More Downloading From My Brain

First of all, my sister is hilarious.

Continuing along on with my To Blog list, me and the mister had dinner the other night with his judge and some other former clerks. Way more fun than I expected, because the judge was more laidback and funny than I remembered he was. But while he was in SF, it seems that former Chicago Alderman Dorothy Tillman, the Imelda Marcos of Hats, was mixing shit up in Montgomery. Ms. Tillman did not dust off her Manual for Black Ladies in The South before she went to visit her aunt, I guess. I am also curious about how the hell she got a flight from Montgomery to Chicago after the scuffle. My recollection is that you can't get there from here. (or from there, rather). At least not directly.

Not much other M-gummery news. Bobby Bright is running as a Democrat for the House seat there. It was a toss-up whether he's run as a Dem or Republican (common in AL) but it shows where he thinks the coattails will be to ride into Congress.

A Taste

Because of Routergate, I will do a teeny bit of blogging from work today. For my co-worker readers, let's all pretend I am taking my lunch break early here. Not that she cares. Anyway, rather than write about Margaret B. Jones (nee Margaret Seltzer) myself, I think I will let Undercover Black Man occupy the field of criticism on this one. I will add this one thought, however: When I heard that her sister turned her in, I thought of Ted and David Kaczinski. I really hope my sister never does any wacko, high profile weird thing that causes me to narc on her. But I don't doubt she has the nerve to call it in on me. Which is a good thing. So, sister, I promise not to fake my memoir, or bomb anyone, or whatever, so you don't need to bring in the Feds, or my publisher, or the New York Times, or Mom, or whoever.

What You Have To Look Forward To

Once I get a new router (tomorrow, I hope), I should be able to blog again. Here are some topics I may or may not get to:
1. The idiot whose white-girl memoirs of her upbringing on the mean streets of South Central are a total fiction. Kudos to the sister who ratted her out, and a hot poker in the belly button to the NYT reporter whose puff piece on Thursday actually passed muster. Hasn't the Paper of Record learned anything from Jayson Blair?
2. The Wire brackets - that's right. The 64 best scenes compete for best scene overall. Submit your nominees here.
3. My thoughts on how Obama is the product of 9/11.
4. An update on the campaign.
5. News from Montgomery.
There's more to come. Take it easy til then, but at least take it.

hmmmm

Tonight, the kids were watching Bambi, and I was wondering how L would handle the death of Bambi's mom. After asking several times, "will she come alive again?", he decided that the solution was, " Bambi just needs to find a new mommy." I felt something slightly less than appreciated.

Frustrated

I've actually had a few blog posts stored in my brain the past few days, but I am busy at work and our router is broken at home. I've got to do something about that, so if one of you princes of technology can recommend the most reliable router, I would appreciate it. This blog post is being composed on my Q (a Motorola product, not my son). thus, no links.

In other news, I have filed my Declaration of Candidacy to run for the Democratic Party Central Committee for the 14th Assembly District. What's that? I am not completely sure, but if Loni Hancock is your rep, I sure could use your sig on my nominating papers. Here's what motivated me to undertake this campaign:

1. I am truly bored at work, and since I am not poised for a career change at the moment, I thought I'd throw myself into politics beyond reading political blogs obsessively.
2. Obama has, for the moment, convinced me that Tracy Flick and Clay Davis are not the only two kinds of politicians that can exist in this world. I think, maybe in the haze of the Kool-Aid, that I can participate in the process without betraying what I hope is my basically decent humanity. I trust all of you will call me to task if I go off track.
3. I am curious about it.
4. I need a challenge.

All right, my thumbs hurt.

Where We Are

I present this link without comment. The rest of us are home, hanging with Grandma. Its very cool, everyone is happy. I haven't been blogging because I can't think of anything to say that other people aren't saying, or that isn't total schadenfreude.

UPDATE: Oh, and I like this: Pardon my enthusiasm.

"Daytona 500 is this weekend"

Guess who said that. Nah, don't bother.

Another reason that politics are the topic duh jor is that we are in the sports wasteland between the Super Bowl and something called "pitchers and catchers". Its a lonely time for a certain kind of man. Fortunately, Sports Illustrated publishes it swimsuit issue during this very dry sports spell. While it does include photos of athletes' wives, I don't recommend that you buy it. You can stop by and steal it from our house. At least, one of you can.

In campaign news, one of McCain's senior advisors has all but endorsed Obama. Paul Krugman is off his meds, for no apparent reason. What kind of world do we live in where David Brooks is the Columnist for Hope and Krugman is the baseless, poo-flinging crank? And then, this is funny:



Update: This is really funny. I like the idea that someone out there is clamoring for lowfat milk. hee hee.

Mouths of Babes

Tonight, as Mr. S and I stood transfixed by CNN, our older son announced, "I'm tired of Obama." Poor guy. Obama, that is. Li is so skilled at obsessions, I feel back that Barack doesn't have what it takes to be the next airplanes or pirates or dinosaurs.

The rest of you might be tired of Obama too; at least, hearing about him from me. But my Obama overkill is due, in large part, to my dismay about this season of The Wire. I am just not feeling it. There have been some great scenes. Dukie and Cutty? Bunk and Randy? Ohmigod. But generally, the plot is too Without a Trace or something. Just not feeling it. So unless the last three episodes just explode, I am afraid you are stuck with my political obsession until some other thing comes along.

The Self-Righteous Shall Inherit California

I heard a piece on NPR about this fool and his solar panels. I thought you'd like it.

Them Internets

Check Your Head

I just hope Obama is not coasting as much as I am today. I just noticed that the polls show Obama winning Washington and Nebraska with 68% of the vote in each state, and Louisiana with 57% of the vote. Yow. I know Hillary has some good spots on the horizon in March but those numbers are blistering. I, personally, would be too tired to soldier on. But that's already the case and all I do is . . . well, whatever it is I do. I just think that when the state that has the highest Black population (among states voting today) gives Obama the lowest results and he is still kicking ass there (57%!), things are looking, well, stressful for Ms. HRC.

Here's something less stressful than what Hillary has going on. I hope she ain't mad that it's Sure Shot.

Points to Sami

I want to pull something out of a comment below:

Somehow people use the fact that Obama is not PERFECT in his policy recommendations as an excuse to support a more 'realistic' choice. Come on, like somehow being 'ready to lead on day one' is more realistic!? I think this is just an excuse to not have hope and to be a crabby cynic- if I don't have hopes, I can't be disappointed. Blah.

Sami is really right here. It should be acknowledged that Obama is not perfect. Why just last night Dr. Pessimism was saying that Obama snubbed Gavin Newsom some years ago during the heyday of gay marriage in SF. (Newsom still has his knickers in a twist about this). Obviously, Obama has been a politician so there are going to be a few stories like this. Another Obama snafu was the land deal with Tony Rezko. Boneheaded, indeed.

Maybe I am too intoxicated by the Obama joy juice. But let's call these what they were: Mistakes. We all make 'em. But on the other hand, for years, Bill and Hillary Clinton have been doing stuff that she'd like to call mistakes but can't. WalMart? Ooops! She totally meant to say something about that union-busting! Or how about letting Monsanto poison America's food supply? Hey, Woh, not my fault! And we haven't even started to rehash Monica, Whitewater, Travelgate, the undisclosed presidential papers . . .

I am not saying that these things would keep me from voting for her in November if I must. But I do think a lot of this stuff makes her harder to get behind, and its a lot harder to forgive, then the fact that Obama's policy statements explicitly acknowledge that he intends to work with Congress and policy experts on accomplish his legislative agenda. In fact, I think it would be a mistake for him to do otherwise.

Quote of the night

"Those fatalities will not be going down."

-CNN weatherman on the deaths resulting from tornadoes in Arkansas and Tennessee.

Today's My SuperSpaceout Day

Don't forget to vote today, folks!

Today on the way into work, I saw a young guy with a homemade Obama sign near a busy intersection, and got completely excited and overwhelmed. Warning, corniness and sincerity ahead. I cannot remember in my short lifetime when people of all ages and races took the initiative to make signs, go downtown and sincerely proclaim their political hopes. It hasn't happened before. And I have been waiting for it for my entire adult life.

