frequently to include the end of Wheel of Fortune, in which the Winner of that day's competition gets to solve one more puzzle for a fabulous prize, determined by yet another wheel spin. And this week there's some sort of tag-team competition going on, with two contestants in the place of one, and the two gentlemen solved the Prize Puzzle, and the envelope was opened to reveal they'd won a pair of Buick Enclaves!, which Buick describes as a "luxury crossover vehicle", and which I described, from the accompanying promotional video, as probably among the Top 15% of ugly vehicles on American roadways, no small achievement.

ME: A pair of Enclaves! There oughta be a collective noun for that.

PW: How about "Effrontery"?

Doghouse Riley's Real-Life Do-It-Yourself Project File™

Project: Mosaic-topped potting bench

Materials: 2x4 treated lumber, 3/4" plywood, 1x4 construction-grade lumber, carriage bolts, deck screws, exterior nails, construction adhesive, exterior paint, urethane, assorted sandpaper, ceramic tile, exterior grout, sealer, moulding

Tools: circular saw, power drill, sander, hammer, paint brushes, grout float, margin trowel, sponge, terry-cloth towels, magnifying glass, mosquito repellant, tweezers, assorted bandages, bacitracin, tetanus vaccine

Estimated time: 6 years

Estimated cost: $7000, labor included

Instructions: 2002: build potting bench at wife's insistence, paint. Later, in response to her "Shouldn't you do something about the (rain) water standing on the table?" resolve to do nothing about rain water standing on the table. 2003: replace tabletop, paint, urethane. 2004: urethane. 2005: urethane, repaint to match new garden decor, urethane. 2006: urethane, decide to tile top as more permanent solution to weathering, buy tile, leave lying on bench. 2007: pharmaceutical testing. 2008: resolve, post-arthroscopy, to clean up mess. Replace tabletop, repaint, decide to actually get tiling done this time, decide to try mosaic, on the grounds that increasing the time required to finish the project by a factor of 12 will similarly increase the likelihood of its completion. Peruse grout aisle at local Lowe's. Discover, not surprisingly, that grout aisle, like every other aisle in the store, is dominated by the company which shows the greatest degree of quality control in selecting and distributing perks to Lowe's executives. Select color ("platinum") and exterior, sand-positive grout. Get home and use magnifying glass to decipher print on container; discover it's still gibberish, but that product must in fact be mixed with a proprietary liquid and not water, which must have cost the executives at the grout company at least a dozen extra hookers. Return to Lowe's, only to discover that the hole where said liquid is supposed to reside--several feet and a couple products separated from the huge selection of colors which are actually useless without it. Find Lowe's employee to confirm that shelf hole does mean they're out of the product, and not just that it's stored twenty-five feet above and no one wanted to get it. Also learn that unavailability is common, due to color and liquid mixture being packaged in one of those 6 hot dogs/ 8 buns relationships. Drive to next-closest Lowe's, find item in stock. Learn, additionally, that I had fallen for Standard Do-It-Yourselfer Ploy, where smaller, "Come On" packaging of tint was married to Stupid All-In-One bucket, exorbitantly priced and including convenient sponge and rubber gloves, "convenient" in the sense that they were right there in the bucket and I didn't have to go into the garage to get any of the countless examples I already owned, and which I was now required to purchase at pain of starting all over again. Smash tiles with hammer, begin lay-out process. Decide first idea doesn't work, start over. Reject second effort, begin third. Live through two weeks of torrential downpours and concomitant clean-up. Return to project to discover every piece ("tesserae") must be removed and tabletop cleaned again. Make aesthetic decision that whatever the next one turns out it be is The Fuckin' Design No Matter What. Complete. Rig tarp over table to wait out predicted rains. Return, glue down ever last motherfucking piece ("tesserae"), which goes pretty smoothly, assuming you like mind-numbing operations that take two days. Let dry. Mix grout. Apply diagonally using float. "Cut" excess to assure cleaner surface. Discover that there is very little excess. In fact, there's not quite enough grout to cover the entire project, despite the fact that the size of the color component suggested twice what was needed.  As a result, endure wife, who never, ever, reads directions, asking, "Did you read the directions?" Decide to wait and see. Clean with vinegar/ water solution after 30 mintues. Clean again one hour later. Dismantle rain fly. Inspect next morning. Decide that hairline gaps present aesthetic problem, albeit small, and that small untiled area in front will collect water. Realize at about this time that lack of moulding on front of table makes grouting problematic at best; return to Lowe's for moulding plus large-sized colored grout ("platinum") originally avoided as "too much". Employing "go home, use magnifying glass" method, learn that this grout mixes with fucking water. Cut moulding to fit; nail and glue in place. Mix small amount of grout, apply. Worry that color doesn't match. Ponder covering entire tabletop again just as unpredicted rain starts. Throw tarp over table. Return in 30 minutes, clean with vinegar/ water. Return in one hour, clean again, just as unpredicted rain begins pouring. Curse wife. Allow new grout to dry 12 hours. Return for inspection, decide color match is acceptible, decide to take picture to accompany hilarious "Do-It-Yourself" blog post. Retrieve green paint from basement for moulding. Decide to touch up back-splash for picture to cover remaining grout stains. Discover paint is, in fact, a slightly different green used in a different project. Repaint entire backsplash, and moulding. Tidy up bottom shelf of bench by removing unsightly materials to ground behind bench, forgetting it has been freshly painted. Take picture. Run to kitchen to rinse paint out of shirt. Resume pharmaceutical testing.

