2005

2005 Archive



1/15/2005:

At the risk of generalizing about half of the population—some of whom, I know, the generalization does not apply—I’ve come to realize that men are not, in fact, stupid.

They are disturbing. They really need professional help.

I just completed Chris Hedges' War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. It's a good book—I highly recommend it and only wish it hadn't irritated me the first time I tried to read it. I wanted to throw it with great force after he spends pages in the introduction discussing the horrors of war but then stating, emphatically, that he isn't a pacifist, as if being a pacifist is the worst possible thing in the world to be, particularly after seeing what he has seen.

But after reading Samantha Power's A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide and Jim Mann’s Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet, I figured I was now ready for it.

Following these books, Hedges' book was very enlightening. The events since September 11, 2001 make a lot more sense now—not that I truly understand them any more now than then, but I do understand how the responses didn't come in a vacuum and it really isn't that the country has gone absolutely insane so much as insanity is a typical, but "temporary," reaction in a state of war, whether it is war against a tangible enemy or an abstract thing.

Knowing that there is some precedent to this type of insanity is sort of comforting. It tells me that, eventually, most will come to their senses and there is something I can do to help that along. I just can't do that and expect thanks for it, because just believing in a universal humanity is enough to undermine the war myth and basic human kindness is going to be considered a threat. People are not going to pat you on the back for being a good person or being a bit more evolved, no more than they are going to do so for a death penalty opponent. They're going to make you feel like crap. They have to, or in their minds the "terrorists win."

Case in point: Last night I heard an interview with Josh Rushing, the Marine military spokesman who wound up in the film Control Room, about al-Jazeera. It's now on DVD and it's really a good film—I saw it with my friend Teki when it made a brief stop in a Washington art-house theater last summer.

I sympathized with Rushing in the movie, because he really seemed to want to understand how his actions and the actions of the military were being perceived in the Arab world—a very good thing, if you believed the administration's claims that your mission was to "liberate the Iraqi people."

I was proud of him throughout the film. Not many things lately have made me feel good about being an American, but he made me feel good. Despite him being in the military and me being a pacifist, Rushing was my America—he may well feed the war machine with his flesh, but at the end of the day he didn't buy into all the propaganda and truly wanted to understand how the other side thought.

But then I learn in the interview with David Brancaccio that his behavior in the movie, which I found so refreshing, eventually resulted in his resignation. He believed al-Jazeera was too important in the Arab world to completely ignore and they shouldn't be shut out. The military thought differently, so he is no longer its spokesman.

It is Plato’s Allegory of the Cave ramped up to 11—you must be punished in some way for enlightening everyone that there's something more than just the shadows that reflect on the cave's wall. Rushing was punished, pacifists are punished and those who question the war myth in any way must be punished.

I will warn, though—Hedges' book isn’t a light read. The content will probably break your heart and you won't get too far in the book before you start wondering what is wrong with people.

Then you start noticing a pattern—that it's the women whose relationships with the "enemy" are most likely to undermine the war myth: Serb women raise children of the Muslim friends as their own, apartments containing Serbian and Muslim women gather together to protect each other until the insanity ends, things like that. But it's a rare man who does not buy into the war myth in some form, as if their entire existence depends on it. Then you start wondering what the hell is wrong with men.

Then I read Maureen Dowd's column yesterday in The New York Times on the propensity of men to fall for women whose jobs it is to take care of them. It really hit home, because I have met very few men who aren't complete suckers for that. They spend all their lives causing their mothers complete grief trying to break away from them, only to seek another woman who will spoil them just like Mom did.

How screwed up is that?

To sum up, many men have this urge to believe the irrational to justify their manhood and, on the opposite end of the spectrum, are really just looking to marry a Mom substitute and not some self-respecting, independent woman who will treat them like a grown-up. This is all bad enough.

Then I go to the gym. The TV choices are Fox News and Spike TV, and there are too many people in the gym to feel comfortable changing either set. But I'm not going to watch Fox News, either, so I suffer through Spike TV while I'm on the cross-trainer.

One show, "Maximum Exposure," basically consists of boys—because I hesitate attaching "men" to anyone this stupid— who seem to be seeking new and interesting ways to injure themselves. I guess it is because they don't believe life is worth living unless you blow yourself up or set your hair ablaze before diving into a pool.

