That's why.
Republicans Suck, Doodz!
Young voters disenchanted with Republican party:
Young Americans have become so profoundly alienated from Republican ideals on issues including the war in Iraq, global warming, same-sex marriage and illegal immigration that their defections suggest a political setback that could haunt Republicans "for many generations to come," the poll said.That's the same Democracy Corps poll about which I've written before, when I called the GOP the political equivalent of the WaMu bankers' pen, which is what makes this bit from the new Chronicle article particularly amusing:
Catherine Brinkman, 28, of Foster City, who heads the California Young Republicans, said she hears from many of her Republican friends who say, " 'Look at our (presidential) candidates compared to the Democrats: They have Hillary, everyone knows her ... and you have this phenomenal (senator) out of Chicago, who is African American and energized.' "That's not just a "perception," honey.
The perception is that "we're still selling the same old white guys," Brinkman said.
The only difference between this picture:
and this one:
is a velvet rope.
Which itself happens to be more substantive and less divisive than anything else in the current Republican Party platform, but that's a whole other problem.
Gonzo Presser
In and out, before wheeling his back on reporters' questions like they were the devil. Get your barf bags ready:
Thanks, Petulant. Transcript below.
Alberto Gonzales: Good morning. Thirteen years ago, I entered public service to make a positive difference in the lives of others. And during this time, I have traveled a remarkable journey, from my home state of Texas to Washington, D.C., supported by the unwavering love and encouragement of my wife Rebecca and our sons Gerry and Graham and Gabriel. [Names spelled phonetically.]
Yesterday I met with President Bush and informed him of my decision to conclude my government service as Attorney General of the United States effective as of September 17, 2007. Let me say that it has been one of my greatest privileges to lead the Department of Justice. I have great admiration and respect for the men and women who work here. I have made a point as Attorney General to personally meet as many of them as possible, and today I want to, again, thank them for their service to our nation. It is through their continued work that our country and our communities remain safe, that the rights and civil liberties of our citizens are protected, and the hopes and dreams of all of our children are secured.
I often remind our fellow citizens that we live in the greatest country in the world, and that I have lived the American dream. Even my worst days as Attorney General have been better than my father's best days. Public service is honorable and noble, and I am profoundly grateful to President Bush for his friendship and for the many opportunities he has given me to serve the American people.
Thank you and God bless America.
More Gonzo
"Nobody likes me. I'm gonna sit in the corner and eat wet cigarette butts!"
The AP is reporting that Gonzo's likely temporary replacement is "Solicitor General Paul Clement, who would take over until a permanent replacement is found, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity." That would be the same Paul Clement who failed to "appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Gonzales' numerous and increasingly overlapping bad acts," so: yay.
Pam wonders: "When shall we expect to see him to receive a Medal of Freedom from Dear Leader?"
Paul Kiel spins Gonzo's Greatest Hits, while Spencer Ackerman amusingly, painfully, and truthfully notes: "We may never see his like again. Well, at least not until the confirmation hearings for his successor."
Meanwhile, on the Chertoff rumor, Mr. Shakes comments: "Castle Greyskull will be lonely without him." And Richard Blair reminds us where we need to start to start asking questions about Chertoff's suitability for the position.
And of course there's more Goodbye Gonzo than you can shake a stick at over at Memeorandum.
Breaking: Gonzo Has Resigned
Or will resign. Or something.
"Embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales intends to resign, senior administration officials told CNN Monday."
More info as I get it.
UPDATE: It's official. Liarliar McPantsonfire has indeed resigned.
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, whose tenure has been marred by controversy and accusations of perjury before Congress, has resigned. A senior administration official said he would announce the decision later this morning in Washington.WTF? It's like an unwritten rule of the Bush administration that every major news story has to involve one complete mindfuck of a nonsequitor with regard to how Bush behaved during its unfolding.
