LA weekend pick

Bazaar Bizarre, d.i.y. crafter delight, is this Sunday--details to be found here. I went last year and loved it. I'm not a d.i.y. crafter (by any means) and despite having lived in LA for four years, I'm still pretty impervious to trends, so the preponderance of, for example, those weird misshapen stuffed animals eludes me and starts to be a bit cloying.


Nonetheless, really this is the one Christmas shopping event not to be missed. Pick up prints from Red Ink Like Blood


Earrings from Chewy Crafts


Rosary belts


And where else in the world can you get poontang stained glass I ask you?

Kill your television

In the category of ideas that should never leave the drawing board falls Al in the Family, Al Sharpton's proposed sit-com. Says Al:

I am the center of a family with different social and political views and we crack jokes and confront each other but are a family.

And people wonder why I don't watch much TV.

Bhopal

Today is the 21st anniversary of the Bhopal disaster. In commemoration I note the EPA's proposed weakening of emissions reporting requirements. Don't worry though:

Kim Nelson, an assistant administrator at the EPA, said the companies that would benefit from the proposal are "tiny, tiny businesses, mom-and-pop shops operating on Main Street, that, in an aggregate, amount to less than 1% of the emissions in this country."

Those wee little mom-and-pop businesses that dump two tons of toxic chemicals into the environment. It's only them. If you're such a hater that that bothers you, the link above explains how to submit a comment (public commenting is permitted until Jan 13).

Why I would hate being a journalist

Because they don't like it when you use the word "fuck-knob." And they want you to use phrases like "credibility questions" instead of "lying sack of shit."

Once upon a time...

...a thousand years ago, when I was in college, I had a friend, Maugorn, who was one of those chainmail-sporting medieval militia guys (really). [Let me digress for a moment and say I was never well adjusted, but by the time I got to the university, I had learned that the best defense is a good offense. Thus the firecone orange hair and the collection of allies that were like "What if Cronenberg wrote Friends."] So Maugie had a collection of one-liners that all sounded like (but weren't) the end of a long story. If you were, say, riding an elevator with him and someone got on at the fourth floor, Maugorn might come out with a line like "Well, the priest was okay, but they had to saw the legs off the goat...."

Good fun.

Anyway, I thought of him today when someone sent me this.

To hell with war, let's shop

Once again, the season of excessive spending is upon us. I do consider it part of my public blogging service to provide the occasional gift idea (remember last year's stuffed microbes--like that cute little flesh eating bacteria doll--and the crazy cat lady action figure?). So here is the first of our seasonal gift suggestions.

The Monty Python Black Knight plush doll with removable velcro limbs.



Who wouldn't love one of these? Such a potent metaphor for oh-so-many things.

The return of the repressed

Okay, I think I'm back. I know I've been a pretty half hearted blogger lately. The double whammy of quitting smoking and trying to survive the holiday season have hit me hard this year. It's been taking all of my energy not to drive into oncoming traffic and whatnot. Frankly I don't know how I lived through all of those Novembers in Wisconsin without defenestrating. But yesterday I bought plane tickets to go to Florida and Albuquerque, and that has me a bit cheered. So I guess I'm digging myself out of the depression hole.

Blogging started to seem to me to be like those pieces of classical music where they take one simple refrain and reformulate it in all sorts of different ways. Or really the news itself started to seem that way to me. 1.We're in an unwinnable war that people keep lying about. 2.The administration is trying to take away the few rights we have left. 3.Human rights are, like, so last year. 4.Global warming has taken on scary proportions, but our national strategy continues to be denial. 5.Everyone hates us--with good justification--and we increasingly dislike our own leaders.

And so on. It just gets tiresome. It feels like you could blog this administration with some sort of automated program that read key words (torture, Roe, WMD, etc.) and responded accordingly or at the very least, I could type up some amount of numbered posts and just refer people to them as they apply. But hey, be that as it may, I'm back to fight another round.

Unbelievable

That's the subject line Annette used when she forwarded today's NYT op-ed piece "A Man's Right to Choose," and I can't think of a better one. Really you should just go read it. It flabbergasted me enough to rouse me from my recent blog-abstinence. This was about the spot where my head actually exploded:

Pro-choice advocates argue that the debate is really about a woman's control over her body. Hence my lack of rights to have any say in whether my seed comes to fruition.

WTF is up at the Times that they are publishing pieces that speak of seed coming to fruition? How very Old Testament of them.

And then there's this paragraph (which is pretty much the gist of the piece as a whole):

NOBODY is arguing that we should let my friend who impregnated his girlfriend off the hook. If you play, you must pay. But if you pay, you should get some say. If a father is willing to legally commit to supporting and raising the child himself, why should a woman be able to end a pregnancy that she knew was a possibility of consensual sex? Why couldn't I make the same claim--that I am going to keep the baby regardless of whether she wants it or not?

Why couldn't you make the same claim? Um, because the fetus is lodged in the woman's body and to file an injunction to prohibit an abortion is, essentially, turning her into a big incubator. Jesus. Really. Everyone has to go read Margaret Atwood for homework.

Vocabulary

From Chris comes this gem from today's LA Times. Inspired by Maureen Dowd's impending visit, the aptly named Samantha Bonar writes a quick article on stupidity as the key to attracting men:

I also have decided to limit my vocabulary to 10 monosyllabic words (not counting contractions and articles):

You
Big
Strong
Yes
Chips
Game
Beer
Man
Want
Great

For example: "Big strong man want beer?" "You want chips?" "You great!"

I will avoid these words like New Orleans:

Me
I
Why
What
Can
Will
No
Never
Stop
Yuck

As in: "Why do you insist on my wearing these sheer red stockings?" "Can I have one of your beers?" "Will you let me know if you are married?"

I'm such a geek

I'm such a geek that when I write a post like the one below and I log on to Thomas for the first time in forever and I see that it's been revamped, I do get excited.

So yeah, Thomas has had a facelift (and some real body work as well). I'm liking it.

(Probably those of you who are blogging more than once every blue moon knew that already, but I didn't.)

More on turkeys

You know, the whole reason I was on the White House site was to find the statement by Puffy McMoonface (go listen to Stephanie Miller if that reference makes no sense to you) bashing Murtha. I'd heard he compares Murtha to Michael Moore. (For those of you who have been living in a cave, Murtha introduced a bill to withdraw troops from Iraq. The text of the bill isn't available on Thomas yet, but Murtha's site has a press release from yesterday with his ideas.)

So here's the White House statement:

Congressman Murtha is a respected veteran and politician who has a record of supporting a strong America. So it is baffling that he is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party. The eve of an historic democratic election in Iraq is not the time to surrender to the terrorists. After seeing his statement, we remain baffled -- nowhere does he explain how retreating from Iraq makes America safer.

It's so Goebbels I can hardly stand it. Murtha's opposition to the war and desire to withdraw troops makes him allied with "the extreme liberal wing" (I mean, when you search for legislation sponsored by the guy, the only other thing that comes up is a proposed Constitutional amendment for school prayer--sheesh)?

And that closing sentence--it fucking kills me. I mean, if this administration could explain in a satisfactory fashion how going to war with Iraq makes America safer, we might have something to talk about.

Lucky turkeys

You may or may not know that every year, a turkey (and an alternate) are presented to the president of the US and he pardons them. (I feel pretty confident that my international buddies do not know of this bizarre practice.) This has been going on for decades. You can read all about the ritual here. Usually, the pardoned turkeys go to live on a farm in Virginia ("He went to live on a farm, dear...")--Frying Pan Park, to be exact. So this year, the White House tells us the as-yet-unnamed turkeys are going to Califor-ni-a instead--Disneyland, to be exact. They will live out there days as part of a holiday display apparently and will "serve as honorary Grand Marshals for Disneyland's annual Thanksgiving Day Parade." This country is so weird; it really is.