I only wish I were exaggerating -- these guys make the guys on "Jackass" look like Rhodes Scholars.

And again, I'm asking myself: What is wrong with men? You don't see women doing this. Even extra-stupid women who wind up on "Cops" manage to figure out that fire and air aren't a good combination, even if you are about to dive into a pool. But you're guaranteed to find a man stupid, bored and—did I mention stupid—enough to do this.


1/24/2005: What’s the matter with wingnuts?

So I'm reading Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas, which I've been avoiding for a while but am now in a mood to read, I guess, in some sort of effort to calm down a bit after a week and a day of having to put up with roaming out-of-town Bush supporters.

I guess I feel this subconscious need for some reason not to smack the next one I encounter, I don't know.

Now while the book isn't really upsetting me or anything—it's actually quite entertaining—it is getting my dander up about this media-induced belief that the nation is divided up into some red state/blue state thing.

Now, I’ve always known this was bull hockey, but I could never wrap my mind around why it was hokum. I just knew that it was a red herring—no pun intended—that the Democrats needed to ignore, although I knew they just couldn't help themselves and were compelled to "rebuild" themselves under this bullshit notion, which I think is just playing into the hands of the Republicans, but I digress.

But the book is helping me pinpoint where the crap is.

OK, I'm from a very, very, VERY blue city in a very, very, VERY red state. Democrats have had a lock on Richmond ever since I could remember—definitely in my lifetime, but that's beside the point.

The point is, I grew up in a red state, I spent an inordinate amount of time—that I will NEVER get back—in a very red portion of the state: several summers in South Boston, Virginia, where my cousin played Dixie League baseball (and, in 2005, it's STILL Dixie League baseball) and there were no teams for girls until very recently because girls didn't do that kind of thing. I would have liked to, because it beat doing nothing but playing outside in the heat for no reason. At least this was structured play and there was someone around to administer first aid if you fainted from sunstroke.

Then college in Harrisonburg and five extra years in Lynchburg.

I didn't manage to get run out of any of those places, so I must not have been THAT liberal at the time. And I still stick rather close to home—close to family, even though they drive me insane at times. But Maryland (and Pennsylvania) have been beckoning to me for years and I finally had to answer the call.

So I'm looking at all these ig'nant-ass assumptions of blue-state America embodied in the description of Howard Dean: latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, etc., and it starts to hit me: very little of this describes me and I’m ostensibly a blue-state liberal.

Coffee makes me sick, so lattes and espressos are out—I can't even smell them without getting nauseous. Sushi? I've tried it, didn't like it. I love some ethnic food but I prefer it all cooked, thanks. Volvos are very reliable cars and I like them, but I can't afford one and I don't know anyone who can. I probably can't even afford Volvo maintenance. I don't have anything but the conventional one-hole-per-ear piercing and that was done against my will when I was two years old. And Hollywood just isn't my thing—I’ve always preferred movies, TV and music that Hollywood doesn't embrace. And wait a minute, aren't they into conventional Hollywood films? Aren't we into independent films featuring gay cowboys eating pudding?

I've never been big on museums, theatre, symphony or opera and, Lord knows, I've tried.

And while the only one that hits me on the head is New York Times-reading, I also read the less liberal of the "liberal press" as well. OK, so I don't read the New York Post or Washington Times, but I'm sorry, I was never big on fantasy.

I went to a parochial school, public school, state college. No ivy-league, no prep schools, and my parochial school wasn’t even one of the more affluent Catholic schools in Richmond.

Then I look at this list of what red staters are—humble, reverent, courteous, kind, cheerful, loyal, regular, down-home working stiffs. Well, bingo: This at least hovers around me! I'll be damned! Who knew? Perhaps, in a past life, I was Kansan—a Eugene Debs-supporting Kansan, but a Kansan nonetheless.

And I get this sneaky suspicion that not only do I find these qualities in myself and most of the people I know and love, but I find a lot of these qualities wanting in those right-wingnuts I despise so very, very much. Considering oneself smart may not be humble to these folks, but I can live with considering yourself smart as long as you can back it up with proof.