Mr. Gonzales, who had rebuffed calls for his resignation, submitted his to President Bush by telephone on Friday, the official said. His decision was not announced immediately announced, the official added, until after the president invited him and his wife to lunch at his ranch.
The official who disclosed the resignation today said that the decision was Mr. Gonzales’s and that the president accepted it grudgingly.Tammy Wynette has nothing on George Bush.
Anyway... As Space Cowboy pointed out in comments, this news began as a rumor last Friday, into which was folded the additional rumor that Chertoff would be Gonzo's replacement, the idea being that Skeletor has "fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal, and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served as a federal judge and assistant attorney general."
A commenter at Drum's place discussing the rumor over the weekend pretty much nailed it with: "I think the bottom line of this true-or-not rumor is the pool of talent Bush can turn to is getting very, very small." Exactly.
In any case, word is that Bush will not leave the AG spot open for long, so I imagine we'll find out what cronied-up turd will be the new sheriff sooner rather than later.
Ten Years
One would like to think that Illinois Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky's report on her trip to Iraq would finally change, at long last, the terms of the debate on Iraq—meaning, of course, that we could talk about it in honest terms—but I'm sure it won't. I'm sure that, in spite of her description of meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih and being told that there is "not going to be political reconciliation by next September" though the exact rationale behind Teh Surge was to "buy time for that political progress" which evidently isn't going to happen (duh), and in spite of Petraeus telling her "it could take another decade before real stability is at hand," we're still going to talk about the war as if six weeks or six months or six Friedman units is going to make some kind of damn difference.
But we should be talking about the reality that Bush is trying to stretch this shit out to January 2009, and the military commander in Iraq is talking a decade.
Schakowsky said she jotted down Petraeus's words in a small white notebook she had brought along to record her impressions. Her neat, looping handwriting filled page after page, and she flipped through to find the Petraeus section. " 'We will be in Iraq in some way for nine to 10 years,' " Schakowsky read carefully. She had added her own translation: "Keep the train running for a few months, and then stretch it out. Just enough progress to justify more time."Just enough progress to justify more time.
For the next ten years.
Blog Note: New Face, New Contributor, and a Big Thank-You
Morning, Shakers! Since it's taking awhile to get the new dedicated server online, I thought it was time to overhaul the "hurricane party headquarters." Plus, we all seemed to need a new view, something fresh, a little sweep of the cobwebs. The functionality is all pretty much the same, although when you click "Open Wide" to read an extended post, it will open up in-page, which addresses previously expressed concerns about page-loading time for Shakers without high-speed connections. (Just click "Shut up" to collapse the post again when you're done!) Permalinks, however, will still work the same way. A million zillion thanks to Space Cowboy for his help.
In other blog news, we've lost a Kathy, but we've gained a Chet Scoville—who has been, first in his incarnation as The Green Knight and now as himself at The Vanity Press, one of my longest-running daily reads and has been an awesomely supportive cohort since like Day Two of opening the doors at Shakespeare's Sister. He's just a great guy and an excellent blogger, and we're pleased to have him.
I also need to take a moment to give a long overdue thank-you to Shaker Rehmeyer, who made a generous charitable donation that will really help Shakesville stay afloat over the next couple of months. I am profoundly appreciative for his support and kindness and generosity; he is such a good egg, deeply committed to the progressive cause way beyond Shakesville, and I thank him hugely from the bottom of my heart for caring about this community so much. (((hug)))
And thank you, Shakers, for hanging in there, as always. Carry on…
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
I never saw this show, so I had no idea it was supposed to take place in Chicago until I just watched these opening titles for the first time, lol.
Oh My
Miss South Carolina answers a question about education in the US at the Miss Teen USA 2007 contest, which aired August 24th:
That's just brutally sad.
