Say what you like about LA, but at least we're a blue city. This week's LA Weekly cover
Saturday, November 06, 2004
Some quotes
"Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set." Adlai Stevenson "Putting First Things First"
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." Winston Smith in 1984
"Think how far Iraq has come from the days of torture chambers and mass graves, and the brutal reign of a barbaric tyrant." Bush in Iowa, 1 Nov. 2004
"Farmers’ sons will stare by the hour to see a juggler draw ribbons from his throat, though he tells them it is all deception. Surely, men love darkness rather than light." Thoreau "The Succession of Forest Trees"
"I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few went to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen." More Thoreau On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." Winston Smith in 1984
"Think how far Iraq has come from the days of torture chambers and mass graves, and the brutal reign of a barbaric tyrant." Bush in Iowa, 1 Nov. 2004
"Farmers’ sons will stare by the hour to see a juggler draw ribbons from his throat, though he tells them it is all deception. Surely, men love darkness rather than light." Thoreau "The Succession of Forest Trees"
"I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few went to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen." More Thoreau On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
Exodus
Reuters is reporting that hits to Canada's immigration website are drastically up.
On an average day some 20,000 people in the United States log onto the Web site, www.cic.gc.ca -- a figure which rocketed to 115,016 on Wednesday. The number of U.S. visits settled down to 65,803 on Thursday, still well above the norm.
Friday, November 05, 2004
What I've read in the paper in the past 48 hours
Bush is excited to eliminate social security, drill in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge, and test smart bombs in Australia. Big surprise, Bush got extra votes in Ohio from machine errors. Hollywood may be "a liability" to Democrats because Republicans feel "pistol whipped" by the celebrities urging a humane and sensible political choice. And Republicans are "issuing only slightly veiled threats" to Democrats who might oppose the appointment of conservative judges. Finally, and most amusingly, coyotes have been spotted near the White House. I don't need to point out the metaphor here, do I?
Credit where it's due
Just found out the below came from this blog. I think I might buy an "I seceded" tee-shirt.
American Coastopia
I got the following via email today. It echoes my friend David's suggestion that all of the Kerry supporters should just leave: "I mean what would all those beef-cheeked billionaire CEOs do without the dominated sector of the dominant class to do all their dirty work?"
Ladies and gentlemen, you needn't fret anymore. We have decided that we can't live in the United States anymore, because so many of you in the "heartland" are so full of shit. We were all going to move to various other countries, but then we thought - why should WE move?
We are tired of rednecks in Oklahoma picking the leader who will determine if it is safe for us to cross the Brooklyn Bridge. We are sick of homophobic knuckle-draggers in Wyoming contributing to the national debate on our gay marriages. So we have done the only thing we could. We seceded.
May I present to you: AMERICAN COASTOPIA.
That's right, American Coastopia. The states of Washington, Oregon and California are joining us on one coast, and we will provide all of New England. In the middle of the country, we have taken Iowa and Illinois, mostly because we need the fine produce of Iowa's soil, and the museums in Chicago are fabulous.
The other dot is New Orleans, which you don't deserve. American Coastopia needs a place to gamble, and the locals want nothing to do with you. Sure, you can visit, but it isn't part of your country anymore.
I can sense your worry. Who will get all the banks? You can f---ing have most of them, because we're taking downtown and midtown Manhattan back, turning the whole thing into a giant artist colony replete with movie studios and progressive think tanks. Wall Street and other financial institutions will be relocated to Charlotte, which we believe will suit your needs better. Frankly, the good folks in Manhattan are sick of being a terrorist target for your benefit.
A word about our politics. Abortions will be safe and legal in American Coastopia, and homosexual men and women will be free to marry at their discretion. We will have our own currency, and trade with any countries we want. Everyone will have health care. Everyone will have an identity card. Homelessness and unemployment will be virtually unknown. We believe in a meritocracy and a huge chasm between church and state. 100% of our cars will be hybrid by 2006.
