It takes its name from the Scottish House of Stewart, the members of which served as caretakers on behalf of the English king, before their house itself became the Royal House of Scotland, but the concept of stewardship did by no means originate with the Stewarts; it was sometimes offered as the spoils to be won in ancient Greek and Roman contests, and I daresay they probably didn’t invent it, either. I imagine as soon as human consciousness developed sufficiently to appreciate that, provided a pointy rock, a stick, a way to bind them together, and half-decent aim, we were pretty much the top of the food chain, there were those who went mad with the power such status confers, and those who felt obliged by that position to be careful and responsible.
And thus began war. But that’s a whole other post.
The latter of the two were stewards, by nature or deliberative choice, assuming the responsibility for taking good care of the property and resources with which one is entrusted, a tradition which has carried on forward, seeing various incarnations of the concept, from feudal stewardship to the environmental movement to modern secular philosophies advocating social safety nets. The concept also plays a role in every major religion*, with God serving as the benefactor from whence earthly resources came to be under humans’ watchful care, imbuing each of us with the responsibility of stewardship. What nearly every manifestation of stewardship bears in common, however, is the sense of such protection over one’s ward having been granted, the steward trusted to protect and care for his charge.
In this way, the American presidency is a stewardship; the very fact that the president is chosen by the people he’s meant to lead signifies the simultaneous ceding and bestowing of power to one who is recognized by a majority as best suited to be entrusted with the vast resource of people, materials, wealth, and power that is this nation. When we vote, we are choosing our steward, which is a distinctly different notion than our leader. The president is that, too, to be sure, but while good leadership often requires quick decisiveness, good stewardship is marked by steady vigilance. A steward is tasked with taking care of the resources he inherits—not exploiting them, nor oppressing them, nor pillaging them, nor in any manner leaving them in a worse state than they were when he assumed the role of their guardian—and such caretaking requires intimate attentiveness, a dedication to both knowing and understanding the resources in one’s care.
George Bush has failed miserably as our steward.
He has been world-famously and unconscionably bad at protecting the environment, whether it’s supporting Orwellian-named initiatives that will result in ever greater pollution of our skies and streams or failing to enthusiastically endorse an alternative energy development plan or endorsing drilling for oil in an Arctic refuge. So thorough is his contempt for a clean and healthy environment, I would be amazed if he doesn’t shit in his own bed and drink toxic waste before pissing in the fishin’ lake on his own ranch. But although we most closely associate stewardship with the environment, he has failed with equal aplomb in his duty to protect America’s greatest resource—her people. Never has this been more evident than in the aftermath of Katrina.
Conservatives are already howling that all liberals can do is blame Bush, and even some liberals are annoyed with what they view as attempts to politicize this tragedy, but in truth, it is vital that we see the scope of this disaster, which will reach far beyond a ruined city, as the inevitable consequence of Bush’s poor stewardship on a plethora of issues. Indeed, the fatal error of leaving New Orleans’ levees in a state that made possible the physical devastation which takes our very breath away is a monolithic mistake that is not solely attributable to one party or another, and cannot be laid at one man’s feet. It was a collective failing, and so I will not lay the blame for it singly upon our current president. It is, instead, the aftermath that will affect all of us, as the water recedes and the fires diminish but their implications begin to reverberate far and wide, and how ill-equipped we all are to cope with those inescapable issues, for which I hold him accountable, as should we all.
A number of Louisiana’s National Guardsmen are in Iraq, fighting Bush’s war of choice. FEMA has been gutted to redirect funds to other areas of Homeland Security, the victim, like so many other federal programs, of budgetary limitations made necessary by a deficit made worse by tax cuts issued during a time of war. Poverty continues to rise and wages for the middle and lower classes continue to stagnate, meaning many of New Orleans’ residents, left without employment or housing perhaps indefinitely, will struggle to survive without help, and leaving many of us unable to help financially as much as we’d like. As energy costs soar as a result of both the devastation of this region, combined with Bush’s appalling energy policy and the war in Iraq, people across the country who suffer from poverty and wage stagnation will struggle, too. And come October, when the bankruptcy bill goes into effect, anyone who loses that struggle will face undue hardships that could have been avoided. Because the GOP-led Congress struck down the proposed amendment which would offer a homestead exemption to those bankrupted by medical bills, how many victims of Katrina (who may rack up healthcare fees either because of injuries or a lack of insurance to pay for existing conditions because of employment loss) will be revictimized by this cruel legislation? Indifference to global warming, resistance to a national healthcare plan, pissing away resources to line the pockets of Halliburton while the economy languishes—the list goes on and on. Bush shirked his responsibilities as our steward, ignoring what was needed to protect America’s natural, human, and financial resources, and now we will all pay the price for his dereliction of duty.
Bush fancies himself a great leader, as do his supporters, but being a great leader isn’t all that’s required of our president. Protecting American’s resources shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but he has made it so, choosing to protect his cronies and, worse, reward them with the resources he’s plundered from the public. When he chose to favor his own interests ahead of America’s, he not only turned every issue in which people suffer because of his decisions into a partisan fight, he also disregarded his obligations of stewardship, and in the end, a leader without stewardship is just a tyrant.
-----------------------------
* (Though not every denomination of every religion. Tthe opposing construct to Christian context for stewardship, for example, is Dominionism, adherents of which it its most radical incarnation encourage the rape and depletion of the earth’s resources to instigate the Rapture.)
On Stewardship
In Defense Of “Wickedness”
Well, that didn't take long.
As if right on cue, already the wingnuts are hauling out the “God punished all you wicked people” argument. Now comes one Michael Marcavage, “director” of something called Repent America, who believes Katrina destroyed New Orleans because it was days away from celebrating Southern Decadence, the annual gay and lesbian street party. Trying to one-up Jerry Falwell in the Scum Of The Earth competition (who infamously blamed 9/11 on feminists, gays and the ACLU, among others), Marcavage says New Orleans, a city rife with “drunken homosexuals” and “drunken women exposing their breasts,” deserved what it got, and burped up this comment:
“Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city,” stated Repent America director Michael Marcavage. “From ‘Girls Gone Wild’ to ‘Southern Decadence’, New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. May it never be the same.”What a pig.
The press release continues:
“Let us pray for those ravaged by this disaster. However, we must not forget that the citizens of New Orleans tolerated and welcomed the wickedness in their city for so long.”Now, for anyone who never had the chance to visit there, Mr. Marcavage’s ravings are correct. New Orleans was indeed, at times, host to “drunken homosexuals” (yours truly included), “drunken women exposing their breasts,” and all other manner of fabulous debauchery that gave the city its unique character. But it was also host to some truly amazing food, wonderful people, unsurpassed musical delights and a rich culture all its very own, something sad, faux-religious scolds like Mr. Marcavage will never understand.
So, Mr. Marcavage, on behalf of the Crescent City and all her delicious “wickedness,” I have only one thing to say to you. Embrasse mon tcheue!
You're F-ing with us, right?
I think I'm going to have to rely on Mark over at Recidivist Journals or Mister Shakes to tell me if this is real or not. It just has "prank" written all over it.
Brits driving Austrians bonkers over rude village name
LONDON, (AFP) - British tourists have left the residents of one charming Austrian village effing and blinding by constantly stealing the signs for their oddly-named village.
While British visitors are finding it hilarious, the residents of F---ing are failing to see the funny side, The Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported.
Only one kind of crimimal ever stalks the sleepy 32-house village near Salzburg on the German border -- cheeky British tourists armed with a sense of humour and a screwdriver.
But the local authorities are hitting back and with the signs now set in concrete, police chief Kommandant Schmidtberger is on the lookout.
Okay, it's all well and good, but then we start getting quotes like this:
"We will not stand for the F---ing signs being removed," the officer told the broadsheet.
"It may be very amusing for you British, but F---ing is simply F---ing to us. What is this big F---ing joke? It is puerile."
...and
"Every American seems to care only about 'The Sound of Music' (the 1965 film shot around Salzburg). The occasional Japanese wants to see Hitler's birthplace in Braunau.
"But for the British, it's all about F---ing."
...and
Guesthouse boss Augustina Lindlbauer described the village's breathtaking lakes, forests and vistas.
"Yet still there is this obsession with F---ing," she said.
"Just this morning I had to tell an English lady who stopped by that there were no F---ing postcards."