I became a union lawyer because I wanted to be of service to a movement. I was working as a community organizer in Chicago on TANF issues and police response to domestic violence, and every issue seemed to be so isolated. Every effort was focused on a narrow slice of a problem, usually for people with so many problems that biting off just, say, how police respond to DV calls was, ultimately, laughable. I thought working for the labor movement would be something bigger than that, and it is. We bite off slightly larger chunks of problems for people with slightly fewer problems. It has its moments of gratification, but they are rare, and more lip service is paid to the historical aspects of our movement than to truly reinvigorating it.

In the Obama movement, I finally feel like I have found a real movement, where people are inspired to do better not just because of their leaders but because of one another. Probably just a few months ago, I would have laughed in derision at the guy I saw driving to work. Now I want to figure out how I will spend my day encouraging people to vote. He inspired me.

I know that Obama will not "win" today. He may not even win the nomination. I think that would be unfortunate. But the worst thing that could happen would be for people who feel like I feel, like they still want to make a difference - see change in our world - stop believing that they can. I really hope we don't lose this moment, where we can inspire each other.

Please vote.

What's his problem?

I am "mobile blogging" because our internet connection is down, so I can't provide links. sorry.

My beef o' the minute happens to be Paul Krugman. He really seems to have a hard-on for Obama (sorry, mother-in-law, for the crude phrase. It isn't a good thing, by the way). Today's column complained about Obama's health care plan. He just comes across like a crank. No shit Obama's plan isn't perfect. The attraction to obama isn't in the details of the health care plan. I understand that no one's plan will be passed intact. Its the transparency about the process, the effort to compromise and still accomplish- those are the attractive elements. Its Hillary who seems like she is full of fairy tales. Bah humbug, Krugman.

Why does McCain think its a good thing to have Joe-mentum Lieberman standing behind him? Doesn't that just piss everyone off? Republicans don't like him because he's nominally a Democrat, and the Democrats hate Lieberman for the same reason.

And how many people are voting for Huckabee because of Chuck Norris? And why don't pollsters ever ask important questions like this?

I Don't Buy It

The CW has it that a prolonged primary season hurts the Dems because Hillary and Obama will beat eachother up while McRomnabee sits back and rakes in cash and runs a general election campaign all by themselves. But the conventional wisdom was that the Repugnicans were going to have a brawling contest all the way til their September convention until just before Florida. So the pundits need to chill out.

Also, other than Bill Clinton's obnoxious racial bullshit in NC, I just don't think that the Democrats have been that brutal yet. At least not as brutal as Hillary has it in her to be. Obama and Edwards have really kept her in check, but her lack of totally explicit backstabbing has made this campaign season pleasant, even fun. I just don't think she can go negative without hurting herself.

Anyway, that's all for my punditry tonight.

Re: Breakfast soup. Listen Mr. "Carry Okey", I was blogging via handheld device and didn't feel like googling breakfast soup while driving. I think that's against the law anyway. (Googling while driving, that is, not breakfast soup. Although any recipe that includes bacon and bacon drippings and, like, a carton of eggs, is surely going to be outlawed soon).

Pulling a Rooney

Did you ever notice how there are no breakfast soups?

Buh-bye, Hill

Hillary Clinton Remained Silent As Wal-Mart Fought Unions.

Can I go supersnark and say that even in 1992, Hillary should have known better than to dress like that?

Meanwhile, Obama's server has shut down because it was overwhelmed with supporters looking for tickets to Kennedy and Kerry rallies in the Bay Area this weekend.

Shake Some Sense Into This Man

Dispelling the Myths

Sitting here, waiting for a meeting to start. I thought I would take a second to direct your attention to a good piece at DailyKos (www.dailykos.com) about the bullshit that Hillary is spreading that Latinos won't vote for Blacks. In fact, many major Black leaders, including mayors throughout the country, have substantial Latino support. Ugly race-baiting as a tactic. Hillary really doesn't get it. The San Jose Mercury News has a piece about it as well, but I don't have a link because I am reading an actual paper instead.

UPDATE: Here is the piece at DK, and here is the editorial in the SJ Mercury, originally from the San Diego Tribune.

How Do You Explain. . .

Lou Dobbs. The photo on his website does not do justice to the amount of plastic surgery this man has had. Yeek.

And of course I had to see this because CNN let Dobbs out of his cage tonight to host the coverage of the Florida primary. I think they threw him this bone - when there weren't any Democrats campaigning - because he must have invoked some contract clause (Section 431(a)(3)(ii): TALENT shall host not less than TWO (2) ELECTION 2008 specials) and they figured he could be the least frothy.

Wolf Blitzer just called Rudy Giuliani "a big loser". hee hee. Go ahead and kick the man while he's down.

My view of the Demo turnout in FL is that Floridians are pissed that the Democratic Party isn't going to seat delegates at this point. Hillary is getting a lot of support from people who just want to be a part of the process. The line down there is that the primary date was set by the Republicans, and they were hamstrung. Whatevs. I don't have any problem with folks who want to be enfranchised. But Hillary promised not to campaign down there, and in IA and NH she said that FL and MI delegates should not be seated.

Unacceptable

I am too pressed for time to find a picture I can post here, blah blah blah, so you have to go to this link to see how bad Mitt Romney's dye job is. That alone should cost him the election. Vanity, combined with the hubris of thinking you look great in this shoe polish, should go before a fall. Although, I guess Florida Republicans probably think he looks youthful. Yeesh.

Squishy Brained

Despite the facts that its name makes it clear what the product is, it took me more than a minute to figure out what a PB Slice is. This item, perversely, solves a problem that I knew I had (I hate spreading peanut butter, for fear of injuring the bread) but which I didn't really care to solve.

It also probably doesn't solve this problem:

Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth.

But now that I think on this, it would be good under a piece of Taylor ham pork roll, wouldn't it?

h/t M.

Am I A Terrible Person?

There's an informal knitting group in our office. I generally ignore it; I never knit with them (I don't knit privately, either). But I noticed when an email circulated office-wide inviting people to participate in Afghans for Afghans.

Am I bad person because my first impulse was derision? Even before I knew that Vanna White ("avid crocheter and designer") was its celebrity sponsor?

Sorry

Once I got in the zone of blogging like every day, I had hoped to keep up the pace. But even I ain't that witty and original. Plus, we were away all weekend. Here are some highlights from my favorite topics:

The Wire: Stressing me out. Why does Omar need to come back if Butchie's dead? I've seen ep 4 so I don't want to write much more because I want to respect my one reader who gives a crap about this and not spoil it for him. Suffice to say, I am having a really hard time buying this season so far. And there's a good S2 cameo in Ep4. Okay, that's enough. No more.

The kids: Hilarious little people. They loved the snow so much in Tahoe that, driving home, Li broke down crying, "I don't want (sob sob) the snow to EVER melt!"

Barack Obama: All my Edwards peeps, please please please breathe deeply of the reality of this campaign and vote for my guy on Feb 5. I love Edwards, too. But he will not get the nomination, and probably won't be a "kingmaker" at the convention either. I was listening to Hillary on the radio today and all I could think of was Betty Loren-Maltese. And let's be frank. No one ever wants to think about BLM. Plus, can you imagine four, much less eight, years of Bill Clinton lounging on the couch of the Oval Office, eating Funions and proffering his opinion on every damn thing? I assume even Hillary would kick him out by March 3, 2009, but who knows? "Two for the price of one" means two equivocating triangulators* for the bloody 2008 election of one. SO, if you were already planning on not voting for Hillary, them I invite you, nay implore you, to not vote for Hillary by voting for Barack. Thank you.

* whatever that means.

Nelson Marans: Don't worry, he's had letters published recently in the Washington Post and The New York Times (and here), opining about such meaningless topics as Amtrak and Barbara Cook: Songbird.

I don't have much else on my mind. Take it easy.

Calls for Speculation

I got an email from another Wire fan who asks:

Could that Stephen Glass character really be making shit up? Its being telegraphed so ham-handedly that there's got to be a twist.