But waving a wallet in front of anti-Bush demonstrators, singing the praises of tax cuts? Showing off a mink stole? This is humble? And it's not so much the dead animal that bothers me so much as the the ostentaciousness behind it. Whatever happened to the "respectable Republican cloth coat?"

So, again, I'm forced to wonder why anyone believes this stuff. Where does the media get off? Where do the Republicans get off, describing the anti-Bush forces in a way that is so horrifically wrong, particularly since a good number of them are the Wall Street moneymakers who graduated from Ivy League schools and have quite the taste for latte and sushi themselves. You would think they'd stick up for themselves: "Hey what's wrong with sushi?" And many of them can't change a tire, change the oil or clean/shoot a rifle, either--while my very blue-city daddy can. And he can grow a pretty good tomato, too! And I'm sure he would have taught me any of this if had any interest in learning it. But I don't own a car now, nor do I have a rifle, so big freakin' deal.

And why are Democrats acting like they believe this crap and are willing to embrace it in order to win elections, when they should know damned well this is b.s.? If they rebuild based on this, it will be over, because it's fiction and people will laugh at them for being so gullible, and they will deserve it.

So I'm putting my foot down starting right now. I'm not embracing anything based on bullshit. If right-wingnuts want moderates and leftists to understand them more and stop looking down on them, well, they will have to meet us halfway on that. I'll stop calling them ignorant, backward dumbasses if they stop calling me a latte-drinking, sushi-eating Communist. Is that a deal?



2/22/2005: A Wizard...A True Star


Hunter S. Thompson 1938-2005


I’m not sure how Hunter Thompson would react to me evoking Todd Rundgren’s words to describe him—I guess he’s in no position right now to quibble. I’m not sure how Todd Rundgren would react, either. But I hope, in light of this sad occasion, that they’ll both forgive me, because I happen to think it is apt: Hunter S. Thompson was truly a wizard and a true star. At least he is to me.

After losing a mother, two grandmothers, a very good friend and a cherished cat in the span of five years, death really doesn’t faze me anymore. I no longer fear it, nor do I stand, awestruck, in its face. I’ve learned to accept, earlier than most, that death is the great equalizer—no matter who you are or what you’ve done, you will eventually have to meet your maker. I will as well.

That said, there are times still when death knocks me for a loop. Those times, now, are when someone dies who was truly one of a kind. Hunter S. Thompson was truly one of a kind. There are many imitators—I do not try, but other fools do with pathetic results—but none have duplicated him. It saddens me that I have to face the rest of my life without one of his missives.

It’s long become a journalistic cliché to say one was inspired by Hunter Thompson, but I was inspired by Hunter Thompson. I discovered his work before I could be ruined by inverted pyramid style in j-school. If I ever came up with a list of people who are utterly to blame for making me who I am, Hunter Thompson would be near the top.

I didn’t discover until today that he had shot himself over the weekend. I was in Richmond visiting my family for the three-day Presidents’ Day weekend and whenever I’m home, I can’t tear my dad away from westerns or my nieces and nephews away from rap videos long enough to get any information about the world. I returned to work today and got emails from my ex and my friend in Arizona about how was I doing in light of the news. I wasn’t sure what news they were talking about and let them know. Then the Hunter Thompson tributes and appreciations started flying.

It was sad, but in a way it wasn’t. He left this world just as he lived his life: on his own terms. He’s probably the only person on the planet that I can forgive a suicide. Catholic school taught me suicide was a mortal sin. In his case, it was fitting. A man like that doesn’t die of natural causes in his bed. That ending would have been even sadder.

So, thank you, Hunter, for Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. Thank you for Generation of Swine and Hey Rube: At least you got some Bush hatred out of your system before you left us. Thank you for inspiring me and keeping me in the game after all these years. Thanks for showing us all that you can bullshit for hundreds of pages, still get the facts right and tell the truth. Thank you for helping me appreciate every cantankerous old bastard I’ve worked with because there seems to be a piece of you in each of them (even though they won’t admit it).

And thank you so very much for making journalism fun and saving all of us you inspired from becoming victims of taking ourselves too seriously. You will be missed, old friend.