And, beyond its being a pitiable disgrace, it's a perfect example of what I loathe about beauty pageants, even and especially the ones that have the contemptible mendacity to pretend they're really about "scholarship." Underlying it all is the idea that women are dumb, and pretty women are really dumb—the flipside of the idea that smart women (particularly smart feminist women) must be ugly. It's all part of the narrative that a woman's intelligence must be inversely proportional to her conformance to the mainstream beauty standard.
This is, of course, bollocks. There are plenty of women who are considered gorgeous and are also wicked smart. And there are plenty of women who are considered ugly who are also dumb as a box of rocks.
But beauty pageants insist on playing to the stereotype, giving questions about social issues to a bunch of women about whose opinions no one fucking cares, because no one watches pageants for the
Know what I mean?
[Thanks to Arlen & Angelos for sending me the link.]
There's No Bathroom on the Right?
A while back the Question of the Day had to do with mis-heard phrases and song lyrics. My favorite is Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising," wherein I -- and a lot of other people apparently -- thought we heard, "don't go out tonight, it's bound to take your life, there's a bathroom on the right," instead of "there's a bad moon on the rise."
Wouldn't you know that someone would come up with a book on that?Fayme Reinhart first heard her husband utter the woman’s name when they were newlyweds, back in 1982.
For the record, I still think it's "you and me and Leslie." Hey, it was the '60's.
“The only girl I ever loved is Donna Wayne/ Looking for a brand-new start,” he sang.
“What did you say? “ she asked.
He repeated the line.
“I can’t believe you said ‘Donna Wayne,’ ” said Ms. Reinhart, 48, of Richland, Pa.
She broke into uproarious laughter and kindly told him: “The lyric is ‘The only girl I’ve ever loved has gone away/ Looking for a brand-new start.’ ”
Then and only then did Tom Reinhart, 54, realize he had been singing “Rhythm of the Rain” wrong all of his life, but even today he jokes with his wife, “I’ll always love Donna!”
“I’ve never let him live it down,” she says.
The aurally challenged not only walk and sing among us, they are us. Cotton swabs and earwax removal systems won’t help. Misheard lyrics afflict us all.
As a 13-year-old at summer camp, Justin Luzar remembers hearing a friend sing “Strong man’s oatmeal” instead of “Stroke me/ Stroke me,” to Billy Squier’s “The Stroke.”
“We all looked at each other like, ‘Did he just say what I think he said?’ and then simultaneously busted out laughing,” says Mr. Luzar, 38, of Scott Township, Pa. “We then mocked him mercilessly for the rest of the summer.”
Poor enunciation, unfamiliar or foreign words, and utter inanity are reasons some song lyrics perplex so many, says Gavin Edwards, a Rolling Stone magazine contributing editor who has compiled four books of misheard lyrics, ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy and Other Misheard Lyrics, He’s Got the Whole World in His Pants and More Misheard Lyrics, When a Man Loves a Walnut and Even More Misheard Lyrics, and Deck the Halls With Buddy Holly and Other Misheard Christmas Lyrics.
“I don’t think today’s lyrics are more confusing [than those of previous eras], but I think enunciation has gotten much worse among rock singers, “ he says. “I think many — but not all — rappers have crisper diction, so maybe the trend is heading the other way.”
When two prime-time TV game shows aired this summer, NBC’s The Singing Bee and Fox’s Don’t Forget the Lyrics song lovers could turn their song lyric knowledge into prize money.
“I think it shows that song lyrics are our lingua franca, even when we don’t know what the singer’s saying,” says Edwards, whose most recent book is, Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton’s Little John?: Music’s Most Enduring Mysteries, Myths, and Rumors Revealed.
Sylvia Wright coined the term for misheard lyrics — mondegreens — in a 1954 Atlantic magazine article. As a girl, Ms. Wright thought the lyrics to a folk song were “They had slain the Earl of Moray/ And Lady Mondegreen.” The correct lyrics are “They had slain the Earl of Moray/ And laid him on the green,” Edwards explained in one of his books.