This would be Scott Templeton he is referring to. In the second episode, the Sun runs a bullshit/feel-good-by-feeling-bad article about a kid in a wheelchair (allegedly shot with a stray bullet) named EJ trying to bum a ticket to the game on Orioles opening day. Clark Johnson's character Gus Haynes (the sole reason I am getting into this season's expansion to the newsroom so far) cannot find any information to back up this EJ story but he gets overruled and the story gets run. I have no idea whether the story is a fake or not but my prediction is that the kid is not totally fake, but was himself lying to Templeton, if it ever comes up again.

And since everything in The Wire (except Rawls' homosexuality) comes up again, that's my prediction. Templeton will get even looser with the facts when he realizes that he has Whitting's ear.

Since we are on the topic of newspapers, even a fictionalized one, I want to put down my thoughts on something that I have been thinking about lately. Remarks by David Simon were the jumping-off point. Simon was criticizing the internet for diminishing the significance and viability of daily newspapers. It has been a conundrum for daily papers to figure out how to compete with the internet. Subscription sales have not worked and people are not excited to pay for content. TimesSelect bombed and now even the Wall Street Journal is online without a subscription. People will not buy what they think should be free. It irks the shit out of real journalists that people consider their work to be "free".

But that's a misperception by journalists. It isn't that readers think the information is free, it's that we think it's already been paid for. In my mind, all the advertisements I have to wade through pay for the content. The cost of my home subscription covers the cost of getting the paper to my door: the paper, the printing costs, the delivery. The Internet obviates the need for those costs: no paper, no printing, no delivery (except for the computer that I bought). Meanwhile the paper is still selling advertising on-line. In my mind, they can afford the content, and I don't need to pay for the ancillary production costs.

Another effect of the "democratization" of the web is that the readers can figure out for themselves how hard, or easy, producing content is. The mythical/libidinal newsroom suddenly doesn't seem so special. Plus papers can't even seem to be on top of the news anymore. Nor do they seem to want to be. I don't think papers have the desire to truly be all things to all people. The NYT might resent Daily Kos for its depth and breadth of political issues, but do they want be DK? I doubt it. They wouldn't make the ad revenue they make being the NYT.

Anyway, these are just some thoughts.

A Strange Story

Preoccupied, as I am, with certain legal wranglings in The South, but unable to obtain any new information this morning, I wandered over to the Montgomery Advertiser, and came across this story. Three white teenagers are being charged as juveniles (to the displeasure of the Sons of Confederate Veterans) in the vandalism of a statue commemorating . . . Confederate veterans. What struck me as strange was:

(1) the decision to charge them as juveniles. I wonder if black teens would have been given the same leniency.
(2) the fact that they painted the soldiers on the face with black paint
(3) the fact that they painted "NT 11 11 31", referring to Nat Turner and the date of his execution.

I won't go so far as to say that what they did was cool, but you've got to admit Alabama has come a long way when white teens are defacing Confederate statues in honor of Nat Turner.

UPDATE: Unless of course the kids were doing it to frame some blacks for the crime. Still the details seem a bit too sophisticated for that. Who knows.

Awesome

And I am not being facetious. I am genuinely pleased that the Machinists have endorsed Mike Huckabee in the Republican primary.

If you pay attention to this stuff, you may recall a feature article in the NYT magazine two years ago, juxtaposing Andy Stern (the "new boss") and Tom Buffenbarger (the "old boss"). However flattering the piece may have been to Andy, it sure wasn't flattering to Tom, portrayed, as he was, as flying around the country in a private jet while the machine shops of American were snuck down to Ciudad Juarez like the Baltimore Colts were whisked to Indianapolis, only every night.

Anyway, I wasn't left with a terribly warm impression of the man myself. BUT you have to credit him with exactly the kind of outside-the-box thinking that Stern has been advocating these past few years. Promising not to back Democrats qua Democrats, Stern has said that the labor movement should consider all candidates willing to work with Labor. Buffenbarger is the first one to actually go there. Touche.

The Things You Can Learn

Now that I have a second child who demands internet searching at the drop of a hat (but who can't say carcaradontaurus or F-4 Phantom yet), I have learned a lot of about "tucks", "buh-doh-dahs", "dump tucks" and "jij-uhs" (that last one is "diggers"). We came across this photo tonight, of a giant dump truck getting a tire change, and it really resonated with me. That dump truck is me.

I also learned about a product called Tractor Jackets. Who knew? It seems unnecessary, and yet, how would I know? It now reminds me of auto parts place near my grandparents, which, during my childhood, advertised "car bras". I was too embarassed to ask what it meant. Would that I had Google back then. Or a Google. Anyway, I was so disappointed when I found out what they were. But I also felt liberated to ask more questions that I didn't know the answer to.

Best Use of Office E-mail Award

As with most offices, we more than occasionally get office-wide emails that are annoying and pointless but which cause a lot of people to hit Reply All. I am disappointed that this one hasn't gotten a response yet:

Subject: BARITONE TROMBONE PLAYER?
I have placed a music book entitled "Cool Yule" in the kitchen on the *candy* table. It contains 14 Easy Christmas Solos for a Baritone Trombone player. A gift gone awry, my daughter plays piano not Trombone. Please feel free to take it home if you know someone who might put it to use.

Overactive Imagination

I saw the headline

Romney attacks McCain at Republican debate

and for two brief seconds, I thought, "Oh my God, Romney lost it. It's like that tiger mauling those kids on Christmas" and then I realized that the Reuters headline editor was just excited.

Oh, by the way, I've got a new candidate.

Wire Predictions

Another night shot. Oh well. Let's see if I can redeem it with some clairvoyant Wire predictions. I have watched four seasons plus 2 episodes of Season 5, but I will try not to be a spoiler on that Ep 52. (This is inspired, modestly, by the Freakonomics article on the NYT site today).

1. Michael will kill Omar. This is based on the fact that Omar saw Michael having a meeting with Marlo in that dingy courtyard last season. "Just a kid," he says. Incidentally, back in Season 1, when he and Brandon and that sick-up boy that gets killed (Joe?) are sitting on the brick steps, and a woman comes up and asks "Mr. Omar" for some dope to get her through til she gets her check, the actress is the same woman who play Michael's mom, and Omar signals to a boy, "Yo Mikey" to give her some dope. I think this is an accidental coincidence, and not "the wire", but you never know on this show.

2. Cheese may turn on Prop Joe (with a little help from Marlo). I think his little skulking bit at the co-op meeting means he thinks he should get his own property.

3. Daniels will get caught up in a police corruption scandal that impedes his rise to the top. Remember a few seasons ago when Burrell threatened him, and he expressed concern to his wife Marla, in the first season, that the old Western District ways might come back to haunt him. That will be sad.

4. The "Rawls is gay" storyline may not go anywhere. They only have 10 episodes this season, and I don't know how they are going to fit it all in. (rawls + omar? Omar would never stoop that low)

5. A cop will get killed, and it will probably be Walker, who will be lauded as a hero or some shit. That's only because they don't have Herc to put on a pedestal anymore.

6. Clay Davis will not avoid indictment but he will take down everyone he can with him (see #3 above, and possibly prove me wrong on #4). Or maybe he will cop to some little thing, and be out in 4 months to become the top-rated radio host in Baltimore, ala Ed Norris.

7. I think we are going to see Kima's old woman Cheryl back again (she's a TV journalist, remember?), which is unfortunate, because she's annoying.

More as the season develops.

Gentlemen, May I Join You?

Its out there. "Feminists" saying they have to stand by their woman when the shit is down. Here's an Obama supporter rallying to Hillary's defense at Salon. Let's just say, I am less than persuaded. And since I threatened to abandon my gender if women rallied to Hillary just because she's being picked on, I need to ask you guys: Is there room for me on that side of the gender gap? I know I am not a great candidate, having borne children and all (I promise not to do that again!), but I don't hear about any men whining that Chris Matthews is mean so that's why they voted for Clinton.

So.Annoyed.

By the way, Frances Kissling has this good riposte on why she still isn't supporting Hillary.

Although I have never felt like throwing my lot in with Hillary on account of all her "difficulties".

