Simple Tricks and Nonsense

I really shouldn't press my luck by writing two political posts in the same day, but I've been hearing a lot of nonsense about the set that's been constructed in Mile High Stadium for Barack's acceptance speech this evening. Seems our friends on the conservative side of the spectrum think there's something funny about Roman-Greco-style columns. They're making jokes about "The Temple of Obama" and "The Barackopolis." One of John McCain's people has reportedly issued an illustrated style guide to instruct people on how to properly wrap a toga.

Puh-lease. Most every government building in this country -- including the White House, which is, of course, the goal Barack is trying to achieve -- has a Neo-Classical facade. Our very system of government derives from the Greeks, something everybody should've learned back in middle school. I'm willing to bet that most people, whether consciously or not, simply associate columns with government and politics. There's nothing elitist or foolish about them.

But then, I'm a liberal and as such I'm not supposed to have any idea how common Americans think, right? This grandiose display is supposed to be an illustration of Barack's arrogance and his "cult of celebrity," right? And the Republicans would never, ever do this sort of thing, right?

Give me a frakkin' break. This is grade-school-level taunting of the most foolish kind, and it's tedious bullshit like this that drains all the meaning and intelligence from our political process.

Posted by at 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

My advice to you, kids, is to take a look around today as you go about whatever your business may be. Take note of the details: the weather, the quality of the light, the snatches of conversation you overhear on the streets and in the shops, the general mood of the people you encounter. Because sometime in the future, a child may ask you what it was like the day one of the major political parties first nominated a black man for the office of the President of the United States.

It doesn't matter whether you like Barack Obama personally. It doesn't matter if you think he's the savior of a fading nation or all flash and no substance. It doesn't matter how you feel about the Iraq War or whether you're a Democrat or Republican. It doesn't even matter, in this context, whether Barack wins the general election in November. Because the mere nomination of this man is a thing of wonder. It's a sign that the America we were told about by those Schoolhouse Rock cartoons when we were children -- the country where all people are created equal, and where anyone can go as far as their aspirations and grit will take them -- is not entirely a pipe dream. It's easy to become cynical about that vision of America as we grow up and begin to understand that there are a lot of decks stacked against us, and as life batters us around and we gradually realize just how many of our countrymen -- maybe even ourselves -- have feet of clay.

But today, 45 years to the day after a brave man told us about a dream that must surely have seemed impossible -- or at least highly improbable -- to many of those who heard his words, we've done something that would have made him very proud. We've nominated a black man to the highest office in the land. It's something that should've happened long ago, but no matter. Because the breakthrough has finally been made.

You may think I'm being melodramatic or making too big a deal of this. And maybe I am, as I'm prone to do. But I'm just thrilled to be witness to this moment. So often the big events that occur during our lifetimes, the things that are destined to go into the school books, are bad: the fall of Saigon, Watergate, the assassination of John Lennon, the destruction of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11. Death and destruction, followed by insecurity, soul-searching, and pain. But here's something that is good, a moving-forward moment.

I'm not one of those who think Obama is a superhero. There are aspects of his campaign and his persona that I find frustrating, and I know that a nomination is a long way from an election, and that whoever takes the Oval Office in January is going to have a hell of a job in front of them. Nevertheless, I feel great pride in and hope for my country today.

Posted by at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Everybody in the blogosphere is buzzing today about that mildly risque photo of President Bush trying to decide whether to accept Olympic volleyball player Misty May-Treanor's invitation to smack her on the tushy for good luck, but personally I was far more amused by this pic:

You know, I think this is the first time I've ever felt any sense of empathy whatsoever for this man... yep, George, I know how it is. We're both guys, after all...

Posted by at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

So, did you hear McCain compared Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, apparently in an effort to paint him as a pretty but vacuous celebrity instead of a serious politician? Here's Paris' response:

(Go on, click it -- you may be surprised. God knows I was...)

I don't know about you, but that clip fills me with a killer case of cognitive dissonance. Who knew anything that sensible could ever come from her beglossed lips? I know, of course, that this material was surely written for her, but still... she actually sounds as if she knows what she's talking about! If nothing else, she reads from the teleprompter better than McCain or our current Fearless Leader...

Posted by at 9:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Here's something I'll bet most people -- especially we younger folks who grew up hearing the term in question on a regular basis -- have never considered:

WE hear constantly now about “our commander in chief.” The word has become a synonym for “president.” It is said that we “elect a commander in chief.” It is asked whether this or that candidate is “worthy to be our commander in chief.”

