Monthly Archive for November, 2005

Good Night, And Good Luck.

Published on November 23, 2005 in ..The Dude, Films, Reviews and The Ill-Literates. 6 Comments

The George Clooney directed docudrama about Edward R Murrow and the power of television journalism as a force for good works ok on the level of stand alone drama, but it is in its ties to our own times in which much of its power is vested.

Murrow, played ably and soberly by David Straithairn, was a CBS journalist who gained his reputation reporting from London during WWII. In the 50′s he has his own half hour news show not unlike 60 Minutes today. He used this forum to try and educate and inform a public that he describes in a speech that bookends the movie, as overfed and complacent. In the speech at a banquet that honored him taking place after the events of the film, he prophecies many of our generations laments regarding how media feeds us safe words and images and keeps so much of reality from us so as to keep us isolated, protected by harsh truths that would shatter our own personal and national self images.

Murrow, among other battles he fought, was also noted for being one of the few journalists to stand up to Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy of course was noted for blacklisting political opponents by labeling them Communists and seeking to expose them through the auspices of the federal government. He helped perpetuate an atmosphere of national fear that had men killing themselves and people’s carrers and lives ruined. His techniques, fear mongering, and factless name calling as defense against anyone not in agreement with him mirrors the extreme right-wing today that has attempted to label any critics as traitors and terrorists enablers. For the better part of a decade, since about the time of Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America it has been a very palpable and overt strategy of the right to try and discredit people who oppose them by calling them what they themselves are. It is a debating tool meant to declaw the enemies argument before it ever gets fully sprung. In this way they set the tone and create the parameters of debate. Gingrich himself wrote a memo back then encouraging yelling and name calling as a tool to subdue opponents. In Mccarthy they find much of their precedence and inspiration.

This is one of the many ways someones legitimate opinion and criticism is discredited. In the movie we see honest and decent men place Murrow’s dangerous confrontations of McCarthy in jeopardy if they have merely known anyone remotely affiliated with the Communist movement. It is implied that no matter how strong the evidence is that a man might have, regardless of his ethics and reputation, what they say will be immediately discredited if their sister or uncle was seen reading a left-wing periodical. Today we have seen numerous instances of the right and their media lackeys attacking critics, as they did at John Murtha last week, by claiming they should be ignored because they were once in a room with Michael Moore or posted on a liberal blog.

There is little doubt that Rush Limbaugh and the tools at Faux News (Daily Kos gets credit for the nickname), would have been a mouthpiece of McCarthy if they had been around when he was trying to scare America into complicity. Fear tactics have always been used towards this end. Whether it is a Red Scare or an Orange Alert, it is fear for fears sake as a means to an end. When JFK said we have nothing to fear but fear itself he may very well have been exposing this very tendency and given his enemies one more reason to kill him. Fear is a tool of oppression and it always has been. And as in Murrows time it can often take very little but some courageous honesty and a few ethical men of means to turn the tide. One of Murrows strengths was that he was almost beyond reproach. In his time and in ours this is the best weapon against evil. There is a power in truth that has a way of finding the fatal flaw of those who hide from it. While no man may be perfect, it does not demand perfection to be honest, to adhere to facts and rigorous standards to be met in forming opinions and allegiances. Al Franken echoes this need when he says those on the left can only win against the Ann Coulters, Bill O’Reilleys, and of course Cheneys and Rove’s, by telling the truth and sticking to facts. We are more honest and must not lose that edge. And as Franken characteristically adds, were better looking and funnier as well.

An interesting moment in the film comes when Murrow asserts that not all sides merit equal consideration or airtime. In defending the story about an Air Force pilot being denied fair defense in his dismissal due to his parents Communists affiliations, Murrow argues that a presentation of both sides is not always warranted. The military had sealed documents pertaining to the charges which no one, not even the defendent could see. He was being denied due process in a reminder of Guantanomo and the ramifications of our Patriot Act. We see today a media that capitulates to the idea that the irrational and defenseless, the factless and merely assertive, have as much of a right to be heard on equal if not greater terms than those who stand firmly upright with the supports of truth and facts. But in doing so they allow any irreputable force to hide behind journalistic credos to gain the same merit as all others. They give Intelligent Design an equal forum though it is discredited in courts and all science circles as winking creationism. They allow critics to be deflated by the mere labeling of them as left wing by the right. They give equal time to the assertive and flag waving forces behind the Iraq war as they do to those with an accumulating mountain of evidence that the war was a fraud to begin with and a quagmire that same evidence said it would be 3 years ago.

All use of McCarthy in the movie comes from actual black and white tv footage of him from the period. In fact the movie is all in black and white. This works for a film set in that time period when Americans saw the world in black and white terms. TV was a new and highly exciting medium that broadcast in only without color, and of course the epic battle as it was cast, between America and Communism was seen in the strictly black and white terms of good vs evil with no shades of grey. This is also much like Bush’s axis of evil and repeated stump speeches brainwashing people with repetitive terms like evildoers. To get people to accept allowing you to do whatever is in your selfish best interest and against theirs, it is always helpful to not only scare them, but to reduce those who stand in the way to stark comic book, or maybe I should say biblical, terms of cartoonish notions of good and bad. It is of course standard wartime strategy to try and reduce the enemy to subhuman terms so that people will forgive any atrocities committed against them. As the leaders of Iraq are allowed to be associated with a satanic figure as Bush casts him as (and Hussein does suck, but not as bad as many we are currently dealing openly with as they oppress and murder their own people), it is a little less of an affront to their sensibilities when thousands of innocent civilians associated with that evil are destroyed in the process.

From our governments Communist paranoia that saw a monolithic world movement that never existed to our allowing Team America to use terrorism as their new catch-all excuse to curtail rights or engage in any foreign exploit that suits them, the danger of unfettered demonizing should be clear. In the supposed name of the Communist threat McCarthy helped embelish, we spent decades aiding right wing paramilitaries, death squads, and despots around the world because they would supposedly help fight Communism. We went to Vietnam because of the lunatic domino theory this paranoia came with. And yet all these years after that exaggerated threat we still do these same things. Now we hear the excuse that it is for the fight against terrorism that we do things like aid Sudan as they committ genocide since they agree to help us find terrorists and turn them over to us. Of course the rationales were bullshit them as they are now. We allow genocide there because of Sudans oil and pressure from China. And beause were stretched thin in a senseless invasion of Iraq.