Off The Rails

The title of this post refers to this blog, not to the Obama campaign, which I will get to in a second. I started off the year fearing that I would hardly post at all (see, e.g., December 2007), and here I am blogging my butt off. Only not about my typical whimsical and lovely nonsense. I have been very centered on the Democratic primary campaign, and I have more to say. On one hand, I recognize that this may be boring-ish for some people, but (on the other) I think I know my readers, and you are as rabidly interested in this as I am, or else we wouldn't be such dear friends. So, back to New Hampshire.

First of all, this is hardly a loss for Obama. Less than a few weeks ago, he was down by double-digits, and instead he lost be 3 percentage points. Isn't that less than the typical margin of error in a statistical poll? Right on, Obama! And as I said before, I think that if Clinton is going to win this ultimately (although I hope she doesn't), she needs more of a trial than she was prepared for. I gotta say, I am SO annoyed by this idea that her little teeny fake nervous breakdown gave her a bump among the Women Exactly Like Her voting bloc. She can cry on command! What a skill for our President to have. You may recall, I am NOT down with the "Girlfriend in Chief" model of campaigning. Please don't tell me that "women" love this, or I may forsake my gender.

And as a tangential correllary*, this reminds me how much Baby Boomers annoy me. Don't ask me why I thought of this. Those of you who also hate Baby Boomers probably understand instinctively where I am going with this, and also can't quite articulate what the bridge is. Here's the bridge: Hillary. She's Woman. She's Boomer. The world is hers for the taking. She has so many "good opportunities" - she's just bursting to unload them on us. I am so tired of that generation (most of whom disavow the rest strongly) claiming they can fix things in this crazy mixed up world. No, you can't. Its messed up. Stop pretending you are a realist and then feeding us horseshit.

Okay, I have clearly lost my train of thought here. So back to an even more annoying obsession of mine: The Wire. Season 5 debuted this past Sunday, and I didn't even mention it because I figured, if you don't watch it yet, you probably aren't going to start now. And that's your damn loss. I will accept you back into my good graces if you watch just one other season of this show without me having to harangue you further. Then I will give you my generous and brilliant thoughts on this season 5. (Actually, I can't, because I watched an episode ahead, and I would feel bad if I accidentally spoiled it for you, so Mr. Scobie will just have to suffer my brilliance alone).

* Mathematicians: Can something be both a tangent and a correllary? Or are they the same thing?

I Am Not Alone

Thanks, KL, for your supportive comment. It's nice to know someone is reading. And since I know at least one reader ain't bored by this topic, here's a bit more. Members of the AFSCME Executive Board (7 of 33) have written an open letter to AFSCME President Gerald McEntee asking him to refrain from attacking Senator Obama and using union funds/staff to engage in public disparagement of the Senator. Noteworthy, to me, is the admission that AFSMCE endorsed Clinton primarily because they expected her to be the front runner, and wanted to back the right horse, so to speak.

This bolsters my view that Labor's beef with Obama is not that he's anti-union, but that he ain't getting bought by Labor. If we can get his support for free, then why are we begging him to take our money?

The flip side, i.e. Labor's argument, is that Obama is taking $2300 from every rich person he meets, but that teachers, firefighters, and home care workers don't have that kind of money. Unions can pool their members' money to support candidates that support issues for working people. It's an argument, but that's all it is. It isn't borne out by the practice. Politicians take money from unions, AND from rich people, and then do what they do. I think its worth trying a different way for once.

UPDATE: It looks like the members of Culinary workers local 226 agrees with me.

Everyone's a goddamn pundit

I had an irksome conversation with a law clerk in our office today where he expressed doubt that Obama even supports the Employee Free Choice Act (this legislation proposes to strengthen union organizing, and it’s a no-duh Vote Yes for Democrats). The law clerk has “inside knowledge” that Obama is not pro-union.

Obama does, in fact, support EFCA, and other pro-union, pro-working people solutions. At least, he says he does. And he did co-sponsor the damn bill in the Senate. So I did a tiny amount of research to figure out why Labor people think Obama is "the most conservative candidate on the Democratic side", at least on labor issues.

Most of the web/news coverage concerns Obama's almost-perfect record on labor issues or the fact that Obama has called out Clinton on NAFTA/CAFTA and Edwards on his refusal to condemn the right-to-work law in NC. Not exactly a right-wing smoking gun, if you ask me.

When I dug a little deeper, I found what may be the problem: Obama sent out a campaign letter where he seems to have called unions (and Emily's list) "special interests", and eschewed 527 organization's funds. DailyKos took issue (in a post that is reminiscent of the AFSCME video I posted back in March), as did Working Life and Politico.

Help me out here. How is being against "soft money funding" the exact same thing as being "anti-union"? And since when did buying politicians do shit for labor unions? Labor has been paying through the nose for years for the privilege of getting shafted over and over again. Millions of members' dues are chasing after politicians who have failed to strengthen labor laws, appoint pro-worker regulatory bodies, raise the minimum wage, stop jobs from moving overseas or borders or improve healthcare.

Labor thinks the candidates' interests are their interests. So fundraising is what Labor cares about, because that's what the candidate cares about. They lash out at another candidate who says, I want to end that kind of fundraising - as thought that were a labor issue. It's not a labor issue, it's a political issue. They hope the candidates they spend for will reciprocate, but there's no real historical basis for that hope.

Just as with the Labor's retrograde environmental views, Labor is on the wrong side on the issue of campaign finance reform. They think being able to throw their money around gets them somewhere in elections, but the reality is, they are always outspent, always outgunned, by employers and industry groups, who have more money and far less scruples about how widely they distribute it.

So I am not persuaded yet that Obama is anti-union or anti-worker. Of course, for professional reasons, I can't really share this post with anyone in my world who might be able to contradict me, but I am infuriated that "my people" are acting like mini-Joe Trippis instead of worker advocates. I think that there's a lot of sour grapes about lining up behind the wrong candidate too early, another common mistake Labor makes. Let me know if you know something different....

I Love This Sh*t

I love election days like its Christmas all over again. It's like a roller coaster where most of the day, its all ascendant. When you don't know who's winning, it's all up up up. And then usually there's the huge plunge that is so hard to take that it's nauseating. But then there's tonight, where the coaster has launched right off the rails, and the feeling in my stomach is all butterflies.

And this isn't just corny love of Obama. It's just so damn exciting that this Presidency is close to over, and there's a chance that there might be - not just relief from the awfulness - a corner could be turned.

I am excited for Obama, but I also think that even if Clinton comes out on top in the end, she will be a much stronger candidate for all of this. She has to fight for this, not just assume the throne. She has to earn this by doing something other than putting up with Bill's philandering for all those years.

And Huckabee is no shock to me at all. Timothy Egan in the NYT ("Two Buck Huck") has a good rap on how Huck got where he is. What he doesn't say is that this was implicitly predicted by Tom Frank in What's The Matter With Kansas? You had to wonder when the wingers would get sick of being chewed up and spit out. And while the Republicans are freaking out about Huckabee, denouncing him, the smart ones will get in there and just start buying up the store. Huck's gotta be buyable, right?

I didn't just write all that to show I am still a political cynic after all.

My thoughts on Edwards: I agree with his class critique, think he's a good guy, would be cool with him as a candidate. But I actually worry that his association with class issues and the labor movement prevents him from taking leadership on stuff that Labor hasn't dealt with/doesn't like. What am I talking about? Specifically, a lot of unions are at the back of the pack on environmental issues, because they see environmental regulations as anathema to job growth and bread-and-butter, rank-and-file American jobs. They want drilling in ANWAR, no fuel efficiency standards, etc. Not all of them, of course, but there just isn't a mainstream labor-environment platform out there that I hear from Edwards. And just as I am tired of 7 years of anti-worker bullshit from Bush, I am also tired from 7 years of sharp-edged, soft-minded, cannibalistic class rhetoric.

Maybe I just need a sabbatical.

Just Wrong

I just saw a license plate that said JRNYR(heart)X (Journey Rocks), and the plate holder said "I Would Rather Be At A Journey Concert".

Not acceptable.

How Did I Do?