But the president is not our commander in chief. He certainly is not mine. I am not in the Army.

...

The president is not the commander in chief of civilians. He is not even commander in chief of National Guard troops unless and until they are federalized. The Constitution is clear on this: “The president shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States.”

When Abraham Lincoln took actions based on military considerations, he gave himself the proper title, “commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” That title is rarely — more like never — heard today. It is just “commander in chief,” or even “commander in chief of the United States.” This reflects the increasing militarization of our politics. The citizenry at large is now thought of as under military discipline. In wartime, it is true, people submit to the national leadership more than in peacetime. The executive branch takes actions in secret, unaccountable to the electorate, to hide its moves from the enemy and protect national secrets. Constitutional shortcuts are taken “for the duration.” But those impositions are removed when normal life returns.

But we have not seen normal life in 66 years. The wartime discipline imposed in 1941 has never been lifted, and “the duration” has become the norm. World War II melded into the cold war, with greater secrecy than ever — more classified information, tougher security clearances. And now the cold war has modulated into the war on terrorism.

Just a little food for thought as the echoes from the Fourth of July fireworks fade and the campaign rhetoric returns to full volume. Original source here, via.

Posted by at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, the news this morning was the now-usual drumbeat of rising gas prices and calls to begin exploratory oil drilling in Alaska and protected coastal areas, and I was thinking of my dad's irrational certainty that the high prices aren't merely the result of supply and demand, that someone has just got to be behind the abrupt and seemingly unstoppable increases, and suddenly I had an epiphany. My idea was paranoid and sounded like a tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory cooked up by the lunatic fringe, but maybe, just maybe... well, consider this:

Continue reading "Just Because I'm Paranoid Doesn't Mean..." »

Posted by at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I learned long ago that, in politics, you don't count your proverbial chickens until they hatch -- which is my roundabout way of saying I'm not writing off Hillary Clinton until I hear from her own lips that she's quitting -- but after yesterday's Democratic primary results in Indiana and North Carolina, the assumption across the blogosphere seems to be that her campaign is finished. On that note, Evanier makes a very interesting observation:

If all goes as expected, Barack Obama will accept the nomination of the Democratic party at their convention on August 28... 45 years to the day after Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.

How cool would that be? Historic and poignant... almost cinematic, in fact. I can already see the "dream fulfilled" graphics on the television news coverage...

Posted by at 1:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SamuraiFrog poses a real head-scratcher:

Why is it that in a presidential race against a former First Lady and an admiral’s son who married into a beer fortune, it’s the black guy with almost no political presence who has to prove he’s not an elitist?

This started me thinking: What does "elite" really mean, anyway, and how does one become "elitist?" Is it a factor of education or wealth? If it's a question of intelligence or accomplishment, what's gone so wrong in our society that a term that once meant simply "the best" has acquired such a negative connotation? What's wrong with being the best at whatever it is you do?

Why is it that our current president, a New England blue-blood by birth who only plays at being a working man on his ranch in Texas, is seen as a "good old boy" and therefore not elitist, but our previous president -- who started life as poor Arkansas trailer trash -- was often accused of elitism? Is it perhaps more a reflection of the person calling someone elitist than the person being accused of it? Bill Clinton has a tendency to come off as the smartest guy in the room -- worse, as someone who knows he's the smartest guy in the room -- and perhaps he makes some people feel insecure because of that, or his detractors mistake his intellectual confidence for an air of superiority, so they call him an elitist. Here's the funny thing: smart people don't bother me, personally; the ones who I see as having an air of superiority are the wealthy, especially the children of the wealthy. For me, money and privilege are far greater indicators of "elitism" than brains. But that's probably just my own personal insecurity and prejudice; other people's issues may vary.

I think what's really going on is that "elitist" has taken the place of many other words that political correctness and a societal trend to not want to debate race and class no longer allow us to say. Where once you could call someone a nasty name or, in the case of a woman or a black candidate who rub one's prejudices the wrong way, uppity, our modern social mores now dictate you have to express yourself some other way than with the, ahem, traditional epithets. You have to call them something else, find a word that's less loaded than the one you'd probably really like to use. At the core of it, you don't like the thought of women or black people or smart people or rich people being superior to your own pathetic self (whatever your definition of superiority may be), so you call them "elitist." Really, all the word means these days is "other." By calling someone an elitist, you're saying, "this person isn't like me, he (or she) isn't one of my kind, so therefore, I dislike this person."