But these are the vestiges of men like McCarthy. Even when they lose, their influence breeds something deformed and abominable just as we still must contend with neo-nazi skinheads 60 years after their dickless leader died in a bunker along with his phony philosophy of racial purity which was also just another tool to get people to play along for the mere greed and lust of a few. What might our current neocon worldview breed in the future? If they persevere and stay in power we are all but doomed. Even if they dont what might be born from their hate and methods?

When another Senator challenges McCarthy in a famous piece of footage used in the movie, he says to the man who can only see red, “Have you no decency Senator? After all, have you no decency?”

I’d feel alot better about the future if we heard some politicians saying the words I’ve so often wanted to say and that fit so many on the right today so perfectly. “Have you no decency Mr Cheney? Have you no decency Mr Delay, Bush, Rumsfeld, Rove, Frist, Santorum etc etc?” Seeing Murrow can not help make you long for brave journalists who will risk all to say words like this and expose such blatant and cynical wrongdoing. Murrow eventually paid a price for his courage. Political and corporate pressure was moved to muffle him by taking his show out of its time slot and moving it to where it would not be seen. Corporate pressure is no less pervasive today. It is much more concentrated and much more linked with the powers that be in D.C. But in an age with so many sources that have so many ways of getting movements off the ground there is still no excuse for more Murrow’s not rising up and risking attack from those who ultimately have no claws, but rather fight with illusury words. If more do not do so soon we run the risk of getting the hopelessly sanitized tv journalism Murrow worried we might just get. Ideas and standards become entrenched after a while. Hopefully there are men and women in the public forum who will fight to keep the current ones from becoming norms.

This movie is partly about the tranforming power of television. It is a medim with an infinite capacity to do good. That Air Force pilot was eventually given his job back after Murrow and his producer refused pressure from Air Force brass. Part of that reason was partly due to Murrows exposure of the story and presenting the American public with clear cases of wrong and giving their indignation a chance to be loosened. TV has done much more of this sort of thing over the subsequent decades even as it has also done its part to dull us and insulate us from reality. But where will it go in the future?

Much of the hope lies in the public. Ultimately it is us who decide what we want and what they will give us. As Murrow says to his producer played by George Clooney late in the film, a poll showed that the most trusted man on American tv was Milton Berle at that point. Says Clooney, “I told you you should have worn a dress.”

I find it vaguely hopeful we have evolved beyond trusting a man in a dress if polled on the subject. What worries me, and perhaps is a bigger statement then who indeed would rank number 1 in such a poll today, is that no one seems to care to ask that question anymore.

The Corporation (A Review And Discussion)

Published on November 21, 2005 in ..The Dude, Films, Politics, Reviews and The Ill-Literates. 1 Comment

The Corporation of the title is a documentary that details the history and present dominance of that amelgamated institution in our world and lives. As you can imagine, business interests are scary dominant in our culture. What you might not know is that its dominance is part of a centuries old campaign to give human status to interests that are obligated to not only screw individuals, but that can be clinically diagnosed as psychotics.

The film is a pretty straighforward documentary with an unseen female narrator and a slew of corporate and activist interests that do appear on screen amidst imagery, graphs, and statistics that nonetheless provide a watchable canvas for alot of information to be conveyed on. I must admit to longing for a little humor mixed into the lessons ala a Michael Moore, who does appear in the film as well. But though this is a mostly dry look at a monolithic juggernaut of economic, political, cultural, legal, and physical control of our lives, it remains watchable and informative. Not that this a low budget flick. The movie looks and sounds great. It’s got some new things to say and gives corporate interests their say in the debate while acknowledging the movie makers own beholdeness to corporate interests to the point of turning themselves into a brand to be marketed.

Early on we get some history and find that after the Civil War, lawyers exploited the 14th Amendment which protected black’s, to gain emerging business interests status as individuals, which protected them from being deprived from life, liberty, or property without due process. Corps came in and said, oh were individuals too so you cant mess with us. So right from the get go you have these guys organizing and taking advantage of tragedy to gain financial leverage and gain. Then it was the pain slaves had endured and the hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Civil War to gain them rights. Now its 3000 deaths on September 11, 2001, which they continue to profit from with the help of their handpicked puppets in D.C.

It’s also significant that there are legal obligations that force Corporations to make the bottom line their sole driving force at the expense of anything that gets in their way. Corporations origainally were suppposed to be short term intersts designed to serve the public trust and come together for a short term project like building a bridge. But as power begets power, they grew beyond their makers and now seem to be consuming the public in their need to grow bigger and bigger.

Interesting is a comparison of the characteristics of corporations with those of a clinically diagnosed psychopath.

*Causing harm to others (tons of examples to choose from but the film focuses on sweatshops.
*Callous unconcern for the feelings of others. (One ex is pollution, chemicals.)
*Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships. Corps move on when the profits dry up in a community or go to where the labor is cheapest. Outsourcing.
*Reckless disregard for the safety of others. Knowingly exposing people to chemicals in numerous cases.
Destroying natural habitats.
*Deceitfulness: repeated lying and conning others for profit. Falsifying documentation.
*Incapacity to experience guilt.
*Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors. Beneifit cost analysis is s.o.p. for companies deducing whether its more profitable to continue acting irresponsibly and illegally or to come clean and fix the problem. The cases of lawbreaking are amazingly numerous. Much of it has included complicity in murder. Bophal India a couple of decades ago, or Ken Sarro Wiwa and his fellow activists in Nigeria being exocuted at the behest of American Oil companies.

A consultant to the FBI on psychotics draws the psychopath diagnosis when analyzing these traits. Think about it. The diagnosis fits. And they are running the country and most of the world.

The documentary goes out of its way, as my beloved leader Noam Chomsky points out in his section, that many corps are decent and some of the individuals in some of the bad ones can even be good people. It is the institution itself that has no one to answer to and no one within to stand alone and take the blame, that is the evil.

Perhaps it is this kind of disconnect and dissasociation between self and reality, or the compartmentalization of deeds and traits that also plays a role in individual psychotics. It’s definitely not a quality I would want the dominant institution and influence in our lives possessing.

Also intresting is that these psychotic qualities also apply to my last girlfriend. every last one of them! What’s even more interesting is that im not exaggerating… But i digress.

