I haven't been everywhere, man

Those who know me, those who have lived to tell the tale, will tell you that Rev. Lee is not the kind of guy to travel. I’m a homebody, content to stick around the house and stay in bed with a bottle of psychotropics and a plastic jug. For weeks on end.

It’s not like I haven’t seen the country, smelled the air, met strange and exotic North Americans. Why, it’s almost like that song, “I’ve Been Everywhere.”

Actually, my life is just like that song.

For those unfamiliar with this jewel of American music that was stolen from Australians,* “I’ve Been Everywhere” is a rocking little number that showcased rap-like rhymes of the names of places, towns, cities, and states, which thus inadvertently codified a final and absolute list of all the places one must visit in order to claim, “I’ve been everywhere, man.”

The song starts with a hitchhiker, alone on a dusty Nevada highway. A trucker pulls over to give the tramp a ride. The tramp, it turns out, is a deranged mad man. When the trucker comments on the dust storm, the tramp launches a musical tirade comprised of a rhyming list of all the places he’s been, thus showing up the trucker, who was just trying to make small talk. During the tirade the tramp breathlessly confesses, “I’m a killer.”

I was feeling pretty good for a few days, not good enough to get out of bed, but good. Then I got to thinking. When I listen to the song, either performed by Hank Snow or Johnny Cash, I tend to pick out the places I have been, ignoring the others. I began to fear that I could be overly identifying with the song - after all, I don’t believe in violence, how could I be a killer? - and the walls of reality came crashing down, like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall. Just like that.

So I checked out the lyrics using the world’s sole source of information, the Internet, and I learned that I haven’t been everywhere. In fact, I’m not even close. It totally blew me away. I haven’t been to most places, at least the places the song requires of a well-traveled person, which is the same thing.

Let’s look at the numbers:

By my count, the song makes reference to 90 specific geographic places, I’ve been to about 25 (It's kind of hard to tell with some of them). So I guess I’m more than a quarter to my goal, but still, that’s totally lame.

While processing these developments I spent an additional week in bed, just to make sure, and came to a conclusion: The only thing left to do is to stay here in bed, or get up and take action.

So here I am, two weeks later, to announce the opening salvo of a jihad against me not having been every place mentioned in the song. It will be my mission, my duty, to visit all the Chickapees and the Jellicos before I die.

It’s your jihad to kill me before I do.

(The ‘jihad’ is kind of awkward, I know, but it has that little bit extra that pushes it over the top. Lots of other people have set out on this “jihad,” it's not that original.)

* The guy that rewrote the New Zealand version was named John Hore. He later changed his name.

Here is the song. How many have you been to, smartie?

Reno Chicago Fargo Minnesota Buffalo Toronto Winslow Sarasota Wichita Tulsa Ottowa Oklahoma Tampa Panama Mattua LaPaloma Bangor Baltimore Salvador Amarillo Tocapillo Pocotello Amperdllo (I’m a killer)

Boston Charleston Dayton Louisiana Washington Houston Kingston Texas (County) Monterey Fairaday Santa Fe Tollaperson Glen Rock Black Rock Little Rock Oskaloussa Tennessee Tinnesay Chickapee Spirit Lake Grand Lake Devil’s Lake Crater Lake (For Pete’s sake)

Louisville Nashville Knoxville Omerback Shereville Jacksonville Waterville Costa Rock Richfield Springfield Bakersfield Shreveport Hakensack Cadallic Fond du Lac Davenport Idaho Jellico Argentina Diamondtina Pasadena Catalina (See what I mean, uh.)

Pittsburgh Parkersburg Gravelburg Colorado Ellisburg Rexburg Vicksburg Eldorado Larimore Adimore Habastock Chadanocka Shasta Nebraska Alaska Opalacka Baraboo Waterloo Kalamazoo Kansas City Souix City Cedar City Dodge City (What a pity.)

In defense of 'potential criminal' - on - 'potential criminal' violence

I really don’t have anything to add to this story.

Mar 29, 9:02 AM (ET)
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Rep. Tom DeLay, once one of the most powerful figures in the U.S. Congress, wants his right to pack a pistol restored after the state of Texas revoked his permit following his indictment last year.

The former House Majority Leader's license to carry a concealed handgun was taken away after he was indicted on (felony) campaign finance charges, but he has appealed the revocation, DeLay spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty said on Tuesday.

State law dictates gun permits be revoked upon felony indictment.

Flaherty would not say whether DeLay, a "gun rights" advocate who spoke last year at the National Rifle Association annual convention in Houston, carries a gun.

"That's the point of having a CHL (concealed handgun license) in Texas -- potential criminals should assume everyone is (carrying)," Flaherty said in an email.

DeLay was indicted six months ago for money laundering linked to fund-raising activities by his Texans for a Republican Majority political action committee ahead of the 2002 state legislature election.

Some will rob you with a six gun. Some with a fountain pen. – Woody Guthrie

-In the U.S., to pay bills and to be a part of consumer society, you need a checking account.

-To get a checking account, you deposit your money in the bank.

-The bank takes your money and invests it, to make more money, for themselves.

-For letting them use your money to make more money, they share a small cut of it with you. They keep the rest. They also provide services for you, such as paying your checks.

-The bank invests in things that make money, and not necessarily to make the world a better place. In fact, sometimes banks make more money by investing in things that make the world a worse place. Like Bombs. And “South Park.” And dead kittens.

-The bank indirectly makes a prick out of you, as you helped fund their investments that make the world a worse place.

-Every other year or so, all the banks in the world get together and drive dump trucks full of money to Capitol Hill in Washington DC.

- Your congressional representatives waddle outside and lather themselves up in a frenzy of horror befitting a sausage factory.

-You might think this would be called a “bribe.” You would be incorrect. It’s called a “campaign contribution.” That’s because when the banks give your congressman the money, it is actually “speech.” When they hand the money over, they are “speaking,” and they are not saying nice things about you.

-You are a human (did I forget to mention that?), and you make mistakes, such as not managing your account accurately, and you make a series of overdrafts.

-When you overdraft, the bank puts its pustule-encrusted hand into the pot and pays your check, which is very nice of them. Despite the amount of your overdraft, the bank charges you a $33 fee.