That's all there is to it! As always, readers are urged to send in pictures of their own completed projects, and the winner could receive a prize package consisting of whatever's left of my stash. But don't count on it.

Shut Up

David Brooks, "The Bush Paradox." June 24

YES, yes, yes; everything bad, everything false, phony, or self-aggrandizingly stupid in modern American culture--we're speaking of its innovations, here, of course, and not the grinding stupidity, acquisitiveness, and brute violence the whole race is heir to--traces directly to Barbara Walters or Gene Roddenberry. However, this should not be confused with their perfection. which is the work of Ronald Wilson "Dutch" Reagan, or, more precisely, of Ronald Reagan Inc., and its hydra-headed subsidiaries, including the telecommunications industry, the Republican party, and David Brooks.

Brooks' point here--I am not, nor could I make this up--is that the very same "qualities" of George W. Bush (which, we may note, people such as Brooks used to tell us were misapprehensions, or the phantasms of Bush-derranged minds) which led to our failure in Iraq (which people such as Brooks used to tell us was an illusion, or the phantasms of Bush-derranged minds) is what led him to make the "courageous and astute" decision--against all advice to the contrary! mind you--to go with The Surge, which has now proven so wildly successful. History is cyclical! One day you're down, the next you're a VH-1 star! Shut up and finish your umbles, war critics!

The cocksure war supporters learned this humbling lesson during the dark days of 2006. And now the cocksure surge opponents, drunk on their own vindication, will get to enjoy their season of humility.

I read this thing without even bothering to consider its rebuttal, which, to be sure, is simply enough as to be effortless: Basra. Mosul. Which demonstrated just who's who and what's what, in case anyone, say a leading Presidential contender, believed otherwise. The popular notion in the United States, a country not known for the reasoned, well-informed military punditry, that the addition of 20,000 troops plus a new doctrinal approach has fundamentally changed anything in what's left of Iraq is as misguided as all earlier declarations of Victory, or its slightly-retarded cousin, Victory in Six Months Time. We've thrown in with the Sunni, where expedient, something the earlier, "humbly deferring" Bush (really, it's a quote) refused to do; we are now in control of not more than half of Iraq's provinces. And it's not even a devil's bargain. There's no corresponding Sunni support for Iraq's Shi'a government, or "government", and violence in Diyala, e.g., may, or unquestionably is, simply being delayed so Bush can ride back to his "ranch" with his, and Brooks', illusions intact, at least in so far as public consumption is concerned.

Of course the government could just be lying its ass off to make a bad situation look better, or what we might describe with regard to the Bush administration as The Default Setting.