From now until Monday, you can vote (click the link above) for names for the lucky turkey and his sidekick:

Democracy and Freedom
Blessing and Bounty
Marshmallow and Yam
Wattle and Snood
Corn and Maize

I say, let's name them Democracy and Freedom and discontinue the practice of pardoning them.

Deleterious promotions

When I see things like this, I just wish there was some other easy way to get to Albuquerque.


Southwest Airlines tipped off the NBA season by unveiling our latest airplane, Slam Dunk One.

I'm so glad I did drugs

When I read stories about things like kids strangling themselves to death accidentally during auto-asphyxiation, I think "wow thank god I just smoked dope and drank and stuff during high school."

(In other "kids today!" news, here's what lurks in the girl's room at Valley schools these days. ("How was school dear?" "It wath fine, mom")

The last action figure

Maria makes last minute adjustments to her crash test dummy of a husband so that his plastic head doesn't fall off on camera.

(Yay to California for just saying no to Herr Governor's wretched propositions.)

Animal bonanza

People are so fucking weird, you know that? This is one the top three best things about the Internet--that it serves as evidence of just how fucking weird people really are. Last night I was poking around the site where I used to work from their blog, I come to Bee Dogs, "the premier online repository for pictures of dogs in bee costumes."


Who knew, right? Anyway, Gina Zycher, site mistress rocks my world. And she has a stellar collection of links including Sugar Bush Squirrel, the world's most photographed squirrel.


And then there is my personal favorite, StuffOnMyCat.com


One of my coworkers said it should rightfully be called GetALife.com, and I hear that. But I applaud the selfless effort just to make the rest of us laugh. And as Andrea pointed out, page four has a nice pic of a cat with his head in a prosthetic leg, and good amputee sight gags are hard to come by.

So there you have it. People with bizarre sensibilities and way too much time on their hands. I love the Internets.

On the radio this morning

"...the debate over whether we should be able to torture and secretly detain people..."

I did resist the urge to drive into oncoming traffic, but the impulse was strong.

The horror, the horror

This weekend LA Times Magazine had an article on "cybercrafting." Myself, I actually have a barely concealed disdain for the knitting movement (though several of my friends are in that number), but I love those cybercrafters. LA Times was making punk rock Martha Stewart references, but we were thinking William Morris meets Joan Jett ourselves. (As an aside, Andrea, who collects Francoma stoneware and has a gourmet cooking--um--issue/habit, has been referred to as "Marxist Stewart.")

I do like those cybercrafters. Last year we went to Bazaar Bizarre and loved it. That's where I got my "non" tee-shirt. So the article inspired me, and I followed some of the links, despite being oh-so-non-crafty myself.

And what do I find but this hat:



It's such a traffic accident I can't stop looking at it. I keep thinking "what if HR Giger did crafts?"

From the oh-so-aptly-titled What Not to Crochet. (Link from Extreme Craft.)

From the department of ridiculous headlines

Comes tonight's story

Lines Between News, Entertainment Blurring

Lost

Moral compass. Hardly ever used. Old and no longer in working order--rusty and needs a good cleaning.

Please return to the American people. Great sentimental value.

Overstating the obvious

I know I say this or something akin to this on a biweekly basis or so, but I really can't believe we've come to the point that our president feels the need to say in a press conference (see below) "We do not torture."

I mean, it's bad enough that we would be in a position as a nation to have to make such a pronouncement at a press conference. And then to have it inevitably delivered in the tenor of "I did not have sex with that woman," or "I am not a crook."

Jesus Christ, you know? (Okay, this is my favorite topic to repeatedly rant about, but at least the horse is dead, right?)

My friend Susan sent me this recently:
A sign held high at the recent huge anti-Bush protest demonstration in Washington:

WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE

GIVE HIM A BLOWJOB

SO WE CAN IMPEACH HIM!

And I am so there. Could the American people please learn to care about something important for once??!

AfterDowningStreet is reporting that most Americans do think that Bush should be impeached if he entered the war under false pretenses (thanks to Jeff for the head's up on the story):

The poll found that 53% agreed with the statement:

"If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."

42% disagreed, and 5% said they didn't know or declined to answer. The poll has a +/- 2.9% margin of error.

AfterDowningStreet and Zogby (who performed the poll) both say they are surprised at the number of folks in support of impeachment, but I need to say (not to be the perpetual half-empty girl)--42% are fine with the president lying to get us into a war?? Just what the fuck constitutes an impeachable offense if the president can stand in front of Congress and lie about evidence in order to launch us into an unmotivated war?

We do not torture.

Way to not answer a question, George

From Bush's meeting today with Panama's President Torrijos:

Q: Mr. President, there has been a bit of an international outcry over reports of secret U.S. prisons in Europe for terrorism suspects. Will you let the Red Cross have access to them? And do you agree with Vice President Cheney that the CIA should be exempt from legislation to ban torture?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Our country is at war, and our government has the obligation to protect the American people. The executive branch has the obligation to protect the American people; the legislative branch has the obligation to protect the American people. And we are aggressively doing that. We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do to that effort, to that end, in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture.

And, therefore, we're working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it possible -- more possible to do our job. There's an enemy that lurks and plots and plans, and wants to hurt America again. And so, you bet, we'll aggressively pursue them. But we will do so under the law. And that's why you're seeing members of my administration go and brief the Congress. We want to work together in this matter. We -- all of us have an obligation, and it's a solemn obligation and a solemn responsibility. And I'm confident that when people see the facts, that they'll recognize that we've -- they've got more work to do, and that we must protect ourselves in a way that is lawful.

I don't know about anyone else, but I for one am so relieved to hear we do not torture. Thank goodness.

Really, this is such a duck and weave answer it's impressive. Question: Can the Red Cross see the US's secret prisons? No answer to that one at all. Something about a 10-foot pole. Second question: Should the CIA be above the law? Answer: Well, no...and that's why Congress needs to pass the right laws to deal with our lurking, plotting, planning enemy. So we're talking to them about that. (Habeas Corpus is so last week.)

Seeing it versus reading about it

Somehow seeing the actual .pdf versions of Michael Brown's Katrina correspondence makes me feel even more queasy than reading about them. Louisiana Congressman Charlie Melancon has them posted on his site.

Why we love Andrea

From her email to me a minute ago:

Bad day here. While waiting for the 900 dollar water heater, I discovered that my computer had been infected by some kind of hideous virus. Found out that Indian tech support guys have as much trouble pronouncing "albuquerque" as we have pronouncing "chakrabarathawarthy". But they don't think that's funny, or a point of cultural meeting, or anything. Anyway, I fixed the goddam thing myself and went to home depot.

Local politics

Because we in California have some sort of addiction to voting--we begin to go through withdrawal if we don't go to the polls at least once in a 10- or 12-month period--we have a "special election" tomorrow.

In the spirit of "if Arnold's for it, vote no," this is a little funny--not a knee-slapper, but the Cheney part did make me laugh out loud.

The loaded gun in the first act

I admit I am a competitive person and I like winning arguments, but even so, I would really be okay with getting to say "Okay, I was wrong" a little more often in the world of politics. In fact, I would welcome that opportunity.

But noooo....

Which is to say, according to a WaPo story this weekend since the PATRIOT Act passed, the FBI has issued something like 100 times more national security letters--in the neighborhood of 30,000 a year:

The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters - one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people - are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans.

Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress. The executive branch maintains only statistics, which are incomplete and confined to classified reports. The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter helped disrupt a terrorist plot.

I hate to be jaded about this, but all I can think of is "I'm shocked! Shocked! that there is gambling going on..."