-The bank does not notify you that your account is overdrawn, and you continue to make small, every day purchases, a pack of cigarettes, a cup of coffee, lunch at Wendy’s. A $33 fee is assessed each time. Very nice.

-When you deposit your paycheck, the bank might get around to mentioning to you that you owe them $300, plus the $18 they covered. But that’s okay, because they just took it out of your check.

-You worked hard for that $300, it probably took you several days. Several miserable days. You believe that it belongs to you, but the bank disagrees.

-You threaten to take your business elsewhere.

-Your bank gives you the finger. They have your $300, what do they care.

-You look for a bank that charges a percentage of the overdraft, or at least doesn’t charge thirty-fucking-three dollars a pop.

-You find out very quickly that there are none.

-You wonder why.

-You learn that banks are in collusion.

-You look up “collusion” in a dictionary.

-You find that banks secretly agree to screw people over. You also learn that it is supposed to be illegal.

-You kick yourself for voting Republican.

-Then pick up a newspaper and realize that Republicans and Democrats are colluding to maintain a campaign system that allows corporate interests to buy politicians, virtually ensuring that no laws will be passed that restrict the ability of the partners in the collusion to screw over Americans.

-Then you realize that $33 is the least amount you will ever pay for an overdraft charge from here on out.

-You have the uncontrollable urge to smash the capitalist state. This will pass.

-However, what doesn’t pass is the fact that you are $300 poorer.

-On the bright side, the bank is $300 richer.

-The bank then takes a portion of that money, and a portion of the money they made investing your money, and they drive big dump trucks full of cash to Capitol Hill in Washington, DC to talk with your congressman. They don’t say nice things about you.

Scrabble Smackdown

Sometimes all the name calling, taunting, baiting, it all becomes too much. I still have the scars, and it’s hard to contain the rage.

It’s hard to listen to the put-downs, and slander, and not do something. I don’t know what, something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time: like rip off my shirt, unholster The Guns, dig my finger into Mean Gene’s chest, and growl:

“Let me tell you something, brother. This is a big world, with lots of words and lots places to hide. But tonight, starting at around 10:30 p.m. pacific time, I’ll be waiting in the Caged Grid Iron of Hell, sitting at my computer, waiting for some unlucky devil to challenge me to a game of Scrabble. And let me tell you something brother, I won’t be hiding. Because when you dedicate yourself to anagramming, you anagram for life, brother. Ohh yeah!”

(This is about the time the guns get flexed.)

When asked to describe the typical Scrabble player, most people use words like “muscular,” “blond, with a gunfighter mustache and a Prince Valiant haircut,” “tan as a football,” and “wearing tight-fitting, gold underpants.”

This might be the case for me, and Hulk Hogan, but in reality, most Scrabble players are dorks, which is derived from the Latin dorkus, or “One who claims to have studied Klingon.”

Out of shape, compulsive, socially inept, Scrabble players are generally not “well-groomed” or “pleasant company.”

Which brings us to the point of this testosterone fueled rampage: Scrabble is wonderful and fantastic.*

Unlike actually having to do something with your life, Scrabble doesn’t judge you for being overweight and depressed.

It will judge you, harshly, if you can’t list at least two words that have the Q but no U. But memorizing a list of obscure two- and three-letter words is much easier than developing a healthy relationship, parenting a child, finding a fulfilling career or contributing to your community.

Plus, when you get really good at it, no one will care because it doesn’t matter.

There’s a free Internet program you can download in order to vie against other dorks from around the world in life and death struggles where the loser doesn’t exactly die, but feels humiliated, and angry. Some of the competition may not be able to speak English, but will know more words than you and will beat you and make you feel even better.

I, for one, feel great, all of the time, thanks to Scrabble.

*If you don’t believe me, if my word isn’t good enough for you, then ask my Quebecois friend Matt Logan. We’ve never met, but last November, Matt won the 2005 World Scrabble Championship in London, all by himself, using just his razor-sharp intellect and his fingers to lay down tiles. Matt’s a mathematician, his tournament biography says, so he’ll have fun counting all the prize money the best Scrabble player in the world can expect, $15,000. You heard me, $15,000! That will keep him busy for a while.

So take a lesson from Matt and me. If you’ve ever thought to yourself: “Man, I’ve got to get my act together. I’m squandering the greatest gift of all, life.”

Then Scrabble is for you.

A good boy

Even Sid Vicious was a kid.

It's the war, Joel

Joel Connelly, in his latest Seattle Post-Intelligencer column, chastised the "loony left" for giving Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell such a hard time in her hour of need: election year.

Connelly thinks that if the American people give the Senate to the yellow-bellied plutocrats with D’s beside their name, Congress would cease being a “rubber stamp” for the Bush agenda. He also says that the “loony left” gives a pass to right wingers.

(He doesn't mention that these centrist Democrats often use the "loony left" and then stab them in the back once in office.)

He also says that Cantwell should be questioned on the war ... I’m not sure what he means by this.

However, he gives no indication that opposition to Cantwell’s stated support for Bush’s war could be a valid justification for opposing her.

He also says that Cantwell’s GOP opponent, Mike McGavick should be questioned on his support of the war.

... Wow, Joel. You’re brilliant.

(By the way, if you think the state Republicans would anoint a dove, you’re the lunatic. It would be a smart move, but come on, this is the party that brought us Ellen Crasswell)

His last line really brings home the complexity of Connelly’s take on current affairs:

“Above all, with checks and balances restored, the Bush administration would not feel so uninhibited in going to war abroad and spying on Americans at home.”

Connelly neglects to mention that CANTWELL VOTED FOR THE WAR.

Joel, she helped sign the bloody check.

What is it the “loony left” find so disagreeable about Cantwell? Is it her millionaire smirk? Her less-than-fervid defense of abortion rights? Her commitment to trade pacts that hand the shitty end of the stick to undeveloped countries?

It’s the war, Connelly!

I’m sorry, but grandstanding in front of the untamed , pristine wilderness doesn’t change the fact that she is accomplice to unspeakable crimes.

My God, am I taking crazy pills? Or is Connelly taking bribes from Cantwell’s campaign?

_____________

Howlin’ Leroy Eenk sent intern Julio Cumberbun down to Earl’s Bait and Tackle for a little brow furling from the man carrying the Cantwell torch.

HLE: So, you think lefties are being persnickety for criticizing Cantwell?