Even so, it's not exactly pretty, and insisting that Sunshine, Lollypops, and Rainbows are up, respectively, 23, 84, and 61% is a touch, let's say, macabre. Juan Cole on the new "record low" body count:

But over 500 a month dead in political violence is appalling enough. The Srebenica massacre in 1995 killed 8,000. At the average rate of death in Iraq this winter and spring, a similar massacre will have been racked up in 2008. In the Northern Ireland troubles over 30 years, about 3,000 people died, and it was widely considered a bad situation. That death toll is still being achieved every 6 months in Iraq according to the official May statistics.

So let us repeat for those who don't seem to have been listening, including Times columnists who said, circa December 2005, that maybe they needed to have a bit of a rethink on this whole Iraq Success Story, then went silent until they judged it safe to pop back up and say Told Ya!: you were wrong, so astonishingly wrong about Iraq that it is beyond question that your assumptions, your predictions, your certitudes and your guarantees had nothing whatsoever to do with Reality, and everything to do with the blind faith that the tiniest involuntary muscle twitch of the American right was not just correct, not just philosophically justified, but Divinely inspired. You were not proved wrong about Iraq in the fall of 2003; you were proven clinically, certifiably, and cynically, to boot, the victim of megalomania profundus. This was not a slow leak, to be patched at leisure. The balloon popped, the bucket had no bottom. You put everything on Black, and you lost. You do not get to come back five fucking years later and say, There! I told you Black was going to come up! and demand your winnings, respect for your (latest) version of events, or that we now accept a share your humiliation. No sireee, as we say in the Land of real Appleby's customers; you're done, long since, and you have no standing at any point to return to the debate, let alone shape it.

Nah, y'know, I wasn't thinking that at all. I was thinking about how flappers and jitterbugs, hepcats and Beats and longhaired freaks could all, at some point, simply fade back into the crowd scene when their moment in the spotlight was over, but the trendy Reaganauts of Brooks' generation have doomed themselves to repeating sophomoric profundities over and over to a diminishing audience, as if Sisyphus had to endure, not just eternal worthless labor, but the humiliation of everyone laughing at him as his rock kept getting smaller and smaller, without his seeming to notice.

On The Other Hand, At Least It Was More Entertaining Than Her Columns

I'M sorry, but I fail to see this as MoDo's great comeuppance, especially as she's given space to defend her shit-slinging as style, which is on par with a kid who breaks windows just to get attention claiming he's just practicing his curveball. In fact, let's go one step further and say that the way the question is framed, while no doubt considered by many to be The Relevant One, is itself as much of a dodge as her "I'm a columnist, I don't have to be accurate" routine. The sexism of Dowd's Hillary coverage the past eighteen months--and more, and more--is secondary to her monomaniacal pursuit of Yet Another Clinton, which was not only well outside any reasonable definition of fair, accurate, or emotionally stable, but was unconscionably (un-) edited, given the value of the real estate where she squats. In eighteen months three-quarters of her columns have been about one candidate, one race, and their ratio of Real Issues to Cosmetics Advice was about 1/50,000, assuming we can find the time she spoke about a Real Issue. The Republican primary completely passed her by, save a couple of columns on Rudy Giuliani, one of those post-mortem. The rise and fall of Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee interested her not in the slightest. She wrote a couple of columns bashing George Bush (speaking of post-mortems), which only served to remind us she'd been one of his most prominent enablers back when it mattered. Yes, yes, it's her byline, but it's the Times that owns the rest of it, and the big question (well, maybe "question" is too strong a word there) is why anyone would be allowed to turn in the same 800-word piece twice a week for more than a year while collecting a fresh paycheck every time. This isn't comeuppance, it's the way the modern corporation polices its own misfeasance: one part Exxon Valdez legalistic delaying tactics, two parts reality program mooning the viewer, like we're all in on the joke. 

That's Entertainment!