Yes, we're taking all the people that ever created everything beautiful. Yes, we're taking all the funny people, too. All the sculptors, architects, surgeons, philosophers, violinists, and fishermen. You should have treated them better when you had them.
We have no pledge of allegiance, but I can say this: I am no longer from your United States of America. I belong to American Coastopia, the United States of My Friends, the Nation of Two: my partner and I. We hold our noses as we fly over you. We are sickened by the way you treat people who are different from you. The rest of the world despises America, and we don't want to be lumped in with you anymore.
Please, all of you who went to bed night before last sick with worry, come to us. In American Coastopia, the light is always on, the hazelnut lattés are always hot, and we have a trundle bed for each and every one of you.
Ladies and gentlemen, you needn't fret anymore. We have decided that we can't live in the United States anymore, because so many of you in the "heartland" are so full of shit. We were all going to move to various other countries, but then we thought - why should WE move?
We are tired of rednecks in Oklahoma picking the leader who will determine if it is safe for us to cross the Brooklyn Bridge. We are sick of homophobic knuckle-draggers in Wyoming contributing to the national debate on our gay marriages. So we have done the only thing we could. We seceded.
May I present to you: AMERICAN COASTOPIA.
That's right, American Coastopia. The states of Washington, Oregon and California are joining us on one coast, and we will provide all of New England. In the middle of the country, we have taken Iowa and Illinois, mostly because we need the fine produce of Iowa's soil, and the museums in Chicago are fabulous.
The other dot is New Orleans, which you don't deserve. American Coastopia needs a place to gamble, and the locals want nothing to do with you. Sure, you can visit, but it isn't part of your country anymore.
I can sense your worry. Who will get all the banks? You can f---ing have most of them, because we're taking downtown and midtown Manhattan back, turning the whole thing into a giant artist colony replete with movie studios and progressive think tanks. Wall Street and other financial institutions will be relocated to Charlotte, which we believe will suit your needs better. Frankly, the good folks in Manhattan are sick of being a terrorist target for your benefit.
A word about our politics. Abortions will be safe and legal in American Coastopia, and homosexual men and women will be free to marry at their discretion. We will have our own currency, and trade with any countries we want. Everyone will have health care. Everyone will have an identity card. Homelessness and unemployment will be virtually unknown. We believe in a meritocracy and a huge chasm between church and state. 100% of our cars will be hybrid by 2006.
Yes, we're taking all the people that ever created everything beautiful. Yes, we're taking all the funny people, too. All the sculptors, architects, surgeons, philosophers, violinists, and fishermen. You should have treated them better when you had them.
We have no pledge of allegiance, but I can say this: I am no longer from your United States of America. I belong to American Coastopia, the United States of My Friends, the Nation of Two: my partner and I. We hold our noses as we fly over you. We are sickened by the way you treat people who are different from you. The rest of the world despises America, and we don't want to be lumped in with you anymore.
Please, all of you who went to bed night before last sick with worry, come to us. In American Coastopia, the light is always on, the hazelnut lattés are always hot, and we have a trundle bed for each and every one of you.
Thursday, November 04, 2004
At least everyone else is angry and depressed too
I will write more this weekend when it's not already midnight, but in the meantime, let me say that Bush's claim that he has a mandate is laughable. Reagan had a mandate. Clinton could argue he had a mandate. Bush has a mandate only insofar as he was elected rather than appointed this time. Which is to say (thank you Wendy for pointing this out) the Compact OED defines mandate this way: "the authority to carry out a policy, regarded as given by the electorate to a party or candidate that wins an election." Did everyone catch Bush's claim "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it"? And this one is truly horrifying. It reads almost like an Onion article from the title ("Bush Unlikely to Keep All Promises"--ya think?) to the wish list of agenda items ranging from eliminate social security to drill for oil in Alaska. Did you know that if they placed fuel efficiency limits of 3 miles per gallon we would save as much oil per day as they could extract from our National Wildlife Refuge?
Sigh.
Anyway, it's late and I have to go to bed. I only just came in off the ledge today around lunch time. It gets tiring to keep passing the open windows. If I didn't send it to you already, you should read the post To My Friends From Other Places. One of the Rons forwarded it to me today and I tracked it down on the web. I'm a fan.