CONNELLY: Why, she loves polar bears, see? And she floods reporters with worthless press releases. She’s kind to dogs, and recycles. Who are you to criticize her? She’s just trying to make the world a better place for kittens, see? What you got against kittens?

HLE: She declined to filibuster President Bush’s latest attempt to stack the Supreme Court.

C: So you’re a radical, are you?

HLE: Most of her constituents would have supported her.

C: That’s not a fact. What else you got?

HLE: For the one thing, the war ...

C: Oh, the war. Well that’s a big word for you, isn’t it? You ever fought in a war? Well Maria Cantwell has, got her nuts blown off at Anzio, see? And, why, she loves the troops. Who are you to criticize her for supporting Bush’s war in Iraq? You want the terrorists to win?

HLE: Most of her constituents oppose the war.

C: That’s not a fact.

HLE: Most Americans oppose the war

C: Well if you want to be a one-issue voter, go ahead, screw up the chances for the Dems to take the Senate.

HLE: It’s a pretty big issue. And the Senate Democrats have consistently failed to take any meaningful stand (exhibit D26: Feingold’s censure resolution), because most of them are complicit in advancing Bush’s agenda. Who’s to say they will do any different if they have the majority?

C: You need to see past the bloodshed.

HLE: There’s a lot of blood

C: You’ll never do it unless you try.

Good luck, and good night

There has been one great movie about journalists, people whose self-importance knows no boundaries, and that would be “All the President’s Men,” the story of the reporters who “broke the Watergate scandal” set to celluloid. For those who don’t recall, Watergate was an early “-gate” scandal, not to be confused with Travelgate, or Plamegate.

A good movie about reporters is “Absent of Malice,” starring Sally Fields and Paul Newman.

A so-so movie about journalists is “Shattered Glass,” the story of the New Republic reporter who fabricated several stories before being caught.

There are many terrible movies about reporters, the one that comes to mind is “The Paper.” It really sucks.

I watched “Good Night and Good Luck,” this evening, a stark, black and white account of Edward Murrow’s crusade against former Sen. Joe McCarthy, R-Wisc.

McCarthy is where we get the term “McCarthyism,” which is a highly stylized form of ventriloquism.

“Good Night and Good Luck” wasn’t as long as other movies about reporters, which is its crowning achievement, so it ranks as a “good” movie about reporters. Then again, it could have been shorter.

With regards to the cast: that’s not acting, that’s smoking.

To its discredit, the film has a message, which is that television has the power to slay demagogues, but also to hatch them. In the beginning Murrow declares that some arguments do not have two valid sides. The tough question of “Who gets to decide between statesman and demagogue?” is tapped occasionally, but never fully answered.

Presumably, according to the film makers, journalists should decide. That’s easy enough.

But which journalists? By law, the government cannot license reporters, it cannot require that reporters understand the basics of what they will cover, nor can the government censure reporters for failing to meet ethical standards. Doctors, lawyers, businesses, hairdressers, hunters, they all have to submit to governmental oversight, in theory, to protect the public’s interest. Journalists don’t even have non-governmental oversight. Reporters and editors are considered private citizens.

These are all good things, necessary things. The framers of the constitution had an understanding of how information flows, and the importance of having access to a spectrum of sources.

But it leaves you with a field of professionals (who are, for the most part, human) who sometimes operate in the dark with strange and loathsome people, often becoming strange and loathsome themselves. How can you know you can trust a reporter? The easy answer is, you can’t.

The film gives credit to Murrow and Friendly for helping to stop McCarthy, a real bastard, and so we understand that when journalists have significant power at their disposal to influence public opinion, like a television show, journalists will use it wisely and for the betterment of America. Hurray for journalists.

It’s a little too tidy of a package.

What redeems the film is its exploration of the idea that a vigorous, aggressive and independent news organization will constantly bump against business interests. There can be no equilibrium, only give and take up to a point. This tension between news departments and advertising (and a lesser degree circulation) is real, and does result in self-censorship. If the filmmakers are going to hit me over the head with something, I’d prefer it to be this tension between truth-telling and profit.

Another good part was the soft fluff Murrow’s show had to do in-between the hard-nosed public affairs news features. I really liked those scenes. Even the legendary Ed Murrow had to do stories he couldn’t care less about.

Eenk Rating scale:

7 flaming, golden hawks out of 11

pot v. kettle

In another move that shows that Howlin’ Leroy Eenk is ahead of the curve on hot button political issues, Editor and Publisher, a publication that covers the print news media, moved a story Wednesday that ponders the ethics of an AP story last week cataloguing instances of a certain invalid arguments President Bush employs to pistol-whip opponents.

Conservative blowhards compared it to a DNC talking points memo. Liberal blowhards praised it. Apparently that is enough of a news hook for E&P.

To be glib and a hypocrite, the E&P story poses the question: is it possible to objectively point out a politician’s overuse of invalid arguments?

By the tone of the article, I would guess: yes, if it’s a hypothetical politician, and no if it’s President Bush.

The E&P article steers clear of discussing the facts of Jennifer Loven’s story. It also says that identifying a logical fallacy is apparently a subjective deduction, as though the straw man fallacy was new, or it was a theory, like evolution and the Big Bang, just theories.

Instead E&P zeroes in on the fact that Loven did not quote any Republican or Bush supporters saying, with a straight face, “Everybody does it.” Nor does she explain to what lengths she went to in order to include presidential apologists in the story.

For E&P’s share, it doesn’t mention that Loven avoided saying the straw man is a fallacy, an invalid argument. She referred to it as a “rhetorical device.”

Loven’s story was not perfect, there are scarcely few of those. It could have made more mention of the fact that politicians of all stripes have used the straw man when advertising their abilities for elected office (plus yours truly).

However, there has been only one stripe in power for years now. I’m more interested in what’s happening today.

E&P also quotes Republican critics as saying Loven’s personal politics are probably left of Bush’s, which feeds into the old conservative dogma that the “media” has a “liberal bias,” a critique of Loven that is reasonably close to “attacking the man,” another fallacy.

Could it be that Loven is just a hack, an estranged reporter who has been using her power, unconsciously or otherwise, to further her ideological agenda? Maybe. Sure. Why not. But nobody is disputing the facts: Bush said these things, and more, and it doesn’t cost a person the time it takes to microwave a burrito (three minutes) to notice that his logic doesn’t compute. I mean, love him or hate, you have to admit, you can’t always take what Bush says at face value.