MY first official act after becoming an official college student--despite my high opinion of myself I had been merely an amateur drug abuser before that--was to drop Philosophy 101, about two weeks in. I remember being grilled about the reasons by my Faculty Advisor, whom I never saw before or after. I can't remember what I told him; I was, naturally enough for a Freshman, living in the dorms, so it wasn't the "My beloved pet dog was killed" routine, which would have to wait until I got my first apartment. I think I just came clean: I couldn't stand Alfred Jules Ayer, or Language, Truth and Logic, which the instructor, a Full Professor, as was common in some intro courses in some departments in them days, had declared would be my intro to his world. He may have been right, but it would be another twelve years before I came to enjoy Ayer, and, besides he (the Prof, not Ayer) had the second-worse case of Drone's Disease I encountered in the whole of pedantry. Plus it was a hot August, and the class was held in a building dating to a century when that month was given over to harvesting milo, not questioning the existence of God (or, as in this case, simply ignoring Him). Despite an average summertime humidity of 110%, Time's Arrow had reduced the wood to dust, unless it was built out of kindling in the first place, and it's certain that whenever it was built window glass was at a premium, perhaps even rationed. For some reason Ernie Pyle Hall--the Journalism building--sticks in my mind. The century would be wrong, but the ambience is right: the place was a Depression-era storehouse renamed and repurposed as a memorial to the great Hoosier war correspondent, presumably because it resembled Ie Shima with furniture.

Anyway, when I read about the latest Imus imbroglio, my first thought, practically, was of Logical Positivism--which, I should add, now joins Phenomenology on my list of Philosophical Schools Which Would Usher In A New Era Of Peace And Understanding, If Only We Could Enforce Them By Law. We are asking the wrong questions about Imus. First, the relevant transcript (we'll need it in a moment):

Warner Wolf: "Defensive back Adam 'Pacman' Jones, recently signed by the Cowboys. Here's a guy suspended all of 2007 following a shooting in a Vegas night club."


Imus: "Well, stuff happens. You're in a night club, for God's sake. What do you think's gonna happen in a night club? People are drinking and doing drugs, there are women there, and people have guns. So, there, go ahead."


Wolf: "He's also been arrested six times since being drafted by Tennessee in 2005."


Imus: "What color is he?"


Wolf: "He's African-American."


Imus: "Well, there you go. Now we know."

Well, now. Imus' defense was that he meant that Jones was being hounded because of his skin color. Grading on a curve (it is Imus, after all) we might note that he did enquire as to Jones' color, not the texture of his hair, which should at least qualify as some slight improvement. On the other hand, the explanation requires us to believe that Imus has developed some degree of sympathy for the accused miscreant, other than himself and David Shuster.

But it's the wrong question, if not technically meaningless by Ayer's lights. And I don't mean we should be asking Why He's Employed Again, or how much longer the phony rancher routine can play, but rather how it is in the United States of America a man can be paid, handsomely, and command the public airwaves, yet have to ask what color a fucking NFL defensive back is.

I Give Up. But First, Don't You Owe Hillary Clinton An Apology?

It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives – and the liberty – of the American people.

TRUST me. Senator, if we could trust you--"you" as a human being, one with power who's asking for more, not "you" personally, on which question I'm more agnostic--we wouldn't need the legislation.

Which reminds me, we don't need the legislation.

It doesn't fucking matter what the "threat" is.

Which reminds me, where's the threat again?

I mean, is it too much to ask, as we ram home sans lubrication an unconscionable expansion of the powers the Bush administration was forced, despite all its Good Intentions, to simply skirt or ignore, that we publicly, if half-heartedly, re-assess the threat? Abraham Lincoln is forever sullied by the suspension of habeas corpus. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for all his accomplishments, is the guy who imprisoned American citizens for the crime of Japanese heritage. Those acts took place under grave threat to the continuation of the Republic, not hyped-up permanent war over the possibility of evildoers out there somewhere.

So let's do what the administration has refused to do to this point. Let's name a single example of this sort of trampling our most basic liberties resulting in a tangible result. Just one. We'll forego the requirement that it clearly involve a risk to American lives, if you promise not to use any examples involving six unemployed brown people, a package of M-80s, and a Chicago Transit Authority bus schedule.

Just one. We remind you that that Stupid Color-Coded Threat Advisory System--wow, people sure slunk away from that one like they did the great Columbus, Ohio, dam-busting of Thurber's youth, didn't they?--used to go up and down like a yo-yo, yet never once rose before an act of terrorism. We remind you that in the bad old outmoded FISA days Acting President Bush was handed a memo detailing somebody named bin-Laden and something about an attack. The NSA can spy on whomever it wants. FISA--another piece of "broken" legislation which, like campaign finance reform, was never designed to really do what it purported to do--is just a CYA for getting caught going beyond the pale. And considering that the Bush administration's response to precisely that was to make sure the Justice Department did nothing about it, it seems wholly unnecessary, at least as a form of "protection" for the citizenry. Especially with a President we can trust.