AP covers the story and includes the sort of quote that makes my head explode:

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Sunday that he could not immediately confirm or dispute the 30,000 figure, but he said the power to use the security letters was justified.

"The Department of Justice inspector general in August 2005 found no civil rights violations with respect to the Patriot Act," he said.

Um, right, well the whole point of the fucking PATRIOT Act, Einstein, is to change what constitutes a civil rights violation. Good god the whole thing is so Kafka-esque it's almost enough to make me lose my sense of humor.

But not quite!

After you read the Post article and need some cheering up, check out the Fox News parody. It's a slow moving target, I know, but we take our laughs where we can get them here at NMTE.

Something about truth and fiction

Went to see Good Night and Good Luck this weekend. I've never been a real fan of George Clooney, but he may have talked me into it with this one. While I would have been happier with a defense against McCarthy that didn't include "I'm not a Communist" as part of its substance, I also get that we're dealing with a real historical record here. I don't know much about Morrow's run-in with McCarthy, but probably that is part of what he offered in his defense.

Be that as it may, I liked it. Twice Clooney goes out of his way to smack the audience upside the head in case they are missing the contemporary parallels. (I'm sure many did nonetheless.) First he uses the word "terror" to make his point and then the film ends with a clip from Eisenhower praising Habeas Corpus. I mean, just in case you didn't get it yet.

On a funnier note (sort of) according to IMDB:

Director/star George Clooney had said they opted to use archive footage of Joseph McCarthy instead of using an actor to portray the senator. Clooney had said that when the movie had undergone test screenings, audience members felt that the McCarthy character was overacting a bit, not realizing that it was the actual McCarthy through archive footage.

Excerpt of the day

I'm sure this is all over (ALL OVER) the Internets by now. I have been too busy to do anything but listen to the Clash and type as if my life depends on it, so I have no idea what anyone is talking about in the real world, but it literally made me laugh out loud, so I will share it anyway. From a story titled Man Sues Ex-Girlfriend Over Glue Attack:

His lawsuit claims the two broke up in 1999 after dating for 10 months and Slaby began dating someone else.

Slaby contends that O'Toole invited him over to her home on May 7, 2000, where he fell asleep. He woke up to find that O'Toole had used Super Glue to stick his genitals to his abdomen, glued his buttocks together and spelled out a profanity on his back in nail polish.

I love that her defense is that it was a "consensual act." Lordy lordy.

It's a tough contest to win

But I'm saying the most depressing line from this morning's news is

The bill, the Deficit Reduction Act, reduces government spending in all areas except those related to defense and national security for the period of 2006-2010.

Although it could be this line:

The Deficit Reduction Act provides for the opening of oil and gas development of Alaska's environmentally sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in an effort to ease the United States's dependence on imported energy.

And let me take a minute here and say how much I fucking hate reporting like this that reprints the White House talking points ("...in an effort to ease...") as if they are part of the news. This is called objective reporting. If you said, on the other hand, "...though even very basic gas mileage regulations would save an equivalent amount of fuel..." that would be biased reporting though it is clearly no less true and no less biased.

Here's another one from the same story:

The bill's biggest savings would come in health and education, worth a combined total of more than 16 billion dollars.

Let's think about the word "savings" in this context and mull over the dozens of other words we could use in its place ("evisceration" is my personal choice). You see what I'm saying?

My two other depressing news line candidates today both come from a story that, on the face of it, should be almost as cheery as reading Brownie's sartorial emails (yes, roll up your sleeves, no to the tie) "Bush Public Support at Lowest Level Yet."

First there's this one:

Four in five Republicans still back the president.

"I think he's done a wonderful job," said Gloria Bloecher, a Republican from Sherman, Texas. "He's done wonderful things for the economy. He rescued people who needed help in Iraq--it was the Christian thing to do. I still trust his people and the people he picks for the Supreme Court."

God help me I read stuff like that and it brings out some latent Fascist side of myself that wants to say, "You know what Gloria--we're enrolling you in our mandatory sterilization program because you just shouldn't be allowed to breed." For fuck's sake--the Christian thing to do--I guess if I cast my mind back on the Inquisition and the Crusades I can see the argument (but then I'm Jewish; what do I know).

The article closes with this gem:

"I think the war in Iraq being on the front page every day has taken its toll," said Van Poole, former Florida GOP chairman and now a Tallahassee lobbyist, who expects Bush to bounce back. "Americans are impatient. Whatever our job is, Americans want us to get it done."

It's all so obvious it hardly bears comment I know (and here we get to some of why I have been such a lax blogger I think--I start to feel like we need more words for "criminal" and "pig" and "venal." Otherwise it just begins to be so repetitive). So yeah, the problem is not that we are in an endless war against "terror" that is like an eight headed hydra--the more we fight the more we lose--and that we are not even fighting it on the most logical front, even if you believed in this war--and that we have had all the strategy of Pee Wee Herman in this. No, the problem is that we've been reporting about it. And that we are impatient. Right. I'd like to supersize that carnage please. Yes, that's to go. Thanks.

Apropos of nothing

Yes, I have been a lax blogger. Yes, there are pressing current events to comment on--indictments, nominations, ongoing criminality and incompetence...

And then there is my first mesoversary as a nonsmoker (yesterday).

But all of that will have to wait. At this present moment I am up to my eyeballs in work. In the meantime though, I happened across this Mary Ellen Mark site--not new by any means, but new to me.

I was skimming the latest issue of Boldtype and they review the Mary Ellen Mark book on Twins, which is what brought me to the collection of Mark's photos of Bombay prostitutes. It's worth visiting--even if you're really too busy like me.

More later today...

Line of the day

Fitzgerald to reporters today:

I know that you want to know what we know, but I can't tell you.

A history of violence

Yesterday, in celebration of the 2G carnage mark (that is, the 2,000 American enlisted boys death toll--the real figures of human waste being exponentially higher), I went to see Cronenberg's latest, History of Violence, with a couple of friends. (And probably some of the below constitutes spoilers so don't read on if you're touchy about that kind of thing.)

Because I am a geek, I often read reviews of movies after I go see them, particularly if I like them. And I did like HoV--though my movie companions were not so impressed I think. Anyway, I just read about 1/2 dozen reviews and I suppose it's not too surprising that mostly it's the British reviews that talk about the movie as an investigation of American history, an implication that seemed obvious on a "no duh" level to me, but hey, I spent a decade of my life writing papers no one will ever read about things like this so there you have it.

What was surprising to me though was how few reviewers talked about gender. Really none of them did. Some reviews talk about the marriage in the movie--the ways that the violence inflects the intimacy between Tom Stall and his wife, but nobody really talked about the "this is a man's world" aspect of the film. Maybe it's my own bleak outlook in the whole man/woman debacle these days, but I left the movie feeling depressed about the whole message that, on some level, men can only really be deeply intimate with other men and that intimacy is built on a foundation of violence. Please don't get me wrong. I really am not trying to man bash here. You guys (Yella, Ep, Gordon, Fixer, Conor, and so on) you know I love you. I don't think you're a bunch of brutal naked apes or anything. But zooming out some away from the personal relationships and looking more at the Fight Club aspects of America (past and present), it's just a bit sad that's all. There's this moment when father and son embrace--blood spattered father and rifle clutching son--and it's so intimate; that's what I'm talking about here.