One day as a kid in the early ’70s, Richard Borden found his basketball practice was going to prevent him from hearing the weekly radio music countdown list. So, he asked his mother to listen to the radio and write down the song that reached No. 1 on the singles chart.
When he got home, he found a notepad upon which his mother had written, “Ain’t No Mountain Hyena,” instead of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”
“Still makes me smile when I hear that song and sing, ‘Ain’t No Mountain Hyena,’ to it, “ says Mr. Borden, 45, of Cranberry Township, Pa.
In another inaudible tale from the 1970s, Patty Iriana recalled playing a Pictionary-type game on the blackboard in algebra class.
A classmate drew a picture of a ghost talking on a telephone.
“When nobody could guess what the answer might be, and thinking he stumped us, he revealed the answer to be ‘Death I Hear You Calling’ by Kiss,” says Ms. Iriana, 44, of Forest Hills. “We just laughed.”
It’s “Beth I Hear You Calling.”
Like many who crooned to the Young Rascals’ “Groovin’,” Debbie Meyers, 49, of Pittsburgh, thought the lyrics spoke of some fantastical trio in which, “Life would be ecstasy, you and me and Leslie” instead of the correct “Life would be ecstasy, you and me endlessly.”
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
America 2.0: Blow A Whistle, Go To Jail
As you Shakers may already know, I'm not one to do any posting on the weekend because, well, it's the weekend. So you can imagine the level of disgust which prompts me to post after reading this AP article about the treatment handed down to whistle blowers, who are just trying to do the right thing:
For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods.I agree with Wolfrum that "it would be easier to believe the U.S. was always on the side of good." It's a belief that we grew up with and remains to this day, albeit as a myth in later days. The fact of the matter is that all aspects of Iraq reconstruction, fraudulent or otherwise, will move onward and upward, completely regardless of any technical wrong-doings.
There were times, huddled on the floor in solitary confinement with that head-banging music blaring dawn to dusk and interrogators yelling the same questions over and over, that Vance began to wish he had just kept his mouth shut.
As the article points out, even law suits brought forth alleging reconstruction fraud never make it out of the starting gate:
One way to blow the whistle is to file a "qui tam" lawsuit (taken from the Latin phrase "he who sues for the king, as well as for himself") under the federal False Claims Act. [...] But the government has not joined a single quit tam suit alleging Iraq reconstruction abuse, estimated in the tens of millions. At least a dozen have been filed since 2004.However they might posture otherwise, the current US government is not interested in doing the right thing. Rather, its interest lies in pursuing the right opportunity, even at the expense of those who try to do right. Oh, what proud days for Americans.
"It taints these cases," said attorney Alan Grayson, who filed the Custer Battles suit and several others like it. "If the government won't sign on, then it can't be a very good case - that's the effect it has on judges."
Don't blow those whistles, or you'll be helping teh terrorists. Know your place, shut your face.
Indeed.
[H/T to C&L]
Praise Jebus!
Finally! At long last, someone has had the ingenious idea—and the courage to realize it—of bringing religion to teh internetz!
Bless you, Kirk Cameron. Bless you.
And bitch works fast, because a Google search of "religion" already brings up 238,000,000 hits!
Preznitting
President Bush will return to the Gulf Coast next week, where hard times and resentment linger two years after Hurricane Katrina's massive strike. … On Wednesday, the anniversary of the storm, he is expected to examine recovery efforts in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.Of course it didn't.
…Bush's trip will be his 15th stop in the region since the hurricane, but only his second since he visited during the one-year anniversary last August. The Gulf Coast's plight did not even get a mention in his State of the Union address this year.
In New Orleans today, despite progress, signs of a shattered city abound. Neighborhoods are in ruins. Crime, inadequate health care and faulty infrastructure are pervasive.It's good to be king.
…Meanwhile, Bush is nearing the end of a vacation at his ranch in central Texas, where's he been biking and clearing brush in the searing heat. He arrived in Crawford on Wednesday afternoon and has no public events scheduled through Sunday.