See what I mean? The language is just a little too... calculated. Mark? Mister Shakes? Heard anything about this? Or did some prankster write up a news story and somehow get it published?
I mean, come on... Kommandant Schmidtberger??? I'm German, and even I find that name ridiculous. Why not just call on Otto von Schnitzelpusskrankengescheitmeyer?
(Needed a break from bad news cross-post)
I'm not holding my breath, but I am keeping my fingers crossed.
Bush Views Katrina Devastation from Plane
This news story is just begging to be picked apart with snark, but I'm going to resist it for now. The situation is just too horrible. I just want to say one thing:
The president, upon his return to Washington, planned to chair a meeting of a White House task force set up to coordinate the federal efforts to assist hurricane victims across more than a dozen agencies.
Please, please let this be a legitimate success for him. If he does one thing right in his Presidency, if he's able to actually help people without making it into a vote magnet or somehow make this all about 9/11... if he's able to make lives better for these victims without finding a way to stuff money in his friends' pockets... if he's actually able to be Presidential...please, let it be this time.
I will be more than happy to give him any praise he deserves.
(Don't fuck this up cross-post)
Terror in Iraq
Panic engulfed thousands of Shiites marching across a bridge in a religious procession Wednesday after rumors spread that a suicide bomber was about to attack, triggering a stampede that killed at least 695 people.Apparently one of the railings collapsed in the furor. I really hope the number of victims isn’t as high as feared.
Scores of pilgrims jumped or were pushed to their deaths into the muddy Tigris River about 30 feet below, but many also were crushed in the crowd, which had jammed up at a security checkpoint on the western side of the Azamiyah bridge. Most of the dead were women and children, Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said.
It was the single biggest confirmed loss of life in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.
Tensions already had been running high in the procession in Baghdad's heavily Shiite Kazimiyah district because of a mortar attack two hours earlier against a shrine where the marchers were heading. The shrine was about a mile from the bridge.
Health Ministry spokesman Qassim Yahya said 695 were killed and 180 were injured. Figures from other official sources varied because survivors were rushed in ambulances and private cars to many hospitals, and officials were scrambling to compile accurate casualty figures.
I also hope this puts to bed once and for all the urge to suggest we’re fighting terrorists there so we don’t have to fight them here. It’s really just so heartless a suggestion, and this is exactly why.
Everybody out
Governor: Everyone Must Leave New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS - The governor of Louisiana says everyone needs to leave New Orleans due to flooding from Hurricane Katrina. "We've sent buses in. We will be either loading them by boat, helicopter, anything that is necessary," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. Army engineers trying to plug New Orleans' breached levees struggled to move giant sandbags and concrete barriers into place, and the governor said Wednesday the situation was growing more desperate and there was no choice but to abandon the flooded city.
Ho-lee-crap.
"We are looking at 12 to 16 weeks before people can come in," Mayor Ray Nagin said on ABC's "Good Morning America, "and the other issue that's concerning me is we have dead bodies in the water. At some point in time the dead bodies are going to start to create a serious disease issue."
Blanco said she wanted the Superdome — which had become a shelter of last resort for about 20,000 people — evacuated within two days, along with other gathering points for storm refugees. The situation inside the dank and sweltering Superdome was becoming desperate: The water was rising, the air conditioning was out, toilets were broken, and tempers were rising.
At the same time, sections of Interstate 10, the only major freeway leading into New Orleans from the east, lay shattered, dozens of huge slabs of concrete floating in the floodwaters. I-10 is the only route for commercial trucking across southern Louisiana.
This is just mind boggling. And it couldn't have come at a worse time. Where in the hell are we going to get the money to help take care of this? How are we going to be able to help these people? Where will they go?
(Growing more and more disturbed Cross-Post)
NOLA
Unbelievable—80% of the city is now underwater, they can’t even begin to calculate how many lives have been lost, and it’s just a total mess. Airports are under water, buildings are burning, there are leaking oil tankers, gas leaks, no electricity or fresh water…I honestly can’t even begin to comprehend the madness down there at the moment. Shamanic’s got some good NOLA links to check out.
Meanwhile, experts are predicting a national gas crisis, and The Fixer looks at the potential insurance fall-out. In Fix’s comments, Michael Hawkins notes that grocery prices are on the rise, which is a (usually unaddressed) consequence of higher energy costs, while at his place mentions that the poverty rate in the US has risen to 12.7%, marking a fourth year of increasing national poverty. And from USA Today reader comments, another sad consideration (hat tip to Michael at AMERICAblog):
New Jersey: With the economic nightmare that Hurricane Katrina is causing for so many people, has anyone thought about how sad it is that in October, the new bankruptcy laws will go into effect? Those people will still be homeless, unemployed and broke, when the new law goes into effect, so filing bankruptcy will be the last thing on their mind. How would you like to be required to go to credit counseling when you are homeless? Stupid President Bush!!!I don’t even know what my point is. I guess just that everything seems really fucked up at the moment.
AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!
Oddjob tipped me to this story in comments with four mad faces. That’s a lot of mad faces. I had only to read the headline and subhead before I reached a four-alarm annoyance level:
Says US must prevent oil fields from falling into hands of terrorists
I repeat: AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!
And it only gets worse from there (inserts mine).
President Bush answered growing antiwar protests yesterday with a fresh reason for US troops to continue fighting in Iraq: protection of the country's vast oil fields, which he said would otherwise fall under the control of terrorist extremists. [ARGH!]So, let me get this straight—the assertion was that Hussein was conspiring with al Qaida, so we had to invade, lest he give them weapons of mass destruction, but that proved to be utter bullshittery, so now, after swimming through a swamp of twaddle containing nine or so other rubbishy rationalizations for this insane-a-thon in Iraq, we’re there to prevent al Qaida from seizing the oil fields (to which Hussein would never have given them access, by the way—not that I’m defending his sorry ass) so they can, presumably, buy WMDs from some other despot who actually has them?
The president, standing against a backdrop of the USS Ronald Reagan [ARGH!], the newest aircraft carrier in the Navy's fleet, said terrorists would be denied their goal of making Iraq a base from which to recruit followers, train them, and finance attacks.
[…]
Appearing at Naval Air Station North Island to commemorate the anniversary of the Allies' World War II victory over Japan, Bush compared his resolve to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's in the 1940s… [ARGH!]
Democrats said Bush's leadership falls far short of Roosevelt's. [No shit—ARGH!]
…Bush declared, ''We will not rest until victory is America's and our freedom is secure" from Al Qaeda and its forces in Iraq led by Abu Musab alZarqawi. [ARGH!]
''If Zarqawi and [Osama] bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would create a new training ground for future terrorist attacks," Bush said. ''They'd seize oil fields to fund their ambitions. They could recruit more terrorists by claiming a historic victory over the United States and our coalition."
The head spins. And then it explodes.
KA-BOOM!
Ow.
Media Bias of a Different Color
When black people chest deep in fetid water snag something from a grocery store, it's called looting.
When white people chest deep in fetid water snag something from a grocery store, it's called finding.
Yeesh.
(Via Pandagon, as part of a great post by Amanda on how Katrina's victims are being primed for the blame game as a distraction from potential political fallout.)
Question of the Day
With people affected by Katrina blogging the event, I started thinking about what historical event would have produced blogging I'd be most amazed to read (had blogging been around). The first one that came to mind was the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and the subsequent engulfing of Pompeii, but that kind of was blogged, in a sense, by Pliny the Younger, so I thought on. And the truth is, I can't really think of anything of which I'd more like to have an unfiltered eyewitness account than the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. Aside from the fact that it would just be amazing, it would also clear up a whole lot of Framers' Intent nonsense.
Short of a blog authored by Christ himself, which would clear up a whole lot more nonsense, I've got to go with that.
How about you?
Unfortunate Son
Sgt. Thomas Strickland, on his blog, two days before he died in Iraq when his truck overturned:
What the fuck has my chain of command been doing? We were winning somewhat when I left. And now we're being pinned down in our own fucking homes? Insurgents are pushing locals out of their homes and taking over my area at will? What kind of fucktarded plan have we been half-assedly executing? Obviously the kind that neglects sound contact with locals. Obviously the kind that gives further distance to unbridged gaps between soldiers and locals. Obviously the kind that has shown enough weakness when confronted by the insurgency that it has been encouraged to grow.