3/29/2005:

I spent this past weekend conspiring with my sister on how she will re-commandeer my dad's finances. Lying in bed last night, figuring out how to frame this "debate,"; so to speak, I stumbled upon an epiphany on what, in particular, is my problem with George Lakoff's "Don't Think of An Elephant" concept.

I could never put my finger on why the strict parent/nurturing parent models bothered me. But my relationship with dad, particularly regarding finances, was the missing link I needed.

I've talked to my dad over and over about his financial behavior, to no avail. This is where he's operating, in a nutshell: "I'm the father, you're the child. It's my money and I can do what I want. It's your job solely to agree with me and back up my decisions. You have no right to check up on me or tell me what to do. I'm not a child."

It is very strict-parent model. I completely understand where he's coming from because this is where he and I are so alike that we butt heads. We both like to rule our roosts.

I counter, however, with a nurturant-parent model argument: That's all fine, but you have to realize it's not about you. Your financial decisions affect us all.

You can almost see the point where his eyes glaze over: the nurturant model talks completely over his head. He's not on the level where it makes sense to him. He's not going to hear "sacrificing helps us all." He's only concerned that he's sacrificing and why should he do that, since it's his money? He's made sacrifices to make it and now it's his turn to enjoy it as he sees fit. The greater good is irrelevant.

Doesn’t that sound familiar? Sounds like our domestic policy, doesn't it? Sounds like a peachy rationale for tax cuts—"It’s your money!"

This is where "framing" falls short, in my opinion. If framing worked, dad would see my point—handling his finances in a responsible, adult manner helps everyone. It may even make a better world, we don't know. The strict model, however, appeals to our base selfishness—do what I say, when I say it. I have to protect me and mine. I must do what I need to do to protect what's mine.

When you don't know any better, you perceive this as strength, persistence and courage. And it could be. It could also be that you're a complete jackass. It's all in how you look at it—the strict-parent model sees this as a good thing. The nurturant-parent model snorts and says "Neanderthals."

I think the reason why Bush and Co. are so effective getting their message out is because their frame appeals to all of us on the most base level. Read the strict-parent model again. What do you see? You see selfishness: Who's the boss? Who can't be questioned under any circumstances? Who metes out punishment? Why? Because the "father" isn't being obeyed. It's all about me, me, me, exceptionalism and a basic black-and-white belief in right and wrong.

For the nurturant model to gain traction, you inherently have to think about how your actions affect other people and, when you get right down to it: who in hell wants to do that? We have been trained to do it, but it really isn't our nature. Our nature is when we don't get our way, we take our ball and go home. It's what we do when we're a child.

Socialization makes us more aware that it isn't all about us and that there are others on this planet who aren't going to agree and aren't going to revolve around us—and that's OK.

If you haven't moved beyond concerns of basic survival and me, me, me, you're just not going to understand a nurturant-model frame. And you can make that "me" broader by putting it on MY family, MY nation, MY ethnic group, but it's still all about me when it comes right down to it.

That brings us to the nurturant model, which, at the risk of sounding elitist, is a bit more evolved. Strict parent is what you rely on when your personal survival is at stake. Nurturant is when you become aware that you're one of many and you have to find your place in the big picture. To relate to it, you have to meet certain "resource" criteria—education, money (particularly disposable income), property, proximity, which goes back to money because property in dense, diverse gentrified communities doesn't come cheap.

Basic survival is no longer your focus and you are allowed the luxury of loftier goals. You're educated, thus you're more patient, even at your worst. You have the luxury to read to your kids, explain things to them and the disposable income to provide them with books. You may have the resources to keep one parent at home with the child or put the child in decent day care for socialization. You have the transportation to take the kids to soccer and ballet. You actually care about soccer, ballet and music lessons. You can impress upon your children the importance of learning other languages, or pay for an immersion grade school or parochial school. You can pay for SAT prep to get to a good school and start the cycle all over again.

The more resource criteria you meet, the more likely you're going to realize that there's a world out there and you're not the center—not as an individual and not as a citizen of the US.

When you're just concentrating on survival, you may know this, but it's harder to relate when you can't afford day care, or a car, or lessons, much less travel to Europe.