Dramatis Personae - Part II
Here are the last of my reviews from the Stratford Festival of Canada: An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde and The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare... who as far as I can tell, did not have a sister, nor was he one.
The Comedy of Errors - by Mel Brooks
The only thing missing from Stratford's production of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors was somebody saying, "Walk this way," and then exiting Stage Left with a limp or a hitch and everybody following along. Other than that, they went for the full-tilt broad farce that this play really needs and pretty much hit all the marks, if not the Marx Brothers.
The plot is a simple one that gets complex when it's described: two sets of identical twins who don't know about their own counterparts get confused by people and end up being accused of doing things they did or didn't do until at the very end they figure it out and all is set right. Got that? Okay, that's all you need, and let the madness begin. There's lots of opportunities for stock characters, split-second timing, planned ad-libs, inside-Stratford jokes (I didn't get the one about the penguin), and a lot of running gags -- literally. There can't be a moment's pause or it will all seem woefully absurd, so you just keep going on frantically, keep the jokes and the slapstick coming, and the two hours -- the shortest Shakespeare play on record -- go by in a flash. And a bang.
The Stratford production is lavish in bright colors and commedia del arte overtones, and it works very well. The setting -- first century A.D. Greece -- was perhaps the convention because of the original story being from that time, but it was also an unconscious reminder of History of the World, Part I, and it worked as well as the Brooksian effort, except, perhaps with a nod to knowing the age and temperament to the Midwestern audience, without the profanity. The jokes worked and the actors playing the twins looked enough alike that it was easy to accept the mistaken identities premise. The two Dromios -- Bruce Dow and Steve Ross -- could have been twins. The actors playing the Antipholuses not so much; David Snelgrove as Antipholus of Syracuse looked like he was in his twenties, while it would be a generous stretch to say that Tom McCamus was the same age. In a farce, the audience has to be in on the joke that the rest of the cast isn't, so the important thing is not whether or not we the audience believe they can be mistaken for each other; it's whether or not the other characters believe it for it to work. (And I can't help but think there was a subconscious influence on me when I created the characters of Donny and Danny and Eric and Greg in Small Town Boys, but that's another post.)
The first time I saw The Comedy of Errors at Stratford was in 1981 when the director set it in the Old West and used the model of the Maverick brothers for the Antipholus characters and Gabby Hayes as the model for the Dromios. That memorable production set the standard, but this production rose to it, and while I don't really know why they had a six-foot penguin with the sign "Just For the Critics" waddle across the stage, it was still a riot.
PS: Last night as we were leaving the restaurant to go to the theatre, we came upon Graham Greene sitting on a bench enjoying an after-dinner cigarette. I complimented him on his portrayal of Shylock and we chatted about the play and his approach to the character. That's one of the other nice things about doing theatre in a small town; the cast, crew, and audience all mingle together, the known and the unknown. (In 1981 I sat behind Lauren Bacall at a production of Richard III starring Brian Bedford.) It's not unlike the experience at the William Inge Festival in Independence, Kansas; truly "community theatre."
An Ideal Husband: Something Wilde
Who am I to argue with Richard Monette, the artistic director of the Stratford Festival? From the program notes for the Stratford production of An Ideal Husband:From the time of [Richard Brinsley] Sheridan -- about a hundred years before -- until Wilde, there isn't a single play we produce now. During that hundred years, more people went to the theatre than ever before, but the plays were mediocre. So the works of Oscar Wilde represent a renewal of excellence in English dramatic literature.
If we take Mr. Monette at his word, if it wasn't for Oscar Wilde, the idea of witty, well-written, and socially important English drama may never have been revived, and without his influence, writers such as George Bernard Shaw and those who followed here in North America would never have evolved. It's awfully hard to imagine what writers such as George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart and even Neil Simon would have written had it not been for the influence of Oscar Wilde.