Back home (the USA kind) I have no home, no job, and my commander in chief is on vacation (he's about 20 days behind Ronald Reagan right now in the race to become the most vacationing president ever. Hey W! we all got our fingers crossed! Here's to you and two more years of presidency...er vacationing!). Luckily pretty much everything that is important to me can fit into the back of a truck. Luckily I just paid off one of those.
In their fear to build relationships and get out of their hiding holes the FOBbits above me have fucked my friends and I.
Brutally, horrifically sad. I really don’t know what to say. I have no home, no job, and my commander in chief is on vacation… I have never, ever been more angry at Bush’s lackadaisical attitude about fucking everything than I am at the moment, knowing that Sgt. Thomas Strickland was thinking about his shattered life at home as he fought Bush’s war of choice abroad, while Bush dicked around in Crawford.
What a useless, hideous waste of space he is, this Fortunate Son who wouldn’t know the meaning of sacrifice if it was printed in the dimples of a golf ball.
Support the troops.
(A very nice tribute to Sgt. Strickland from a friend here.)
Politicizing Katrina
I haven’t written much about this because I feel very torn about what the appropriate way to handle this is. I tend to agree with Drum in the sense that it’s not appropriate to lose sight of what’s really happening here—one of America’s cities is dangerously close to being washed off the map. But at the same time, I think both sentiments can exist in the same head simultaneously. Having compassion for the victims of this truly unbelievable disaster can indeed be mutually exclusive from the anger felt at an administration that diverted human and fiscal resources from the region. And although it should be noted by way of clarification that the funding changes to which D. referred would have not made a sliver’s worth of difference in this instance, as they wouldn’t have come into effect until this October (a widely repeated misunderstanding that I myself didn’t understand at first), the larger point about a laissez-faire attitude toward the area’s needs is still valid.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s exactly because I feel so terribly bad for the people struck hardest by this thing, people who will also be facing a horrendous time of hardship as their sources of income drown before their every eyes (inevitably made ever that much harder by a fucked economy preceding this time of struggle), that I feel so very angry about how this administration has repeatedly let people down. It isn’t about scoring political points; it’s about being a human, and feeling really shitty and pissed off. Right or wrong.
[UPDATE: Go read Rexroth's Daughter. Beautiful.]
So that's why the back of my neck was all prickly this morning.
Bush was in San Diego, the place where I live, and incidentally, a place where there was not a hurricane today! I innocently tuned into KPBS this morning only to be aurally assaulted by Bush's faux-accented pronunciation of Missouri ("Mizzura"), which reminded me that he was in town this morning speaking at a Naval base to commemmorate the 60th anniversary of the Japanese surrender in 1945. His message was, as could be expected, multi-faceted. It was kind of hard to hear above the roar of blood in my ears, but here's what I got:
WORLD WAR TWO EQUALS WAR ON TERROR EQUALS WORLD WAR TWO EQUALS JAPAN EQUALS OSAMA HUSSEIN AL SYRIA TERROR FREEDOM HATE IRAN NORTH KOREA JAPAN WORLD WAR TWO IRAQ
There was also the requisite skeptic-bashing, and then he yelled out some names of widows, and I think he recited Shelley and performed an interpretive dance based on the rage he experiences when his motives are questioned, and then I actually heard him make that face he makes when he's waiting for his words to sink in, and then I turned it off.
This cross-post was made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by donations from viewers like you. Yes, we see the irony, too.
Bush, Congress to South: Drop Dead
As Shrub bravely and stoically forgoes two days of the five weeks he's spent getting on with his life to "assist" in "coordinating" the aid to all of us down here (read, as Paul astutely made note of below: score cheap political points), he might want to think twice about showing his face in the Big Easy. Tim Grieve of Salon's War Room found this interesting little tidbit:
In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding.Grieve also makes a note of the fact that $72.1 million would barely be enough to pay for nine and a half hours of the war in Iraq.
The cuts mean major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now.
One of the hardest-hit areas of the New Orleans district's budget is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes. SELA's budget is being drained from $36.5 million awarded in 2005 to $10.4 million suggested for 2006 by the House of Representatives and the president.
Update: Attytood has more.
What a guy
Bush Cancels Vacation to Focus on Relief
Please make those little finger quotations in the air when reading the word "cancels."
WASHINGTON - President Bush decided to cancel the rest of his vacation to concentrate on federal relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina as his top disaster relief official lamented "catastrophic" damage in three Southern states.
Apparently, all that whizzo super amaz-o-tron equipment that allows Bush to direct a war from the toilet that makes G. Gordon Liddy so wet doesn't work so well with disaster relief.
Either that, or Bush is just trying to score some badly needed points. You make the call!
Meanwhile, the White House revealed that Bush was returning to Washington Wednesday from his Texas ranch. "We have a lot of work to do," the president said of the storm damage in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. He initially was to have flown back to the capital on Friday.
Gee, three whole days. Or two, if you're not feeling charitable.
What a guy... he's always there when we need him, isn't he?
Isn't he?
Isn't he?
Isn't he?
Does it have a feeding tube? I'm there!!
(We can cross-post if we want to, we can leave your friends behind...)
Random Observation
I spotted the following two bumper stickers side-by-side on the same car:
It’s All About ME
The ME on the latter was larger than either the flag or the lettering on the former. It was, of course, meant to be one of those cutesy princess things, but I couldn’t help thinking that’s really the whole problem with conservatives right there. “United We Stand” doesn’t have nearly the prominence as everything being “All About ME.” The ugly American doesn’t even realize she is ugly even to other Americans, or doesn’t care. The ugly American advertises it right on her bumper.
I could probably turn this into an entire essay, but I’m short on time today, so I’ll post it for discussion—and as a solicitation for other stickers, ribbons, and assorted automotive accoutrements that drive you insane.
(As an aside, I saw a good one the other day which read: “Republican Health Plan: Don’t Get Sick.” It was right next to another advocating chaos, ha.)
King Minus
Everything he touches turns to shit (emphasis mine):
A senior United Nations official has accused President George Bush of "doing damage to Africa" by cutting funding for condoms, a move which may jeopardise the successful fight against HIV/Aids in Uganda.I could rant about this for six million hours, but really, what new is there to say? President Heartless Scumbag would rather see people die a slow and painful death than admit that perhaps his crackpot, faith-based, reality-impaired, abstinence-first dictum is tragically flawed. What a truly soulless man.
Stephen Lewis, the UN secretary general's special envoy for HIV/Aids in Africa, said US cuts in funding for condoms and an emphasis on promoting abstinence had contributed to a shortage of condoms in Uganda, one of the few African countries which has succeeded in reducing its infection rate.
"There is no doubt in my mind that the condom crisis in Uganda is being driven by [US policies]," Mr Lewis said yesterday. "To impose a dogma-driven policy that is fundamentally flawed is doing damage to Africa."
The condom shortage has developed because both the Ugandan government and the US, which is the main donor for HIV/Aids prevention, have allowed supplies to dwindle, according to an American pressure group, the Centre for Health and Gender Equity (Change).
In 2003, President Bush declared he would spend $15bn on his emergency plan for Aids relief, but receiving aid under the programme has moral strings attached.
Recipient countries have to emphasise abstinence over condoms, and - under a congressional amendment - they must condemn prostitution.
Marines Write Letters
Christopher at After School Snack points to a great letter to the editor of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune from a marine serving in Iraq:
If only I could fit his entire letter on a bumper sticker…What he's fighting for
As a U.S. Marine currently deployed to Iraq, I would like to respectfully disagree with a fellow Minnesotan who stated that people who protest the war hurt troops' morale ("Letters from readers," Aug. 26).
Public debate and discussion are vital to the health of a democracy. It is a good thing when I see Americans exercising their right of freedom of speech.
Seeing people exercise freedoms that many in other countries don't have is something that we all should be thankful for -- whether you agree with what is being said or not. Semper Fidelis!James Haugerud,
Camp Blue Diamond,
Ar Ramadi, Iraq.