Even rich suburban Republicans are closer to nurturant-parent models than your typical manual laborer or blue-collar worker. Establishment Republicans don't swallow many of Bush's messages whole and without question, but where they're harder to persuade to progressive matters is that they love those tax cuts, don't feel guilt about what they have and aren't concerned whether or not others get it—so the strict model is operational also at that level. After all, it's in all of us.

What is probably preventing a "liberal" message to sink in is not about knowing what we believe and forming the message to help them understand where we are coming from. That's lovely on paper. But it's also a luxury. In reality, a person struggling to survive isn't going to care that Wal-Mart is evil, no matter how you frame the debate. All they know is that it's the only place they can afford to shop—if they could go to Neiman Marcus or Brooks Brothers they would, but they can't. And they do know enough to know that paying Wal-Mart employees a living wage likely will result in a rise in prices, which will hurt them.

So without even meaning to, we good-hearted liberals have turned them off by making them feel bad for shopping, which is probably one of the few pleasures they allow themselves. That's how that message is going to land, best intentions be damned.

THAT'S the "frame" the message is bouncing off, and that's, in essence, a "liberal" problem--a lack of understanding that someone concerned with his or her next meal perhaps doesn't have the luxury to be concerned about the same things we are concerned with. You have to bring it to their level. Don't harangue about recycling, saving the environment or eating meat. That's your thing. They don't care and they're going to just get pissed because they don't have the time to deal with that crap and they happen to LIKE meat.

But we have to focus and fight on ways to get the average Joe to the level where he will care, the nurturant model starts to make sense and he begins to see things our way.

A rising tide really does lift all boats, but this particular rising tide has to start from the bottom of the ocean, not the top. No one sees the bottom of the ocean so we all consider it easy to ignore. But when the bottom of the ocean gets involved, the wave has tremendous, awesome power.

The Democrats once knew how to do that—and it didn't involve language, it involved action. It involved supporting and boosting unions, education and other things that brought the average Joe up to the point where they cared about politics.

Mere linguistics and rhetoric isn't bringing these people back. You have to DO something.


4/3/2005: In a contemplative mood:

Allow me a little self absorption. This is my list of what I think I want out of life.

I want:
I guess it's telling that the "finding a man" part was clearly an afterthought....


8/28/2005: A set-up for one of God’s cosmic jokes?

This excerpt from a discussion on a racist Internet forum called “Stormchatter” comes courtesy of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest Intelligence Report. You just can't make this stuff up.

STORMCHATTER ON DATING

SouthWest Whitey: I'm good mates with this girl in my year, she's got an awesome personality and is gorgeous, too. ... Thing is, I'm 100 percent white British, and she's a mix of Irish, Ukrainian and English. ... I'm not sure of her heritage, as Ukrainian could be gypo or anything. ... So am I worrying about nothing?

Stormtrooper88: Just ask, my friend. ... But don't make it blatant.

NewEraSoldier: Don't be picky to the point where it could cost you a great relationship with a gorgeous White woman. White is White.

Thesicilian: Well, if it is 25% or less nonwhite blood then go with her.

Whitemale.ie: You can say (with some element of truth) that family history is an interest of yours.

MK: True Slavs, not Jews or Gypsies that have adopted Slavic surnames, are White. Period.


That’s right folks, this British punk, who is about as likely to be 100% pure white British as I am 100% pure African—I'd be fascinated to learn his DNA racial profile, just for a chuckle—is about to toss away this rare bird, a gorgeous woman with a great personality, who is probably too good for him in the first place and may likely dump him eventually for being such a racist putz, because he's concerned she might not be WHITE ENOUGH.

Don't you just love the smell of irony in the morning.

Even some of the other racists seem to think he's kind of a putz, which probably gave them a momentary feeling of superiority even over a fellow white man, but I think their advice is woefully inadequate.

Here's mine:

SouthWest Whitey, how much love action are you getting? The sum I’m getting from adding that you're still in school and you spend an inordinate amount of free time soliciting dating advice from RACISTS, is zero, which is not necessarily a bad thing—chalk one up for the obsolescene of racists necessary for the evolution of the human species! But you probably don't believe in evolution, and considering the consequences aren't in your favor, I can see why.