But that's just my Saturday morning theory...

Posted by at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've pretty much stopped paying attention to the seemingly endless back-and-forth between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- at this point, I figure I've already decided who I prefer and I've frankly lost interest in following the campaign any further until a candidate is officially chosen at the Democratic National Convention in August -- which means that I only learned of "Bittergate" this morning when I saw that the blogosphere had been chattering about it all weekend. Basically, I guess Obama made a remark about small-town folks relying on guns, God, and anti-immigrant feelings to deal with their frustrated ambitions, and Hillary and McCain are feigning offense on behalf of those people he was talking about, branding Obama an "elitist." (In case you also missed this one, details are here.)

Now, I've read Obama's remarks and I personally don't think he said anything all that offensive (although I grant I may feel differently if I were one of those small-town people). While you never know what's going to piss people off, this whole thing strikes me as a tempest in a teapot that'll likely be forgotten by next week. However, the accusation of elitism has been reliably effective in bringing down politicians who display too much schooling in their speechifying, so, again, you never know what'll happen here. It's a phenomenon I've never fully understood, myself. I find our cultural distrust of intellect both mystifying and deplorable.

So does writer Peter David; he made some particularly cogent remarks on the subject today:

We have a situation wherein this country's anti-intellectualism has become so pervasive, so suffocating, that we have multi-millionaire Ivy league graduates trying to pretend they're just plain folks when clearly they're not. And people know they're not. This country was founded by men who knew they were the best and brightest, and the citizenry took pride and comfort in that. But television has put politicians into peoples' homes, and now we just want someone we're comfortable with. We don't want men and women who come across like professors; we want the guy who sat in the back of the class and goofs off, as if life was a sitcom. To put it in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" terms, we should want to elect Mr. Hand; instead we opt for Jeff Spicoli.

Couldn't have said it better myself...

Posted by at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Scalzi on the abysmal exchange rates of the moment:

...in the long run it would be nice to have my home currency seen as stable and having value. The cynical part of me wonders how much the global perception of the dollar will change simply by having a new occupant in the White House on January 20, 2009. I guess we’ll find out.

That's an interesting question, isn't it? I'll admit that I know very little about economics or all the arcane factors that influence how well or poorly we're doing as a country -- I find even simple 401k investments utterly baffling and intimidating -- so I have no opinion on this idea myself. But I do wonder just how much psychology and prestige plays into something like the value of a nation's currency. Anyone have any thoughts?

I will say that, if there's anything to this, a post-election rebound for the dollar would be excellent news for me, as The Girlfriend and I have been talking about finally taking that dream trip to Scotland next year...

Posted by at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Here's an interesting bit of food for thought:

Suppose you had to choose between two Presidential candidates, one of whom had spent 20 years in Congress plus had considerable other relevant experience and the other of whom had about half a dozen years in the Illinois state legislature and 2 years in Congress. Which one do you think would make a better President? If you chose #1, congratulations, you picked James Buchanan over Abraham Lincoln.

So much for that campaign tactic...

(Source via.)

Posted by at 9:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The topic du jour this morning was, of course, the news that Fidel Castro is stepping down after decades of rule, followed by the White House's affirmation that our country's nearly half-century-old embargo against Cuba will not be relaxed anytime soon, regardless of which Castro is running the show over there.

So, here's the thing I've been wondering all day: is there anyone out there in InternetLand who can explain to me why our country is so unrelenting on this damn-fool embargo? Anyone at all? Really, what purpose does it serve here in the year 2008? Maybe it made sense during JFK's administration, when the Soviet Union was trying to use Cuba as a proxy against us, and everyone was terrified of communists infiltrating our borders from nearby nations. But the USSR is long gone, and our decades-long effort to keep the island nation isolated have utterly failed to effect any change within Cuba. The communists remain firmly in power and the Cuban people seem reasonably content with that state of affairs. So what's the point of maintaining the embargo now?

Continue reading "So When Can I Finally Enjoy a Mojito at Ernie's Place?" »

Posted by at 5:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Heh. This amuses me... according to the gossip site TMZ.com:

Tom Scholz, founder of rock group Boston, wants Mike Huckabee to quit using "More Than a Feeling" as a campaign anthem... because Scholz is an Obama guy, and Huckabee is "the polar opposite" of what Boston stands for.