Pat Buchanan Calls for Bush’s Impeachment
Seriously. But not because of any of the following reasons:
Lying to take the country to war
Mishandling the war
Abu Ghraib
Gitmo
The appropriation of 9/11 as a political tool
Mismanaging the economy
Repeated misidentification of dissenters as traitors
Possible involvement of highest advisors in CIA outing
Election fraud
Spending a year out of five on vacation
Demonizing the LGBT community
Cynical exploitation of homophobia
Encroachment on women’s rights
The Bankruptcy Bill
The Energy Bill
The Clear Skies Initiative
The Patriot Act
The Terri Schiavo debacle
Failure to address healthcare crisis
Failure to extend assault weapons ban
Failure to endorse stem cell research
General disregard for traditional conservative principals
Criminal stupidity
Or any one of 1,000 other idiocies I could name. Nope, Pat’s mad about immigration.
Pat Buchanan, a leading conservative pundit and former presidential adviser, quietly suggested House Republicans mull impeaching President Bush -- though not for the liberals' cause celebre, Iraq -- but rather for what he sees as Bush's 'criminal' failure to stem the tide of illegal immigrants, RAW STORY has discovered.
"We are being invaded," the reactionary Republican declared in his column Monday, "and the president of the United States is not doing his duty to protect the states against that invasion."
[…]
"Bush is chief executive of the United States. It is his duty to enforce the laws," he adds. "Can anyone fairly say he is enforcing the immigration laws? Those laws are clear. People who break in are to be sent back. Yet, more than 10 million have broken in with impunity."
Now, of course, Pat Buchanan is saying all this because he’s an inveterate racist, but, in truth, considering the president’s primary election strategy of declaring himself “the security president” and vowing to secure the country’s borders, it is true he’s broken yet another promise to the American people.
Happy Blogiversary...
...to Agi T. Prop!
UPDATE: And a happy second blogiversary to Toast!
(Moved back to top for a bit; new posts below.)
Quote of the Day: Truth in Every Joke Edition
I mean to say, "where's them damn burkas when you need them?"
— Kos, resorting to misogynist humor once again during a debate over “women’s stuff”
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Go read Media Girl’s very long (but very worth it) post for context.
I should also note Mr. Shakes' response, which was, "Yeah, real funny with what's going on with the Iraq constitution right now." (I really can't stress enough that when something strikes the working class Scot, son-of-a-sailor, decidedly un-P.C. Mr. S as so totally fucking sexist that it pisses him off, it's really not remotely in the realm of an actual joke.)
------------------------
On a side note, I’d just like to say I run this blog day in and day out without visiting any blogs that I’ve found repeatedly offensive, no matter how important they are alleged to be. There’s simply not a blog important enough to oblige my patronage if I’m compelled to hold my nose while I read it.
(The only reason I mention that is because I’ve too often read other bloggers note, as if with a sigh of resignation, how certain blogs “have to” be read. No they don’t; no blog is indispensable—yeah, including and probably especially this one, although I’m fairly certain the world might have spun off its axis if I hadn’t revealed my nerd percentage.)
Fred Phelps: Hate-Filled Maniac with a Death Wish
Yep. "Good Christian" Fred Phelps is yet again picketing the funerals of American soldiers because gays exist.
Or something.
SMYRNA, Tenn. - Members of a church say God is punishing American soldiers for defending a country that harbors gays, and they brought their anti-gay message to the funerals Saturday of two Tennessee soldiers killed in Iraq.
The church members were met with scorn from local residents. They chased the church members cars' down a highway, waving flags and screaming "God bless America."
Can we please stop calling these mentally ill bigots "church members?" This isn't a church; it's a grouping of hate-crazed fanatics that wouldn't know God if he handed them an iced tea. Call them what they are, a Hate Group.
The Rev. Fred Phelps, founder of Westboro Baptist in Kansas, contends that American soldiers are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God for protecting a country that harbors gays. The church, which is not affiliated with a larger denomination, is made up mostly of Phelps' children, grandchildren and in-laws.
The church members carried signs and shouted things such as "God hates fags" and "God hates you."
Okay, we're used to the "fags" one by now, but "God hates you?" Huh? How does that make the slightest lick of sense? If God is supposedly punishing America for "harboring gays" (by the way, a bunch of gays at the harbor or docks is called a white party or tea dance), therefore, God hates Americans, therefore "God hates you," doesn't that include all Americans, including himself? Are there ANY Americans that aren't hated by God? Other than the eight or so screwballs that Phelps has managed to dupe into following him?
I know, I know.. don't try and fathom the motivations of Fred Phelps. That way lies madness.
Hundreds of Smyrna and Ashland City residents and families of other soldiers turned out at both sites to counter the message the Westboro Baptist members brought.
So many counterdemonstrators were gathered in Ashland City that police, sheriff's deputies and state troopers were brought in to control traffic and protect the protesters.
Wowzers. Kudos to the people that showed up to shame Phelps. I've always felt that ignoring him and his followers were the best way to deal with them, but I'm sure it helped the grieving families to see that show of support.
Picketing the funerals of soldiers... Jesus...
Okay, I have a question here, and I'm completely serious. Do you think Phelps is trying to get himself killed?
We are living in one of the most charged political times in our history. While the majority of Americans are against the Iraq war and the President, the opposing side is still fighting back with all the energy, venom and dirty tricks that they can muster. At a time when the phrase "support the troops" can bring people to blows, why in the hell would you picket the funeral of a soldier? We have gotten to the point in this country where you can get away with just about anything if you say that you "support the troops." People were smeared for daring to speak against soldiers that were torturing innocents, for chrissakes.
So why is he doing it? I'm sure part of it has to do with the fact that Phelps is a true media whore. He'll do anything horrible and outrageous to get his shrunken-apple head face on television or in print. I'm sure he tells himself that this is a way to "get out the message," and attract more people to his "church," but in reality he's just another microphone cocksucker.
But, is he also trying to get himself attacked? Perhaps killed? Think of all the press he could get if he were attacked. Think of how he could use an attack as a rallying cry for more lunatics.
And if he's killed... Martyr City baby! You can't buy press like that!
What do you kids at home think?
(Your faith was strong but you needed proof, You saw her bathing on the roof, Her beauty and the cross-post overthrew you...)
I'm a Nerd, a Geek, and a Dork!
Shocking...
69 % Nerd, 52% Geek, 52% Dork
A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in all three, earning you the title of: Outcast Genius.
Outcast geniuses usually are bright enough to understand what society wants of them, and they just don't care! They are highly intelligent and passionate about the things they know are *truly* important in the world. Typically, this does not include sports, cars or make-up, but it can on occassion (and if it does then they know more than all of their friends combined in that subject).
Outcast geniuses can be very lonely, due to their being outcast from most normal groups and too smart for the room among many other types of dorks and geeks, but they can also be the types to eventually rule the world, ala Bill Gates, the prototypical Outcast Genius.
Congratulations!
THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST
--------------------------------------
(Hat tips to The Green Knight, who was also an Outcast Genius, and T. Rex, who's a Pure Nerd.)
Salons
The Heretik rounds up posts on our national Fortunate Son, and adds his own poetic summary that I really recommend.
Coturnix has a great round-up of lots of stuff being written on evolution and intelligent design. (You’ve definitely got to read this, if nothing else.) It’s kind of half a carnival, half a salon—it’s a carnalon.
And the media bias salon that was spinning around hasn’t ended just yet. Mannion’s still threatening a part three, and in case you missed it all, or any of the good stuff that happened over the weekend, let me bring you up to speed…
Start with Paul’s post here and Digby here. Then read Mannion here and here. Then me here, and Ezra here and here, and then back to me here. And also check out Avedon Carol here.
If I missed anyone, let me know in comments. I’m sure there are blogs linking to one of these pieces that I just haven’t seen.
Double Yuck
Frank Rich is disgusted, and rightfully so, about the lack of leadership being offered from … well … anyone, on Iraq. Out of the entire column, however, this passage in particular stood out to me:
If there's a moment that could stand for the Democrats' irrelevance it came on July 14, the day Americans woke up to learn of the suicide bomber in Baghdad who killed as many as 27 people, nearly all of them children gathered around American troops. In Washington that day, the presumptive presidential candidate Hillary Clinton held a press conference vowing to protect American children from the fantasy violence of video games.
Ouch.
Mencken said, “Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule--and both commonly succeed, and are right...” At the moment, it seems neither is particularly dependent upon the other to showcase its inefficacy, nor its self-interested avarice, traits with both parties share, if nothing else. Sure, they snipe at each other, but it’s not even necessary, so manifestly obvious are their flaws, and sure, one party is hell and gone worse for most Americans than the other, but even with such a grave disparity, the better of the two struggles to make headway in winning back congressional seats, so disarrayed is their message as they run ever more quickly and desperately to their right, as if hoping to win by becoming just as bad as their opponents.