To my recollection, the Bush administration has claimed one, maybe two, instances where FISA just wasn't quick enough.  Which, of course, wouldn't have meant they wouldn't act.  It's just what they could manage when looking for an excuse.  Kinda in the way the stuff on an Adam Sandler movie trailer is the funniest shit they could find.  

So, go on, Senator, demand an example, and show us that Civil Liberties, as a buzzword, is at least allowed to sit in the ballpark while National Defense calls all the plays.

PS, fuck opposing telecom immunity. It's something any decent public official should do; we'll be able to look at the tote board on that one momentarily. The people responsible for cashing in our liberties like a kited check are never going to pay for doing so, immunity or no. The thing to do, right now, is to pledge that as President you will get to the bottom of everything the Bush administration has been up to. Bonus points for investigating the governmental takeover that was Clinton Scandals, Inc., and opening the books on Iran Contra. That is, if you're not too busy taking additional steps to protect American freedoms you just sold for a riband to stick in your lapel. It's the right thing to do. Trust me.

Mild Suburban Amusements, Vol. XVI

THIS morning just after seven there's a pounding on the back door which can mean only one thing:  I've forgotten to latch the gate again, and Parker, the praeternaturally garrulous five-year-old from next door has gotten into the yard like a gulp of magpies.  

PG5:  Keats (the neighbor's cat) is under your car and she (he, actually) won't come out!

DR: Parker, would you poke a hibernating bear with a stick? *

PG5: No.

DR:  Well, you are.

______________

* Exchange shortened for comic effect; it's necessary to repeat any question put to him six times at increasing volume levels just to get him to stop talking long enough to hear you.

Is The Wilderness Always This Cold In Mid-June?

OKAY, it's a great day to be an American, especially one who owns a telecom company, or a presumptive Democratic nominee with a $half-billion of expected IOUs in your pocket and the remarkable ability to spin 180º and still get kissed by your supporters.

Otherwise, maybe not.

I have no problem with Democrats playing hardball. In fact I've tried to encourage it for years, but the only time Democrats have played hardball over the past three decades it was in order to cover up how little they were actually doing for their constituencies. And I think the Obama campaign probably made the correct decision wrt Federal financing, but they sure made it rather abruptly, and on a day when the Senator could have been fighting for real, important change in Washington. As it is, I've begun to wonder just how often we're going to hear "the system is broken" as an excuse. This particular system has been broken since the day it was implemented, and I don't recall Senator Obama proposing much in the way of a fix. Or, you know, ever talking about a "broken system" before yesterday. But never mind. Though I can't say I see a whole helluva lot of difference between a man with $500 M in lobbyist money in his pocket and one who got it $100 at a time, at least in terms of which one I'd want to go bowling with. Exxon-Mobil and McDonald's take it in in small doses, too, and doesn't appear to have made 'em all that moral.

And I go to Kos, I go to TPM, I check out the Usual A-List Suspects, last night and this morning, to find that a) word of the FISA "compromise" has not reached the Internet yet, or else everyone was too busy chasing down rumors that John McCain once said he didn't love America, and anyway it's all Steny Hoyer's fault; and b) money in politics is now evil only when Republicans have all of it. (The latter might possibly have been true, temporarily, but you wouldn't have heard me say so.) As a bonus I got not one, not two, but three lectures about how of course Obama supporters realize their man isn't Perfect, and how of course they welcome constructive criticism as long as it doesn't hold them, or him, accountable. Is it just me, or did those beards all grow longer overnite?

And these are, I remind you, semi-professional observers of politics who began insisting the weekend before New Hampshire that Hillary Clinton drop out of the race so their man wouldn't be burdened by having to take, or defend, public positions.