Sigh.
Anyway, it's late and I have to go to bed. I only just came in off the ledge today around lunch time. It gets tiring to keep passing the open windows. If I didn't send it to you already, you should read the post To My Friends From Other Places. One of the Rons forwarded it to me today and I tracked it down on the web. I'm a fan.
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Doing what we can
I just spent a half hour or so calling people in "swing states" to encourage them to vote. There's this organization votercall where you can register and they give you a list of names and number of low income and minority registered voters. They give you a script and you call people and ask if they need help getting to the polls or information about where their polling place is.
So that's the strategy for trying to effect some sort of positive momentum. Barring the success of that effort, I also began contingency planning today. I think that I can, indeed, emigrate to Canada as a skilled worker.
So that's the strategy for trying to effect some sort of positive momentum. Barring the success of that effort, I also began contingency planning today. I think that I can, indeed, emigrate to Canada as a skilled worker.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Rats
So in the search for intelligent commentary about tonight's debate or even in search of public opinion (two things so very unrelated at this point in history), I found myself surfing by the McEnroe show and stopping to hear Robert Sullivan talk about rats. Did you know that the LA rats (black rats) are thinner than the NY rats (brown rats) and that the former prefer a vegetarian diet while the latter prefer meat? What's more, LA rats ("ship rats") don't swim well, and NY rats ("water rats") do. LA rat packs have dominant males and females (which are general the most aggressive rats) and are "polygynous," which means the boy rats mate with more than one girl rat at one time, while NY rat packs are dominated by males and are "polygynandrous," which basically means what's good for the goose is good for the gander. In fact, according to Animal Diversity Web, "Once a female enters her six-hour estrus period, she may mate as many as five-hundred times with competing males."
Peter Pan
I wish LA had a weekly as great as the Voice. Their latest piece on Kerry and Bush is pretty insightful, I think.
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Descending into the abyss
So admittedly, I got a little distracted today at work. I've been saying for some time now that I would post some of the online "finds" of recent weeks, and I visited memepool in anticipation of such a post tonight, just to make sure I wasn't missing anything really great. Well, you know how these things go... First I followed a memepool link to the Unfortunate Animal of the Month Club. This one is my personal favorite, though I am also really fond of frankenbunny. Well, Cat Grey's links page (Cat Grey being the creator of the unfortunate animals), took me to another site, which in turn took me here. Who knew that goths had their own ebay-ish haunts? Somehow I got on an animal expedition of sorts and from link to link found myself admiring the tiger man and feeling somewhat astonished at the wide variety of fetishes there are in the world. In my defense, let me say that I used to work here and have even published a book about the Internet. That is to say, I used to surf the web for a living (and of course, write grants, as every writer for a nonprofit must do except those of us lucky enough to work for places that don't accept outside donations--let's hear it for the traditions). Of course, I don't surf the web for a living now, so there's really no excuse for my behavior today. I just got sucked into the perversity, what can I say?
Many of the other recent sites I have loved, have had to do with politics, shocking I'm sure. There's the Dishonest Dubya action figure, the George W. Bush speechwriter, and highlights from the first debate, Faces of Frustration. Thank god the Democratic Party has finally overcome the desire to take the high road, I say. On the less satirical and more sobering side of things, the Cost of War site I think is very effective, Convince Your Mom is cute, and this story by The Washington Post explains a thing or two (sorry, you have to register for that one, I think). Most depressing of all is the Iraq Body Count site.
Which reminds me of my ideas for the Kerry campaign. First, the next time an anti-abortion person asks him a question about her tax dollars going to fund abortion, I think Kerry should politely point out that regardless of his stance on abortion, he is the best candidate for anyone who cares passionately about the sanctity of life since we perhaps could have avoided the deaths of 13,000-and-counting people if we had managed not to go to war. (And on this note, let me say as an aside, that it really would be nice to have a Democratic candidate that wasn't quite so much of a hawk. Bring back the doves!)