Funny, I always thought Boston stood for Camaros and excellent doobage... but then I really can't imagine Mike Huckabee enjoying either of those things, so I guess Tom's statement does make sense, doesn't it?

Posted by at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Well, here it is, the morning after, and we still can't predict with any certainty who the Democratic nominee for president is going to be, but it's looking pretty likely the Republican nom will go to McCain. My own prediction -- and this isn't my own preference, mind you, it's just what my Magic 8-Ball is telling me -- is that we're going to end up choosing between Clinton and McCain come November. But who really knows? There's still a lot of time to go...

I find it interesting that Huckabee made such a strong showing; obviously, his surge was fueled by Christian evangelicals in southern states where they are in the majority. I wonder if they honestly believe their guy has a chance in the general election, if they were just voting their principles, or if voting for Huckabee was really a strategy to block Mitt Romney, because evangelicals have such a problem with Mitt being Mormon?

Here in Utah, the voting went pretty much as I expected. Romney won the local Republican primary by a ridiculous margin (90 percent, I believe), owing, I'm sure, to his religion and his reputation as the man who saved Utah's bacon during the 2002 Winter Olympics. (Long story, but just in case you don't know it, the Cliff's Note version is that preparations for SLC's Games were not going well, there were scandals, and the whole thing looked like it was going to be a embarrassing disaster. Mitt took over the Organizing Committee at the last minute and the Games turned out to be a resounding success.) On the Democratic side, Obama took a wide lead over Clinton. Many people I've talked with this morning seem surprised by this; I'm not. Even among Democrats, Hillary is not well-liked in these parts. My theory is that even many so-called liberal Utahns -- who, let's be honest, would be considered fairly conservative in other parts of the country -- tend to subscribe to more, ahem, traditional views of gender roles, and Hillary alienated, offended, or threatened them during the Wild Bill Years with her strong will and apparent acceptance of her husband's philandering. But that's just me talking out of my hat; it could also be something as simple as Obama visiting the state in person while Hillary just sent Bill and Chelsea in her place.

Either way, it was an interesting experience to be part of the Big Time for a change. Only eight months to go...

Posted by at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a historic day for the citizens of Utah, the first time we've ever participated in the Super Tuesday process, following unprecedented visits by nearly every major presidential candidate from both parties. (Little old Utah normally doesn't get this much attention from the candidates, partly -- I would imagine -- because the state's population is so small, and probably also because it's a given that, come November, our electoral votes will go to whoever the GOP nominates.)

I myself voted in the Democratic primary this morning. (I couldn't have voted on the Republican side even if I'd been so inclined -- which I'm not -- because they have a closed primary, loyal members of the club only, please.) For the record (and at risk of kicking off an argument here on my humble little corner of the Internet), I voted for Barack Obama.

Continue reading "Super Tuesday" »

Posted by at 3:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I really don't have much to say about the speech -- what I heard of it sounded like the same old stuff -- I just enjoy typing the phrase "President Bush's final State of the Union address."

Posted by at 8:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Michael May says something beautiful about Dr. King that bears repeating:

He may not have searched for lost treasure, discovered ancient civilizations, or killed aliens in outer space, but he was one of the bravest men this country's ever known.

And he did fight monsters.

Bravo, Michael. Very nice...

Posted by at 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

...why you won't be getting any snail-mail today:

If you've never heard the entire speech, you owe it to yourself to watch this clip. It's a little long, but it's powerful stuff. And it's quintessentially American: injustice identified and loudly denounced, over and over, until change is wrought. This is what I was talking about last night, the progressive spirit of the early '60s that among many other, far more important things, fueled the philosophy behind a little TV show I grew up loving. I admire it. In my cynicism, I can't help but wonder if it's still there somewhere in the American character, just sleeping, or if it's been washed away by complacency and fear and all the shiny baubles that distract us. I also wonder what Dr. King would think of this brave new world of the 21st century. Have we come far enough yet on matters of race to satisfy him? How would he have reacted to 9/11? Would he have spoken out against the horrors of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo? And would people still listen if he had?

Posted by at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As I mentioned the other day, this is the time when everybody starts recapping the previous 12 months, trying to gain some perspective on the year just winding down or at the very least remember just what exactly has gone on lately. In that spirit of recollection, have a look at this:

Love those boys at JibJab. Extra credit to them for playing off Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," a song that I always loved because I knew what more of the events referenced in the lyrics actually were than my friends did. (I'm all about establishing my own intellectual superiority.) In fact, I think Billy ought to revisit that tune once a decade or so, to keep it all up to date. Think of it, Billy Joel, the keeper of recent American history! That's a much more impressive title than mere musician...