E&P must really believe that partisan loyalty determines if a leap in logic is valid or not.

Or else they might be treading dangerously close to enabling a “hit piece” against some one who presents facts that call the Bush Administration onto the carpet.

(The only blog E&P cites having posted on the issue was Monday by the Washington Post, a full two days after the story was first noticed by Howlin’ Leroy Eenk intern Delores Hazen and submitted to Rev. Eenk for his review. The Post got beat by Howlin' Leroy Eenk, and kept beating them for two whole days! Please stop by the editor’s office for a free Howlin’ Leroy Eenk water bottle, Delores.)

Props go to Richie Blade of Phoenix for the tip on the E&P story.

Brother, can you spare $9 trillion?

The national debt is now $9 trillion.

$9 trillion:

- Is roughly four times Britain’s GDP

- Equates to $30,000 for every man, woman and child in the U.S.

- Equates to $1,500 for every man, woman and child in the world

- Would buy all the tea in China. In fact it would buy all the tea in the world for the next 2,000 years.

- Is enough to solve the Palestinian crisis by rehousing every Israeli and Palestinian family in a £1.5m detached house in Henley-on-Thames

-Would build 28 Eiffel Towers — constructed out of gold.

Read this story to learn what national debt means.

If I only had a heart

One of the most effective logical fallacies used by President Bush and many a right-wing pundit to muddle reality and send normally happy people into mental septic shock is the “Straw Man,” that is, rebuilding an opponent’s argument in a weakened or outrageous way.

In what appears to be a trend that may culminate in reporters being assigned to a newly coined beat that might be called the linguistics beat, the AP moved a story Saturday about Bush’s use of this fallacy to clobber people who disagree with him.

As far as I know, it is the first time a major news organization has stated outright in a news story that Bush relies on fallacies to make points, although the story steers clear of using the word “fallacy,” instead using the less damning “rhetorical device,” which is accurate but breezes past the point of the story for obvious reasons.

Still, this is huge.

I counted five examples of a straw man argument. The reporter’s name is Jennifer Loven, and whoever she is, this story rocks lame asses.

What is so disheartening, though, is that it took this long for somebody to state the obvious. I mean, I learned about the straw man in a cursory section of language arts my sophomore year in high school, a class I failed.

Despite that, all this time, I would wager that most Americans don’t recognize it when Bush (and Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, blah blah blah) pulled the straw man ploy. If they did, I would wager that only a small minority would know what it’s called.

This isn’t because Americans are stupid, like Bush obviously thinks, but because Americans are not taught to identify fallacies, and we do not value this kind of education in our society. Why? Well, probably because politicians decide how much money will be spent on education and politicians decide what will be taught. If people knew how to detect bullshit, we would vote these politicians the hell out of office.

Also, think about what would happen to consumer capitalism if people could think for themselves. Jessica Simpson CDs, Matrix movies, and Wal-Mart pants would clog the landfills. Advertisers wouldn’t be able to sell anything that wasn’t necessary or had value.

And society, don’t get me started o nhe possibilities. Racism would disappear, Sexism as well. Marijuana would be legalized and addiction would be considered a public health issue rather than one of law enforcement. Corporate conglomerates would take a hit on the bottom line to ensure employees and livestock would be forever separated and both treated humanely, wars would be fought in defense of our borders, not our “economic interests,” and to protect innocents abroad. Cars would no longer be used for commuting. Women would hit on men more often. Men would share child-rearing and household duties. Et al.

If people could think critically, it would be a completely different country.

OK, SMART GUY, ENOUGH. I’VE HAD IT. YOU WALTZ IN HERE LIKE YOU OWN THE PLACE, DISRESPECTING OUR COMMANDER IN CHIEF, AND THEN YOU USE A STRAW MAN ARGUMENT. YOU’RE A HYPOCRITE AND YOU MUST BE STOPPED.

Where?

RIGHT HERE:

“This isn’t because Americans are stupid, like Bush obviously thinks, but because Americans are not taught to identify fallacies ...”

Is it? Really?

YEAH, IT IS. YOU’RE TALKING OUT YOUR ASS. YOU’RE TELLING US WHAT BUSH THINKS.

I’m saying that Bush uses fallacies, double-talk, and redefines words like “torture” on the fly with a straight face because he doesn’t think most people will understand that he is bullshitting them.

Talk about a simple majority (rim shot).

Seriously though, folks, I’m not sure Bush would know a fallacy from a hole in the ground where a village once stood (I’m on fire tonight).

He is misunderestimating us (OK, that’s it, I’m through).

RIGHT THERE, YOU WERE USING A FALLACIOUS ARGUMENT. YOU WERE ATTACKING THE MAN, AND IN A VERY LAME WAY. YOU WERE ATTACKING THE MESSENGER. YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE THIS POMPOUS REPORTER, WHY DO YOU WANT TO KILL THE MESSENGER?

Yeah, man, I went to public school, all right. When I’m talking about idiot Americans, that’s including me.

WE’RE NOT ALL IDIOTS. SOME OF US KNOW IT’S BULLSHIT, BUT HE’S OUR CANDIDATE. JUST LIKE THE BULLSHIT CLINTON SPEWED, YOU GUYS DIDN’T MIND IT.

Hey, I’m no fan of Clinton.

HE WASN’T LIBERAL ENOUGH FOR YOU, HUH?

Yeah, and it used to piss me off.

A lesser evil is still evil

This fall, Washingtonians will face a peculiar dilemma when they are given the opportunity to select a junior senator for the next six years.

A six years that no doubt will see many crucial votes by our august solons, furthering their quest to exacerbate the problems facing the country.

The incumbent, Maria Cantwell, is a conservative Democrat. She voted to renew and make permanent the Patriot Act, she has supported “free-trade” schemes, such as CAFTA, NAFTA, the WTO, all of ‘em. She has also been a mousy but steady supporter of the war.

The Republicans have nominated Mike McGavick, a pantload from the insurance industry. Creative gang of vampires, those Republicans.

The Green Party has slated Aaron Dixon, a Seattle-area community activist and former Black Panther. I don’t know much about him, but I feel comfortable saying he’s the most honest person running.