That's a pretty bold statement, but when you look at a play such as An Ideal Husband or Man and Superman or even The Importance of Being Earnest, it's hard to argue with it. Combining a satirical look at turn-of-the-20th-century London society and the timeless battle of wits between the sexes, Wilde was able to get audiences to laugh at themselves and their social manners then, and still a hundred years later, get us to do the same.
The plot of An Ideal Husband is pretty straightforward: Sir Robert Chiltern, a member of Parliament who is seen as a man of untarnished virtue, is the victim of blackmail for something he did years before. He coaxes his friend, Lord Arthur Goring, a profligate and playboy, into helping him get out of the jam and keep his wife unaware of the situation. It has all the makings of a door-slamming farce, yet it devotes more time to actually exploring the characters and their situation rather than just have people running around mistaking people for other people or hiding in other rooms. (Fear not; there's a fair share of that going on.) All the while we are treated to a virtual avalanche of Wilde's patented witticisms and epigrams: "Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear." In the end the plot is undone, the blackmailer is defeated, Sir Robert and his wife are reconciled, and Lord Arthur is engaged to be married. All's well that ends well, you know.
What lies beneath, though, is Wilde's insurgent campaign as a feminist and a socialist. His women are always portrayed as equals in terms of character and wit, often out-showing the men in terms of sense and awareness of what they are capable of accomplishing. The fact that the "villain," so to speak, in this play is a woman isn't a slight against her or her sex; it's an affirmation that women are fully capable of being just as conniving as a man and on their own terms. It's clear that even in a farce such as The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde gives his women the full stage to make their case as equals, much to the befuddlement of the "superior" men. That he also uses the conventions of love and marriage isn't so much a nod to the social convention of the times but rather just another arrow in the arsenal to prove that women can get what they want, and if that is happiness in marriage, then it isn't subjugation at all. His influence on other playwrights is also clear: Shaw, for instance with Man and Superman, Saint Joan, and Major Barbara, imbues his women with equal status and strength, often to the awe and shocked admiration of the men.
The second element of this play is the use of politics and corruption as the plot device that drives the story forward. Intrigues about bribery and influence-peddling are just as interesting now as they were then. It's not hard to imagine this play being staged with contemporary names like Jack Abramoff and Randy "Duke" Cunningham in the cast, but certainly neither of them were as classy as Wilde's characters. But it does make the story as true today as it was then.
The Stratford production is a perfect combination of wit, grace, elegance, and dry humor. David Snelgrove as Lord Goring really gets the part of the Wilde dandy; self-aware and even self-mocking. Tom McCamus as Sir Robert plays the part of the wronged politician with the remorse and frustration that allows you to care for him and make you happy to see him rescued from his dilemma. The women are given their full dimension as well by Brigit Wilson as Sir Robert's wife and Dixie Seatle as the blackmailing Mrs. Cheveley. Thankfully the production itself is done in full Victorian glory with set pieces and costumes that reflect the time and place and help the actors portray so well the era that Mr. Wilde satirized so well, knowing that if you're going to make fun of something, you have to give it its due in all its original glory.
Here endeth the dramaturgy. Back to my regular posting of drivel when I get back to work.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
TFIF, Shakers!
Murray's behind the bar;
Mel's taking drink orders.
Bret and Jemaine will be
providing the entertainment.
Belly up to the bar and
name your poison, friends.
Terror Would Help the GOP
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday raised the prospect of a terror attack before next year's election, warning that it could boost the GOP's efforts to hold on to the White House.Matt Yglesias calls the remarks a disaster, suggesting instead that "the Democrat best positioned to deal with GOP political mobilization in a post-attack environment is going to be the one who isn't reflexively inclined to see failed Republican policies resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Americans as a political advantage for the Republicans." Josh Marshall agrees, noting that such a contention "signals a lack of confidence either in your own policies or the American people's reasoning powers. And quite possibly both."