(Hat tip to Brian Greenberg, who probably found this specifically because of the Billy Joel connection. It is your destiny, Brian...)

Posted by at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

You know, I love Utah, I really do. I grew up here, my family roots stretch back to the very first wave of Mormon pioneers in 1847, and, for my money, you're never going to see anything as jaw-droppingly beautiful as the Wasatch Mountains on the first clear day after a snow storm. This is my home, and while I can imagine living in other places, I highly doubt I ever will.

But as comfortable as I generally am here, it drives me absolutely batshit insane when the busybody prudes of this state decide it's time to dust off their torches and pitchforks and launch yet another crusade against their latest perceived threat to the moral well-being of the community.

Case in point: the kerfuffle over the Blue Boutique.

Continue reading "Feeling Blue in Sugar House" »

Posted by at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I tend to be pretty anti-authoritarian by nature, and I'm deeply troubled whenever I hear about those who have power abusing those who do not. Even so, I just can't seem to work up too much outrage over that incident that's had the InterWebs buzzing for the last week or so, the one in which a University of Florida student got tasered after disrupting an appearance by Senator John Kerry.

The video evidence plainly shows that police had no good reason to zap him, considering he appears to be handcuffed, on the ground, and surrounded by about a half-dozen uniformed officers. But it also looks to me like this kid was going out of his way to make a scene and was egging on the blackbellies by acting like Dennis the Constitutional Peasant in Monty Python and the Holy Grail ("Help! Help! I'm being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!"). I've also heard that Andrew Meyer, the student in question, is a known provocateur who butted his way to the front of the line so he could harangue Kerry, and that he had arranged for someone to film him in hopes (presumably) of getting his 15 seconds of YouTube fame (Warhol overestimated the country's attention span, in my opinion).

I think Jon Stewart probably nailed the situation when he called it, "An unfortunate combination of police over-reaction and what appears to be student douche-baggery."

Still, whatever Meyer's true motivations and regardless of where you may stand on the question of whether his civil rights were violated, he did get his moment on YouTube:

These days, that seems to be about all that matters, doesn't it?

Posted by at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Sorry about the offensive title, but I myself find the behavior that provoked it about a thousand times more offensive than that common vulgarism. If you haven't heard, a trio of Christian whack-jobs disrupted the opening prayer on the floor of the Senate yesterday because they thought having it delivered by a Hindu -- a historical first, by the way -- was an "abomination." Now, leaving aside any personal beliefs or questions of theology or "truth," this sort of thing is quite simply rude; shouting down a soft-spoken man who's just trying to say a few nice words that he was invited to say is a rotten thing to do, and no amount of bone-headed posturing about "gross idolatry" can excuse that. If you watch the video of the incident, the poor Hindu guy looks absolutely mortified, not to mention a little bit scared. These moronic fundamentalist protesters -- who strike me as the moral and would-be practical equivalent of the dreaded Taliban -- are entitled to their opinions and beliefs, of course, but their actions are totally unacceptable under those circumstances, little different than walking up to some guy who's minding his own business and poking him in the eye. Their actions are also, in my book, bigoted and un-American.

Continue reading "Dickheads for Christ" »

Posted by at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Andrew Sullivan reminds us of the way things used to be:

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is," - George W. Bush, April 9, 1999, criticizing President Clinton for not setting a timetable for exiting Kosovo.

"I think it's also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn," - George W. Bush, June 5, 1999.

Interesting how people change their tune, isn't it?

Posted by at 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

As far as I can tell, the following proclamation is legit:

The Congress, by Public Law 85-529, as amended, has designated May 1 of each year as "Loyalty Day." This Loyalty Day, and throughout the year, I ask all Americans to join me in reaffirming our allegiance to our Nation.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2007, as Loyalty Day. I call upon the people of the United States to participate in this national observance and to display the flag of the United States on Loyalty Day as a symbol of pride in our Nation.

Is it just me, or is there something seriously creepy about this? Doesn't a holiday to "reaffirm our allegiance to our Nation" actually conflict with the spirit of the most American of all American holidays, the Fourth of July (a.k.a. Independence Day, when we celebrate a bunch of guys who were willing to reject allegiance to their Nation -- the British Empire -- when it became necessary)?