The two parties are a collective stinkfest, and the presupposed frontrunners, John McCain (who, in case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t like) and the aforementioned Hillary Clinton, don’t stand to change the directions their parties are headed, as McCain increasingly panders to wingnuts and Clinton veers rightward to protect the children. Rumor has it that Chuck Hagel is considering an independent bid in 2008, and although I don’t give much credibility to that rumor, the fact that it can be even be floated at all is an indication of how widespread the dissatisfaction with both parties really is.
I don’t know what it’s going to take to get a viable and thriving third party in this country. I like the Greens, and I wouldn’t hesitate to vote for a Green candidate if given the opportunity, but they’re such a mess I can’t even get emails returned from my state’s Green party. And, honestly, I think they’re going to struggle until Ralph Nader goes the way of the dodo, because each time he pulls some new crackpot shit, there are going to be people who feel a creeping heat under their collars that reminds them of 2000, and it isn’t fading from their memories whose ticket he was on.
I read awhile ago about a burgeoning labor party in New York, which sounded quite good, but they seemed to be toiling for cash and support, too. It just seems like the two parties are so entrenched that it’s almost impossible to encroach an iota on their well-marked territory. I recall Mr. Furious telling me about having spoken to someone who worked inside Perot’s campaign, and how the two major parties worked together to try to crush him, while running their own separate campaigns against each other as well. If two parties with all the power will and can destroy any viable opposition, we’re not living in much of a democracy.
Campaign finance reform, shortened election cycles, blah blah blah. None of it matters if the political parties care more about power than they do about people.
Fortunate Sons Don’t Like Grieving Mothers
Amanda Marcotte, commenting on the coincidence of listening to Sleater Kinney’s cover of “Fortunate Son” as she read Atrios’ post about Gov. Mitt Romney’s agitated discomfort with being asked if his sons were planning to enlist, notes that:
Cindy Sheehan standing in the Texas heat outside of Bush's gorgeous, expensive and oh-so-comfortable ranch is a perfect symbol of [the class issues that allow war to happen]. War is not possible unless you have internal class warfare. War is not possible unless the rich and powerful feel free to demand the lives of the common people be sacrificed with the same ease you lose a pawn in a game of chess…Of course, it’s even more complex than that for the former flyboy, isn’t it? The simple random accident of fate that guaranteed Bush would never find himself a bereaved parent is the same little ray of providence that ensured he was never going to be the soldier being grieved, either. And if I had to guess what bothers Bush most about Cindy Sheehan’s vigil, it’s not that he could have been her had things been different—it’s that he never, ever could have been her son with things as they are.
I think that the reason that Bush won't come out of hiding and tell Cindy Sheehan the truth about why her son died in Iraq is because the honest answer is so fucking evil. Casey Sheehan died because he's not a fortunate son…
[B]ut for a simple random accident of fate, he is the man cowering inside the mansion instead of the bereaved parent standing outside it demanding justice.
Though his handlers have done their best to conceal the truth about whether Bush fulfilled his commitment to the Texas Air National Guard, for which he applied during the height of the Vietnam War, twelve days away from losing his student deferment, there’s no doubt that his family’s position and connections secured him his spot, safely away from the horrors of the war raging half a world away. There was no waiting list for this Fortunate Son, and no dependence on the military as a means to a better life. He was, after all, losing his student deferment because he had just graduated from Yale. The Texas Air National Guard was not going to help pay for his education, or provide him with marketable skills that might be turned into a good career, or be the answer to a lack of health insurance, or any of the reasons that the military is appealing for many Unfortunate Sons. It wasn’t even about a chance to serve his country honorably; it was about the chance to serve without risking his life.
Bush has been lying about, explaining, defending, and justifying his service record ever since. It’s a thorn in his side that refuses to yield no matter how he tugs on it, which is, in the end, a small price to pay compared to his cohorts who returned from the war he avoided with devastating injuries, of both the physical and psychological sorts, or never returned at all. And having launched a war that with each day draws more comparisons to the war from which he hid, the specter of his cowardly, privileged history haunts him, drawing ever nearer. And now a mother of one of the sons who died in his war darkens his very doorstep. As his limo passes by protesters holding pictures of Casey Sheehan, is he really thinking about how fortunate he is not to be Cindy, or instead about the bitter irony of escaping a fate like Casey’s only to condemn another generation? Or does he just see the trickles of sweat running down their brows from standing in the hot Texas sun, and ask his driver to turn up the air conditioning, as he turns away and closes his eyes?
(The Heretik has more, too.)
Media Bias: One More Random Thought
I keep meaning to mention this, and then promptly forgetting. I honestly don’t know if it’s a result of bias toward Bush or just resounding stupidity—namely the media having lost all perspective on what their role in the public discourse is meant to be. The gist is that Time magazine knowingly and deliberately avoided seeking a waiver of confidentiality from Karl Rove to hold up reporter Matthew Cooper’s testimony until after the election, at least in part because “Time editors were concerned about becoming part of such an explosive story in an election year.”
The irony, of course, is that maintaining secrecy on such a big issue made them part of the conspiracy to protect a possible criminal in the highest levels of government, which seems to me to be a bigger issue than being part of an explosive story. Jerks.
(Thank to RJ Eskow for the reminder to mention this.)
Weekend Morrissey Blogging
For KB, who knows the pleasure of Bona Drag on a summer day.
There are some bad people on the rise
There are some bad people on the rise
They're saving their own skins by
Ruining other people's lives
Bad, bad people on the rise
Young married couple in debt—ever felt had?
Young married couple in debt—ever felt had?
Oh, the government scheme
Designed to kill your dream.
Oh mum, oh dad.
Once poor, always poor,
La la la la la,
Interesting drug,
The one that you took;
Tell the truth—it really helped you,
An interesting drug.
The one that you took,
God, it really, really helped you.
You wonder why we're only half-ashamed?
Because enough is too much…
...and look around...
...can you blame us?
Can you blame us?
Weird
This is another really strange story (hat tip to The Disenchanted Forest):
COLEMAN, Texas -- A Texas farmer may have found what some would call a "chupacabra," a legendary animal known for sucking the blood out of goats.
Reggie Lagow set a trap last week after a number of his chickens and turkeys were killed.
What he found in his trap was a mix between a hairless dog, a rat and a kangaroo.
The mystery animal has been sent to Texas Parks and Wildlife in hopes of determining what it is.
A picture of the animal caught by Lagow.
I looked up “chupacabra” out of curiosity, since I’d never heard of it before (Wikipedia), and I have to admit, I’m certainly not convinced this thing is one. I’d be interested to find out what it is, though. It looks like the offspring of a greyhound and a chihuahua with a bad case of the mange. Very bizarre indeed.
The More Things Change…
Mr. Shakes and I watched George Carlin’s What Am I Doing in New Jersey? today, which was recorded in 1988. He was riffing on the Reagan administration and the “moral majority” that helped elect them, and I swear if he replaced the names, he could do the exact same material today and no one would be the wiser. All the same stuff—lawbreakers in the administration, trying to control people’s sex lives, the hypocrisy of pro-lifers who are also pro-war and pro-death penalty, anti-gay bullshit, etc.
You can go back and read Mencken and find a lot of the same crap, too—and he died in like 1956 or something. I don’t know whether to feel better that we've managed to get through it before without the world ending, or whether to feel depressed that nothing’s really changed.
Either way...same shit, different president.
Salon-a-Thon: Media Bias
Mannion and Ezra are both right and wrong. Mannion, the observer, sees a press who had it in for Clinton, and Ezra, the wonk, sees a press who rightfully turned the stupid actions of a president into news stories that sell. They aren’t, as they first appear, contrasting theories of what happened. What’s missing is the connecting piece between the two that Shakes, the anthropologist, can’t help but see—human nature, that confounding and unshakable thing that makes a term like “media bias” not a theory, but an inevitable and intractable fact. The media are, in the end, just people, and people are not objective, even if the press is meant to be.
It’s not only just possible, but likely, that the media covering Clinton, who, as noted in Ezra’s piece, were Clinton supporters to the man, were frustrated by a successful president who undermined his ability to effectively do his job because he couldn’t keep it in his pants, who handed the “family values” crowd a scandal on a silver platter. There were none too few voters who were incensed by exactly that—who felt betrayed—and the members of the media are voters, too. If they had it in for Clinton more than Ezra suggests, their reasons may have been more personal than Mannion suggests.