My other idea, and this one I have held onto since "liberal" became an epithet during the Dukakis campaign, is for Kerry to read the dictionary definition of "liberalism" the next time Bush accuses him of being the most liberal man in the Senate (and if that's true the country is far worse off than even I imagined). Merriam-Webster says it's "a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties." Similarly, the American Heritage Dictionary defines it this way: "A political theory founded on the natural goodness of humans and the autonomy of the individual and favoring civil and political liberties, government by law with the consent of the governed, and protection from arbitrary authority." I think Kerry should just read that and ask Bush what part of that definition he is trying to distance himself from. I actually emailed that suggestion to the Kerry campaign, so if you hear him define liberalism during tomorrow's debate, you know where he got that idea from.
If you watched the last debate, you know that Kerry handled the accusation by stating that he didn't believe in labels. Frankly, I still do believe in the efficacy of labels (nice wiggling on that one, John), and I know the most liberal person in the Senate is my former senator, Russ Feingold,who was the only one out of the hundred of them with the guts to vote against the Patriot Act. If you're curious about how liberal your Senators are, check it out at Progressive Punch.
Okay, that's enough out of me for one night.
Many of the other recent sites I have loved, have had to do with politics, shocking I'm sure. There's the Dishonest Dubya action figure, the George W. Bush speechwriter, and highlights from the first debate, Faces of Frustration. Thank god the Democratic Party has finally overcome the desire to take the high road, I say. On the less satirical and more sobering side of things, the Cost of War site I think is very effective, Convince Your Mom is cute, and this story by The Washington Post explains a thing or two (sorry, you have to register for that one, I think). Most depressing of all is the Iraq Body Count site.
Which reminds me of my ideas for the Kerry campaign. First, the next time an anti-abortion person asks him a question about her tax dollars going to fund abortion, I think Kerry should politely point out that regardless of his stance on abortion, he is the best candidate for anyone who cares passionately about the sanctity of life since we perhaps could have avoided the deaths of 13,000-and-counting people if we had managed not to go to war. (And on this note, let me say as an aside, that it really would be nice to have a Democratic candidate that wasn't quite so much of a hawk. Bring back the doves!)
My other idea, and this one I have held onto since "liberal" became an epithet during the Dukakis campaign, is for Kerry to read the dictionary definition of "liberalism" the next time Bush accuses him of being the most liberal man in the Senate (and if that's true the country is far worse off than even I imagined). Merriam-Webster says it's "a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties." Similarly, the American Heritage Dictionary defines it this way: "A political theory founded on the natural goodness of humans and the autonomy of the individual and favoring civil and political liberties, government by law with the consent of the governed, and protection from arbitrary authority." I think Kerry should just read that and ask Bush what part of that definition he is trying to distance himself from. I actually emailed that suggestion to the Kerry campaign, so if you hear him define liberalism during tomorrow's debate, you know where he got that idea from.
If you watched the last debate, you know that Kerry handled the accusation by stating that he didn't believe in labels. Frankly, I still do believe in the efficacy of labels (nice wiggling on that one, John), and I know the most liberal person in the Senate is my former senator, Russ Feingold,who was the only one out of the hundred of them with the guts to vote against the Patriot Act. If you're curious about how liberal your Senators are, check it out at Progressive Punch.
Okay, that's enough out of me for one night.
Monday, October 04, 2004
milestone
So today is my NA birthday. I have been clean 19 years. Happily for me, where I live that isn't such a very long time. In fact, I feel like I can almost play with the big kids, like I am almost old enough where I don't have to eat at the card table with the youngsters, you know? I had a really great day at work. Went to the Indian buffet with a bunch of coworkers to celebrate my birthday and U's, who is my "sister in recovery" with a nineteen years and three days today. Got an array of gifts: lucky bamboo and a gold cat from Japan that waves (I'm not sure if it's waving out the bad luck or waving in the good). I am sure I have placed these things in the wrong corners and completely messed up my chi and fucked up the feng shui, but hey. Admittedly my office is beginning to look like a set for some sort of wannabe cool indy film or something. Last week two of my coworkers brought me a plastic severed foot that expands in water and the next day JS gave me an early birthday gift: farm animal pencil toppers with nose erasers that "sniff out mistakes." Sort of a David Lynch meets Spensers Gifts kind of combination that made me think hmm... And there were an array of other nice things today. K got me a leather belt from the skate shop that has my name on the back. I feel like I am stinting it to wear it without a back tattoo that says something like "delicious" with some sort of goth border or something.