McGavick has no friends in Seattle, and he’s mistrusted on the east side. But he’s a white man, and that plays well from Kennewick to Bellevue. He’ll take the west side’s ass-backward county, Lewis County, but Cantwell will have a contest in the Gray’s Harbors and Clallams. Dixon will get a chunk of the Seattle liberals saying four-letter words like “Iraq,” but Cantwell will still take King County. If it comes close, if McGavick can resurrect his bored-meeting campaign, and Dixon turns out the vote, Cantwell could lose. And she won’t be losing to Dixon.

Dixon, despite his intentions, is a bigger threat to Cantwell than the pantload, therefor a bigger threat to Democrats who may wrestle control of the Senate from the Republicans,* and therefor a bigger threat to human beings everywhere.

The system is rigged toward the two parties. They control the money, they control the law, which is often the same thing. A third party candidate, if they are at all lucid and run a decent campaign, will do nothing but sap votes from one side or the other.

By the way, it is infuriating, and completely heartbreaking, how our political system inverts good and evil. But this frog doesn’t have wings.

I like Dixon, but he’s not even qualified. He needs to go to the statehouse, learn the system. The candidates that swing for the fences in the spring turn me off (he’s a sorry sack of shit in so many ways, but a good example is Arnold Schwarzenegger). I want a candidate who has spent a few years in the statehouse, and showed they could get things done. Both Murray and Cantwell were state lawmakers- don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of either, but they had experience.

I’d send Dixon to Olympia any day. But to D.C.? It would be like me going, and that’s not a good idea.

OUR CHOICE:

Cantwell - An incumbent who is an accomplice to much of the destruction Bush has waged on the country and the world.

McGavick - A would-be accomplice of the destruction.

Dixon- An inadvertent accomplice of the would-be accomplice.

Man, I’m so excited for this election, I wish I could take the day off from work and drive all over King County, voting to my heart’s content.

Who else could win a statewide election?

-Dino Rossi, the smarmy slum lord from east King County, could beat Cantwell. Dino Rossi, whose resignation speech from the state senate included an open invitation to the governor’s office once he got elected. Dino Rossi, living proof that you CAN polish a turd, has said he will not run. He wants to take on Gov. Gregoire again in 2008. When they make the movie, it will be called “C for Chode.”

-Christine O. Gregoire would get my vote. Christine O. Gregoire, who now officially prefers the gender-neutral “Chris” and is proof that a policy wonk with a fake tan can steal an election, which doesn’t prove anything. She could do it in 2012, after she beats Rossi in 2008, put all the chips on the table and try for the Upper Chamber.

-Where have you gone, Gary Locke? He was a good care-taker governor for having the imagination of a Republican. A smart guy who will give you an answer, you’ll write it down, and once you get to your keyboard and read your notes, you’ll realize that he managed to fill four pages without saying a single thing. I’d vote for him too. The next go-round is 2012.

-What I’d really like is a combination between Robert Redford in the “The Candidate,” a serious Ralph Nader without all that down-home charm, and an Angela Davis social worker who raised three kids in the Central District and has a mind like a steel trap and a mouth like a Marine Corp gunnery sergeant. I’d like somebody I could believe in, somebody that would inspire me.

When was the last time a leader inspired anybody?

*Friday, March 17, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP)

... To their chagrin, GOP officials find themselves debating privately whether Democrats have a better chance to pick up the six seats they need to control the Senate - or the 15 required for a majority in the House.

Signifier v. Signified

So the AP bureau in Baghdad must have a few critical theory books laying around. Two stories out of the bureau Tuesday sought to explore the relationship between language, the bloody mess in Iraq, and Americans.

Mar 15, 2:41 PM (ET)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Words like "victory" and "mission accomplished" aren't heard much anymore as the United States enters its fourth year of war in Iraq.

The slogans now are "political process" and handing over "battle space" to Iraq's new army so that the Iraqis themselves can carry the fight to the insurgents and build their promised democracy.

All those plans are now under review in light of another ominous phrase - "civil war" - that has crept into the debate since the wave of sectarian violence set off by a Feb. 22 bombing at a Shiite Muslim mosque in Samarra.

---------------
This is a mighty story, and a good primer on what’s happened until this point. He is accurate in saying that the Samarra mosque bombing did cause the resurgence of the term “civil war,” at least in AP reports, but it would take some imaginative thinking to believe that the bombing was a step closer to civil war. It had been going on for a long time.

Another word for 'bullshit'

Bowing from intense pressure from Howlin’ Leroy Eenk, the Associated Press filed a story Wednesday attempting to present Americans with the linguistic dilemma reporters are facing: does countrymen killing each other over religious, political and ethnic divisions constitute a civil war even when our government insists it doesn’t?

Mar 15, 3:06 PM (ET)
By Charles J. Hanley — Sameer N. Yacoub contributed.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Deep within the Pentagon, they're trying to piece together a picture of an Iraqi civil war. What would it look like?

Here on the streets of Baghdad, it looks like hell.

Corpses, coldly executed, are turning up by the minibus-load. Mortar shells are casually lobbed into rival neighborhoods. Car bombs are killing people wholesale, while assassins hunt them down one by one.

Is it civil war? "In Iraq it is no longer a matter of definition - 'civil war' or 'war' or 'violence' or 'terrorism.' It is all of the above," said one familiar with all of the above, Beirut scholar-politician Farid Khazen, a witness to Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.

It's only a term from a dictionary, defined as a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country. But once media headlines begin referring to the "Iraq civil war," it will mark not only an escalation of vocabulary, but of international concern.

"By the standard that political scientists use, there's been a civil war going on in Iraq since sovereignty was handed over to the interim government in 2004," said Stanford University's James Fearon, who has done detailed studies of modern internal conflicts.

One threshold political scientists use is a casualty toll of 1,000 dead, "and this conflict is way over that," Fearon said. Besides the more than 2,000 U.S. dead here, at least 33,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since 2003, says the British anti-war group Iraq Body Count, whose count, drawn from media reports, does not subdivide the deaths into categories.

------------
This is a departure from the AP’s usual boilerplate and inverted pyramids. It’s not as interesting as it should be, partly because it eschews analysis for quotes from experts.

...

Wednesday, March 14, 2006 —
The number of U.S. military members killed is at least 2,310 since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Civil War v. Open Civil Warfare

A new idea was born Tuesday, by an Associated Press reporter who probably didn’t know it when he or she was doused with a bucket of divine inspiration.