Continue reading "Loyalty Day" »

Posted by at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I don't know if this is widely known outside the Zion Curtain, but the Dark Lord himself, Vice President Dick Cheney, has been invited to give this year's commencement address at Brigham Young University in a few weeks. BYU (or "The Y," as it's more commonly known in these parts) is, of course, the most conservative college in Utah, possible even in the country. It's so conservative that male students aren't even allowed to wear beards.

(True story: I actually applied to the Y back in my pre-bearded days. I was conditionally accepted pending a letter of recommendation from my spiritual leader. Smart-ass that I am, I was tempted to forge a letter in fractured English and sign it, "Yoda, Jedi-Master of Dagobah," but ultimately I decided it wasn't worth the trouble, and anyway I didn't want to go to a school that would forbid me from dressing like Sonny Crockett. [I was very big into Miami Vice at the time, and had this thing about muscle shirts, not shaving for four days at a stretch, and going sockless, all big no-nos at the Y.])

As conservative as the school is, however, there are protests planned to coincide with Darth Cheney's visit. But I don't think it's necessary to dwell on the fact that even BYU students think the man is nasty and hateful. I think we should instead concentrate on the really important matters:

...the question remains whether Cheney will get an honorary degree. And, if so, what would it be? International diplomacy? Public Relations? Energy Policy? Environmental Science?

Enquiring minds want to know!

Posted by at 5:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just learned from Scalzi that the columnist Molly Ivins has died. According to her obit, it was breast cancer and she was 62, about the same age as my mom.

This is really shaping up to be a crappy day.

Continue reading "Molly Ivins" »

Posted by at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

President Bush's strategy for Iraq, 2006: Stay the course.

President Bush's strategy for Iraq, 2007: Stay the course. Only with more troops.

Continue reading "The Surge" »

Posted by at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

So the Butcher of Baghdad is dead. I'm sure there are people toasting his execution all over the world right now. A certain occupant of the White House is probably planning a party, and maybe his dad is, too. Maybe they're even entitled to one. I, however... I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not shedding any tears for the bastard. He deserved his ignominious and unmourned death. But so do a lot of other penny-ante dictators around the world whose sole purpose seems to be finding new depths of depravity and cruelty to visit on their people. And therein lies my deep ambivalence about Saddam Hussein's execution. It isn't that I don't believe he was a bad guy. I simply have never understood what made him so uniquely bad as to justify all the energy America has expended on him over the past fifteen years.

Continue reading "Saddam" »

Posted by at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My Internet wanderings this morning somehow carried me past the official site of Will Rogers. Best known for saying he never met a man he didn't like, Rogers was a beloved humorist, commentator, and media personality of the 1920s and '30s. Here is one of his observations, which I think I'm going to adopt as a motto:

"I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat."

And here's a bonus Rogers quote, which has a somewhat darker edge in light of current circumstances:

"If we ever pass out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone, 'America died from a delusion that she has moral leadership.'"

The amazing thing, of course, is that these remarks (while admittedly taken out of context) still have relevance some 60 years after Rogers first said them...

Posted by at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Here's an idea that jumped out at me from my morning-commute reading matter:

The Right doesn't like to acknowledge that the power and authority of a government can be a good thing, up to a point, in the hands of a genius. The Left doesn't like to acknowledge that geniuses are few and far between.

--David Gelernter, 1939: The Lost World of the Fair

Posted by at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Looks like the President has a ready-made excuse for his next diplomatic blunder:

A renowned black magic practitioner performed a voodoo ritual Thursday to jinx President George W. Bush and his entourage while he was on a brief visit to Indonesia.

Ki Gendeng Pamungkas slit the throat of a goat, a small snake and stabbed a black crow in the chest, stirred their blood with spice and broccoli before drank the "potion" and smeared some on his face.

"I don't hate Americans, but I don't like Bush," said Pamungkas, who believed the ritual would succeed as, "the devil is with me today."

The question that comes to my mind is, does the inclusion of broccoli in the potion have anything to do with George Bush Sr.'s well-known aversion to that vegetable, or is this just a coincidence? Is broccoli the Bush family's version of kryptonite? Enquiring minds want to know!