…"It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself, 'What if? What if?' But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world," Clinton told supporters in Concord.
"So I think I'm the best of the Democrats to deal with that," she added.
The third possibility is that it signals a deep distrust of the media to do its fucking job, instead of just grabbing hold of the nearest easy narrative irrespective of its veracity. Hillary's been repeatedly victimized by precisely that sort of lazy meme-spinning for the last fifteen years; I can imagine she might be a wee bit jaded and—regardless of her confidence in her own policies and the American people's reasoning powers—figure that the de facto narrative that the GOP "owns" the war on terror will prevail.
That said, she should also know better than to feed those narratives with statements like this one. It doesn't exactly give the media reason to go looking for a new, custom-tailored design when everyone on both sides seems happy with the one-size-fit-all version they've got in the closet, waiting to be worn again. And again. And again…
Because I'm a Huge Nerd...
...I have been watching this video over and over and just laughing my fool head off.
Every time he slooooowly leans back, then collapses to the side in a heap of giggles, I just absolutely end myself. And by the time he does the preemptive giggling at the end of the video, I am weeping with joy.
One night not long ago, Mr. Shakes and I got into the silliest mood where we were both laughing like this, and we kept setting each other off over and over and over. We were totally weak with laughter, gasping for air, and it just went on and on until the tears rolled down both our cheeks over the slightest thing. Just the sound of the other even starting to laugh would send us into gales of howling laughter all over again.
Uncontrollable laughter is truly one of my favorite experiences in the whole world. And it doesn't cost a dime.
Beth Ditto: Please go on with your bad self.
Ms. Ditto gets her kit off at The Carling
Weekend Festival earlier today.
Beth Ditto brands Bush a fascist:
She told The Advocate: "George Bush is absolutely a fascist piece of shit. As a radical queer, there's never anybody I can 100% trust in politics. It's a fucking joke to even call it a debate with the idea that we (haven't yet treated) human beings like they are on the same par with everyone else, from homos to immigrants. It's two-thousand-fucking-seven, get with the program, you know?"Ditto. Heh.
GOP Activists Found Dead in Florida Double Murder-Suicide
A Republican political consultant and two other men were found dead in a home in an apparent double-murder and suicide, authorities and relatives said. Authorities have not determined a motive for the deaths of Ralph Gonzalez, 39, his roommate, David Abrami, 36, and a friend, Robert Drake, 30.Yikes.
Investigators found weapons and signs of a struggle in the house, but they did not say what the weapons were or which man they believe was the killer. The men are believed to have died several days before the bodies were discovered Thursday.
Gonzales served as director of the Georgia Republican Party from 2001-2002 and managed Representative Tom "Total Crook" Feeney's 2002 campaign. He was also "president of Strategum Group, an Orlando-based political consulting firm that represents Republican candidates."
Abrami was also a Republican activist, who, among other things, was investigated by the Secret Service in 1992 when he organized a turkey shoot using blown-up pictures of then-president Bill Clinton as targets.
No info on Drake. At least one story posits, however, that he was the shooter, which is unconfirmed.
Early AP reports called the incident a lovers' quarrel, but that language has been removed from later dispatches.
[Thanks to Blogenfreude for the heads up.]
Not My Problem
No one wants to get involved:
A 25-year-old man was charged Thursday for allegedly raping and beating a woman in an apartment hallway -- an incident apparently witnessed by as many as 10 people who did nothing.Eventually, police showed up after responding to a call about "drunken behavior" in the apartment hallway, where they found the alleged rapist Rage Ibrahim (appropriate name) and the woman both lying unconscious, she with her clothing pulled up and bearing "fresh scratches on her face and blood on her thigh."