But the extra-special bonus was this Pre-"Compromise" thunderbolt hurled from Mount Moulitsas:

A warning to pro-capitulation House Dems

by kos
Thu Jun 19, 2008 at 12:52:12 PM PDT
When we started this "netroots" thing, we worked to get "more and better Democrats" elected. At first, we focused on the "more" part. This year, we're focusing a bit more on the "better" part. And in 2010, we'll have enough Democrats in the House to exclusively focus on the "better" part.
That means primary challenges. And as we decide who to take on, let it be known that this FISA vote will loom large. Voting to give telecommunication companies retroactive immunity may not guarantee a primary challenge, but it will definitely loom large.
We kicked Joe Lieberman out of the caucus. We got rid of Al Wynn this year. Those were test runs, so to speak. We've got a lot more of that ready to unleash in 2010.

Ah, well, he's young. Maybe there's still time to drown him.

And here's the thing, America: sure, I'm just some crackpot in a rocking chair on a screened-in porch, but you're the ones who selflessly stood in line for days waiting to give blood to 9/11 survivors who sadly did not exist, while the blood banks go begging every summer. You sent so much money in in the wake of Katrina that charities had no choice except to abuse it. You can stop giving your time, your attention, and your money to these people for as long as it takes to get the real fucking concerns of real fucking people addressed. And I'm sure you'd consider it, except for John McCain being old.


[Corexion: Kagro X was on the FISA story at Kos, calling for Senator Obama to use his Strength of Ten Men to transfer some of that money he's keeping to where his mouth used to be. My mistake. And we want to exempt Yglesias from the Usuals, for actually mentioning Obama's FISA disappearing act and then making it worse by saying: "Meanwhile, I guess I hope President Obama uses his powers responsibly, but on some level I'm sort of rooting for massive abuses so the right can get what they've been asking for." He's still young.]

"My Day," by You, Sir, Are No Eleanor Roosevelt

MY day really began fifty-two hours ago, when I, recently informed by his assistant that the Methadone Light my doctor had been prescribing for the searing night pains in my knee which were probably his fault to begin with would not only no longer be made available to fuel my nightly one-pill freakouts unless I shelled out for another visit, at which time I would be further informed that he wasn't going to prescribe more anyway, but that I'd have to start contributing to Pfizer's Advertising, Lobbying, and Hooker fund or say Good Day, Sir! and Welcome, Never Sleeping Again!, walked into my local apothecary and presented my prescription for CelebreX!, having exhausted the generous three-day supply I'd been given as a free sample. Post-meridian pain had been manageable in the interim, so I figured what the hell. The tech took my script, asked me the usual eight questions designed to foil pharmaceutical terrorism or hedonistic intent, and, satisfied, told me it'd be about fifteen minutes. I resisted the urge to ask whether she still had to call Homeland Security or whether it just took that long to count to forty, and said I'd return.

Which I did, two hours later, to be told there was no prescription waiting, then told that they couldn't fill one because my insurer insisted on prior approval for CelebreX! prescriptions. "Do you know what that means?" asked the helpful young man at the counter, helpfully. "I understand the English, but maybe you could fill in some around the edges if you're not busy," I replied. Turns out they had faxed my surgeon's office for a reply and were still waiting. Okey-dokey.

Now it is about eight hours later, and we are rapidly hurtling towards another sundown, or, roughly, 11:30 PM, M(itch) D(aniels) T(ime), and I have no medication. I return to the pharmacy where, again, there's no prescription, and I'm merely informed that the situation hasn't been resolved.  Tough titty.  

So I went home and left a message on what used to be the Cheap Thrills Line, the answering machine for the medical assistant, who has a three-minute-long voicemail message I can now recite from memory, and which begins by claiming she's away from a desk which, no doubt, doesn't even exist, or have a phone on it. And she returns calls with the expediency of Amazon sending you something that qualified for Free Shipping.

It was the first she'd heard of it.

Now, in these cases I don't really wonder who's lying, since they both are, and having slowed considerably with age and near-fraudulent medical care, I no longer imagine resolving the issue with an AK-47 and a string of jerry-built propane bombs. On occasion, this being one of them, I may indulge a brief reverie centered on how wonderful it would be to be the sort of Christian who is certain these people will burn in Eternal Ghenna Fire for crossing him.