Posted by at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow, what an afternoon! My previous entry has generated a number of comments that I'd like to respond to, but I haven't yet been able to settle down long enough to compose anything worth reading; I've just learned one of my co-workers is in the hospital after wiping out on his longboard last night (he was skating in downtown Salt Lake when a car cut him off; he evaded, but crashed into a concrete planter box at about 30 mph); and, as everyone's no doubt heard by now, Rumsfeld is hitting the showers. I'm still processing that one -- I expected some changes in the wake of the Democratic victory, but I didn't expect anything so major to happen so soon. Frankly, I'm a little overwhelmed.

I think I'm going to spend the rest of this afternoon and evening unplugged from politics. In the meantime, I'll leave you with the following thought, courtesy of Mark Evanier:

Someone on Fox News just said that everyone should try and find something to be happy about today. I think I'll be happy that I wasn't around Dick Cheney last night when he was armed and getting the news.

Posted by at 4:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It seems to be the topic du jour, so here's my reaction to yesterday's election results (which I'm sure won't surprise any of my three loyal readers): I'm pleased. Pleased that the brakes can now be applied to the runaway "unitary executive" and that the rubberstamp Congress which enabled it has been disbanded.

Continue reading "Election Results '06" »

Posted by at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Well, I fulfilled my civic duty this morning, for all the good it will do. Election results in Utah are highly predictable, not to mention one-sided, and if you happen to be on the, ahem, minority side -- which I am, if you haven't figured that out by now -- voting tends to feel like an exercise in futility. Still, you've got no room to bitch if you don't vote, right? And my three loyal readers all know how much I like bitchin', so...

My actual voting experience went much more smoothly than I anticipated. I've been somewhat apprehensive about these fancy new computerized voting machines with their new-fangled touch-screens and all. I don't trust them, to be honest; I worry about them being hacked or secretly programmed to produce a particular outcome. It's all too easy to imagine my vote simply vanishing into the aether of cyberspace, or else being transmogrified into a vote for those other guys. I've also wondered what happens if the machine has a problem, and the only people available to try and fix it are the typical polling-station volunteers who tend to be so old that they still think color TV is a passing fad. And for today's election, at least, I worried that the lines would be terrible because the machines are new and a lot of people would be slowed down by the learning curve.

To my surprise, however, the lines moved quickly, the machines struck me as very user-friendly -- even my parents, to whom e-mail remains a deep and unfathomable mystery, had no problems figuring them out -- and my concerns about security were somewhat mollified by a back-up system that generates an actual paper ballot. (If you haven't seen the voting machines yet, your votes are recorded on a paper roll similar to a cash register receipt. The paper stays inside the machine, presumably for security reasons, but it passes through a little window so you can review it and make any changes before you hit the "Cast Ballot" button.) I'm still generally suspicious of the new machines and would prefer that we return to tried-and-true paper-balloting methods, but the back-up helped me to rachet down my paranoia a notch or two.

I have seen reports of local problems with the machines, but in my precinct, at least, everything was fine. The biggest problem I had was finding my polling place, because it seems to change every other election. One year, it's held at my old elementary school; the next, it's at the new elementary school that was built a decade or so back. This year, it was back at the old school, but my parents and I thought it was still at the new one, so we wasted a good 15 minutes driving around town. (We went to vote at the same time, but travelled in separate cars so I could go to work afterwards.) I suspect we looked like we were re-enacting the climax from the original Pink Panther movie, that farcical sequence where half-a-dozen different cars keep whizzing through a quiet village center from different directions.

Posted by at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Well, now, this is just childish: it appears that the NRCC -- that would be the Republicans, kids -- has orchestrated a nationwide campaign to annoy people into voting against Democrats by repeatedly telephoning the same households over and over with recorded messages that appear to be made by or on behalf of Democratic candidates. It sounds like a desperation tactic to me, and a pretty damn silly one, too, but there is anecdotal evidence that it may be having an effect. The mainstream media has thus far ignored the story, but thankfully Josh Marshall (among other politi-bloggers) has been on his toes; scroll back through his archives to see how the situation developed.

I can't begin to tell you how much I despise this kind of sleazy, prankish nonsense, and I despise it even more when it appears to actually work. I fantasize about the day when we may witness some dignified, grown-up political discourse in this country. In the meantime, keep in mind that if you've been getting a lot of annoying "robocalls" over the past few days, the blame may not fall where you think, and anyway there are more important things to consider when you cast your vote tomorrow...

Posted by at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Last weekend, I watched one of my favorite old movies, The Guns of Navarone. If you haven't seen it, I recommend that you immediately add it to your Netflix queue. It's a 1961 wartime adventure starring Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony Quinn as commandoes tasked with destroying a Nazi artillery emplacement that guards a vital sea passage.