Mar 15, 3:52 AM (ET)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi authorities discovered at least 87 corpses (Monday and Tuesday) - men shot to death execution-style - as Iraq edged closer to open civil warfare.

Some of the bloodshed appeared to be retaliation for a bomb and mortar attack in the Sadr City slum that killed at least 58 people and wounded more than 200 two days earlier.

It may not have been Tuesday that this term “open civil warfare” came into existence, maybe it’s just new to me.

But it shows, at least, that the players in this most miserable game have begun considering that it isn’t President Bush who gets to decide if Iraq will have a civil war.

Admitting that civil war has broken out, many dozens of corpses ago, is tantamount to conceding defeat. It would illustrate why the U.S. backed a urinal cake like Hussein in the first place: to maximize profit, it takes a monster to enforce the arbitrary borders of Iraq, and most of post-colonial Earth.

The civil war will cost many more Iraqi lives, and after the government caves to public pressure and pulls out, Iran and its new nuclear bombs ultimately step in to lend a helping hand.

The sad irony of this horrible aspect of Bush’s re-election campaign is that now Iraq has a better chance of becoming the deployment point of a Tel Aviv-bound nuclear weapon than before the invasion/occupation.

In the fuzzy world of the Bush Administration, steeped in a healthy blend of incompetence and corruption, civil war is something that hasn’t happened. Somebody should have told the men who were shot in the back of the head last week and buried in their underwear. Maybe the whole thing could have been avoided.

good things are bound to happen

“War is like love; it always finds a way.” –Bertolt Brecht

Here’s a fun game to play with your family during commercial breaks. It’s called connect the dots.

What can be concluded from the following wire reports?


Mar 10, 9:21 PM (ET)
WASHINGTON (AP) - An AP-Ipsos Poll found an overwhelming majority of Americans - including 70 percent of Republicans and 90 percent of Democrats - saying it's likely that a civil war will break out in Iraq.

Mar 11, 2:51 PM (ET)
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush said Saturday he is confident a unified Iraqi government will settle sectarian feuds that Iraqi leaders fear could lead to civil war.

Mar 12, 4:21 AM (ET)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Bomb blasts, rocket and gunfire killed at least 10 people and injured 23 in the Iraqi capital Sunday, police said.

If you said: Iraq has been at civil war for some time, isn’t it obvious?

WRONG – President Bush has within his powers the ability to stop a civil war if and when it should arise. All he has to do is instruct the national broadcast media that he has narrowly redefined “civil war” to exclusively mean a conflict in which one belligerent wears blue, and the other gray. Through this cost effect method, the tragedy and human suffering of a civil war in Iraq can be avoided altogether. The president prefers peaceful means, because he is a peaceful man.

If you said: The American people may have a less foggy view of reality than their president, but they still don’t get it.

WRONG – I don’t think you want me to remind everybody here that we are at war. We were all there on nine eleven, we all remember watching the two towers fall over and over again on Fox.

If you said: OK, I could also conclude the slightly more Republicans than Democrats have their heads up their asses.

WRONG - Typical liberal over here.

If you said: No, I’m serious, it’s fucking obvious, there is a civil war going on in Iraq. The insurgents kill Americans when they can, but people are mostly killing each other.

WRONG – How do you know that? Have you been over there? I haven't, but I know people who have, and they say that there is a lot of good things happening over there. A lot of good people working hard. You know you can’t trust the “mainstream” media, they have an agenda. The truth is that the future of Iraq is looking brighter and brighter every day.

If you said: That’s the road side explosives.

WRONG – It’s the light of freedom, casting a luminous glow across the face of a small Iraqi girl, picking flowers in a meadow.

If you said: So what is it going to take for Americans to realize that there is a civil war going on in Iraq?

WRONG: Listen, this isn't going anywhere, and it won't, because you're speaking what we like to call "pre-9/11 English." Haven't you heard, all the "old Europe" words like "victory, "success," and "accountability" have been redefined? You should crawl out from under that punk rock occasionally, get with the program. Plus we've redefined lots more words, thousands, even common words like "the." The problem is, we lost the piece of paper that has the new definitions for the words, so right now the language is in what you might call "flux," I think, unless that one has been changed too. There's a natural inexactness of language, its truth-telling abilities pale in comparison to numbers, but right now, most of the good words aren't worth the breath, which makes conversation beyond the most immediate desires impossible. You're trying to talk about something that from what I gather is important to you, I wish I knew what it was.

If you said: So there's nothing incongruent about the president and the people thinking that they are somehow staving off a civil war?

CORRECT – That's right. Iraqis would look pretty silly dressed up in blue and gray uniforms, wouldn't they? Now please leave.

Stand Off

Standing in the cold,
soaking upward from the sidewalk
Through shoe soles on the way to bone,

The three of us huff together like black birds,
In somebody else’s front yard next to a stump:
TV, radio and print. The whole liberal
Media establishment.

The cops all have guns, and there’s more guns than cops,
But we don’t have guns, and tell jokes, and the cops glare at us,
Mostly me.
Nice to put a face to the name
They associate with stupid and gullible.

The adult child living at home has been drinking,
And threatened his ex-wife and his father with a shotgun,
That’s the reason for the snipers.

“He’s been having problems,” said a neighbor.
The cops evacuated her from home, smoking a long cigarette
—Wouldn’t give her name. Or the adult child’s name.
“I know what you’re about,” she said.

The cops don’t want us too close,
So the small town police chief briefs us
Every five minutes and says nothing.

A few months ago, another distraught man made threats
To kill himself;
The cops waited 12 hours before going in.
He took a fistful of methadone after drinking all night
Passed out on his side
For half a day.

They came in too late, found him on the floor.
Or just in time,
His face was green when they wheeled him
To the ambulance.
Doctors had to amputate his arm;
he’s still in the hospital, and may die.

An overhelpful man from the neighborhood
Brought coffee for the cops, and placed it on the stump.
The cops didn’t touch it, neither did we.
It sat there and got cold.

Rain starts and blots on the paper,
The pen scratches through the soggy spots,
Smearing ink. I can’t read my handwriting anyway.

“Officer safety,” Chief says, and other things.