After work I met J at the little step meeting, which grew right out of its room tonight. It was a recovery battle of the bulge. J gave me a cake and we went out to follow your heart with P and J. I bought my favorite vitamins (MegaFoods Unstress) and my favorite yogurt (Brown Cow full fat, thank you very much, with the cream layer on top). J gave me a pink cat clock that will go on my table at work next to the magic 8 ball and the punk duck. Let it never be said I take myself too seriously.
Really the thing was though not the stuff or the cake but just the feeling of being so loved and at home. I got so many calls and emails and cards. Sitting at Follow Your Heart eating potato soup and talking with P and J and J I just felt so content. I remember when I was using I felt so incapable of enacting any change in my life. I didn't feel like an agent at all, and I was so desperately unhappy but I just felt like a victim of circumstance...like an object in misery will remain in misery until acted on by an outside force...the physics of addiction. I remember there was a Kate Bush song that was popular that had a lyric like "I just know that something good is going to happen but I don't know what," and I used to hear that and think something good will happen. I used to go out to clubs and get totally obliterated and wait for something to happen, but I didn't know how to make anything good happen in my life. And tonight I just thought about how much I love my life. Exactly as it is.
And it's a funny thing. Even though I know that I understand how to affect change in my life now. I have a life I love in part because I have worked to get one. But at the same time, I think about how unlikely it is for someone like me to be happy. I wouldn't have bet on that horse. I hear people say in meetings all the time "I deserve this," or "I deserve to be happy," or whatnot. And I don't know; I don't feel like I "deserve" a life as good as the one I have. I am grateful for it and I cherish it, but I think I am more lucky than deserving. So many people don't make it. I always think about Meredith on my birthday, my friend who killed herself when I had five months clean. She was 21, and she jumped out of a ninth-story dormitory window. She and I used to live in the dorm and we would sit in my room, on the ninth floor, and talk about what it would be like to jump. I still miss her and I think about how it could have been me. What am I trying to say here? Just I guess that it's all a blessing. And I guess I think living a life that makes me happy is a privilege not a right for me.
On a related but different note, I got the bound copies of my dissertation in the mail today. I paraded them around like pictures of grandchildren to show everyone in the office. They are baby blue. Then of course, I had to look myself up in the UW library catalog. I now have two entries next to my name. I confess: I've done a vanity search for myself in Google before. I am a validation slut. There, I've admitted it.
I have been collecting websites to post, but they are all at work. Too many of them are political. I think that's part of why I have been so bad about posting here. With the election looming, sometimes I feel like politics is the only thing worth talking about and yet politics depresses me so much sometimes I have to turn off democracy now on the radio lest I swerve into oncoming traffic. More on that note later. In the meantime, here are two sites that made me laugh so much I almost hurt myself: famous films reenacted in thirty seconds by animated bunnies and Strindberg and Helium.
P.S. So I just ran spell check, and it suggested I replace "fucked" with "bucked" or "bucket," "Spensers" with "Spenserian," and "P.S." with "POOH," which I guess is the shit you forgot to say in the main body of the message. Anyway, I thought it was pretty funny. Spenserian gifts...that's like when you write your girlfriend an inscrutable and overly long poem because you don't want to spring for a piece of jewelry, right?
After work I met J at the little step meeting, which grew right out of its room tonight. It was a recovery battle of the bulge. J gave me a cake and we went out to follow your heart with P and J. I bought my favorite vitamins (MegaFoods Unstress) and my favorite yogurt (Brown Cow full fat, thank you very much, with the cream layer on top). J gave me a pink cat clock that will go on my table at work next to the magic 8 ball and the punk duck. Let it never be said I take myself too seriously.