But here's some advice: If a gorgeous woman with a great personality even acknowledges your pimply, likely inbred "Aryan" existence, don't waste valuable time mulling whether she has a distant gypsy or Jewish ancestor in the Ukrainian branch of her family tree—she very likely does, so the joke's on you, brother. Cross yourself, get over your 100% white British self and appreciate that she finds something redeemable in your stupid ass.

By the way, if the Royal Family isn't even 100% white British after generations of inbreeding, how'd you get to be so lucky?

I mean, what's the worse that can happen? You breed with this 89% to 99.9% white woman. Gee, maybe if you're LUCKY, her mixed genes will overpower your "pure" genes and the two of you just might produce spawn that are able to walk upright and not drag their knuckles over a computer keyboard like their father! So just ask the girl out already! And don't worry, she might actually have a modicum of self respect, you'll get the rejection you deserve and this all will be a moot point!

A bit of me is curious on how it all turned out.



9/18/2005:The Katrina aftermath: Worse than racism?

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0916/p09s01-coop.html

I'm going to turn the "cultural lens" on its head by saying that, even though I am black, I honestly think the problem that most Americans saw in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is cluelessness, which is more insidious than racism.

One of the things I discovered in college is that, except for the rare blatant racist, most people are actually narcissists. They don't hate people of color; they are indifferent to anyone who isn't like them in every way. At worst, they are utterly clueless that there are other people on this planet who are not like them.

Sure, it can manifest itself as racism, most notably when Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir claimed that the Palestinian people didn't exist, but that was wishful thinking on her part. That's not being done in this case. There is a general awareness that poor black people exist, but the powers-that-be just don't care. There's a difference.

So it shouldn't be a great shocker that the Bush administration didn't have a clue that, say, really poor people of any race may not have a car to evacuate, or may not have anywhere to go if they were able to get out. These are privileged people whose only exposure to blacks are the country-club set--the Condi Rices, the Colin Powells, the Michael Steeles, the Thomas Sowells.

Something else was going on in the aftermath of Katrina, but it wasn't racism. They really do believe all black people are as well-off as their friends.

They have no clue that most people wouldn't benefit from eliminating the estate tax because, well, all their friends will be hit by the tax. That's all they care about. They don't care that a result of eliminating the estate tax would be less money for government aid to the poor, because well, they aren't going to need any of that. They have their golden parachutes.

What do you mean there are people who don't HAVE golden parachutes?

As with Golda Meir, I'm not saying that the Bush administration isn't capable of mixing their narcissism with a tinge of racism. Their party's role in scrubbing voter rolls of blacks in Florida and essentially reintroducing poll taxes in Georgia are racist acts, intended to purge people of color from the voting rolls. The intent is to eliminate staunch Democrats, but if the Democrats were white, they'd come up with something less blatant than that. Whites can be persuaded to vote against their interests, but you need the big guns for those uppity blacks!!!

If we were really paying attention, what we should have noticed is that policies the Bush administration have pursued hurt everyone but their friends and they don't care, because they aren't exposed to people who aren't just like them. I don't have a voice in what they do, but it isn't just because I'm black, it's because I'm not on the board of a major corporation like Condoleeza Rice.

So, to me, the narcissism and cluelessness is more insidious and it really makes it worse to call it racist because racism is merely a smokescreen. Haranguing Bush for racism helps no one and hurts everyone. It, in fact, lets him off the hook because most people will eventually realize he didn't give a hot damn about blacks to begin with and, well, why beat up a guy for something we already knew?

By having priorities other than bolstering New Orleans' levees, he didn't just hurt poor, black folks; he helped wipe out a major American city. He's hurt New Orleans business, he's hurt tourism, and he's even managed to deal a major blow to his pals in the oil-and-gas industry. By gutting FEMA and decimating the National Guard by sending them to a money-sucking quagmire called Iraq, he has made it difficult for New Orleans to bounce back and contribute sooner to the gross domestic product, which will eventually hurt our economy.

This isn't racism, but inexcusable cluelessness about the human consequences of policy decisions because the only humans they are worried about are those like them--people with a six-figure salary and above. And realizing that EVERYONE was hurt by his policy decisions brings us one step closer to righting the wrongs that came from those decisions.

If we focus on just the poor black people, they win because few Americans can get their heads around poor black people because they've never known one personally, but we can do something about that and it won't take much government money.