Connect the dots in our society and the amount of influence on so many levels that corporate power, greed, and sway in Washington have on our lives. It’s so enormous it’s mind boggling. It’s not the kind of thing that is in the film but when you see the huge effects state budget cuts are having in a state like N.Y. where education, healthcare and so many other things are effected, but don’t see how many billions of dollars most states including ours are giving away through subsidizing corporations to be here, often after they make promises regarding wages and employment in return for such beneifits as free land, tax incentives, etc, that are not met. In fact we are quite often paying companies to lay people off and outsource jobs. They are notoriously above the law though they exploited it to gain their rights. Bush can talk about axis’s of evil, and warn of the punishments of harboring terrorsts or supporting terrorist nations, but our companies, Halliburton included, do business with Iran and Syria and others hiding behind offshore subsidiaries.

Tom Delay is part of a group using indentured servitude in the Mariana Islands to make cheap shit for JC Penny and numerous other popular US outlets that are then able to get away with claiming this stuff is made in the USA because Mariana is a US commenwealth we claimed from Japan after WWII. They are forcing female workers into prostitution for American and Japanese businessmen. Delays pet project and what he has called, and I paraphrase, a bastion of free market ideals and what the Republican party is becoming, is also forcing the females forcibly employed there after they were lied to to lure them from China, to get abortions when they get pregnant. Remember what Delay and his party supposedly stand for in regard to the sanctity of life for fetuses.

Corporations sit in on U.N. debates and have lobbied for permanent seats to further legitimize the power and influence they already have. In the rewritten history of our country few remember this nugget from the 30′s in which fascism almost came to America all wrapped in the corporate logo: The film recounts a coup attempt few people know about but which is well documented (History Channel also did a special on it) when American corporate interests got together with a general named Smedley Butler who had helped them subdue locals to further the various oil, sugar, fruit, banking interests in places like China, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba and Honduras, to overthrow FDR. Big business wasn’t happy with the Great Society and the New Deal which saved America from the brink of despair and became the bedrock of our democracy. Just as Republicans with their corporate backers today seek to continually still try and undo these works of the public interest, they then tried to do it directly by organizing troops made of vets and led by Burton as backed by companies such as Good Year and Dupont, to take our government from FDR. Fortunately Butler wouldn’t go that far and exposed the plot which was investigated by Congress and found to be real and credible.

Butler said he was tired of being “a gangster for capitalism,” and recounted how these mainstream corporate interests wanted to set up a “fascist dictatorship,” in America. And he stopped their overt attempt. But when the all pervasive influence of business interests is seen in their power to legislate, influence the U.N., and lobbying that has become all powerful and influential, you cant help but wonder if the coup took place a bit more subtly after all. In 2000 an actual coup de tat took place as the fraudulent and despicable ethical pervert George Bush was handed the Presidency by lawmakers despite losing an election that much evidence proved had been conducted under a cloud of fraud. Bush’s team was given the victory in part because they had more money to organize and influence events in Florida in the days and weeks after the election. Where does all this extra money come from? Corporate donors who know he does their bidding. And he has. Ever obodiently and loyally he has based every decision he has made from legislative bills to energy policy, to invading Iraq, on their interests.

Now the Supreme Copurt is being stacked with judges who are notoriously corporate friendly as this administration has pushed heavily for tort reform which will take away the likelihood of suing businesses, or Dr’s when they hurt us or the environment. Already he has gotten reform of bankruptcy laws and civil suits that credit card companies among others, paid millions to not only create, but also have promised certain legislators jobs and forgiven the debts of at least one. The civil suit reform was a measure that passed and was meant to limit settlements for plaintiffs against corporate powers that do wrong. The legislation was largely paid for by insurance companies. Why you might ask? Well who has to pay much of the costs to plaintiffs and their lawyers when settlements are reached. The bill is also meant to curtail defense lawyers profits since they are notorious contributors to Democratic campaigns.

And this kind of thing is routine. Every day laws and decisions that effect us all are being brought and sold by the powerful and wealthy. The film doesn’t touch on all these topics and connections, it would be as impossible for them as it is for me because the layers of corporate control and influence are just too many. The film offers little in the way of solutions, though there is a book it is based on and a website Thecorporation.com that takes on those subjects more. Neither they nor I are looking to completely demonize these businesses. They do some good and we all rely on them in some way. We can pick and choose our battles like not shopping at Wallmart but its impossible to avoid somewhere and somehow supporting the intrests of a business that is doing something bad to someone somewhere.

For some ways to fight check an article in the Nation from a true public servant Ralph Nader. In it he calls for such things as more staffing and funding of the Justice Dept, IRS, and SEC. Push for more regulation. Alot of the scandals of the Enron nature started to get out of hand in the aftermath of deregulation that has let bankers and accountants go wild. Nader calls for a corporate crime report and statistical analysis being kept and monitored the way the FBI keeps them for street crime. This would enable them to track patterns and demographics in the way they do for all other crime. Why should white guys with millions be thought of as any less than a hood for stealing from our pension funds than a crackhead who robs me at gunpoint? At least the crackhead has the excuse of being desperate and hard up. The white guy is just greedy and hateful. A corporate crime task force is something I’d love to see. I loved the Michael Moore gag in Columbine where he tries to get the creator of COPS to do a spinoff on white collar corporate crime.

Cut CEO salaries, Ralph urges. CEo of Wallmart makes 871 times what his store employees make. This is a fairly typical ratio in this country. In Europe it is more like 25 to 1. We need to ride out congress people to lobby for this stuff and more. Our own Maurice Hinchey has authored a bill for Corporate media reform to take power from the growing conglomerations that are a clear threat to democracy and get more individual voices out there that include pirate radio. Send him your props and encourage him to keep fighting for it despite the obstructions he’s run into.

Nader references the laws giving Corps the right of individuals and the institutions origins as a public service and trust. He calls for that return to that subordination of corporations to the people:

Ultimately, the most effective way to control corporations is to restore citizen democracy and find effective ways to reclaim the once widely accepted principle that corporations are but creatures of the state, chartered by the state under the premise that they will serve the public good, and entitled only to those revocable rights and privileges granted by citizen governments. That is, corporations are our servants, not our masters. By doing so we will be able to create a more just and sustainable economy, an economy driven by the values of humanity and community and democracy instead of the current globally omnicidal economy driven by the relentless pursuit of short-range financial profit at any cost–market and military–to innocent peoples of the world.