Last night's blog post got me wondering, how did I do on last year's resolutions? From last year:

4. New Year's Resolutions. Did you make any? I almost never do. I consider it as sign of my own honesty to myself. I am probably not going to change very much, and certainly not in a substantial enough way to satisfy something as specific as a New Year's resolution. I have some New Year's aspirations though. I would like to blog more. Here's a reach: I would like to join the Y, or at a minimum, start doing some crunches so that my baby belly bag starts to go away. I would like Quinn to start sleeping through the night. I would like Liam to stay in his own bed, quietly all night. In other words, I am going to make New Year's resolutions for other people, whom I am legally permitted to make resolutions for.

Actually, I didn't do too badly. I joined the Y and was pretty good about going for more than 6 of the 12 months. I have dropped off this past 2 months but it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, so I may try it again this year. Quinn sleeps from 7:30pm until 6:00am (with a margin of 30 minutes on either side). Liam sleeps all night on the couch, which isn't ideal, but at least it's not our bed. And I did blog more. In 2007, I wrote 214 posts, whereas 2006 only saw 117 posts. Given the poor showing in December, I don't know if I will be able to keep up that pace in '08. I will see what I can do.

Innovations in Dental Hygiene

In keeping with the spirit of the day, herewith my new year's resolutions:

1. Floss more*
2. Figure out what it means to add more fiber to one's diet, without actually eating Uncle Sam cereal
3. "Develop an interest" (This means "hobby", not "lover")
4. Stay politically idealistic in this election cycle until at least South Carolina, possibly all the way until February 6
5. Devise a system for organizing all the crap on my desk at home
6. Get other adult members of my household to join me in more assiduously disposing of compostables in a receptacle from whence, or within which, composting can occur**

That's about all I can think of.


*Me hubby and I are often (at least after either of us has a dentist's appointment)musing how much dental priorities have changes since even just our young adulthood. Flossing and "deep cleaning" are the rage now. Do you ever remember them doing that 3-4-3, 4-5-6 measuring five years ago? It suggests that Dental Medicine is more art than science, or is at least 50% alchemy and 20% guesswork. My certainty about this were heightened when my new dentist offered me a glass of wine to ease the anxiety of getting a filling recently (sub-footnote: I really like my new dentist).

** This gives me an idea: Mr. Scobie, I will abide by any system of organization you impose on me, for BOTH my desk and my dresser, if you agree to put all food waste in the green bin. Think about it. You have until January 6 (The Twelfth Day of Christmas) to accept or, less likely, reject my offer. (sub-footnote: I know you are wondering why I don't just wander around the manor property to find Mr. S and ask him myself. It's a good question, but mainly it's because it isn't worth the 20 steps that it entails, and I won't remember to ask him when I am done typing this.)

What Have I Been Doing?

It's not like y'all have been clamoring for me, but a neighbor did say the other day, "Hey, you remind me of a blogger I used to read," so I thought I would try to get back on the horse. Things have been very very very busy. How, exactly? Not sure. Here's an incomplete list of the things I have been doing for the past few weeks:

1. Working

2. Throwing up (no, I am not pregnant. We all had the stomach flu last weekend)

3. Avidly following the "Mess in Mississippi". Basically the WSJ Law Blog and several other blogs know when Mr. Scobie is traveling to the Deep South before I do. I am not linking to them because I don't want any of them finding their way back to me. I won't be commenting on it, and if Mr. S objects to this paragraph, I will take it down.

4. Following the Writers' Strike:



5. Following the upcoming caucus with growing glee.

6. Preparing for Christmas.

7. Researching soup recipes.

That's about it. If I ever have anything interesting to say again, I will let you know.

Cracking Myself Up

Enjoy the family Christmas greetings by clicking HERE.

For the Unenlightened

Non-University of Chicago graduates are probably scratching their heads slightly at the comment by Steve after the post below. What is it with these Chicago people? So proud of their nerdiness. Geesh, I was a nerd in college too. (Thought balloon does not count if you were not a nerd. But since I don't know any non-nerds, I am not sure what you people think when you read Steve's comment). Let me give you a little taste of the ambrosia that draws the nerds in. Here's an admissions essay for the U of C:

Modern improvisational comedy had its start with the Compass Players, a group of University of Chicago students, who later formed the Second City comedy troupe. Here is a chance to play along. Improvise a story, essay, or script that meets all of the following requirements: It must include the line “And yes I said yes I will Yes” (Ulysses, by James Joyce).

• Its characters may not have superpowers.
• Your work has to mention the University of Chicago, but please, no accounts of a high- school student applying to the University—this is fiction, not autobiography.
• Your work must include at least four of the following elements:
• a paper airplane
• a transformation
• a shoe
• the invisible hand
• two doors
• pointillism
• a fanciful explanation of the Pythagorean Theorem
• a ventriloquist or ventriloquis
• the Periodic Table of Elements
• the concept of Jeong
• number two pencils

I went there and I am not even sure what all those things are (but ventriloquis is not a word). However, I feel reassured that I can stop grousing that Chicago has gotten easier to get in to.

The Nerdling

I really thought my first kid would be the nerdy (nerdier?) one. With his encyclopedic knowledge of military aircraft and paleo-historical creatures, his better-than-strong vocabulary has fully bloomed. But Thing 2 is sure giving Thing 1 a run for his money in the nerd department. At 16 months, the Q-ball is a complete bookworm. This is a common site (sorry about the photo quality - he's hard to sneak up on):


In case you are wondering what's going on in this picture, Q is "reading" a book on the couch. Every day, one by one, he pulls all the books off the shelf and leafs through them, sometimes humming or "talking" to himself. He chases us around the house, thrusting books at us, saying "mmm....mmm....mmmm....mmmm" until we finally stoop to read him something. Here's a better picture:
Dig the sweater vest?

Barely Holding It Together

That title of this post could refer to a number of things, including my weekend. I won't dwell on my weaknesses as a parent (holding it together until I dropped a full mango lasse on my foot and then almost crying like a baby), but rather discuss The One Show To Rule Them All. Yeah, The Wire.

Today, Season 4 was released on DVD. I pre-ordered it, so y'all will have to buy me something different for Christmas. I thought I could let it pass without mentioning, but UBM pointed out that there's at least one Wire "prequel" on Amazon. Pretty inside joke, probably improvised. There are two others you can get from the Season 4 DVD page.

Season 5 comes out January 6. You haven't heard the last of this. Please just watch it. Sheesh.

UPDATE: Okay, so I watched all three of them. They are like little love letters to Wire fans. Pure insider stuff, just meant to give us more about our favorite characters.

So This Is What's Come To

NBC will be debuting a show called Clash of the Choirs, in lieu of new shows written by actual writers.

You can't tell me that strike ain't working.

Oh.My.God

Barack Obama is a fan of The Wire. (swoon)

Oh, and my cuz has seen Andre Royo twice recently, just motoring around LA. I am wicked jealous.

Pretty Funny

Thanksgiving menu

“What?! Are you kidding? Can we roast a chicken? No, we can’t roast a chicken! How about fajitas? Or a chili bowl from Wendy’s? We’ll gather ‘round the Thanksgiving chili bowl from Wendy’s. Don’t talk on the phone with me while you’re typing. Talk to you later.”

 

- Mr. Scobie’s answer to a question I asked about the Thanksgiving menu

 

Even More Irritating!

As I mentioned a few days ago, I don't keep up much on the BPN Newsletters these days. But today, something caught my eye. A poster complained that her local precious market uses a marker to mark their organic produce. She is outraged by the ignorance and toxicity of this method of identifying produce. My first thought was, get over it. But of the seven responders, only one said, "Frankly, I think you're going way out on a limb on this one."

The other six people chimed in with various suggestions for community action, "vote with your dollar" nonsense. Seriously, has anyone in the entire world traced an illness, or even a bad taste in their mouth, to a dot of marker on the outside of their melon?

This one's even better:

The other thing is that at Monterey Fish market they use a very strong smelling, seemingly toxic magic marker to mark the outside of the fish package. I'd like to just pop the wrapped package into the freezer but always feel compelled to ditch the paper as soon as possible. I don't even like it being there during the trip home. This has always bugged me. I would be all for instigating a change if there was a community friendly way to do it.