I said in my piece yesterday about Froomkin’s report on the media BBQ at the Bush ranch, in which it was reported that “a small handful watched askance as the rest fawned over Bush, following him around in packs every time he moved,” that the media has a crush on Bush, “and damnit if crushes don’t turn a person into a fool faster than just about anything else.” And I think the same applies to their coverage of Clinton. Ezra notes, for example, that “Klein was a sycophant till he became disillusioned by Clinton's brazen adultery;” sycophancy is, in the end, little more than an overwhelming crush. Mannion notes, for example, that the press regarded the Clintons as undeserving of “all the success they’d enjoyed at ages younger than too many of the reporters covering them and too close to the ages of all the rest of them;” jealousy is just another shade of crush. And if crushes can turn a person into a fool, a crush betrayed can turn a person ugly.
Attributing loftier motives to the media, or reducing their motives simply to writing what sells, isn’t necessarily wrong; it’s just that they’re all part and parcel of the same notion—that the media are compromised by their own feelings, because they are humans, not objectivity robots. Neither being disappointed by a president one believed in, nor being invited to a president’s house for dinner, is a small thing for a single person. We tend to ignore the potential effects of such things on the media, because “the media” is a faceless, abstract thing, but it’s comprised of individuals. Failing to acknowledge that “the media was invited to the president’s house” and “Joe from the Daily Rag was invited to the president’s house” are two very different things, especially if you’re Joe, is ignoring human nature to the detriment of this exploration.
The media are further compromised in the current political climate because they’re faced with an administration which repeatedly exhibits such wanton contempt for the truth, that genuine objectivity would often require calling the president, a member of his cabinet, and/or a close advisor a liar. (This brings us to Ezra’s second piece.) Giving ample time, as Ezra suggests, to “everything going wrong in the country, they're certainly not buying the spin on Iraq, they're certainly not glossing over gas prices,” isn’t really the point. Ample time only matters if the time given produces something closely resembling reality, something genuinely objective, and the media has (repeatedly) mistaken objectivity for giving equal time to opposing sides, sans critique, irrespective of how fallacious one side may be. This tendency manifests itself most evidently in coverage of wedge issues like gay marriage and intelligent design, which weren’t mentioned in Ezra’s piece.
To wit, a recent AP story contained the following paragraph:
The theory of intelligent design says life on earth is too complex to have developed through evolution, implying that a higher power must have had a hand in creation. Nearly all scientists dismiss it as a scientific theory, and critics say it's nothing more than religion masquerading as science.Two big problems here:
1. Identifying intelligent design as a “theory,” while also referring to the theory of evolution in the same story, is, if I’m generous, bad application of language as theory is used in its scientific sense (“a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers”) in regard to evolution and in its layman’s sense (a proposed but unverified explanation) in regard to intelligent design. If I’m not generous, it’s a cynical attempt to imbue both sides of the debate with equal viability. While both sides have a right to their arguments, the suggestion that both are correct in their assertions their beliefs belong in a science class is sheer claptrap.
2. An intellectually honest statement about scientists’ critique of intelligent design would be: All credible scientists dismiss it as scientific theory. Not “nearly all scientists.” Any scientist who recognizes intelligent design as a scientific theory, considering it hasn’t meant the minimum requirements for being categorized thusly, is utterly lacking in integrity. The suggestion that there are respected scientists within the scientific community who recognize intelligent design as a scientific theory is misleading at best and outright bullshit at worst.
This is exactly the kind of nonsense (favoring the Bush administration) that can be found in the news regularly, the kind of spin as part of an attempt to appear objective that prompted Paul Krugman to note:
If Bush said the earth is flat, of course Fox News would say "Yes, the earth is flat, and anyone who says different is unpatriotic." And mainstream media would have stories with the headline: "Shape of Earth: Views Differ;" and would at most report that some Democrats say that it's round.You can take out the partisan references, replacing “Bush” with “The Flat Earth Society” and “Democrats” with “scientists,” and you’re not far off from the AP paragraph I excerpted above. Hard to say that Krugman’s mistaken.
Ezra’s not wrong that liberals need to be more savvy when it comes to the media, but his suggestion that “they're not sucking particularly bad right now. They're just being their general, bumbling selves. We have to stop wishing they'd rise up, shake off their shackles, and do our jobs for us,” isn’t entirely right, either. Expecting that the media report accurately isn’t the same as expecting them to do our jobs for us. I don’t think it’s remotely unreasonable to expect that a non-scientific philosophy be identified thusly. It isn’t our job to correct the record of every news story that contains such lapses in either good reporting or good judgment.
(And, as an aside, the media are worse than they used to be; there was a time not so long ago that a lunatic like Pat Robertson would not have been a guest on a show like Hardball, but instead resoundingly ignored as the fringe nutzoid that he is. It seems these days that no amount of wingnut conservative vitriol can discredit someone so thoroughly that they cannot be used as a counterpoint to even a highly regarded liberal—an insult to liberals, apart from anything else.)
As commenter Greg VA and Mannion point out, story content is only one symptom of media bias, the other being what gets reported with regularity. Greg says, “The bias has less to do with the content on any individual story, but a pattern of what gets reported and how much attention it gets.” Mannion flushes it out further in comments, noting:
There have been months and months at a time when the coverage has been pretty much all negative---not because of Liberal bias---but because just reporting the facts on what he's doing reflects badly on him. He's just not doing a good job. But those periods have always come to an end to be replaced by coverage that is practically hagiographic and those periods have tended to last longer and to have had the effect of making people almost forget his mistakes and failures. He keeps getting another chance.Spot on. In the end, they can’t give up their crush. He hasn’t betrayed them; he has them around for dinner.
Ezra says that because Americans “don't think Iraq is going well, they don't like Bush's plan for Social Security, they don't think he's doing anything on health care, they don't think he's helping the economy, they don't, in fact, think he's doing a good job on anything at all,” it suggests that the press has done reasonably well with its reporting. I’m just not so sure it’s causation, rather than correlation.
Murders and ice cream sales always go up at the same time, but it’s not because ice cream evokes murderous rages, or because murderers reward themselves with a scoop of vanilla. It’s because of heat. When it’s hot, people want ice cream. When it’s hot, tempers are shorter.
It isn’t heat, however, that links the media’s Bush bias and American’s waning support. It’s that he’s throwing a party while the country falls to pieces. The press, indulging their ardor, think that’s just swell. The rest of us think it stinks.
(Crossposted at Ezra's.)
Oh No, Please Don’t Let Me Die in a Shithouse
That’s what I’d be saying if the following happened to me, because I would be fighting off a massive heart attack:
A man is facing charges after police said they pulled him from a tank under a women's toilet that was filled with human waste.Seriously, I cannot even imagine the terror of going into an outhouse (that alone is terrifying enough), looking down the crapper, and seeing a fucking face looking back! This actually happened in June, but I just heard about it on the radio today, and the guy was telling the story from the girl’s perspective, and when he got to the part about seeing the dude’s face, I nearly screamed. That is severely creepy.
Police said that Gary Moody, 45, was under a log cabin outhouse off the Kancamagas Highway in Albany.
"You can draw your own conclusions as to the conditions we encountered," said Capt. John Hebert, of the Carroll County Sheriff's Department.
Police said that they got a call from the parents of a teenage girl who said that when she went to use the facilities, she saw Moody's face staring back at her from the hole.
Moody was hosed off before police cuffed him.
Police said they don't know how long Moody was in the tank, but they said the door to it was locked, which means he must have gone in through the toilet. They said they don't know why he was there.Guh. I’m probably going out on a limb here, but I’m going to guess…oh, I don’t know…a scat fetish?
Someone called into the show and said that her brother was an area cop and he had recently been on a call where they had to pull a guy out of an outhouse in a public park. He was wearing only pantyhose and claimed he had dropped his watch and was looking for it. Gak.
I didn’t really need one more reason to never use an outhouse, but I’m going to add “may be perverts in the shit tank” right to the top of the list.
“My Name Is Talky Tina, And I Don't Think I Like You.”
Well, it seems we finally have an explanation for Laura Bush. Except for the emotion part that is.