Pimping ain't easy

THESIS:

The Academy Award winner for best original song for 2005 is called “It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp.”

In it, the rappers of Three 6 Mafia show the softer, vulnerable side of pimps, exploring the hardships endured by the perhaps the second oldest profession. A profession that, in terms of what Buddha said about “Right Livelihood,” ranks a notch above slave trader.

This has been explained in newspaper, media accounts and the mouths of some liberals as a nod to “urban culture,” which is a roundabout way of saying African-American culture for people who have grown tired of talking about race in terms of, well, race.

In other words, the whites that make up the majority of the academy and the white suburban males who buy most of rap music (or illegally download it) have given this nod to the objectification of another’s sexual function for profit, because it’s black culture?

The song is perhaps receiving its awards at an appropriate time, just as South Dakota outlawed abortion in an attempt to challenge the 1973 Supreme court decision in Roe v. Wade. But not only is it overtly sexist, in that it glorifies the subjugation of women for profit (I feel like I need to keep saying that, the whole profit thing), it is also racist, in that it glorifies the subjugation of black women for profit (In the words of Will Ferrell, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills).

Not to mention that people out there are reaping windfalls from the sale of a song (it should be mentioned that the black men and women who wrote and performed the song also get a cut) that smacks of the lamest kind of minstrel act while black women are being infected with a deadly disease at a higher rate than any other demographic. What about for next year’s awards they nominate, “It’s Hard Out Here For A Drug Addict Who Gets Beaten And Raped And Ends Up With AIDS So Some Asshole Can Buy Expensive Shoes?”

What about “It’s Hard Out Here For A Skinhead,” or, “It’s Hard Out Here For A Serial Killer,” two groups of people in the moral company of pimps? When are they going to get their day? God, seeing that song get an award, I felt like I was in 1930s Germany, where good and evil had been inverted and nobody that wasn’t killed or tortured cared too much.

And the liberals that defended it, it’s beyond relativism. It’s beyond the knee-jerk, nihilistic “anybody that opposes the Government/Society/Whitey must be sympathized with.” At worst it’s racism, the uncritical acceptance that black culture is synonymous with criminal culture. At best, it’s the reluctance of liberal whites to object to oppression as long as black people are apparently doing the oppressing. What ever happened to the liberalism that cared about human dignity?

“It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp” is not the first song dedicated to the degradation of black women, nor will it be the last. It's totally a rip-off of Too $Short's "Pimping Ain't Easy."

DEFENSE

DO YOU HATE HIP-HOP?

This is not an attack on hip-hop. It is a counterattack in defense of black women (mostly) perpetrated by the song and its celebration by white mainstream society. We’ve made great strides, in that not all the black people seen in mainstream culture are criminals (there is still a lot of tokenism, however Denzel Washington and Halle Berry and others are respected across the board and make challenging films), and still, we are told that awarding an ode to pimping is somehow recognizing the contribution of blacks in our society.

I love hip hop. I love Eric B and Rakim all the way up to Ghostface Killer and MF Doom. This isn’t about hip hop.

ARE YOU PICKING ON ‘HUSTLE and FLOW?’

It should also be noted that glorification of pimping didn’t start with the “Hustle and Flow” soundtrack. The first widely recognized member of the pimp rap club is Too $hort, a rapper originally from Oakland, who has released 16 albums since 1989.* Many other rappers have taken a nod to “pimping,” like Ice-T and Slick Rick, but usually as part of a glorification of criminal culture in general.

IS ‘PIMP’ ALWAYS A BAD THING?

Pimp has also entered the lexicon of young people to mean, instead of a “night daddy,” to either be synonymous with cool, or a suave person, or to dominate or master something. I had a girlfriend who prided herself on her parallel parking abilities. After a success, she would say, “I pimped that parking spot.”

“It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp” has been a long time coming. People have disassociated the word from its meaning. In the mouths of kids today, pimp is a good thing.

DO YOU HAVE SOME SORT OF PERSONAL VENDETTA AGAINST PIMPS

No, but I had a friend in high school who ran away from a youth home and met a man who didn’t have a peacock feather in his hat, who kidnapped her, drugged her, and let any number of men rape her for cash. She was given a sexually transmitted disease, and told if she ever tried to leave he would find her and her family and kill them all. I wonder when the word “slave” might become popular. “I enslaved that parking space.”

OK, YOU DIRTY HYPOCRITE, ANY OTHER THINGS PIMP THAT YOU LIKE?

Although rap is the harem of all things pimp these days, the first to coin the term, “pimpology,” was Iceberg Slim, the pen name of the late former pimp Robert Beck, who has sold six million books as of 1998. The books, autobiographies as well as novels, focus mainly on his days in the sex trade. Beck wrote much about the process of “turning out” a woman, which means that by either force of persuasion, a man puts a woman’s sexual functions on the market.

SO, GO AHEAD AND TIE IT ALL TOGETHER WITH SOMETHING FRUITY AND LIBERAL-SOUNDING

It goes without saying that Beck had a complex relationship with women. It was his mother, on her death bed, who convinced Beck that he had to get out of the sex trade. He turned to writing, and authored some of the best accounts of American criminal culture, books that become more and more relevant as time goes on, apparently.

In what might be his most heart-breaking and chilling work, the novel “Mama Black Widow,” Beck tells the tale of a black family from the south that is destroyed by life in the big city and a castrating mother. The protagonist, a grown man who lives with his mother who is sometimes impelled to don women’s clothing and allow himself to be raped by strangers, is another interesting perspective on women.


GRADE: C-

*Interestingly enough, Too $hort’s 1989 “Don’t Fight the Feeling,” the longest track on his break-out album “Life is ... Too Short,” was a hit among males and females, probably because it gave equal time to two female rappers who responded to Too $hort’s overtures by insulting his hygiene and the size of his member, i.e.:
-“Do they call you short because of your height or your width? Diss me, boy, I’ll hang your balls from a clip.”
-“They call you ‘yuck mouth,’ you refuse to brush. No, sweetheart, you can keep that kiss.”

Ann is my homegirl

Ann Coulter has fans. People that buy all her books, concentrate when she is talking, and take her as a serious voice in American politics.

These are people who think the John Birch Society is too touchy-feely, people who would otherwise accuse Jesus of being soft on crime. Scary people. To call them conservative would be mud in Richard Nixon’s cold, dead eye.