So Irritating

Despite what amounts to cautionary advice from my buddy Seamus, I went ahead and took a candidate matching poll. My love matches are, inexplicably, Mike Gravel, John McCain and Dennis Kucinich. Hunh?

Okay, I admit there was a time in my young democratic socialist days when I defended the boy genius of Wherever, Ohio. But who is Mike Gravel? Why can't I be matched to someone cute, like Edwards or Obama? Or at least Richardson? He's not really my type, but he has his Bill-Clinton-swaggering-excesses way about him. I'd have a beer, act a little goofy. John McCain? I once admitted to a friend of my mom's, a veteran of the Korean War, that my boyfriend had made me a quilt for Christmas, and I got 45-minutes of gay-bashing, Army recruitment love advice. I sort of imagine that sort of conversation with McCain, even though I admire his fake evenkeeledness. So much what you think Kurtz might be if he came out of the jungle.

Fortunately, I was able to get what I wanted over at Select Smart (yeah, I don't know what it is either). Phew. My top three are DK, Barack and someone named Alan Auguston, whose campaign has already been suspended. That sounds about right for my success rate, candidate-wise.

Bigs Up to The JC

And by that, I mean Jed Caesar. My cousin-in-law is one of the artists in the Whitney Biennial 2008 (page 4). Boo yah. And Kate has not one but two shows next year, in LA and NYC. Their shows overlap in New York in May. See you there!!

Escalating Stupidity

I was thinking the other day that I hadn't posted about inanities of Berkeley lately. I don't have to go there very often now that L doesn't go to Broccoli Montessori. I can't even bear to read the Berkeley Parents Network Advice newsletters because they are all so long and redundant (does every new mother need to despair that her 3 week old nurses too much/little, poops too much/little, sleeps too much/little? and can't every new mother just read the voluminous back issues for their answer?).

That leaves only the mainstream local press as a source of Berkeley news, and I don't see much of that. Oh, except for the tree sitters. Here's the latest. Several folks were arrested yesterday. According to a man named "Ayr" (it took me a sec to get that too):

"We went to deliver sage and tobacco and water to the tree-sitters, because we had heard earlier that (police) were denying them food and water and threatening people helping them with arrest," Ayr said. "We got the stuff up to them and we were doing some chants and songs when one of the tree-sitters came down and started cutting the fence."

Ayr said the group included Native Americans who believe that the grove was a burial ground for Ohlone Indians. UC anthropologists have said there is no evidence that is true.

I don't think we need an anthropologist to tell us how the grove grows, if I can paraphrase. Remember:

All but a few of the trees were planted by the university after the stadium was built in 1923.

This is all such a tremendous waste of trust fund dollars. These tree sitters could be planning their next Burning Man project if they weren't busy spilling buckets of urine and feces all other eachother. Or (*snap*) maybe that's IT! This will be great at Burning Man! I mean it's no suicide, but it could really work! (whisper whisper) They've already spilled buckets of urine and feces on eachother at Burning Man? Hmmm. Okay, back to Ye Olde Oak Grove. . .

Chasing My Own Tail

Today I googled “Problem Focusing On Work” and “Procrastination” while at work, trying to avoid starting something. Not anything specific. I just have a really hard time starting whatever pile of crap is next on my desk to be dealt with. Now that I have avoided work by googling these terms, and then blogging about it, what do I do next? Are there any experts out there who can recommend what I should next do to avoid work?

Missed Opportunities

One thing about me that has annoyed Mr. Scobie since we first met is my willingness to form an opinion about something before I have ever read or seen it. I made it through college by learning about many books in the following fashion:

1. Develop a theory about a book based on its cover, back cover, first chapter or overheard conversation in the "C" Shop.

Note: I also read whole books, but since the UofC is a Great Books school, many of those books were totally opaque and impossible (for me) to comprehend. Thus my opinion of the book or author is still based on this applied technique.

2. Confidently extol this theory to Mr. Scob (after the first week of college he was the only one who had the patience to endure my "theories").

3. Have "theory" eviscerated by listener, who cites the actual content of said book or movie as "evidence" that I am mistaken.

4. Revise "theory" based on new "evidence" and test on new listener.

5. Repeat 3 - 5.

By the time an exam rolled around, I'd have a firm grasp of the subject matter. The downside, of course, is that while I may now remark that something is "Aristotelean" or "Kantian" or "straight out of Kierkegaard", I'm in the right universe but I can't get more specific than that.

This tendency of mine is a time saver, money saver, and a shield to struggling with anything that might be intellectually or emotionally challenging. For example, in 1996, a bunch of kids wanted to see Crash, the creepy Cronenberg movie, which was basically a snuff movie. I refused to go see it on the basis that the movie would be sensational, violent and upsetting to me. B confronted me with the fact that I knew nothing more than what had been written in the NY Times about it. I said, "I don't need to see a movie to have an opinion about it." I have, to the annoyance of many, stood by that proposition (and likely will forever).

B saw the movie, hated it and has declined to confront me so directly about my cultural . . . prejudices? foresight? since that time.

Why am I going on about this? Because it turns out that instead of seeing this an annoying quirk of my personality, he should have recognized it as a money making opportunity! There is a new book out called How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read, which I DID NOT WRITE, to my consternation. (Here's a review)

Worse, I don't even have an opinion of this book yet.

My Heart Swells

I gotta get my brag on.

This morning at breakfast, Li told us this: "There are some kids at my school who used to live in England. There was a mean king who would not let them hold meetings, so they moved to Holland. Then they came here on The Mayflower. They are called Pilgrims." (My son did not verbally link to Wikipedia. I added that so that you can check the fuzzy details of your memory against what is ostensibly the history of the Pilgrims).

*sigh* He is so cute.

Other Things from Montgomery That I Miss

Whew! Our long national nightmare is over. T&A Lady is back in the saddle, tackling offensive Halloween costumes and offensive social movements, all in a day's work. Check it out!

I also remembered some other excellent things about Ms. Kirkpatrick last night. She wore a seersucker suit almost every day, even though she was in a wheelchair, and she and her husband were accomplished recorder players. Yeah, recorders, the plastic wind instrument you briefly learned in fourth grade. Only hers weren't plastic.

Goodbye, Ms. Kirkpatrick

For no discernible reason, I wandered over to the Montgomery Advertiser just now, and it made my wonder about an old friend. Literally, an old friend and probably Liam's oldest. By sad coincidence, it turns out that Margaret Blake Kirkpatrick died on October 22. She was 94 years old. Ms. Kirkpatrick, or Mahh-gret, as I thought of her, was our neighbor in Montgomery. She was one of the best people I ever met. She was crazy about Li, and would always say, "Ewwwww, let me squeeze that beautiful little baby boy. I do love little boys, you know. I had two of my own. I always wished I'd had a little girl, too." She was funny, smart, talkative, an active reader, an integrationist, anti-homophobic ("I joined the Episcopalian Church for their toleration. Why would we exclude homasexuals?") and very supportive. "You still nursin' that little baby? Good for you!"

Once, she was taking a class at ASU, an all-black college, and some Klan members who had learned she was there, pulled the fire alarm and then ambushed her and a black student. Photos of her running out of the school were published in the newspaper, along with the "news" of her "race mixing", in an effort to embarrass her. It didn't work. When a racist neighbor of hers learned that she was helping a young black woman to get a teaching degree, he and some other men from some White "Christian" group sprayed water from high powered hoses into her windows while the young woman was visiting. Her home was vandalized repeatedly. Margaret's response to all this was, and this is just how they treat the white people. She knew that her views exposed her to very little danger compared to the dangers faced by Blacks who were fighting to end segregation and racism in Alabama.

We were crazy about her. It's silly that her passing made me cry, because she had lived such a full life. We last saw her in October 2005, when we went down to Montgomery for something else. She had moved into a nursing home, and missed being able to email (her computer had been stolen by someone else's guest) but was reading voraciously. She gave L an American flag she had, because, she said, she wasn't feeling particularly like she wanted it, what with things being the way they were. I have missed her since we moved, and will miss her more knowing that she's gone.