Somewhat brilliantly, in my opinion, IMDB staffer Keith Simanton calls attention to the parallels between HoV's closing scene and the scene in It's a Wonderful Life when Jimmy Stewart comes home and yells at the family (a scene that, I will confess, has never failed to make me cry even though I have seen the movie countless times). Of course, talking about Cronenberg next to Capra is like comparing Francis Bacon and Maxfield Parrish or something, but that's the beauty of it. I think the movie is saying not just that underneath the idyllic pastoral is a lot of bloodshed, but that neither of these visions are the truth in and of themselves. The movie makes much of the Tom vs. Joey conflict--who is this person really--is he Tom? Is he Joey? And the reviews that do talk about the marriage in the movie talk about the paired sex scenes as playing out this conflict in his relationship with Edie. But really isn't the movie saying you can't bifurcate Tom/Joey?

I guess in that way I found it pretty impressive. I think it's easy in this present political landscape (and maybe it's always been easy) to think of "reality" as the violence that underpins our day to day life here. What I mean is, reality is the war we are fighting in Iraq not the cars I share the road with in the morning that are dropping kids off at school. (And of course, there are those who see the kids/commute as the reality and the war as something to be erased or denied.) But I think what HoV says is it's not an either/or situation. As someone who has always had a real love/hate relationship with America (shit, I am an "Americanist" according to the academy--or was) this resonates with me and I guess that's why I liked the movie so much.

So did any of y'all see it? What did you think?

She fills her head with culture

So I am trapped in a board meeting for the next two days, typing a quick note here during lunch break. No time to say much except I didn't want to wait to say Gang of Four was outstanding. Really an amazingly great, great show. There was a point in the evening, in fact, when I thought that maybe I just didn't need to ever go to another rock show again--that this was like the period at the end of rock's sentence and I could move on to a new genre. Of course, then this morning I got a ticketmaster spam email saying "don't forget the social distortion show" and I thought, hmmm...

But in any case, they did not disappoint. I feel a lot like someone threw me downstairs today (got a fierce cold as well) and I am on the nod in the board meeting sucking down coffee like nobody's business, but it was so, so worth it.

Why I love my job

Because I get to be around people like this all day.

Portia on the post-40 punk rock crowd:

If you try to be too punk rock when you're older, it's like bread that's gone bad. Everybody can see the mold, but the bread thinks it's fine.

Tom on quitting smoking:

When I quit smoking I wanted to pick my kids up by the ears and chew their faces off.

I love lists

After School Snack alerted us to Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels published since 1923. It's embarrassing how few of them I have read--43--though apparently I am above the mean, judging by the comments thread at Snack.

In any case, I pass it along for the other list-lovers among you (Conor, Andrea...). One wonders about some of the choices really. I mean, Judy Blume? Really?? Possession? Um, okay.

The things that keep us hanging on

So I'm here to tell you that day 18 of not smoking is hardly a fucking cake walk. I have now lived in California long enough that two days of unremitting rain is enough to make me feel totally like the Eli Lilly poster child. Plus I am behind at work and continuing to have a hard time focusing. (Did anyone see Cold Turkey? I feel so much like that drunk guy who cries because he can't smoke when I'm trying to write.)

But...Girl Wants (to say goodbye to) Rock and Roll is cheering me up a little bit (thank you Conor). And Tony came by and managed to actually put a smile on my face--a tough job today I tell you.

A reality TV show dying to happen

Are you with me on this one? Can you envision it?

Bad marketing

From a spam email Amazon sent me today:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

We've noticed that customers who have purchased Bipolar Disorder: Family-Focused Treatment Approach, A by David J. Miklowitz also purchased books by Jennifer Hudson. For this reason, you might like to know that Jennifer Hudson's Psychopathology and the Family will be released soon.

Those of you who know me will immediately understand why this is so wrong-headed. To the rest of you I will merely say the divorce was finalized five years ago. So much for the family-focused treatment approach.

When my time does come

Please someone write me an obituary with as good a closing line.

From Sunday's Chicago Tribune:

Theodore Roosevelt Heller, 88, loving father of Charles (Joann) Heller; dear brother of the late Sonya (the late Jack) Steinberg. Ted was discharged from the U.S. Army during WWII due to service related injuries, and then forced his way back into the Illinois National Guard insisting no one tells him when to serve his country. Graveside services Tuesday 11 a.m. at Waldheim Jewish Cemetery (Ziditshover section), 1700 S. Harlem Ave., Chicago. In lieu of flowers, please send acerbic letters to Republicans.

Rain

Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain.

Not wimpy, drizzly, meltaway rain but serious, no-holds-barred, your-city-is-sliding-into-the-ocean rain.

The whole "we have angered god" theory of weather patterns is beginning to resonate with yours truly.

AP reports about the hail, mudslides, deaths, freeway closings, and--so sad--the forced cancellation of INXS's rooftop concert for the new Virgin Megastore opening.

Myself, I am instituting a weather meme: favorite songs about the weather. I'd have to name
"About the Weather"--Magazine
"Have You Ever Seen the Rain"--Creedence
"Heat Wave"--Martha and the Vandellas
(Famous Blue Raincoat doesn't count, right? If it does, that goes in here too.)
Anyone else?

Jesus Darwin smackdown

I have already expressed my skepticism about the whole intelligent design theory here at NMTE. I've written about my own theory that Earth is, in fact, a beta-test and God went on to create other, more successful worlds where people don't have free will and do have one detachable arm to make it easier to spoon with their lovers.

So of course, these are the thoughts that are going through my head when I'm reading today about "intelligent design advocate," Michael Behe, testifying in Pennsylvania court. Behe apparently achieved fame among the flat earth proponents intelligent design people by making "a scientific argument that blood-clotting is poorly explained by Darwinian processes but well explained by design."

Blood clotting. Yeah.

My personal favorite line in the article is this: "The intelligent design concept does not name the designer, although Behe, a Roman Catholic, testified he personally believes it to be God." Right, but it could be what--space aliens? Buddha? a distant relative of Frank Lloyd Wright? Spare me, really.

If that makes you ask all of those "what about dinosaurs walking the earth--how did everything fit in the ark" kinds of questions, those fish-bumpered hoodoo people have answers to that as well. (Thanks to A Civil Tongue for the link.)

And let's not forget the tee-shirts. All good movements need tee-shirts.

Hee hee

From Knight Ridder reporting on Pew's latest Bush numbers:

-38 percent of Americans approve of how Bush is handling his job, down from 50 percent at his inauguration in January;

-29 percent are satisfied with the way things are going in the country, down from 40 percent in January;

-Americans believe it was wrong to invade Iraq by a margin of 50 percent to 44 percent, a reverse from the January margin of 51-44 that thought it was the right decision.

The public is also skeptical about whether Bush had made most things better or worse. By a margin of 66-6, they think he's made the federal budget deficit worse. By 40-12, they think he made Social Security worse. By 57-19, they think he's made the economy worse. By 35-25, they think he's weakened morality in the country.

Flailing

From yesterday's White House press briefing:

MR. McCLELLAN: Steve said "thank you" a second time. I think the first time -- the first time --

Q I know, but my question is --

MR. McCLELLAN: The first time, we probably should have stopped it at that.

Q Right. I know. Aren't you sad that you didn't go for -- that you went past, "thank you"?

MR. McCLELLAN: No. Actually, I'm not. I'm glad we had this discussion, John.

Q Okay, good. But my only question was, the very last thing that you said there, why didn't you just say that in response to my question instead of attacking me and getting into this whole brouhaha?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I was trying to, but some people kept jumping in, including yourself when I was responding to your question.

Q Well, excuse me, you attacked me. I just wasn't going to let it sit.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I'm not attacking. I'm just pointing out that a lot of the coverage is not focused on the record and the qualifications and the philosophy -

Q I'll bring you transcripts after the briefing.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- and that's where it should. Did it focus on it last night? Let's look at the transcripts.