I’m a free market guy myself, but I’m not an ideologue. Capitalism is not a religion and we should not treat its tenets as if they are sacred. The system must be checked. I think corps can add alot more to society and be a a part of the evolution of mankind beyond itself. We need alot of the productive and creative aspects they bring to our world. But there is a point when enough is enough. There needs to be a acknowledgment that the relationship between consumers, workers, and businesses is a symbiotic one in which neither can survive without the other. When ideology is put aside its hard to argue that FDR’s reform didn’t save this country from disaster. part of that disaster was due to unchecked and unregulated corporate control. Arguably they have even more control now despite their failed fascist coup. No belief system is a catchall that contain all there is in such a vast and complex world, and it behooves us, yes I said behooves, to subordinate some of these powerful interests to their roots in the public good. Recognition on a governmental level that whether or not you believe globalization is good, it must work within humanitarian terms and not run roughshod over so much of the world. It is a matter of asking ourselves and our leaders whether or not they want to be part of the growth of an egalitarian utopia, or a Social Darwinist free for all.

As Nader quotes Lous Brandeis as saying, “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

Rising Sun Fries Bush’s Brain! Makes Him Good Person!

Published on November 21, 2005 in ..The Dude, Politics and The Ill-Literates. 2 Comments

Hopefully it’s a sign of growing media scrutiny combined with an administration out of tricks, but the idiot-child did some backtracking in Asia in regards to the Macarthyite tactics being employed by his peeps back in the states.

After Cheney went back to the well to try and make Iraq critics sound like they have a personal relationship with Osama Ban Laden and the entire Bin Laden family (which Bush and his family actually do), and after the round of hearings and voting on Friday about withdrawal instigated by unquestioningly sincere and loyal war vet John Murphy drew traitorous and cowardly accusations from some traitorous and cowardly Republicans and news outlets, his idiocy said this today:

“People should feel comfortable about expressing their opinions about Iraq,” Bush said, three days after agreeing with Vice President Dick Cheney that the critics were “reprehensible.” He added that Murtha is, “a fine man” and a strong supporter of the military.

Could I have been wrong about this decent godman? Is he just running scared in the face of that new player on the scene called media scrutiny? Wherever its coming from it forced Bush to sound almost human. Even vaguely broadminded. Could it be bad Saki?

Get this quote from the man who campaigned in 2000 as being a uniter and not a divider. “I heard somebody say, `Well, maybe so-and-so is not patriotic because they disagree with my position.’ I totally reject that thought.”

You had me at “Well, maybe,” George!

Could 5 years of dividing as no one in our lifetimes has divided have been a bad mistake. Could George be showing his true colors safely thousands of miles away from Cheney and Rove? Maybe they had a gun to his head for 5 years.

This brave leader also made this conscientious and liberal minded statement as well: “This is not an issue of who’s patriotic and who’s not patriotic. It’s an issue of an honest, open debate about the way forward in Iraq.”

Ok he’s definitely drinking again! Three sheets, under the table, blasted out of his mind drunk.

Inr eality His Wackiness backtracking is most probably a result of an astonishing new media trend wherein journalists, commentators, and op-ed pages, are actually entertaining a bit of incredulity when neo-cons say silly stuff. They are also engaging in a strange and shocking behavior that demands some truth and a dispensing of the kind of cheap and pedestrian techniques they’ve been eating up as Cheney and Rove drop them from their withered and unholy anuses.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s still some of the usual suspects out there defending and abetting these techniques. You still get the human hypocrite Sean hannity on FOX “News,” and supposedly reputable journalists like Bob Woodward continuing to forge their relationship with Satan/Cheny. Even the ones who are showing some gumption and demanding more of this administration and its allies are not willing to go as far as they should, but at least the Corporate stranglehold of media outlets has at least a bit of slack to it. Or maybe they know they have to show a little in good faith to make it appear that they are on the side of truth and full exposure so that we won’t believe there are deeper and darker elements to what’s going on that they wont touch. But I dont want to get too conspiratorial here. If its not all decency maybe its just reports that Bush’s unpopularity abroad is hurting some of our economic interests and that is turning even the loyal corporate influence against Bush.

I hope the snowball keeps going and the karma I grasped at last November after another stolen election is the real deal. In the mean time let’s close our eyes and try and forget who we know this man and his handlers are, think of his quotes in this post, and imagine that they come from a real leader who says these things out of the braodminded and delicate complexity of thought and character that a leader should have. Just for a moment…aaaah. That was nice.

Now let’s impeach this dirty whoreson son of a bitch!

Days Of Wine And Roses In The White House

Published on November 16, 2005 in ..The Dude, Politics and The Ill-Literates. 3 Comments

Rumors are abounding in D.C. that Bush is getting sullen and hitting the bottle again. He’s not talking to all but a few people not named Rove or Cheney, and he’s a recovering alcoholic who never got treatment beyond discovering Jesus and the book of Revelations…AND HE HAS ACCESS TO THE NUKES BUTTON!!!!!!

Interestingly alot of these rumors are coming from places like the notoriously right leaning Washington Post who are citing highly placed Republican sources. Knowing their history they’re not likely to go with stuff like this unless there’s a story here. But the word is that the puppet president with a small p feels betrayed by his closest advisors and now only talks to Condi, his mom, his Stepford wife, and Karen Hughes. He has also supposedly not been talking to his father whom many have long thought has disaproved of the way his manchild son has been running things. Of course it was George Sr who resisted going into Baghdad and full invasion mode 15 years ago because he actually payed a little attention to all the facts and intelligence warning him that what has happend to his ideologically driven son would indeeed happen.

So here we have a president who many warned could not handle crisis and has always been bailed out by daddy and his cronies, now not talking to daddy or the guys who have been making his decisions the past 5 years. We have a person with a drug dependency who tried to cover it with scripture rather than stuff that actually works to change patterns of thinking and behavior. We have a guy who thinks he was chosen by god, a guy who believes in the end times, and a guy with the ability to blow us all up.

What could go wrong?