Here's her obituary:

Margaret Blake Kirkpatrick Departed this life October 22nd in Montgomery, Alabama. She loved friends and family, lifelong learning, educating the young, playing music and enjoying humor. She adored a good joke -even a clean one if it was smart. Born June 15, 1913 in Randolph County, Alabama, the youngest of three daughters, to Judge Stell Blake and Exa Sticklen Blake. At a young age, her parents fell on hard times, forcing Margaret and her mother to live with her sister Martha and brother-in-law Charles ''Doc'' Thigpen in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Margaret made many friends in North Alabama, becoming especially close to her niece Martha Thigpen McLemore and cousin (Senator) Howell Heflin. She received her Teacher's Certificate from Florence State Teachers College in 1933 and took her first job in Jones, Alabama. Married to Robert F Kirkpatrick in 1934, she and Kirk lived thereafter in Montgomery, and raised two sons, Robert F. Kirkpatrick, Jr. and John B. Kirkpatrick. Back to school in 1952, she earned her Bachelor's with a double major in English and Education in 1955 from Huntingdon College, followed by her Masters in Education from Auburn University in 1958. She taught fourth and fifth grade at Bear School, retiring in 1976. Never one to give up learning, she studied Jungian analysis in Switzerland, became Mentor for the Education for Ministry program at Church of the Ascension, and began the adult education program at Huntingdon College. For the latter she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Huntingdon in 2001.

Oh, And

I managed to write something over at The Union Lawyer today, in case you are catatonically bored and in need of some digression.

Catholic humor

I guess it shouldn't come as any surprise that it exists. What else is Benny Hill if not Catholic humor? Or at least little c catholic. Anyway, enjoy:



Thanks to the good deacon of Our Lady of Guadalupe for this.

A couple of observations

There is a 1:1 ratio between people who forward urban legend emails and people who do not know how to delete headers. Or the sender realizes that they are being suckers for a dumb story and want to share the blame.

Novelty t-shirts do not, standing alone, constitute Halloween costumes. Sorry, chubby dude in the Vote For Pedro t.

Umm, What?

I am not, by nature, an apocalyptic soul. That lil' tremble we just had? Ain't no thang. I am okay with it. How about that suicide on the BART tracks that delayed Mr. Scobie from making it home from dinner? Well, tragic, but not the end times. But Naomi Campbell pilgrimaging to Hugo Chavez? If that isn't the end of the world, well then, Chavez needs better celebrity friends. If Naomi Campbell and Kevin Spacey visited me, I would assume that I had been Left Behind, and that my only chance for redemption was to battle it out with those demon spawn.

Sheesh. What a day.

L's reaction to the earthquake: "I need to KILL the tectonic plates." His proposed solution involves some kind of Lego drill that launches the tectonic plates into space. It's better than my solution, which was to get under the dining room table and ask B to go look at Q, as if looking at him were a sufficient prophylactic to The Big One.

A Man of Action

Q is quite thrilled with his Halloween costume.

This picture hurts my eyes, with all the bursts of color in that room. Doesn't he look exactly like the little football player behind him?

Ya Got No Creep To Ya

- Kima Greggs, episode 2, season 1.

Yeah, that's right. The Wire is back, On Demand. It does not matter that we have it on DVD. I watched two episodes tonight making Liam's Halloween costume. Which costume does NOT include the following:

Heh heh.

And then finally, have you wondered what you might hate more than Blackwater USA, the mercenary contractor responsible for untold numbers of Iraqi civilians deaths and Godknowshowmany propped-up dictatorships? And how about those irritating sound effects in NPR stories? You know, the laughing children on the playground, the birds chirping, and then you have to change the station before you lose your mind? Do you hate that more, or less, than military contractors in Iraq? Well, I briefly got an answer to that question the other day when I heard a story about protests at Blackwater's training center outside of San Diego. The owner of Blackwater came out to address the protesters, but was quickly shouted down. He got back into his vehicle, and the tape catches a protester angrily yelling, "Oh, you drive a HUMMER?? What about the environment? You gas guzzler!!"

Like the owner of Blackwater gives a shit. Like he should be driving a Prius.

And for a brief moment, I felt . . . I don't know what. Sorry for how lame the protesters are. Sorry that I have to listen to NPR's pitiful filler-in-lieu-of-news every day. Sorry that the best argument that can be summoned to yell at the owner of Blackwater, just hours after 17 Iraqi citizens were killed, is that he's a gas guzzler.

Down with the Baby Boomers

I got an email from the Social Security Administration today. It was a press release trumpeting the fact that the "first baby boomer", Kathy Casey-Kirschling, applied for her Social Security benefits "online".

"Filing for Social Security benefits online is easy and convenient," said Kathy Casey-Kirschling, who turns 62 on January 1, 2008. "I urge my fellow Baby Boomers to give Social Security's online services a try. Save a trip and do business with Social Security from the comfort of your home or office."

I did not realize that Baby Boomers had been given free access to the SSA email database to communicate with one another, and frankly, I don't think its a good use of our tax dollars. I also think that KCK should hold off on applying for benefits for a few more years. Hasn't she heard that the whole system is going down the toilet?!? No matter WHAT Paul Krugman says?? And that you can get a lot more money if you wait until you are actually old to apply? I am not going to school her.

A different topic: Yesterday and today I watched The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (video here), about the coup attempted against Hugo Chavez. It's edge-of-the-seat good: two Irish filmmakers happened to be present (literally in the Presidential Palace) during the April 2002 coup attempt. They were there when the coup happened and they were there when it fell. It's really compelling to watch, and raises a few interesting issues. The private media in Venezuela were complicit in the coup, refusing to broadcast honest information about Chavez's whereabouts, and the massive demonstrations against the coup, among other things. They explicitly participated in the coup planning, which they explained in a celebratory post-coup news interview. By reference to contemporaneous U.S. news reports, you realize that the American media buys the Bush administration view of Chavez uncritically, and that its "neo-liberal" perspective is almost as bad as the private media in Venezuela.

The problem that detracts from this well-done expose is the filmmakers' assertion that the CIA and the Bush administration are behind the coup. While I don't doubt it - the U.S. can't not meddle in South and Central American politics - the filmmakers have no evidence at all that this happened. Here's the information they allege supports this conclusion: Pedro Carmona and Carlos Ortega, leaders of the opposition to Chavez, may have gone to the White House the year before; an airplane with U.S. registration may have been sent to take Chavez out of Venezuela when his government was restored. And I say "may" because Chavez didn't report that happening. The viewer learns it from some random person in the movie relating it as a rumor. So the movie is great, unfiltered news, it isn't hard journalism.

Another interesting problem the movie raises: Chavez was clearly thoughtful, passionate, articulate about both socialism and democracy in 2002, scaring the shit out of the upper class. He's done a lot of good things, and much of the things he is blamed for doing in the American media are not entirely true. For example, there is supposedly a constitutional basis for him refusing to renew the license of the TV station that participated in the coup against him, and they kept broadcasting on cable. Not exactly grossly offensive censorship, particularly since the FCC here is giving the green light to complete media monopolies. But I got into an argument with a guy I work with who is very pro-Chavez on the question about Chavez extending his term limits for 14 more years. (Supposedly he's just extending them until 2021, not indefinitely). He said that this extension was the will of the people. My view was, there is no exception to the rule that power corrupts, and that if Chavez does not have underlings (Vice President, cabinet members) capable of sustaining the programs he has created, then they don't have a democracy. And while I am ranting, I think socialism without democracy is, at best, paternalism, and at worst, dictatorship. I won't say fascism because I think JFB and I once may have argued about THAT word (or was it totalitarianism?).

The final analysis is: I wish I knew more about Hugo Chavez, and about nearly everything else in the world. When I learn new things - like about this coup - it makes me feel so dumb and naive. I feel like I know almost nothing when I learn anything at all.

Day Waster

It's only 10 a.m. and I can already tell that the day is shot. Concerned as I am about TK's musical dry spell, I followed one of his commenter's recommendations over to Pandora. And like that, the day is gone. Over. Nothing will get done today, while I surf through and rate new music. Proceed at your own risk.