"CelebreX! is probably the biggest single medication we have trouble with," she tells me, oblivious to the laundry list of questions she's begging. "The protocol is that the patient has to have tried two other NSAIDs, have familial adenomatous polyposis, or some forms of cancer." I'm not sure she said "familial adenomatous polyposis", which I got off the Wiki; it's possible they've got some all-purpose Latin handy for just these situations. At any rate, why they'd have prescribed something which was going to be rejected was never made clear, although I'm guessing it has something to do with two-weeks, all-expenses-paid, at CelebreX! Island GolF Resort and BunnY Ranch. She'll get right on it, and they have 72 hours to reply.

In the meantime I'd been considering just getting hold of some C17, some H14, a couple ounces of F3,  a snifter of N3, a soupçon of O2, and a dash of S, and mixing up my own.

So I've slept in two-hour blocs for the past two days, and it's Thursday, which means I have to go out to the Westside to fill my mom's pillbox, a responsibility which devolves from Sunday free-time to Thursday find-time in warm weather because my sister and her family weekend at The Lake, which is somewhat ironic because I've never known her to even enter a body of water larger than a standard bathtub without waterwings, nose-clip, and swimcap, which serve as a sort of visual Greek chorus to her laughable dog paddle. That is, my sister spends weekends around a body of water despite the fact that even when swimming she manages to stay 85% dry. So I head out there as soon as I imagine rush hour has ended, only to discover that the entrance ramp to the Interstate I could have avoided by turning five miles earlier is closed, a condition which had not been predicted by any local signage as recently as ten days ago, so I go on another mile and turn, which course proceeds true for about three-fifths of a mile before I'm detoured again, then yet again. Three separate, unrelated detours. I finally got there by way of Little Mexico, which, relatively at least, is not all that far from Big Mexico. This is not to say the remainder of the trip was uneventful, oh no. By the time I got home I'd been stopped at, by, detoured around, or simply aggravated by (in no particular order):

• Three stoplights being repaired.
• Two stalled vehicles abandoned in the middle of their respective streets. No flashers, in case I need to say it.
• Three separate Public Works vehicles whose drivers have apparently been informed, perhaps as recently as this morning, that getting their pick-up trucks over 20 mph, regardless of the posted speed limit, will cause them to explode and erase all records of the driver's pension.
• A train.
• Two streetlights being worked on (separately, a dozen miles apart).
• A small pickup truck with forty-two pallets strapped atop the bed at an angle usually described as "frightening". (It was forty-two, believe me; I had several minutes to count them while going 15 behind the guy--who couldn't possibly have seen what was behind him, by the way--and wondering if I could get far enough behind him to survive their inevitable collapse except by stopping dead and being rammed by the guy behind me, who, judging from the fact that he insisted on going thirty-five anyway, evidently couldn't see the two stories of industrial accident in the making two cars ahead.)
• A guy standing up on his motorcycle, arms spead like a crucifix, doing forty in the opposite lane. Actually in the inside lane going the opposite direction, since by that point had he been in the lane next to mine so help me god I'd'a swerved at him.
• A public works paint truck (not included in the tally above; this one, as we'll see, was going the opposite way) passed on the blind curve of a two-lane roadway by five cars at once, apparently under the impression they constituted some sort of legal entity akin to a corporation by virtue of proximity. The truck was painting a double yellow line along a stretch of Kessler Boulevard which has been a no-passing zone since the Klan ran things.

I'm not even going to begin to tell you what happened when both cashiers at the pet food place I stopped at on the way home managed to freeze their registers within five seconds of each other, leaving me with a slipping bag under one arm, opposite the throbbing knee, and apparently convincing the woman in front of me who either stocks up by the year, owns her own rout of wolves, or has one 700-pound dog, to give up in exasperation what minimal effort she had heretofore been making to keep her five children (all under the age of menstruation, mutatis mutandis) from ransacking the joint. And y'know, for the first time in my life, I understood.

So, if you'd like to know what crossed my mind the other evening when I heard John McCain criticize His Democratic Opponent for voting for a bill which gave tax breaks to oil companies! all I can tell you is my head had already exploded.

[UPDATE: While I was out again--just don't ask--the medical assistant called to say that the CelebriX! prescription had been expeditiously approved and was waiting for me, or so she was assured, at my local pharmacy. Which I take to answer the question of who dropped the ball in the first place.]