Q You spoke about a dignified process, do you think it's dignified to --

Q Are you -- let's talk about truth and honesty. Are you trying to say that the White House has not talked to conservatives and pointed them to the church that she goes to, and to her religion --

MR. McCLELLAN: I answered all those questions yesterday.

Q -- to show that she has religion -- but you're just saying right now that we're making an issue of it. You're making an issue of it by having White House officials --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I'm saying --

Q -- tell conservatives that that's a reason they should trust her. Then they tell us that --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I'm not saying that. You're putting words --

Q -- that that's what's happening.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- in my mouth. I'm saying the focus ought to be on records and qualification and philosophy.

Q I'm not putting any words in your mouth.

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, you are.

A stunning reversal of the usual pattern

I've been pretty damn blue these past couple of days. The whole becoming a nasty and stupid person upon quitting smoking thing is really, really getting to me.

So I'm talking to Becky last night and she is mystified about how I can be in a bad mood when the right is so totally disintegrating--elbowing each other out of the way to fall on their swords. And so this morning I determined to take Becky's advice, that has fallen on my deaf ears for so long, and listen to Stephanie Miller. Oh my god. What was I thinking to wait so long?

I love this woman!!! If anyone else out there is feeling a little blue, give her a listen. I am here in my office with my headphones on, listening to this morning's archived broadcast laughing out loud somewhat hysterically. First there was Scott McClellan's new nickname--Chummy McSharkbait, the President's Spokesliar--and then there's the riff on the new reality TV show "Barbara Bush on Negro Island."

"In what universe do you look at a 2% approval rating among blacks and say 'it's not so bad?' I mean, there's one digit before you get to...zero."

"Yeah, and there's a three percent margin for error, so it could be as much as 5%...Or -1%."

So yes, it's one of those rare moments in history where listen to the news can actually act to cheer you up if you're left of center. I'm soaking it in. This is my new quitting smoking strategy--I'm just going to immerse myself in the news as much as possible.

Oddly satisfying

This is.

(And you can click and drag him too.)

Quote of the day

Free-roaming, managed cheetahs in the south-western United States could save the fastest carnivore from extinction...

Pleistocene re-wilding is an optimistic alternative.

(Pleistocene re-wilding sounds to me either like a band name or a bad crafting trend. Like: "Did you see her bathroom? It's frightful. She got into that pleistocene re-wilding and now all of the grout is chartreuse."

I'm so restless; I'm bored as a cat...

Chris just reminded me of the excellence of Postsecret. I hadn't been there in a long time, and they've gotten better.

This one's for Portia:
I am almost done with the first draft of this "blood from a stone" report. (My lord the smoke bone is connected to the writing bone!)

I know the nicotine is pretty much out of my system but I still have these almost hallucinatory moments. This morning, passing the church next to my building, this flock of church ladies came clustering into the street in their weird tan skirted, white shirted church lady auxiliary outfits. It was highly surreal and I am just out of it enough that I almost turned several of them into hood ornaments as I was absorbing what was happening. Be careful church ladies!!! You're not made of titanium. And I shouldn't be operating heavy machinery.

Since I'm in a quoting mode

I love this from Yelladog:

Standing over finished work and musing is a great and honorable passtime in the South, and there are certain protocols that must be followed. Someone has to say "Yep," and the other party has to say "Glad that's done." What follows is situationally dependent. If it's a fresh engine rebuild, someone has to say "Purring like a kitten!" even if the engine is thumping like a disco and belching blue smoke. If it's a freshly painted barn or a rebuilt well house, someone is supposed to say "Damn, looks like new, doesn't it?" Digging up a clothesline pole is kind of unusual, so we were in virgin territory. Andy broke with protocol and said "You're never going to bust that ball of concrete."

Well, never say never to a redneck. Especially, never say never to a redneck with a sledgehammer.

Patrick writes so well--he is a regular renaissance redneck, I tell you. In fact, we "met" over this post-election post that someone forwarded me in email and I googled to track down. Almost a year later and still a brilliant post.

Utter submission

From this month's Los Angeles magazine:

The brilliant ad line "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" understands that the vast majority of people who come to Vegas won't really have wild affairs or run off with showgirls or indulge in anything more than the garden-variety debauchery of a few too many White Russians at the roulette wheel. The allure of "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" isn’t what happens in Vegas but the unfulfilled possibility of what might have happened the last time and what might happen the next, even as nothing is likely to ever happen. Vegas is a Sodom of the mind, the City of the Free Pass that you never use, and that it's not free at all is beside the point, because the other thing that Vegas shares with LA is the utter submission of reason to hope. In fact, your chance of winning an Academy Award outdistances any chance of ever winning "big" in Vegas. Every intelligent person understands this and it doesn't matter; once again unfulfilled possibility overpowers comprehension.

Taking my tongue back from the cat

I am still alive out here. And still a non-smoker (day 12 thank you very much). The combination of being half crazy from desire to smoke and a mongo project at work have me silent, but tonight I hope to crawl out from under the writing rock.

Writing without smoking has been humbling at best. It is getting better, but thank heavens this is not the final draft, is what I'm saying.

In other news, I am very excited to have bought Gang of Four tickets today. Thank you Yelladog and Eponymous for the heads-up. Ep has pix from the Athens show.

Just now on the phone

Me: I ate an entire bag of red vines yesterday.

Andrea: You mean the ones you said weren't very satisfying.

Me: Yeah.

Andrea: snicker

Me: If they'd been satisfying I wouldn't have had to eat the whole bag.

I really don't understand men

It's official. I really don't get them--this sudden realization brought on by the announcement of this year's Ig Nobel winner: Gregg Miller, the creator of Neuticals, testical implants for dogs who've gone under the knife.

I know it's tiresome....

...and for that I apologize. I do get that there are about a zillion more important things to be talking about (DeLay, Miers, the NY subway...) than my addiction to the demon weed. But hey. It's day seven.

I am actually in my office here at work--rather than working from home as I have been most of the week. I have a big writing project that I am behind on, but plugging away at. X Unclogged is playing, I am chewing away on my polar ice gum, thinking fondly about the past when I used to be a smart person.

Yeah. I think I'm leaving here soon to go home and work from there some more. That way when I really start to lose my shit I can blast the music and dance through my apartment.

This link from Conor pretty well captures how I am feeling today.

If I were a farmer...

...waking up at four a.m. would make sense. It was like this actually. "Yikes, what time is it? I'm wide awake!!!....look at clock...Oh, it's four a.m. Go back to bed, Travis......Yikes, what time is it? I'm wide awake....Oh, it's four o three...." Repeat until 4:24 at which point you surrender and get out of bed.

I think we should get RJ Reynolds to run for president. Because surely with that level of evil genius in the White House we can both win the war on terror and regain our rightful place as world dominating superpower.

Soothing the savage beast

So I am working from home on a big writing project. Chewing tea tree toothpicks until they transform into a wood pulp substance and listening to Sigur-Rós' Takk, which I just bought yesterday on Eponymous' recommendation. It's a fantastic CD. At the risk of being misunderstood as someone who listens to way too much music described as "ethereal" (first Dead Can Dance, now this) I really cannot recommend it enough. Thank heavens I don't have a roommate because I'm just going to listen to this over and over today while I write and turn tea tree toothpicks into wood pulp.

(And I'll confess that no matter how many times I play this, I will remain completely clueless as to the different titles of their songs as I do whenever I like a band like this--witness my relationship to the Cocteau Twins, for example and their song titles are in English not Icelandic.)

You can hear sound clips on Amazon, of course; though you really should buy from someone with better labor practices.

So far I haven't killed anyone

Hell, I haven't even punched anyone in the face, and I'd say that's damn good.