Judy Shackelford, who has been in the toy industry for more than 40 years, has seen a lot of dolls. But none, she says, like her latest creation, a marvel of digital technologies, including speech-recognition and memory chips, radio frequency tags and scanners, and facial robotics. She and her team have christened it Amazing Amanda.Something tells me Ms. Shackelford had better keep a real close eye on her cutlery set.
(snip)
She then turned to the doll seated on her lap. "Hi, honey," Ms. Shackelford said gently to Amazing Amanda, a blond, blue-eyed figure bearing more than a remote likeness to its creator.
"Hello, my name is Amanda," the doll replied as Ms. Shackelford smiled warmly at its rosy face. "We're going to have the best time together," the doll promised.
*Bonus points for recognizing where the headline quote came from.
Our Pathetic Press
On Wednesday, Paul wrote about our chickenshit press being terrified of criticizing the president, even in spite of the nine gazillion reasons he’s a miserable failure, at least half of which Paul listed, illustrating how truly inexplicable it is that they continue to extol someone who is manifestly undeserving of praise. Why? Paul wanted to know, and rightly so. Why, oh, why is the media so afraid of this man? Poor, dear Spudsy—I could feel the reverberations of his frustrated head-banging session from 30 miles away. I banged back to let him know I felt his pain—kind of like smoke signals for bewildered liberals. But I couldn’t answer his question.
Mannion set to work on answering it, though, and has posted Parts One and Two of what will be at least a three-part series. He’s kind of thinking that it’s not that the press is afraid—although that may be part of it—as much as that, once they committed to championing Bush, they decided they’d better stick with him, come hell or high gas prices, lest they be obliged to admit they were wrong. Mannion thinks it all started in 1992, with a fella you may have heard of, called Bill Clinton. (Hop on over to his juke joint and follow the path he neatly clears.)
I’ll be honest—I hadn’t the foggiest clue why our press is so enamored with Bush. It made not the slightest bit of sense to me. They’re afraid…they’re stubborn…any explanation seemed as viable as the next (although I tended to bestow particular favor upon the “remember who they work for” rationale). Still, none of it really ever really seemed to provide a truly satisfactory answer. Until I read this:
About 50 members of the White House press corps accepted President Bush's invitation last night to come over to his house in Crawford, eat his food, drink his booze, hang around the pool and schmooze with him -- while promising not to tell anyone what he said afterward.You with me so far? Reporters are getting rewarded for doing their jobs. And rewarded pretty finely, at that, eating dinner poolside and discussing “the antiwar protests, the twins, sports, and Bush's summer reading list” with the president. (Yeah, I believe that last one is bullshit, too.) I’m thinking “conflicts of interest” might have made an interesting topic of conversation; it’s certainly something the pres and the press have in common.
It's something of a Bush tradition, a way of saying thank you to journalists for whom an extended stay in the Crawford area is anything but a vacation.
…I'm told that several reporters expressed squeamishness about last night's event, particularly as the press-pool vans drove by antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan's "Camp Casey" site. And later, a small handful watched askance as the rest fawned over Bush, following him around in packs every time he moved.Now this makes sense to me. They’re not scared of him, or afraid to admit errors, or anything even marginally more complex than starfucking—the same kind of underserved hero worship that can be found in any high school anywhere in America. Bush is the popular bully, and the White House Press Corps is a collection of kids who are desperate to be cool by association. Heck, he even gives them nicknames. So captivated by the opportunity to be liked by the popular kid, they’ve failed to notice he’s not all that popular anymore. They’re each like the one guy who remains friends with the former high school football star long after graduation, still telling stories about his decades-old touchdowns in the local bar and defending him against criticism, even as he’s hauled off in handcuffs after knocking his wife around. It’s not fear, or contempt, or wanting access—it’s just plan old-fashioned awe. It has everything to do with his simply being president, and not a thing to do with whether he’s any damn good at it.
They’ve got a crush on him, and damnit if crushes don’t turn a person into a fool faster than just about anything else.
No Virgins For You
Guess what 18-year-old suicide bomber Hasib Hussain, who blew up the No. 30 bus as part of the coordinated July 7 attack on London, was doing just before he offed himself, taking 13 innocent people with him?
Eating at McDonald’s.
This just goes to show you how fucking stupid these people are. No matter what specific foreign policy of Britain’s and/or America’s he so passionately opposed that he believed it warranted blowing himself up and killing bystanders in process, I can guaran-fucking-tee ya that it had something to do with imperialism, of which cultural hegemony is an integral part. You know—things like McDonald’s. What an absolute plonking asshole.
Evil, stupid, and fired up on religion all in the same brain sure makes an interesting cocktail, doesn’t it?
How Low Can He Go?
If that picture of Douche McCain with his arms wrapped around Dear Leader, clinging to him like shit to a shoe tread and longing, so desperately longing, to be cradled with pure, unsullied manlove, isn’t enough to make you projectile vomit your entire intestinal track, this ought to do the trick—brave maverick McCain, after opposing the Federal Marriage Amendment seeking to ban gay marriage, has pulled the old switcheroo and endorsed the Protect Marriage Arizona Amendment. Said the filthy turncoat, “I believe that the institution of marriage should be reserved for the union of one man and one woman… The Protect Marriage Arizona Amendment would allow the people of Arizona to decide on the definition of marriage in our state. I wholeheartedly support the Protect Marriage Arizona Amendment and I hope that the voters in Arizona choose to support it as well.”
Now, admittedly, McCain’s opposition to the FMA was based not on any love he had for the LGBT community, but because he felt it was “antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans…[and] usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them.” (In other words, he stole a page out of the Democrats’ playbook and punted.) But now, just over a year later, his home state has decided it needs to confront this “problem,” and so he’s happy to throw gays to his sun-roasted wingnut constituents for their frenzied feral bacchanal. Not a trace of irony, nor a moment’s hesitation, nor the merest, passing flicker of recognition is to be found in his countenance as he plows forward with an endorsement that suggests even if a national marriage amendment isn’t part of the core philosophy of Republicans, bigotry and hatred are.
Any moderate Republicans who had hopes that he might restore their party to some level of respectability are, I’m afraid, shit outta luck. McCain has found his national audience, and it’s the lowest common denominator.
(Thanks to eRobin for the image and Pam for the press release link.)
Friday Afternoon Top Ten
Top Ten Reasons to Make Good on Promise to Self to Perform Weekly Happy Dance
10. Guy at table across from you looks exactly like Ghandi, but more accurately, what Ghandi would look like if he had a laptop, talked on his cell phone a lot, and ate food.
9. Cost of full gas tank still under $35.
8. Last night's threats to throw hot bricks at people were in fact empty, but you still scared someone, which is funny.
7. You're hot-looking.
6. A portion of the three dollars you spent on that bottle of water at Starbucks will go towards providing clean drinking water for children in Honduras, giving you cause to hold out hope for humanity.
5. Several of your favorite musicians are still alive, and it's entirely possible that they will produce more music in the future.
4. There are hundreds of sexy singles in your area watiting to chat with you, and each additional minute is only 75 cents.
3. You've finally eliminated the paper trail.
2. The happy dance only takes two minutes, and it burns calories.
1. False sense of entitlement making slow transition into slightly less healthy but morally justifiable sense of superiority.
Hope this helps. Happy Friday, all.
-Tart
An Open Letter To The Kansas School Board
This has been around the web for a bit now, but hasn't appeared here, so I thought it was time all of us became aquainted with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Never heard of it? Fear not, my pagan flock, for I have been touched by his noodly appendage, and henceforth proclaim that the current theory of Intelligent Design is, like Jessica Simpson, a cruel abomination!
Ahem.
Proceeding forthwith, I present a letter to the Kansas School Board from Concerned Citizen Bobby Henderson:
I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (complete with a drawing of Him) and the full letter can be found here. Go read.
Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.
It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I’m sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.
FOX and their knuckle-dragging viewers
Just go read this post over at Tom Tomorrow's. Can we label FOX and The Bush Administration "Terrists" for the incredible amount of fear, violence, destruction and racism they've created, fostered and encouraged in this country?
I expect Loftus will be asked to resign soon. Just watch me hold my breath.
UPDATE: The Rude Pundit, as always, has more.
(One banana, two banana, three banana, cross-post. By the way, my "review" of last night's DEVO show is here.)
You people are animals!!
So, apparently, the London Zoo has a new exhibit.