The majority of the people that read Coulter’s columns, I presume, are true conservatives, in that they would probably hate me, but they are thoughtful, well-meaning people, and they just get a kick out of what appears to be her sticking it to self-righteous cultural elites. And Ted Kennedy. It’s interesting that she claims to, and sometimes does, speak on behalf of “average, middle-America, patriotic” Americans, when she is about as blue blood as they come. I digress.

Then you have the liberals, and they hate her. Not because she is “conservative,” although that is good enough reason for some, but because she is constantly dousing their faces with battery acid with her pitched snark, equating liberals with terrorists, hysterical women, baby killers, and everything else that is villainous, cowardly and Clintonesque.

There is no Coulter counterpart on the left. Nobody that comes close, really. Ted Rall, maybe. But first, he’s an editorial cartoonist (he does write a column, although it is artless, not widely carried, and is dwarfed by his cartoons, which are widely circulated) and second, while he may pull the old stick and jab with conservatives, he is only occasionally mean spirited, unlike Coulter, who is all hate, all the time, and must live in a world where she is forever not getting her way (even though the GOP controls the federal government, most state governments, and she’s rich, educated and beautiful).

That’s the thing, though, isn’t it? You can always have more.

It’s a good thing there is no Coulter counterpart. One is enough.

Although I disagree with her most of the time, I’ve grown to enjoy her columns. I’m not sure why. It helps when I tell myself that in spite of the racism, which is utterly disgusting, deep down she is a really a curmudgeon who obsesses over the things that piss her off, in print, to the point that self-respecting newspapers won’t carry her. If she really didn’t believe the things she says (liberals like to claim she’s pandering to the lowest common denominator), you’d think she’d change her tack. Instead, she’s gotten worse. Maybe she’s insane, I don’t know, she spends a lot of time hating liberals, who have almost zero official power these days. But so does George Will, who appears reasonable in comparison, and is as exciting as valium. Maybe they are both insane.

Recently she’s shown an independent streak, and although it boils down to accusing President Bush of not being overtly racist enough, it’s good to see her getting away from her role as the victim, but it’s pretty disturbing, the stuff she’s writing.

There’s an argument against Coulter that goes thus: the brand of prejudice, and the methods, of Coulter poisons the country’s political discourse. She’s pissing in the well, they say. Besides, they say, there are other conservative commentators who don’t use terms like “camel jockey” to describe Moslems ( even if she is ostensibly joking).

Who? Krauthammer? Right. Cal Thomas? John Leo? These guys are tools. Bill Safire was an interesting tool, but he’s retired. Linda Chavez writes about things that don’t get a lot of coverage, so she gets props, but she’s dry. Jonah Goldberg does a poor impression of a journalist, but at least he tries. They are all boring sheep.

Even when Coulter is towing the party line, which she usually does, she’s bombastic. Others try, but there not as smart as she is. She’s probably pretty damn smart, which is disheartening.
Besides, can you blame Coulter? Or Fox News? Or the fat subsidies from right-wing yahoos?

They’re ideologues, like Michael Moore and Al Franken (although neither of them compare), they’re trying to get their message out. There’s nothing wrong with that. The First Amendment isn’t there to protect good ideas. If some one is to blame, it’s the fault of the rank and file xenophobes that pay attention to her blather. Right? Maybe the problem is an educational system that doesn’t teach young people to think critically, to identify fallacies, or a society that doesn’t value such things. I don’t know, but what Coulter is doing is not historically original. Schlafly comes to mind.

Really, though, for me, it comes down to the words. I may not like her intentions, but I like Coulter’s use of the language. Bombastic is an understatement. She wants to claw out my eyeballs.

All columnists are not created equal. The best, in my opinion, are journalists. They are the smartest, and the best writers (!). Next would be lawyers. After that, you’re on your own. It’s hit and miss, especially with the Jack Kemps of the print pundit world. But if you look at a column as a person’s sacred space where they can clear points without interruption, you could do worse than with a lawyer.

Coulter is a lawyer. That’s her trade. She didn’t come up as daily reporter, she didn’t go to j-school, where they teach you to remain aloof and focused on facts. She was editor of the law review and represented Paula Jones in her sexual harassment lawsuits against Bill Clinton. She’s an advocate, her job is to win. The best lawyers show no fear, go for the throat and never apologize. She’s batting for her team, and she doesn’t know any other way but to keep a roll of quarters in her fist and a razor blade in her teeth. When you take the oath – journalists don’t believe in oaths – lawyers swear to perform zealously for their client. By far, she’s the right’s most zealous national columnist.

So, in conclusion, I never want to be associated with Coulter or her ilk, and I dread the day they finally get their way and destroy all life on the planet, but there’s a Satanic art in her use of language, a destructive charm, and I kind of dig it. She makes my skin crawl. How many columnists do that?

Clarification?

It’s interesting that the only photo accompanying a story about arrests at a 30-member strong neo nazi demonstration in Florida, featured on drudgereport.com Sunday, was of anarchists being arrested. Of the 17 arrested, the vast majority were likely anarchists, who were part of a counter-demonstration of about 500 (including spectators), according to the story. however, no art was shown that depicted the protestors, the reason why the anarchists were there in the first place.

In general, Anarchists are some of the most fervent anti-racists in the U.S. and are the natural enemies of fascists going back at least a century. They see racism as a product of capitalism, part and parcel of an economic order that sacrifices the needs of the whole in favor of a group of elites.

Police usually show little restraint arresting anarchists, maybe because anarchists are openly antagonistic toward law enforcement and generally resist, so it can be an interesting spectacle, and therefore newsworthy. But if there is art accompanying a story about a neo-nazi march, I want to see a picture of the nazis. It may have been an editorial decision to not agitate viewers. After all, nazis are offensive, but come on, news organizations don’t get to decide not a show a picture of newsmakers because they are full of shit.

Drudge has a fetish for showing lefty types behaving badly. He likes to rile up the base. And the link is to a Florida television station, which if I’m not mistaken, has a fetish of its own for the bizarre and incendiary, and is one of Drudge’s favorites. If the accompanying art had been a group of counter-protestors, or khaki-clad national socialists from Minnesota, I wonder if Drudge would have ran it.

Source: WFTV.com

http://www.wftv.com/news/7442292/detail.html