So this morning they kept me waiting an hour for the fasting blood test. Have I mentioned that patience is the personal quality most severely depleted by not smoking? Well, so it seems for me. And so I'm waiting there an hour. Hungry. Daytime TV is on--The View, which is apparently four women spouting off about things they don't know much about ("Well, if I had to nominate a supreme court justice, I'd nominate someone I know who shares my views"). Bad enough, right? Well then on comes Air Supply to do a medley of their "greatest hits." That was the point I realized god was mocking me and it was going to be alright.

Once again

Conor recommends the finest:
OK Go's A Million Ways video. He's calling it "possibly the best heavily-choreographed-bad-dancing-in-the-back-garden music video ever" and I have to concur.

Happy New Year

Mazel Tov everyone. So far day four is beginning fabulously. DeLay has been indicted on more charges. Two of my best friends called me already to wish me a happy anniversary. My in box is filled with well wishes and I'm on my way to get a fasting blood test taken (which I've been putting off for a week).

More soon. Thank you to all for the non-smoking encouragement. Believe me it helps and I need it. I told Andrea I felt like I was in Lamaze classes. I'd get this wave of compulsion and just need to breathe--it does feel like the addiction equivalent of labor. She says I'm going to give birth to a camel.

I know I should say something about Miers

But I'm not going to. What I'm going to say is simply day three of not smoking is drawing to a close. It was, in fact, harder than day one or two. I'm not sure I can really stand it if day four gets any harder. I don't think I will smoke but I do think my head may explode like in Scanners. I don't think I can become much more of a misanthrope without representing an immediate threat to myself or others.

In other news, if nothing extraordinary happens in the next hour and half, tomorrow will mark twenty years since I've used drugs, including alcohol. I'm going to have to start telling people I got clean at eight to be sure. If I have time and enough functioning brain cells I may post something a little more about this tomorrow. For now, I'm going to bed.

Just for today

So I didn't smoke a cigarette today.

That's all I really wanted to say--that for the first time in oh, maybe 18 years, I went a whole day without smoking.

That and I really feel like chewing my arm off.

I'm thinking if I did it today, I can probably do it tomorrow.

Brilliant

This is really funny.

I love my city

The front page of today's LA Times:

If you've gotta have a birth defect...

I think I'm with this kid--twelve fingers might not be so bad. Frankly anything that could help me type faster at this point would be welcome.

Wow

Bill Bennett Wednesday on Morning in America:

But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.

You know, my first reaction is just "wow." And I was going to leave it simply at that. But then I thought, in fairness to Bennett, I should explain that he claims he was merely giving an example of a bad argument for abortion and being quoted out of context, as I have above, makes it seem as though he supports such a "morally reprehensible" idea.

And so, in the interests of balanced reporting, I'd like to just make it clear that Bill Bennett is not a racist. From his own lips on yesterday's Hannity and Colmes:

I'll not take instruction from Teddy Kennedy. A young woman likely drowned because of his negligence. I'll take no moral instruction with him. That's much worse than legal gambling what Teddy Kennedy did....

When I was drug czar, you bet, we were working on the issue of black crime, Alan and Sean, because there was a lot of crime in the black community.... We got the bad guys. And drug use went down. And we raised the price and lowered the purity of cocaine.... [W]hen we went into the inner city black community, the people said to me, Mr. Czar, or Czar, or Mr. Bennett, you get those people off the street and protect us. And we did our best to do it.

. . .

my wife's program, best friends, has kept more young women from having abortions...than the entire black caucus. She has done more for inner city black girls than the entire black caucus. So I will not bow my head to any of these people. I will not give up the ground of compassion and sympathy.

. . .

All day I've been reading reports and statements by people about me, Sean, and it's interesting, some use the whole quote and are fair, some don't. And that tells you something. But the problem, I think, on the liberal side, the democratic side is they attitudinize

Far be it for me to attitudinize, Bill. For a minute there I thought you might be racist but that was before I read that your wife has done more for urban black girls than the whole black caucus. I stand corrected.

(Our younger readers may not recognize Bennett as Reagan's Ed Secretary and Bush Sr.'s Director of Drug Control Policy--aka Drug Czar.)

A new friend

So I had a new commenter opine about my tone below, and so I took a look at his page (which has an ad from Fox News Gear btw), and what do I see, but this. Gosh that sort of thing so totally makes my day. I can't tell you.

Still burning

The view from my balcony

More roosting chickens

It seems like harvest time for the crop of greed and barbarism the Repubs have been sowing. Frist, DeLay, the fabulous showing the administration gave during Katrina and now today's ruling that more Abu Ghraib photos and videos must be released (link via AMERICAblog):

[R]eporter Seymour Hersh, who helped uncover the scandal, said in a speech before an ACLU convention: "Some of the worse that happened that you don't know about, ok? Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men.... The women were passing messages saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened.'

"Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it's going to come out."

They ought to be in terror. Do I dare to hope that this repulsive administration is finally being brought down and that my country will finally wake up to the atrocities being conducted in the name of liberty?

Front seats to the apocalypse

From Mark (one of our New Zealand correspondents) come pics of the fire from the roof of the Woodland Hills Marriott.

So cute it makes my teeth hurt

We're having a sort of Tale of Two Cities image day here at NMTE. Pictures from the fires to follow, but in the meantime, here are Tom and his grandkids, who are so cute it's almost painful ("it was the most adorable of times; it was the most apocalyptic of times..."). He bought them those unicorn outfits that slip over their shoulders as if they needed any help looking ungodly sweet.


Does this family look Irish or what??

Who to thank

So we have a new Supreme Court Justice. I for one, plan to write Boxer and Feinstein to thank them for volleying their dissent into the abyss. Here's the vote and the 22 nays:
Akaka (D-HI)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Boxer (D-CA)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Corzine (D-NJ)
Dayton (D-MN)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)

Okay, maybe I was wrong

Maybe there aren't militarized dolphins roaming the high seas. That's what I get for trusting the Observer.

Tis the season

Fire season, that is.

The view from my office window today:




The view from the parking lot at work:

Beautiful

My hat is off to Shakespeare's Sister for what I'm calling the post of the month.

And congrats to Sis for being (according to PubSub) one of "the most consistently influential sites that publish feeds." (Maybe you should buy that lottery ticket, huh?)

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy

Good news at last.

I was so cheered today to hear that DeLay was indicted. Between Brown's finger pointing yesterday and DeLay's insistence that he's innocent, the Repubs, to my ears, just sound more and more pathetic. In fact, reading DeLay's apologist spokesman's quote, "This indictment is nothing more than prosecutorial retribution by a partisan Democrat," reminded me of nothing so much as Marion Barry's cry upon arrest: "The bitch set me up!"

At the time, I was living in DC and "The bitch set me up" tee-shirts were the tourist item of the season. I'm thinking we ought to resurrect them. Maybe a little cartoon elephant with a "the bitch set me up" talk bubble over top. Stupid fucking criminals.

Plus ça change

So Sunday night I went to the Hollywood Bowl for the first time to see Dead Can Dance. It was an amazing performance, one of those concerts where you literally feel transported. I wouldn't have been surprised to leave the bowl and encounter Stonehenge right outside (instead of traffic).

And here's one thing about being 40, when you're cool, you're really so much cooler than, say, a 25-year-old. I'm sorry, but that's just how it is. Because when you're 40, you've got a track record of coolness. I first saw Dead Can Dance 15 years ago at Georgetown University's Gaston Hall (capacity 750). I'm just sayin'... Don't get me wrong; I'm glad when a band I like becomes popular. I do not think artists have to languish in obscurity to be authentic in some way. But I'm also glad I got to see them in a more close up and personal sort of way. And Gaston Hall is the perfect setting for a goth concert, given the stained glass and all that.

I was pretty much the only woman there who didn't look like she was part of Morticia Addams' wedding party.