On the bright side there is some precedence for taking such powers away from a President who’s showing signs of being nuts or incompetent. The Joint Chiefs of Staff took that power from Nixon in the final days of his ridiculously evil attempt to govern like Macchiavelli. Generals were ordered to check with the JC before acting on any extreme orders from Tricky Dicky like blowing up civilization.
National Security Archive

So glad Karl Rove convinced a good portion of the country that John Kerry wasn’t fit for office. Apparently these guys really don’t believe in Karma, do unto others as…, or old adages like what goes around comes around. Rove knew full well Kerry was the better man and not a traitor just as he knew a judge in Alabama he helped defeat was not a pedophile though he spread the rumor that he was, and just as he knew John McCain was not having affairs with black women, or any woman and fatehring their children. He’s also a man who understands social science and how to manipulate the weakminded. Fortunately he knew Bush’s core source of support potentially was made up of alot of these people. And so somehow Bush the dodger becomes a man of courage and Kerry the decorated war vet a traitor. He and the media knew none of it was true. All the techniques including the Swift Boat campaign were proven to be lies. But it’s all about winning to them adn the media whores who gawk at all and wink.

And so we get an incompetent drunk in the White House and the world hating us.

This all traces back to the lying underhanded tactics of a bunch of criminals who just don’t get that eventually the truth will out. Lies get exposed and character is destiny. Their entire administration is predicated on the mountain of lies used to defeat the competition and wage their personal war. And it’s led by a man that only a fool could have ever believed had any character.

What could go wrong?

I find it interesting that the reports have things strained between Bush and Rove because small p supposedly is hurt the vile, pasty slug of a man was telling the truth when he said he had nothing to do with the CIA leak. Now I always assumed it was Rove and Cheney calling the shots as they threw W a bone or two and patted him on the head from time to time, but is Bush really that out of the loop that he didn’t know what they were up to? Or is he really this stupid that he couldn’t figure it out?

Either way we’re dealing with a dangerous man with nothing but a few mommy figures giving them their comfort and advice, and nothing but the false and superficial consolations of religion to temper real chemical and psychological issues. I’d love to gloat and yell “I told you so America,” but I have to live here and suffer the consequences of what this miserable excuse for a leader has done and still might do. And whatever that has been or will be, I hope the religious freaks who hide their nastiness behind veils of sanctity will have a moment of realization of how they are so deeply connected with this man and the lie he has been perpetuating. That’s if they’re not to busy enjoying the Apocalypse they helped create.

Save Arrested Development!

Published on November 13, 2005 in ..The Dude, Irritations, Television and The Ill-Literates. 4 Comments

The lowlifes at Fox announced this week that they were cutting this seasons order of the award winning cult favorite Arrested Development to just 8 more episodes. That means in a couple of months the show is done, though an official cancellation has not been announced. The remaining episodes are most likely in the can so there will be no finale, nothing. An online petition to save the show is available here: Save Arrested Development.

There is a possiblity that the shows producers are going to shop the show around, so even if the petition doesn’t work, a united show of support might help convince another network to take the show. Personally I would love to see this on HBO with Curb Your Enthusiasm. AD needs to go somewhere where a huge audience wont be a necessity, because it will never have one. The show requires an attention span and modicum of attention to subtlety and nuance. There’s not alot of that in the average person looking to watch a sitcom. People want their jokes telegraphed safely. They want a punchline that fits an expected formula of delivery and expectation that lets them know when to kick the attention span into a higher gear for a moment. Leading into an occasional punchline with a recognizable setup reinforces expectations and asks nothing more of people. Mass media and past elections offer beaucoup proof that this is the safety net of diminished expectations and fortified mediocrity many people want. AD definitely doesn’t fit this mold as it requires attention to get humor that is subtle, complex, and often referential of pop culture.

Not to make too much of a tv show, but lets face it, you watch tv, i watch tv, everyone but Ted Kyzinski and some weirdo ex hippies in Woodstock who dont want to spring for tv set, watch tv. And even those guys are glued to a set whenever they happened to be around one through friends, work, or public forum. I’m not going to say TV is as important as food. It’s not. Clearly.

But sex?
Work?
Friends?

TV has them all beat and you know it. Who do you spend more time with? Friends or TV? Uh-huh.

Do you have more sex than you watch tv? Of course not.

Would you rather work or watch the tellie? Thought so.

So not that I’ve made an incontrovertable argument no less solid than any made by Fox News in support of invading Iraq and bashing Kerry, you know what you have to do. Sign the petition and never watch Fox again. You can do it. It’ll be easy. Sure there’s the Simpsons but, well let’s face it, I know we all love it and its a national treasure, but…shhhh….it’s not that great anymore. And Family Guy may not be back next year. And what else is there? Paris Hilton and wife swapping? You like that? What did you vote for Bush too? Come on just say no. Be brave. Give it up for the Bluths.

Loving The Smell Of White Phosphorous In The Evening (And Napalm Too).

Published on November 10, 2005 in ..The Dude, Politics and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

A report by the Italian Network RAI, and Brittain’s Independent indicates that our military used weapons of mass destruction that burned Iraqi people to the bone.

There are reports that back in November 2004 during the attack on Fallujah we used an incendiary called White Phosphorous which creates a cloud that carmelises the skin of people within an area of approximately 150 meters. Apparently this is ok by Geneva Convention standards becasue “WP” as the military calls this stuff, or Angry Pete, is not classfied as a chemical weapon.

Well god damn I’m sure glad to hear that! And i bet the liberated folks walking around without any flesh are a bundle of happy bones to hear that too.

This has not been reported as of yet in the U.S., but the RAI special comes with testimony from a U.S. soldier who was there. But the Army themselves have admitted using this stuff in Field Artillery Magazine. As quoted from Daily Kos, the Army had this to say:

“WP [i.e., white phosphorus rounds] proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired ‘shake and bake’ missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out.”

If this does get to be a story Team America has to answer for my guess is they hide behind the distinction between chemical and incendiary weapons, as well as the reports that they used WP as merely a translucent of some sort to provide illumination to troops at night. There are already indications of a response from pro war backers online that this story has no credibility because the soldier from the RAI piece has an anti war and activist website. But whatever caused the burned bodies that we’ve seen actual photos of (and apparently more I couldn’t find a way to access on the Italian language RAI website), this is a human rights atrocity no matter what you call it. There are also reports that even though Napalm is illegal and has been disposed of the U.S. military has remade it and called it Mark 77 and has used it in Iraq.

But ultimately burned bodies are burned bodies no matter how democratized they are. Keep in mind that most of these reports and images involve mainly civilians. Saddam did things like this to Kurds. Couldn’t we have saved money and lives and let him do this to people in Fallujah. He probably didn’t have a reason but I’m sure we could have cut some deal as a reward the way Reagan and Bush Sr rewarded him for gassing people by increasing his agriculture commodities at the behest of the powerful farm lobby. And didn’t His Fraudulency say we don’t torture people the other day? Well I’m no General Torquemada, but it seems to me like having your innards exposed whether you do it with a chemical, fire, or an incendiary that melts it, has got to be a tad on the painful side. So is it only torture if we’re trying to get information out of them as the white hot light of Capitalism tears their lives away?