The more exposure all of us have to a variety of people--which most of us do not make the priority it should be--the less clueless we all will be about race, about poverty, about everything. When all we think about and all we care about are the people we see every day and are related to us--which, most of the time, do not constitute a variety of anything--the more clueless we all will be.

But I will not hold my breath expecting a culture as individualistic as America's to ever embrace that they need to care about anyone outside the people they know. It will never happen. Willing -- belligerent, even--cluelessness is our birthright and very nature.

One day, it will be our undoing.



9/22/2005: It can’t happen here? Not according to NPR!

Since Googling “Posse Comitatus Act” is going to offer you first all the White House spin on why the law is "archaic" and should be eliminated, here's a 1997 Washington University law review article on why it is important, still relevant and shouldn't be eliminated— mainly because its elimination is unnecessary—particularly with an administration that barely has respect for the law to start with.

If that's a little dry for you, I suggest then you pick up Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here for a chilling narrative account on what could happen in a nation without the Posse Comitatus Act. All those who have read it already are probably going "oh shit!" Exactly my point.

As the aforementioned law review article states in its conclusion:

Relegating these problems ["these problems" being drugs, terrorism, response to natural disaster] to a military solution poses dangers to our individual rights and to the history and underlying structure of the United States that should not be ignored.

Resources must be made available to create viable civilian law enforcement responses to these problems. If these resources must be redirected from the military, then Congress should do so. Declare "war," but let it be fought by civilian law enforcement with the right weapons for the job. The military should be the last resort, not the first solution. In the long run, the "war" will be more effectively fought with dedicated "soldiers" with an undivided focus.(emphasis mine)



12/24/2005: He ain’t heavy, he’s a genius!

I just bought a couple Demotivator calendars from Despair Inc.

January on the calendar I will be using at home is "Beauty: If you're attractive enough on the outside, people will forgive you for being irritating to the core."

I'm also reading a Bill Hicks biography, Agent of Evolution, which features reminiscences from his friends. A disproportionate number of the reminiscences include behavior that all will consider "irritating to the core," including extreme late night phone calls comprising Bill's, often inebriated, nonstop rants.

At no point did anyone say, "You know, I f***ing hate Bill to this day for screwing up my sleep patterns." Nor did any indicate that they hung up mid-rant. They got cups of coffee and made sandwiches mid-rant, but never did they say, "Dude, sleep it off and call me in the morning when we're both lucid."

Then it hits me: what the Demotivators calendar said of beauty also could be said of genius, but they're both strictly gender-applied. A beautiful woman who is irritating to the core will be forgiven—well, to a point, but more than any irritant should be—but a genius woman isn't going to get the same treatment, if she is even acknowledged to be a genius to start with.

Gilda Radner is a genius, but do you think for a minute that Gilda would have gotten away with half the crap John Belushi did and still be as universally loved?

Both men and women will go to the ends of the earth for a guy they consider a genius, but a less ingenious, but beautiful, man is only going to be tolerated so much. Granted, the men will turn on the gorgeous guy quicker, and many women will put up with a lot from a cute guy, but soon both the men and women eventually will agree he's very cute, but not cute enough to deal with.

Compare that with Hicks, Belushi, Richard Pryor and Miles Davis. None are tremendous lookers from a conventional standpoint—good-looking, perhaps, but hardly beautiful—and all come with landfills of baggage, but even when they were alive, their friends, relatives and lovers brush off even the worst behavior by saying, "Well, that was just so-and-so, he meant nothing by it. Just proved what a genius he was. He could think on his feet, even at 3 in the morning!"

Even if that 3 in the morning behavior is shooting at you so you won't leave him or setting himself on fire free-basing cocaine—all is forgiven, the man's a genius!

I can't imagine anyone saying that of the likes of Ashton Kutcher, or of any beautiful woman. And I guess we'll all be dead before I hear anyone say that of, say, Marilyn vos Savant.

It's always fascinating to me what people will put up with among people they consider "exceptional" that they wouldn't tolerate in a person who isn't as cute, talented or smart. It would be interesting to learn how those "exceptional" people would turn out if people stop giving them the benefit of the doubt for being so exceptional. Perhaps they wouldn't be quite as irritating if they weren't allowed to get away with so much.

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