So it was a strange sort of thing to be 15 years and 3000 miles from there seeing the same band. Talk about worlds apart.


Continuing in the "the more things change" theme, Nouvelle Vague opened for DCD. Let me take this moment to give my unequivocal hearty endorsement. If you haven't heard them, click the link above and give a listen. Nouvelle Vague means "new wave" in French and "bossanova" in Brazilian. And so the band takes punk and new wave classics and performs them in a bossanova style. Sublime really. How can you not love a band that rocks out on a kazoo solo during a cover of "Human Fly" at the Hollywood Bowl, I ask you?

Final observation: During the "please give an encore" applause at the end (they gave two), all of these folks held up their illuminated cell phones, lighter-style. Please tell me this is just an LA thing. People don't do this in other places, do they?

David Foster Wallace for AP

Apparently 36 "militarized dolphins" (as Becky calls them) have gone missing following Katrina:

Leo Sheridan, 72, a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry, said he had received intelligence from sources close to the US government's marine fisheries service confirming dolphins had escaped.

"My concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire," he said. "The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?"

Frankly, I can't think of a story that better epitomizes the incompetence and perversity of this administration. Let's arm Flipper with poisonous dart guns and then fail to rescue him during a hurricane so that what was previously a sweet animal, loved by almost everyone can be transformed into a potentially life threatening out of control menace. What a great idea.

After School Snack calls it Hitchhikers' Guide meets Austin Powers, but I'm really thinking Don Delillo meets Tom Clancy. Two great novelists together at last.

Intermission

We interrupt today's program of depressing news to bring you Cows with Guns.

Unhappy juxtaposition

These headlines from Yahoo!News' politics section:

Senators Cast an Eye Toward Next Nominee

The Senate on Tuesday concentrated on who will be President Bush's next pick for the Supreme Court, signifying just how much of a lock chief justice nominee John Roberts has on the job.

Supreme Court May Hear Abortion Case

The Bush administration is asking the Supreme Court to reinstate a national ban on a type of late-term abortion, a case that could thrust the president's first court picks into an early tie-breaking role on a divisive and emotional issue.

I know this isn't a shocker or anything. I just find it depressing that's all. So many people wandering around who are pro-war and anti-abortion. And they vote.

Fox nominated for hen house post

In his latest "like a parody only not funny" nomination, Bush has fingered Edwin Foulke for OSHA's Assistant Secretary of Labor. Foulke is a partner in Jackson Lewis, a major union busting law firm. But fear not, his practice area isn't union busting; it's workplace safety compliance:

When a business is subjected to an OSHA inspection, Jackson Lewis provides the necessary representation to ensure the rights of the client are fully protected. In cases where an employer is subject to criminal or civil legal action based on alleged violations, we provide the expertise to defend the allegations.

We have extensive agency experience at the national and regional levels to enter into settlement negotiations, and the expertise to contest citations before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, all state safety and health commissions, and in federal and state court review proceedings.

You can't make this shit up really. The guy Bush is nominating for an OSHA spot has dedicated his career to battling OSHA. I can only shake my head and sigh. Molly Ivins has more on Bush's "petulant pique appointments" and Confined Space, a fine blog on labor issues, has more on Foulke himself.

Sharon Olds

I've never been a big fan of Sharon Olds--in fact, she really gets under my skin--but her letter to Laura Bush turning down an invitation to the National Book Festival is quite eloquent.

I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. . . . I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.

The Nation has it online.

Get your war on

New strips about Katrina.

Is everybody happy?

Never mind the fact that our government's delayed response to Katrina resulted in carnage and destruction, never mind the fact that poverty is increasing (though more on this soon), never mind Roberts, I am here to bring you the really important news.

To wit: Viennese art group Gelatin has installed a gargantuan stuffed pink rabbit on a mountain in Italy. From the press release:

The toilet-paper-pink creature lies on its back: a rabbit-mountain like Gulliver in Lilliput. Happy you feel as you climb up along its ears, almost falling into its cavernous mouth, to the belly-summit and look out over the pink woolen landscape of the rabbit's body, a country dropped from the sky; ears and limbs sneaking into the distance; from its side flowing heart, liver and intestines.

Happily in love you step down the decaying corpse, through the wound, now small like a maggot, over woolen kidney and bowel.

Happy you leave like the larva that gets its wings from an innocent carcass at the roadside.

Such is the happiness which made this rabbit.

Random observations

I was searching the web just now for the origins of the expression "like a bad penny--it keeps turning up" and I ran across a page titled American Cultural Knowledge for Confused New Zealanders. Most of the page consists of American phrases and their NZ equivalents and vice-versa, but I loved the opening collection of observations so much that I am reproducing it all here:

Twinkies Are cylindrical sponge cakes filled with an extremely sugary white paste (I hesitate to use the word cream or even creme to describe the substance, but, be warned, it's usually what's in things described as "creme filled" in the US). Popular belief is that they have a shelf life of around 40 years. In fact, it's about a week, but I don't have the reference, and anyway, noone will believe you.

In American gay slang, a "twinkie" or a "twink" is a term used to describe a deliberately empty headed and usually white young gay man who is obsessed with appearance, fashion, and other things that the users of the term would probably be obsessed with too, if they had the physical attributes which support such interests.

Pop tarts These are flat pastry pockets filled with a substance like jam but with more sugar and less flavour. For good measure, they are coated with extremely sweet icing. Sounds reasonable enough so far, doesn't it but ... get this... they are actually designed to be heated in a toaster and eaten for breakfast. I sent some of these to my sister in NZ. She wrote back saying "these explain a lot about Americans". And so they do.

Fruit Roll up rochberg@cs.cmu.edu: A fruit roll up is coagulated sugary fruit pulp on a wax-paper backing, rolled up. I would like to point out that even though I am an native of this country, I am not responsible. (Though I will admit to a slight guilty enjoyment of them)

Graham crackers are digestive biscuits.

Chemists aren't called chemists. They are called drugstores. This is, no doubt, because they sell cigarettes. Have they no shame?

The term "Doofus" is pejorative, meaning, approximately, "idiot". It is in the register used by impolite children. (this is to explain some useage on S.C.NZ). The adjective is "doofy" e.g. "My friend is a doofus. He wears a doofy tie." (thanks to pelms@canterbury).

The term "Cooties" refers to an unspecified disease, somewhat like "the dreaded lurgy" in NZ English. Its most common usage however, is to denote the "boy germs" or "girl germs" that children expect to get off each other. Given the countervailing trend on US sitcoms, to insist on an active (sexual) interest in children of the other sex from children as young as 7 or 8, belief in cooties could do with some encouragement.

Turkey Butterball is a large manufacturer of poultry. Their toll free number is 1-800-323-4848. They will tell you that you should get a pound to a pound and half or turkey per person.

Attitude, when used as a noun describing a quality possesed or projected by someone, means something akin to "arrogance". Examples "He's got attitude". "He was throwing attitude". Being described as having attitude is not a compliment.
Mr. Bubble is a brand of bubble bath.

The Lucille Ball show, and all other of her performances are held in high esteem (or at least remembered fondly). Mock them at your peril.

People from New York generally regard people from Los Angeles with distain, which is reciprocated.

You are supposed to hate the telephone company. This is for historical reasons which ceased to be as valid after the forced breakup of the Bell System Monopoly.

Ralston Purina makes dog food. (this is to explain a post on soc.culture.new-zealand).

Clearly there was some inspiration from a newsgroup I've never visited, nonetheless, what a funny and random collection. (This one goes out special for Janny and Lib.)

Remind me not to marry a broker

Much as I hate to post one of Yahoo!news' most forwarded stories, I cannot resist this one:

Psychopaths could be best financial traders?