Really the thing was though not the stuff or the cake but just the feeling of being so loved and at home. I got so many calls and emails and cards. Sitting at Follow Your Heart eating potato soup and talking with P and J and J I just felt so content. I remember when I was using I felt so incapable of enacting any change in my life. I didn't feel like an agent at all, and I was so desperately unhappy but I just felt like a victim of circumstance...like an object in misery will remain in misery until acted on by an outside force...the physics of addiction. I remember there was a Kate Bush song that was popular that had a lyric like "I just know that something good is going to happen but I don't know what," and I used to hear that and think something good will happen. I used to go out to clubs and get totally obliterated and wait for something to happen, but I didn't know how to make anything good happen in my life. And tonight I just thought about how much I love my life. Exactly as it is.
And it's a funny thing. Even though I know that I understand how to affect change in my life now. I have a life I love in part because I have worked to get one. But at the same time, I think about how unlikely it is for someone like me to be happy. I wouldn't have bet on that horse. I hear people say in meetings all the time "I deserve this," or "I deserve to be happy," or whatnot. And I don't know; I don't feel like I "deserve" a life as good as the one I have. I am grateful for it and I cherish it, but I think I am more lucky than deserving. So many people don't make it. I always think about Meredith on my birthday, my friend who killed herself when I had five months clean. She was 21, and she jumped out of a ninth-story dormitory window. She and I used to live in the dorm and we would sit in my room, on the ninth floor, and talk about what it would be like to jump. I still miss her and I think about how it could have been me. What am I trying to say here? Just I guess that it's all a blessing. And I guess I think living a life that makes me happy is a privilege not a right for me.
On a related but different note, I got the bound copies of my dissertation in the mail today. I paraded them around like pictures of grandchildren to show everyone in the office. They are baby blue. Then of course, I had to look myself up in the UW library catalog. I now have two entries next to my name. I confess: I've done a vanity search for myself in Google before. I am a validation slut. There, I've admitted it.
I have been collecting websites to post, but they are all at work. Too many of them are political. I think that's part of why I have been so bad about posting here. With the election looming, sometimes I feel like politics is the only thing worth talking about and yet politics depresses me so much sometimes I have to turn off democracy now on the radio lest I swerve into oncoming traffic. More on that note later. In the meantime, here are two sites that made me laugh so much I almost hurt myself: famous films reenacted in thirty seconds by animated bunnies and Strindberg and Helium.
P.S. So I just ran spell check, and it suggested I replace "fucked" with "bucked" or "bucket," "Spensers" with "Spenserian," and "P.S." with "POOH," which I guess is the shit you forgot to say in the main body of the message. Anyway, I thought it was pretty funny. Spenserian gifts...that's like when you write your girlfriend an inscrutable and overly long poem because you don't want to spring for a piece of jewelry, right?
Thursday, September 02, 2004
Has anyone else noticed that we're going to hell?
From the AP Newswire:
"Police said more than 1,760 people have been arrested in a week of convention-related protests, a record for a U.S. political convention."
I heard this gem on Democracy Now from a delegate from Wausau, Wisconsin: "There was a time when he [Michael Moore] would have been tried for treason."
I cannot even listen to the news on my way to work anymore because it makes me want to drive into oncoming traffic.
My friends in NYC tell me Manhattan is exploding with protest. More than a quarter million people, including my dear A who is carrying a sign: "My bush would make a better president."
"Police said more than 1,760 people have been arrested in a week of convention-related protests, a record for a U.S. political convention."
I heard this gem on Democracy Now from a delegate from Wausau, Wisconsin: "There was a time when he [Michael Moore] would have been tried for treason."
I cannot even listen to the news on my way to work anymore because it makes me want to drive into oncoming traffic.
My friends in NYC tell me Manhattan is exploding with protest. More than a quarter million people, including my dear A who is carrying a sign: "My bush would make a better president."
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