A bunch of people.
You know, humans.
LONDON (AFP) - London Zoo unveiled a new exhibition -- eight humans prowling around wearing little more than fig leaves to cover their modesty.
The "Human Zoo" is intended to show the basic nature of human beings as they frolick throughout the August bank holiday weekend.
"We have set up this exhibit to highlight the spread of man as a plague species and to communicate the importance of man's place in the planet's ecosystem," London Zoo said.
Man, oh man... can you imagine if they tried this in the U.S.? First, there would be "think of the children" screaming about their "clothing," (actually, the people in the picture look like they're dressed fine to me... nothing you wouldn't see at a beach or campground) and then, how dare they suggest that Man is a plague species? We're God's special favorites! We have to trash the planet so Jebus will come back and make everything all better!
Spiro, selected from dozens of hopefuls in an Internet competition, said he was excited by the prospect of monkeying around on the zoo's Bear Mountain.
"I'm a veterinary student so the idea of working for a zoo was something that appealed to me.
"I thought it would be fun and interesting because I'm an outdoorsy kind of person," he said.
Uh, sure, "Spiro."
Part of me thinks this is just a huge prank. But a bigger part of me hopes it's not. I do so love glorious, public mindfucks. And if anything, maybe it will help spread concern about animal treatment in zoos.
The people in the picture look like they're acting like monkeys, which I'm sure will drive the ID Creationist people nuts.
Good! Eat bananas and fling your poo, I say!
(We've got a cross-post for sale... Magilla Gorilla for sale..)
Locusts!!
Good god—lol:
…I caught the following headline on Yahoo News – “Robertson Apologizes for Chavez Remarks (AP).”Go read Driftglass. Fucking hilarious. All I’m going to say is that it took a sincere amount of restraint to not excerpt the last three paragraphs here, but that would just ruin the surprise. Drinks aside as you read, friends.
A gentle silence like unto the wee hours before Christmas morning falls over Castle Driftglass as I drop what I'm doing and go chase that down. Because , I gotta admit, I got pretty excited when I read this for, if true, it would be practically the first time in living memory that any one of the American Taliban who run the GOP had ever apologized...for anything. Swaggart and Bakker jump to mind, but only because of the maudlin velocity with which they hit the pavement.
And those were because it was about sex, which means that, if true, Robertson would have broken the First Commandment of Wingnuttery: Never, ever, ever apologize for anything where you penis isn’t a co-conspirator.
My Head’s Gonna Explode
Now the White House fuckos are denying that Bush is on vacation!
The White House seems to be a little defensive about President Bush's summer vacation. According to the San Bernardino Sun, a spokesman insisted "the reason that Bush is in Crawford, Texas, is due to the renovation of the West Wing of the White House."Deep breaths. Serenity now.
Said the spokesman: "He's operating on a full schedule; he's just doing it from the ranch instead of from the White House. The only week he had officially off was this last week."
Okay, first of all, that dude’s on vacation, okay? In fact, he’s been on vacation since 2000, near as I can tell, or permanently out to lunch, anyway. I don’t know who in blazes is really running this joint, but if it ain’t Dubya the Halfwit, he’s at least tasked with the job of pretending to be president—and he hasn’t even been doing that lately. Don’t give me some cockamamie story about how he’s operating on his full schedule of desperately trying to look competent and comfortable while maintaining the awkward posture required to hide the wire running up his back, because I’ve barely seen a picture of that guy in a suit in weeks. It’s all playing golf in ugly polo shirts and blowing by protestors in his limo, probably being held down by Rummy as he tries to moon them. He’s on vacation, we all know it, so shut up. Is there anything you won’t lie about?
On another note of irritation that’s making my eye twitch, why on earth is the West Wing being renovated? Massive deficit, tough economy, can’t afford to properly outfit our soldiers…unless the West Wing is about to collapse, it doesn’t need renovating. Cripes.
The Numb and The Restless
Even Bush's diehard fans are getting irritated and antsy. Ouch.
(Hat tip Oddjob.)
Pop Song Deconstruction
This is the first installment of my Pop Song Deconstruction series, wherein I will use the techniques of literary analysis at my disposal in order to arrive at a fuller understanding of the complexities of this week's Billboard Number One Single. So if you think you're too good for pop music, I'm sorry to have to tell you that you're wrong. Nobody is immune, not even you. It's floating in the ether. It's playing in 30-song rotation at your local Subway. It's hovering around you at the gym. IT IS EVERYWHERE, it's in your brain, and it knows you sing along in your car when you think nobody's watching. Are you frightened? Very good. Let's begin.
This week's Number One Single is "We Belong Together" by Mariah Carey, a sexy little earwig that embedded itself in my brain during yesterday's session on the stationary bike.
(Ooh, ooh, sweet love, yeah)
-The song's just beginning and Mariah's already about to achieve orgasm! This is gonna be good.
I didn't mean it
When I said I didn't love you, so
I should have held on tight
I never shoulda let you go
I didn't know nothing
I was stupid, I was foolish
I was lying to myself.
Thesis: I broke up with you. I suck for doing that. Only double negatives will effectively express my idiocy. I hold this bad grammar to be self-evident: I am a brainless twit.
I could not fathom that I would ever
Be without your love
Never imagined I'd be
Sitting here beside myself
Cause I didn't know you
Cause I didn't know me
But I thought I knew everything
I never felt
The feeling that I'm feeling
Now that I don't hear your voice
Or have your touch and kiss your lips
Cause I don't have a choice
Oh, what I wouldn't give
To have you lying by my side
Right here, cause baby
(We belong together)
-In this stanza, the narrator deftly elaborates on her pain, as the disjointed narrative mirrors the fractured state of her psyche. Only sentence fragments will suffice at this point. What is this feeling that she's feeling? We can only speculate. I'm going to say that 'feeling' is a phallic metaphor, and 'baby' is a hackneyed term of endearment the very sound of which makes me want to vomit all over myself.
[chorus]
When you left I lost a part of me
It's still so hard to believe
Come back baby, please
Cause we belong together
Who else am I gon' lean on
When times get rough
Who's gonna talk to me on the phone
Till the sun comes up
Who's gonna take your place
There ain't nobody better
Oh, baby baby, we belong together
-The details of this lost relationship are revealed in the chorus, naturally provoking inquiry as to why they talked on the phone all night instead of doing what normal people do, like sleeping or watching cartoons or getting crazy laid. The reader is left to assume that Mariah Carey's fortunes have allowed her to own a cell phone that doesn't burn her ear if she talks on it for too long.
I can't sleep at night
When you are on my mind
Bobby Womack's on the radio
Saying to me
"If you think you're lonely now"
Wait a minute
This is too deep (too deep)
I gotta change the station
-The narrator's character is rounded out here, as she is revealed as a paranoid narcissist with delusions of grandeur who probably thinks there are CIA agents hiding in her linen closet. Clearly whoever programmed this station's playlist intended not only to make her sad, but also to drown her brain in the murky depths of this particular Bobby Womack song. The reader now officially hates the narrator. Life will imitate art when I finish writing the code for the GPS system which shall operate the giant laser I have aimed at her house.
So I turn the dial
Trying to catch a break
And then I hear Babyface
"I only think of you"
And it's breaking my heart
I'm trying to keep it together
But I'm falling apart
-Aha. So this song is actually a meta-literary exploration of pop music itself. Fascinating.
I'm feeling all out of my element
I'm throwing things, crying
-This is really the high point of the song, where the various themes meet in an apex of shattered dishes, lamps, and possibly the sound of comically undersized dog hitting the wall. I can totally see Mariah as the type of chick who throws shit when she's upset. If the entire song contained believable and interesting sentiment such as this, maybe it wouldn't be so incredibly stupid. Right now it is, at best, annoyingly catchy.
Trying to figure out
Where the hell I went wrong
The pain reflected in this song
It ain't even half of what
I'm feeling inside
-The narrator refers to the song itself here, deepening the 'meta' aspect of the piece. The reader suggests toning this aspect down a bit before somebody's head implodes.
I need you
Need you back in my life, baby
-The chorus repeats about twelve times after this. In all, pretty standard stuff, that is, a catchy melody sung with a very nice voice that, when taken apart, reveals a sentiment that managed to depress me despite its ridiculously commonplace banality. Ah, pop music. Will you ever stop saying what I'm thinking?