A team of U.S. scientists has found the emotionally impaired are more willing to gamble for high stakes and that people with brain damage may make good financial decisions, the Times newspaper reported Monday.

In a study of investors' behavior 41 people with normal IQs were asked to play a simple investment game. Fifteen of the group had suffered lesions on the areas of the brain that affect emotions.

The result was those with brain damage outperformed those without.

The scientists found emotions led some of the group to avoid risks even when the potential benefits far outweighed the losses, a phenomenon known as myopic loss aversion.

One of the researchers, Antione Bechara, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Iowa, said the best stock market investors might plausibly be called "functional psychopaths."

I'm thinking this also explains that old expression "lucky at cards, unlucky at love." I was just mulling that aphorism over the other day and thinking, "You know--I really should visit my Vegas friends and try my hand at the poker or blackjack tables. I believe there is money to be made." And then I started wondering about that expression and what it was really saying. But this article about traders brings it home to me. Normal people have "loss aversion," myopic or not. They never really cash in on the big jackpots for the same reason they run out of the burning building or determine not to become a lion tamer. People like me, on the other hand, view romance like this: wouldn't it be really cool if the whole building burned down and somehow I escaped unscathed?

In my defense, I look at it this way: success in love seems like such a longshot that it feels like winning Powerball. Once every blue moon I buy a ticket, but I never buy more than one because buying a ticket to begin with is such a ridiculous act of optimism that I always figure if it's my time, it's my time. There is no real way to make the odds anything other than astro-fucking-nomical so why try. This is the attitude with which I make my dating decisions as well. Okay, maybe he's a little unstable and has a history of this or that. But what the hey--if it's my time, it's my time.

I'm thinking I really should try my hand at investing.

You tell me

Does John Roberts look frighteningly like the Autopilot from Airplane or is it just me (and Becky).

Not angry enough yet?

Check out Independent Media TV's 25 Mind-Numbingly Stupid Quotes about Hurricane Katrina. My personal favorite comes from Rick Santorum (who you just know I adore):

I mean, you have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving.

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), Sept. 6, 2005

My head is exploding

Okay, so the abuse of language--the reduction of words to meaningless sounds--about which I complained below is splashed all over the front pages of newspapers around the country. Not critically, mind you--not with any sort of analysis--just parroted by something like half the news organs in the nation it seems from a cursory glance at Newseum's front pages site.

Remember that scene in Life of Brian?
Brian: "You don't need to follow me. You're all individuals."
Crowd, in unison: "Yes, we're all individuals!"
That's what I'm thinking here. Liberal media indeed. Moo.

It's all about me

So I am finally shedding my signature dinosaur cell phone. The Kyocera Luddite. Tonight I bought a pda/phone. I'm very excited to join this century. It's charging right now or I would be calling everyone I know simply to celebrate the fact that I can get cell reception in my home at last (I also changed providers). Anyway, it will take me a few days to get it all loaded up and fully operational but it is already functioning as a stupendous piece of retail therapy. (Was I depressed yesterday? Gee, I don't remember...maybe.)

And while we're talking about me, here is the picture Chris shot of me at the end of the hell week that is working a convention (Hawaii TKO or something).

Not to be missed

Okay, I have been living in a cultural vacuum, I know, but I just found out Roman Polanski has a version of Oliver Twist coming out at the end of the month. I find this fucking hilarious.

I am having one of those "I love LA" weeks. Tomorrow I'm seeing Dead Man and Friday I'm going to Paul Weller. Am also vaguely contemplating weekend goodies like Exene's art show or the LA County Fair (I love county fairs--there's something extremely satisfying about eating food on a stick while watching missing chromosome people win large stuffed animals--maybe it's because I'm an Americanist, I dunno. And this year has the added draw of a KC and the Sunshine Band/Village People show). Realistically I will probably end up sluggishly doing not much this weekend given how running-on-empty I've been. But the choices--that's the point. I lived for 11 years in the upper midwest where I admit I went bowling, attended fish fries, and even went to a monster truck rally as part of the if-you-can't-beat-them strategy of surviving. I am so grateful to be back near an ocean again in a city that understands that Cows on the Concourse does not qualify as a cultural event worthy of an above-the-fold picture in the paper.

Who needs Derrida?

Our Commander in Chief was apparently handed a leadership script during today's news conference:

Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government.

To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility.

Here's my question: Just what the fuck does that mean? "I take responsibility?" Can someone translate that for me in terms of actual things that go on in the world? The more analytical side of me thinks of Derrida and his "language has lost its ability to mean" (or however that goes). I know I pick on Bush and his grotesque jingoism of hate (for example, from this same press conference, "the enemies of freedom remain brutal and determined"), but this is even more than that; this is not even language--it conveys no meaning whatsoever.

Responsibility.

Whatever.

The less analytical side of me just wants to set myself on fire.

What it really means to be decadent

Here's a few right wing responses to Katrina:

Rep. Richard H. Baker, a 10-term Republican from Baton Rouge (according to WSJ):

We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did.

Tom DeLay to children living in the Astrodome (comparing their stay to being at camp):

Now, tell me the truth, boys, is this kind of fun?

Rush Limbaugh:

But if your city believes that it's entitled, if that's, if that's the worldview of the leaders of a community, then I don't care what their race is -- if their worldview is that this is a welfare state -- "the government needs to protect us. The government needs to feed us. The government needs to transport us. The government" -- well, guess what? The government needs to build the levees. The government needs to make sure the levees are -- the government. You're passing the buck all over the place and accepting all the money that the government's sending in to you, ah, and then something like this happens and then you start, you know, wringing your hands.

"Oh, look how poor the population --" Well, what do you expect when you have a welfare state mentality as your city government? I mean, I'm not even being critical. I'm just trying to point out something obvious here! That -- talking about this for 18 years, folks -- socialism versus capitalism; entrepreneurialism and self-reliance versus the entitlement mentality -- so much on display here. That's what nobody's got the guts to say.

Originally I had titled this post "Satirists out of work," but then Andrea reminded me of this Jacques Barzun quote:

When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label. A decadent culture offers opportunities chiefly to the satirist.

Let them eat jambalaya, I say.

Oh how the mighty have fallen

So I'm here in ABQ visiting my best and oldest friend, and what do I discover? A Rockin' Dopsie and the Zydeco Twisters CD in her collection. I'm really worried. (And I got her an Ipod for her birthday--I fear to think.)

Just say no

To p-meds that use these sorts of images in their advertisements. This from a Japanese ad for Serenace. There's plenty more where that came from at the Japanese Gallery of Psychiatric Art (link courtesy of Chris)

Back and leaving

So I got back from Honolulu yesterday morning and I'm leaving for Albuquerque tomorrow. I expect to blog more from NM than I did from HA since I'm there visiting Andrea rather than in a bootcamp-like work setting. Nick the cat is very, very pissed off. He was already in no mood but when the luggage got emptied into the washer and then repacked, well... If he had fingers I'm sure he'd be phoning animal rights groups.

Sunday I return to LA and I hope to remain grounded for at least a little while. We'll see.

Let them eat barbecue

Barbara Bush on American Public Media's "Marketplace" Monday:

Almost everyone I've talked to says we're going to move to Houston.

What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.

It defies comment really.

Resort life

I've decided this place is like a giant veal fattening pen except they make the veal pay for their food.

As for myself, I do not feel I'm being softened up for the slaughter, though I have started mumbling to myself--what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Fifteen hour day today. Very tired now. My feet feel like two hamburger patties someone attached to the ends of my ankles. I brought four pairs of sensible shoes with me and everyone of them feels like a medieval torture device.

That said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with beginning the day staring at the Pacific and drinking Kona.