Pain is pain is torture, and fleshless women and children are what they are, and the people that do these things are bad. These kinds of things do not make friends and influence people. They most probably make for more terrorists who want to make American civilians suffer too.

As a side not there are aspects of the chemical weapons ban that America is reported to have exluded itself from. Maybe this allows us to incinerate innocent people. Good to know if so. I don’t think I signed anything about paying taxes but since all bets are off when we declare a war and we are still engaged in one, i’m not paying my taxes this year. Ok I will probably pay them. Besides I hope to get a refund. But damn it I’m going to do something bad that I never signed an agreement I wouldn’t do and would do anyway even i did because I’ve wanted to gain a strategic advantage that comes as a byproduct of that bad thing I’ve wanted to do for over a decade and stand to make me and my friends alot of money and that I will set up by convincing everyone I’m doing because the people I’ll do the bad things to did something bad to alot of people they didn’t do that too but maybe somebody else did.

I’ve been wanting to have my own property for a while now and I’ve got some issues with a cerrtain segment of women in the area….That’s right I’m looking at you Saugerties.

Top “Ten” Songs That Make Me Sad.

Published on November 9, 2005 in ..The Dude, Lists, Music and The Ill-Literates. 10 Comments

Because ego and lists are distinctly inimical to me and my generation, here’s another bunch of favorites. Post yours after.

Seasons In The Sun- Terry Jacks.
Good bye my friend its time to die. Shit man. He’s just so reconciled to it. Sure it’s corny enough to make ethanol out of but corn helped make this country great.

Arthur’s Theme- Christopher Cross.
This song makes me want to have sex with Manhattan. Sometimes it makes me want to cry.
It’s evocative. But the best that I can do is fall in love. The best.

Mandy- Barry Manilow.
Oh for god sake she came and gave without taking…And he sent her away!

Tears In Heaven- Eric Clapton.
Eerie considering all that inspired it. You can see him taking his sons hand.

In My Life- The Beatles.
I can’t listen to this without thinking of John, moving on, and the end.

Every Rose Has Its Thorn- Poison.
Every cowboy DOES sing a sad, sad song and you know it! Might not be my favorite metal heart tugger but it is the symbolic torchbearer of 80′s butane ballads and therefore is my symbolic addition to this list to stand for all of them.

Lost Cause- Beck.
The whole album Sea Change is a tearjerking tribute to breaking up and moving on, but this one really makes me think of that ex-not so special special someone. “you’re sorry eyes cut through the bone/They make it hard to leave you alone/Leave you here wearing your wounds/Waving your guns at somebody new/…Too many people you used to know/They see you coming/They see you go/They know your secrets and you know theirs/This town is crazy/Nobody cares/I’m tired of fighting/Fighting for a lost cause/Baby your a lost cause.” See what I mean.

Someone Else? – Queesnryche.
Not an 80′s metal ballad. It’s a 90′s ode to evolution from within sung by just Geoff Tate who has one of my all time favorite voices in music, and a piano. Tate is so emotional and passionate it might not matter what he was singing about but it goes something like this: “They used to say I was nowhere, man, heading down was my destiny. But yesterday, I swear, that was someone else not me. Here I stand at the crossroads edge, afraid to reach out for eternity, One step, when I look down, I see someone else, not me.”

Imagine- John Lennon.
Surely I’m not the only one.

American Pie- Don McLean.
How can the music dying not be sad? I lose it when the plane lights the sacrificial light and Satan laughs with delight.

The River- Joni Mitchell.
She knows what she did wrong and the poignancy of wanting to skate away from it rather than drive, fly, or run is especially enigmatic to me. Grace in defeat or something.

First Time Ever I Saw Your Face- Roberta Flack.
Just something about the slow pace of the way she belts this out. It’s so heartfelt and yet a little menacing.

Black- Pearl Jam
As a PJ fan I’m obligated to get this on here. It does make me think of alot of the lost chances and hope over the 15 years since this song debuted. I think I’ve quoted the final lines of it to at least 3 women i was interested in over those years.

The Drugs Don’t Work- The Verve.
I don’t know if he’s singing about someone dying and the meds not working or an addict, but this is a song that gets under my skin.

Daniel- Elton John.
Some of the lyrics here are just too much and too apropos after August 31st.

Puff The Magic Dragon- Peter, Paul, and Mary.
Ever since I was a kid this song killed me. I used to cry over that damn dragon dying, i really did. And then I have to be shattered even more to find out it’s a damn drug song! They made a cartoon about it for god’s sake. How do you make a cartoon about a drug song? I fucking believed you bloody wise-asses! They killed the kid in it too! Jackie Paper? Yeah real funny name. Cute. Go back to Woodstock you hippies!!!!! This is perhaps where it started going wrong for me as far as disillusionment goes.

Not Dark Yet- Bob Dylan
The end draws nigh, he’s been down at the bottom of a world full of lies and he ain’t looking for anything in any one elses eyes.

Steppin Out- Joe Jackson.
I’m not sure why? This song is just so evocative of the darkness of my freshman year in high school and losing touch with the girl I loved, Sandra Objay, who probably never gave me a second thought. Every time I hear this I’m back there getting up for school in the dark, staring out the window from my loft bed and hoping something would keep me from having tto face another day, hearing this on my boombox radio beside that bed, and wanting to be more than I was, take her and run away from the “darkness in our lives…come alive, get into a car and drive, to the other side.” We were, “young but getting old before our time”. I don’t know that any song brings me back to a mood and place more than this.

Hurt- Johny Cash version.
This is just so ripped full of emotion. When I see the video for it I want to blow my brains out.

Bridge Over Trouble Water- Simon & Garfunkel.
When I’m weary.

Don’t Follow- Alice In Chains.
Such a sweet acoustic tune about wandering your own road, moving on, getting lost, and wanting to go home again. Got a new dimension of sadness with Layne Staley’s death on almost the same day of Kurt Cobain’s 3 or 4 years ago.

Pennyroyal Tea- Nirvana.
The unplugged version is especially wrenching listening to this pathetic guy trying to let people know he was just a sickly prick and not rock royalty. Just anemic royalty. All hail.