Other things I like: Mr. Scobie and I got the hell out of Dodge this weekend and languished in Bodega Bay, reading, eating and watching Red Sox games. I read Cannery Row. Great. After this, and my little Jane Austen binge a few months back, I realize that what we were supposed to be reading in high school really is the best stuff ever written. What should I read next?

On Language

If you think SCOTUS sounds dirty, how about POTUS and FLOTUS? Don't they sound like caricatures of twin Southern buffoons? I guess in a sense they are.

And since I've been on the topic of words, M just put me on to Websters on-line dictionary. It's pretty amazing. It goes way beyond a typical dictionary. For example, transmutation (M accedes to using it for the meaning "change one substance into another): This on-line dictionary includes a multilingual translation and includes alternative orthographies, including how the word is spelled in semaphore, dancing man, Braille, American Sign Language, British Sign Language, HTML and Hexadecimal. Whatever that is.

You will notice the fatal flaw of this gem from the very start: the Pig Latin translation is incorrect. I sent this note to the editor:

Your Pig Latin translations are incorrect, I think. I understood pig latin to take the first consonant of each syllable, move it to the end, and add –ay. Or:

Ouryay igpay atlayinay anstrayalayionshays are-ay inayorrayectay, Iay inkthay.

Sorry to be nerdy but it popped right out at me.

Falling on My Sword - Sort Of

At least 14 years ago, possibly more, I had an argument with the author of Executive Orc House about either the word “holocaust” or the word “apartheid”. I can’t remember which word it was but the word had been used in a Vanity Fair article to apply either to the conditions under which Muslim women live or the conditions under which Palestinians live in Israel. JFB’s position was that those words have specific meaning relating, respectively, to the conditions under which Jews suffered at the hands of the Nazis and to the conditions under blacks suffered at the hands of whites in South Africa, and that they could not be bandied about to apply to just any situation of oppressiveness. I said words of that power SHOULD be applied to other occasions of oppression to import their meaning and give gravitas to newer situations of oppression.

In the past 14 years, “we” (not JFB and I, but culture generally) have struggled with how to name oppressive regimes, but generally holocaust and apartheid have stayed off limits, per J. “Genocide” is used now.

A back-and-forth with another reader about the word “transubstantiation” (from the last post) reminded me of this discussion. Here’s why. I have always understood transubstantiation to have only one meaning: the theological meaning. That bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Christ. You can mock it as concept, but I never thought the word had any other meaning. It turns out it also means “changing one substance to another.” Who knew? So then why this flash back to 1994, sitting in the lobby of the Shoreland, waiting for the campus bus, getting heated and pissy about a Vanity Fair article? Because I thought, “Some words have only one meaning, even if they in fact have other meanings. G--D--- it.” Doh. I thought JFB deserved an apology after all these years. Its just as easy to say “change one substance to another” as it is to say “transubstantiation”, if that is all you mean. The T word seems reserved for its ecclesiastical meaning, not its alchemical meaning. Big ups, JB.

Also I agree that hardcore is tough to take now that we are old. Ska doesn’t hold up too well, either, sad to say (but you probably aren’t sad to hear).

Nino, Dios Mio, and Opus Dei

I cut my teeth on the Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts when I was a wee blogger, so it gives me some pleasure to return to my roots. I just finished reading The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin. I highly recommend it, even to non-lawyers. Although there are gaping holes in Toobin's coverage (he seems to have missed Roberts enthusiasm for dancing), he manages to bring up Lil Jack's performance at the nomination press conference. But I didn't mention The Nine just so I can talk about Jack Roberts again.

I won't bother you with the "salacious" details (there aren't any, unless you are a SCOTUS nerd). Toobin does make a few interesting observations about conservatives that caused me to reflect on that species. Toobin notes that there are now five Catholics on the Court. He mentions it in the context of the idea that there is no longer a category of individuals who cannot get on the Court (Women, Jews, Blacks, Catholics - no reason to believe that a Hispanic couldn't get on board). But what interested me more was the fact that some of these Catholics are absolutely beloved by conservative, evangelical Christians. Scalia, Alito, Roberts, and Thomas are Catholic. Kennedy is Catholic too, but since he's proven to be such a disappointment to conservatives, with his Lawrence v. Texas and his foreign law "proclivities", he doesn't really help my point.

And that point is, the Catholic Church I grew up in neither loved, nor was beloved by, evangelical Christians. Recall my years at PTL. Although we were Catholic, people (okay, kids) I met there were pretty unabashed in their accusations that Catholics worshipped false idols (the saints), and engaged in Mariolatry, both of which were akin to paganism. Transubstantiation did not go over well either. "You mean, you actually think that you EAT Jesus? And drink his BLOOD?? That's so stupid!" My mother was, at times, involved in Pentacostal Catholic prayer groups, but I don't recall a particular political fervor, even around abortion. My Mom was, in fact, more of a social justice/Catholic Worker-type Catholic, and consequently so was/am I.

I know that the personal is not actually political, and that I cannot generalize from my childhood interactions with evangelical Christian children in 1985 to questions about the Supreme Court's realization as a conservative outpost in the federal government. But I am curious how a nearly rabid right-wing got into bed with Catholics, particularly in light of Toobin's other information, which is that the conservative movement's vetting of Supreme Court nominees is as awful and dark as the self-criticism exercises of Communist cells, or the Stasi. Nearly anything can brand someone as "not conservative enough". For example, Harriet Miers and Dick Cheney were skeptical of John Roberts! They thought he might not be conservative enough. And then conservatives turned on Miers like wolves. The fact that she had made explicit references to opposing Roe v. Wade during her political career in Dallas did nothing to assuage conservative fears that she was "squishy". Alito and Roberts, meanwhile, refused to address Roe v. Wade during their confirmation hearings. These two are the golden boys of the conservative revolution, the fruition of Federalist Society longings for 25 years.

Sorry

I have been feeling heat from some corners about my lack of blogging. Apologies. I had a hilarious (to me) entry about Marcel Marceau, but *someone* (who can stand behind my chair when I am blogging at home) thought it was "in poor taste". So, I tabled it, and now its stale.

Anyway, I have been way too busy to think of anything funny to say. My sister's wedding, lots of travel, and lots of work have kept me observation-free (other than, "geez, what's all this traffic?" and "SNOT? On my new blouse?? SHIT!") and basically humorless (not the wedding - it was a laugh riot).

I will try to repent, write some hilarious and poignant bon mots. Failing that, you will get your tasteless, late, off-brand Marcel Marceau post.

It's That Time of Year Again

With all the work I have, and the excitement and planning for the Impending Nuptials, I ALMOST forgot: tomorrow is International Take Like A Pirate Day! Gosh, it just comes so close to equinox and Rosh Hashanah, it can really slip right past you.

In case you find yourself without a pirate name, you can find it here. I am Joan Thieving Arse, which is cool. Me pirate's vessel is The Madness of The Manta. Me favorite poet is ARRRchibald McLeish. Me favorite disease is SARRRS. I like MARRRRshmellows. Me sister is an ARRRchitect.

Okay, you get the picture. Assume your eye patches.

In Case You Missed This

The 2007 Air Guitar World Championship is over. Can there really be a "winner" of such a thing?

I think the guy in the overalls there looks a bit like a neighbor of mine. Not that I have seen him play air guitar, but he reads this blog, so he can expect to be called upon to perform a little Yngwie Malmsteen next time I see him.

This Is It?

So that's it then? Freeze a pitbull and call it Chupacabra? I don't know, I expected it to be scarier. More Satan than Spuds McKenzie.

Like many from Mexico, this chupacabra was found in Texas. (Is that offensive?)

I am suspending my normal "meh" attitude towards Dave Matthews because this is a pretty good song, but more importantly because Zoe choreographed the video and dances in it.

Cool!

And lest you think my sister and I are the dullards of the family, think again. Lorin is the project manager on the retro-fit and re-design of Casa Zimbabwe, a housing collective at Berkeley. Thus her irritation at not being permitted to install nuclear exit signs. I can't find any pictures of the C.Z. architectural changes, but you can see from the outside that they are probably very dramatic, since this is what they are working from.

Perhaps Lorin will share some photos with us so I can sing her praises as well.