When the police reviewed surveillance video from the hallway, they saw that the assault started about 1:20am, but the call about the "drunken behavior" didn't come in until nearly an hour and a half later—even though the video also shows five to 10 people peering our their doors or "starting to walk down the hallway before retreating" during the assault. Police spokesman Tom Walsh said: "It shows one person looking out of her door probably three times. It shows another person walking up, observing what's going on, then turning and putting up the hood of his sweatshirt."
The 26-year-old victim knocked on a door at one point, yelling for the occupants to call police. A man inside that apartment told police he didn't open the door or look out, but said he did call police -- although they have no record of his call, according to court documents.Nonetheless, and despite Minnesota's Good Samaritan law which ostensibly compels people to provide reasonable help to a person in danger of "grave physical harm," and makes it a petty misdemeanor if they don't, none of the neighbors are likely to be charged—because "authorities would have to show that witnesses knew the woman was in extreme danger," and what sensible adult could be expected to conclude that a woman beaten until she was bleeding, screaming for help, and being raped was in danger of "grave physical harm," right?
…Walsh said police were upset by the behavior of the bystanders. "It's not what we expect of responsible citizens," he said.
"If you're not comfortable, if you don't feel capable of intervening, that's fine," Walsh said. "But not calling is not understandable."
Anyway, the AP is quick to inform us, she'd been drinking. Plus, the alleged rapist makes a good point.
[The complaint] said the woman was visiting the apartment of a friend, where she met Ibrahim; after drinking for several hours, she told police Ibrahim tried to stop her from leaving, and began to assault her.Yeah, I mean, why rape her out in the hallway where there might have been witnesses? They might do absolutely nothing!
Ibrahim denied to police that he tried to rape the woman, saying if he wanted to do so he would have done it in the apartment, according to the complaint.
Ibrahim also explained: "I've got a mom, I've got a sister. I wouldn't rape anyone." Right, I forgot how rapists don't have mothers.
You know, I actually hope this story's wrong. I quite genuinely want to believe that a record of that call will be found, or, I don't know, something. Except I don't hold out much hope for it. I've been shocked on far too many occasions in my life by the callous disregard for human life, including lives right in front of our noses.* I've seen people literally step over a body stretched lengthwise across the sidewalk on Chicago's Michigan Avenue during evening rush hour—dozens of people, walking around or right over the prostrate figure of a homeless man, on their hurried way home. I stopped to see if he was okay, if he needed medical attention, if he was alive, and people stopped not to help, but to look at me with utter disgust, before walking on. And just recently, a man had a stroke and fell and cracked his head open on the train platform in front of Mr. Shakes during morning rush hour. He was the only one who stopped to help this elderly man, staying with him and trying to care for him and making sure he was breathing, alive, until the paramedics arrived.
That's why the whole "not my problem" posture doesn't work for me. Because if I don't make it my problem when someone else needs help, maybe no one else will. Everyone seems to presume that someone else will help, surely there are plenty of Good Samaritans in the world, it's not like everyone will do nothing, someone else will do the Right Thing—but on what, precisely, is that presumption based? If you can find an excuse to not get involved, what makes you think everyone else can't do the same? Is it the one person—the girl crouched over the homeless man on the sidewalk, the guy cradling the bleeding man on the train platform—that one person you always seem to see that reassures you there's always someone else, that it never has to be you?
On another occasion, I was on the el, when a man sitting across from me—I can still picture him in his clean Bulls jumpsuit and dingy gray coat fifteen years later—pulled out his penis and started masturbating and leaning toward me. When I stood up to get off the train, he grabbed me, still masturbating with the other hand, grunting and panting, and I had to wrestle free of his grip to get off the train. There were at least a dozen other people on that train, mostly men, and not a single one of them stood to help me or said a word, even as I struggled and yelled. Evidently, I was the only one on the train who would have been willing to "get involved" to at least try to protect someone from the assault, but I was the one being assaulted. Bad luck.
But I guess that's my problem.
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* I've been shocked on occasions by some rather astonishingly brave and wonderful things, too, but I would be lying if I said they were not decidedly more rare.