Hero In Me- Jeffrey Gains.
Despite what Angry Bob has reduced this to I can still find all the haunting corrolaries of the person I might have been and the one that might still be inside.

Runaway Train- Soul asylum.
I don’t know if it’s the association with the video and all the real runaway kids in it, but the song always makes me feel a strange mixture of motivation, anger, and sadness. Therefore it makes the sad list. Mostly it it’s the life out of control thing and getting so jaded life’s mystery seems to have faded stuff. That and being neither here nor there. Very good and very meloncholy tune.

Superman Song- Crash Test Dummies.
It makes me long for hereos. No not the sandwhich, the kind of decent ethical person doing the right thing for the right reasons instead of giving in to the selfish materialism of modern society. We’ll never know another man like him again, and that’s fucking sad man!

Aimee Mann- Wise up, Deathly, and Save Me.
I think of these 3 songs together probably because of their inclusion in the very sad and strange movie Magnolia. It’s a trilogy of despair and dysfunction about hopelessly messed up people with no self esteem sabotoging themselves. When she sings for someone to save her in the third song she makes it sound like a dare she’s so invested in the “ranks of the freaks that suspect they can never love anyone.” She and one of the primary characters in the movie are just so Ulster County.

Bulletproof- Radiohead.
A very meloncholy moody song about not wanting to be hurt again.

No Surprises- Radiohead.
A very meloncholy moody song about ennui and quiet desperation. Radiohead write alot of very meloncholy moody songs you see.

At My Most Beautiful- REM.
Not one of their better known sad and too precious songs but I dig it. It’s like the Beach Boys doped on coffee after hanging out at a pretentious alternative art house for days.

Beth- Kiss
Just a few more hours Beth. You get the feeling shes still waiting dont you? Still calling. Even though it too is a metal ballad I had to give it its own entry since it’s the one that started it all. Thank you Peter Criss. We owe you so much.

Republican’s Real Religious Agenda Unveiled!

Published on November 4, 2005 in ..The Dude, Politics, Religion and The Ill-Literates. 3 Comments

The fact that Republicans on the far right have used Christians as a tool for election turnout and in fact have no respect or kindred belief with them has not been lost on many people. I myself have stringently believed this for a while. Watching them pull out the buzz words and phrases they know will awaken, what I believed even they believed, were nuts and losers, to mobilize and vote for the party that propaganda techniques have set up as the party of god, has been frustrating and disapointing to say the least. Now in the I told y0u so file that seems to be filling up, we get some amazing actual black and white proof of this agenda.

I’ve long imagined these guys on the right huddled together plotting their strategy for taking advantage of the ignorance of red staters and religious fundamentalists. Never have I believed that more than a few of these politicians were ignorant enough to buy into this nonsense. All the moral values stuff, anti abortion comments, anti stem cell, and the whole list of Christian influenced issues were a tool to engineer elections knowing zealots full of hate will vote more than most people. Hate and ignorance is a great motivator. But I didn’t think anyone on that side, with the inside to that world of far-right plotting would ever be stupid enouh to admit this.

But one has. Chief aid to Tom Delay, Milke Scanlon is the guy. Delay is of course one of the most important Beltway Republican plotters. He has invoked Christian imagery and fundamentals often, including appearing on screen at their silly mass church-mall pep rallies for hate and Jesus. Scanlon is on “trial” in front of Senate investigators along with Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, also a powerful right wing player, for defrauding Native American tribes of $66 million and laundering it into funds for the Republican politicians doing their bidding. Delay has called Abamoff one of his best friends. He has also been implicated in this case as well as the one he was actually just indicted for. But his aid Scanlon had a memo introduced at the Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday that he,

sent the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana to describe his strategy for protecting the tribe’s gambling business. In plain terms, Scanlon confessed the source code of recent Republican electoral victories: target religious conservatives, distract everyone else, and then railroad through complex initiatives.

“The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees,” Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. “Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them.” The brilliance of this strategy was twofold: Not only would most voters not know about an initiative to protect Coushatta gambling revenues, but religious “wackos” could be tricked into supporting gambling at the Coushatta casino even as they thought they were opposing it.

Salon If you can’t access full article there you can see relevant excerpts at Dail Kos

There it is. These guys aren’t fringe players. They are in the know and well connected to Delay who is the prime right-wing player in outlaying the parties recent strategies below Rove and Cheney. This is what they think of the red staters they prey on to gain their vote. Wackos.

It’s also a testimony to the tactics of creating diversions to slip their real agenda in. Usually that agenda is about making themselves and the corporations who fund them even richer. This is what they actually believe in. This is news that needs to get out there in the face of every person who voted for Bush who has brought into the party line and subscribed to the idea that these guys are the party of moral and family values who believe what they believe. The gods-honest truth is almost no educated or successful person believes what they believe and they should know that. They are being used due to the lack of education and prospects that these guys know damn well goes hand and hand with religious belief, particularly with the kind of fundamentalism that informs people who base their voting habits on Jesus.

The Right is educated too. They know all the studies and employ all the resources to tell them the sociological and psychological justifications and ramifications of poverty, lack of education, and myriad other qualities that go hand and hand with the mentality of those that gravitate so fully to religion. A source of hope for the hopeless and superiority for the inferior. This is part of the equation. With this comes a latent anger and frustration looking for targets, which have always been served up to them. From Communist to Terrorists, from blacks to gays, someone else is responsible for their unhappiness, their drinking, their smacking their wives, their allowing themselves to be smacked. Maybe it’s those damn liberals! They love Arabs and faggots more than god!

They know these groups become plugged into associative religious issues like abortion and play it to advantage. Not because the care about the issue. It’s a marketing strategy. Public relations. A war plan. I read something somewhere I can’t remember about how having failed to corrupt Jesus the Devil moved onto the next stage of his plan witch was the create a religion in his name. Consequently it is religion where evil lives. Certainly in this country is has been co-opted by evil people who believe in nothing. The free market is their religion and their policies and strategy papers prove that. If anything they mark themselves as social Darwinists willing to let market forces dictate a “might makes right” reality that sees those less fortunate as products of natural selection. The weak that must be discarded lest they bring the rest down. And if they want to let themselves be used for the greater good, as the born-agains they exploit do, so be it.