As the cliche says, they don't make 'em like this anymore. War movies these days, on the rare occasion that somebody actually makes one, tend to be self-important, self-conscious, and burdened with the need to say Something Important. Guns isn't like that; it takes its subject matter seriously enough, even allowing David Niven's character to make a couple speeches about the pointlessness and horror of it all, but the film's overarching goal is to entertain, not to enlighten, and it succeeds wonderfully in that regard.

I did notice something on this latest viewing that's had me thinking, though.

Continue reading "How Far We've Come" »

Posted by at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Several of my daily-read blogs have been linking to the "Letter from Iraq" published on Friday by TIME.com. If you haven't run across this yet, go check it out; it's definitely worth a minute of your time.

The letter is a series of observations from an anonymous Marine officer who pulls no punches in describing his life in the middle of the war zone. Although I'm sure both sides of the poltical spectrum here at home can (and will) try to spin this to support their views, the letter itself, read in its entirety, strikes me as remarkably non-partisan, honest, revealing, and, ultimately, quite moving. It is also, in places, very funny:

Most Surreal Moment — Watching Marines arrive at my detention facility and unload a truck load of flex-cuffed midgets. 26 to be exact. We had put the word out earlier in the day to the Marines in Fallujah that we were looking for Bad Guy X, who was described as a midget. Little did I know that Fallujah was home to a small community of midgets, who banded together for support since they were considered as social outcasts. The Marines were anxious to get back to the midget colony to bring in the rest of the midget suspects, but I called off the search, figuring Bad Guy X was long gone on his short legs after seeing his companions rounded up by the giant infidels.

Most Profound Man in Iraq — an unidentified farmer in a fairly remote area who, after being asked by Reconnaissance Marines if he had seen any foreign fighters in the area replied "Yes, you."

As far as I can tell, this letter -- unlike some of the supposed "real stories of our troops" that float around in e-mail form -- is for real.

Posted by at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I shouldn't say anything, because I know that political entries never bring happiness to anyone, least of all me. But I've been reading all about this developing scandal surrounding Representative Mark Foley and his messages to Congressional pages, and I want to make sure I fully understand the situation. So, let's review:

Continue reading "Foleygate" »

Posted by at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

My concept of America formed early and was gathered largely from old black-and-white movies, Schoolhouse Rock cartoons, and, yes, Star Trek, which despite all the lip service about a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-species crew projected a largely American (specifically JFK's "New Frontier" America) sense of identity. And while I never subscribed to the jingoistic "we're number one" mantra that so many of my classmates seemed to reflexively utter whenever news of some international dispute managed to filter down to our grade-school consciousnesses, I always understood that Americans were the good guys. I may not have quite believed in the concept of American exceptionalism, but I did believe that our country was respected in the world and, more importantly, worthy of respect, not because we were superior human beings who were inherently better than everyone else, but because we chose not to do the kinds of nasty shit that other nations did. Like Captain Kirk choosing to spare the helpless Gorn, who would surely have killed him, the Americans of my understanding struggled to rise above our brutal natures, to find a better, more humane way of doing things.

That meant we didn't send our own people to Siberia for speaking their minds. We didn't persecute people because of their religion or lack thereof. We didn't invade and take over other countries in order to expand our own territory or influence. We tried to help the rest of the world, not just ourselves. We cared if innocent blood was unavoidably shed. And we most certainly did not, under any circumstances, torture people.

Continue reading "Disgusted" »

Posted by at 5:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Being on the edge of what is essentially a dead sea, Salt Lake City is frequently subject to a phenomenon we locals call "lake stink." It occurs when the wind blows across the Great Salt Lake from the northwest, churning up all the decaying gunk at the bottom of the lake and carrying the resulting odors straight into the city and its surrounding 'burbs. I kind of like the smell myself, at least in small concentrations; it smells like home to me. But in higher concentrations, it can be rather... disconcerting.

I bring this up because last night, as a weather front moved through the area, there was an unusually powerful lake stink in the air, the strongest I've experienced in several years. As it so happens, President Bush was also in town last night, staying overnight in downtown SLC so he could speak to the American Legion convention this morning. I wonder if Dear Leader, safely ensconsed in the marble-floored penthouse of the fanciest hotel in town after his thrilling five-minute ride in from the airport, noticed the stench, and whether he thought someone was playing a prank on him...

Posted by at 4:46 PM | Permalink |