An e mail Abramoff sent Scanlon in relation to the two of them defrauding and scamming the Tigua tribe of El Paso and costing them 90% of their entire revenue, all but rendering them extinct, put this weakest link to be exploited philosophy on clear display. This is from Mother Jones and actually was revealed months before this most recent memo as part of an entirely different scam to continue the centuries old genocide of Native Americans.

Abramoff showed little compassion for the Democratic-leaning Tiguas. “Ultimately, the main target is AC,” Abramoff wrote to Reed, referring to the Alabama-Coushatta. “I wish those moronic Tiguas were smarter in their political contributions. I’d love us to get our mitts on that moolah!! Oh well, stupid folks get wiped out.”

Scanlon’s admission should be big news. I don’t know if it’s gotten any play yet and it probably wont from the msm. It’s too troubling. To me this is bigger than Scooter and Rove and it’s something every person who votes for these moral mutts should know. At this point I’m not even sure I buy Bush is a born-again. saying he was was a safe strategy that could only assist and not hurt him. Certainly most of the important players dictating party policy don’t buy it. They use it as a device. For those for whom belief in something is so important, they should know that the powers that they have put so much stock in, the moral arbiters they have thrown their support behind, don’t believe in them.

Freakonomics (A Book Review And Another Top 10 List)

Published on November 4, 2005 in ..The Dude, Literature, Reviews and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

Freakonomics By Steven Levit and Stephen Dubner has been getting its share of publicity lately for its authors straightforward and non sentimental approach to examing some of our societies interesting issues through the hard lens of statistical systems based on economic theory. His manner is not as dry as that sentence might make it sound though. The book definitely has a cute element to it and is done with humor and approachable language, which has probably contributed greatly to its becoming a bestseller.

Most notable the book has provided the inspiration for William Bennet’s recent idiotic comments regarding how aborting all black children would lower crime. His comments were stupid because he didn’t present them well, not because he’s wrong. He made it sound like a black issue and it’s not. It’s about economics which just happen to effect balck’s disproportionately through no or little fault of their own. What the numbers undeniably show is that crime had a major and unexpcted drop starting in the 90′s and continuing today. Criminologists and experts preceeding that drop warned everyone how crime was escalating (and it was), and how it would only continue. Remember the term Superpredator? This what what they scared people into thinking was coming as the population got younger and the crime wave that I remember so dominating the public discussion (thats how Guliani got his ratty ass elected) was growing.

Then suddenly it dropped precipitously. And quickly. No one could figure it out. Eventually theories got thrown around such as economic boom, tougher prison sentencing, advanced policing techniques, more cops, fallout in the crack market, and aging of population being foremeost. But ask yourself this. What part of the population is most prone to crime and being arrested? We all know it’s poor, disenfranchised, abused youth that also happen to be black more often due to socio economic deprivations. The stats back this up. Now ask yourself who used to get all the illegal abortions before Roe V Wade? If you’re not as sure on this one, you’re instinct is probably right as the stats also show that to be the women from these similar backgrounds and lifestyles. These are white women too who in general come from lower income backgrounds, lower education, unstable home and often abusive homes, with little hope of improvement. Ergo legalized abortion is the significant factor towards lowering the crime rate so suddenly. Levit takes apart the other rationales quite ably though he does show that increased police numbers, not techniques, and the crack boom going bust were contributing factors. But legal abortion is the primary reason.

Consequently Guliani’s methods had little or nothing to do with NY’s famous drops in crime and cleaning up of the city. NY in fact had a 3 year edge on the trend being 1 of 5 states that had legalized abortion before Roe V Wade. In fact the other 4 also, along with NY, had the greatest and fastest successes in crime drops. That’s no coincidence.

Rather than having the racist undertones Bennet gave them, the economic and statistical methods Levit uses are the kinds of thing that he and others use to prove that black students don’t do worse on testing due to being dumber by nature but rather having deprived socio-economic backgrounds. He shows that when all is equal the testing results are equal.

Alot of interesting stuff is in the book, stuff like using the economists methods and motivator of incentives to show how The Weakest Link was discriminatory (not towards blacks), real estate agents are like the KKK (got to do with information hording and vulnerability towards info), the shared qualities of Sumo Wrestlers and teachers (basically they both cheat alot), and more nuggets. The book spends its last couple of chapters talking about parenting and intelligence, ending with an interesting treaty on names I’ll get to shortly. But as for parents effects, Levitt starts off referencing alot of solid work and evidence by the likes of Steven Pinker (whose Blank Slate I read last year and indeed undermines parents role) and others that show pretty irrefutably that kids personalities and intelligence have little to do with what their parents do.

On the plus side Levitt gives good reason to believe that what the parents are and have already done will influence the kids and that they can shape certain ends of their destinies. Even though most of the effect is genetic and from peer groups, parents do matter. Certain controversies are rendered insignificant as in the breast or bottle feeding issue and whether or not to pick up or not pick up crying babies and whether or not letting them sleep with you is ok. Basically these kiinds of things will have no effect on the childs development. This goes contrary to what we’ve wante dto believe for a long time. On a psychological level we want to believe we have an effect on outcomes. That’s why, as Levitt shows, we worry about Mad Cow and not Salmonella. We can clean a chicken. We can’t control for the other even though its proven to be much less dangerous or likely to contaminate our food. It’s why we worry about guns more than pools killing our kids even though pools kill 100x more kids than guns do. It’s why we worry about flying even though the risk of it compared to driving are equal when all the numbers are factored in. It’s why people brought in to the marketing of car seats for kids even though they have little to no role in saving lives. It’s actually sitting in the back away from airbag and windshield that saves a child or babies life in a car crash. The seats just make someone rich.

But bad parenting does adversely effect kids. That much seems clear. But ability, personality,and intelligence are genetic. The studies are geting to be overwhelming including those done with adopted twins seperated at birth. In fact being adopted or in a homosexual or single parent household is shown to have little effect good or bad on kids development. What will effect them beyond genetics and peer groups is the past work of the parents before they had kids, not the future stuff they do once they have them. What parents are is whats important not what they do. And what they are is of course a partial product of genetics. But its also a product of economics and education. Those are also linked to genetics but there are loopholes. Economists use a technique called regression analysis to help determine causation and seperate it from correlation. When dealing with hundreds of variables this method is a way of reducing the data to the variables most closely related.

An example from the book goes like this: After proving ably that the quality of schools have little effect on kids success or intelligence from high school age and up, Levitt tries to find the qualities that do help determine or link smarter kids from the rest. Take the question of books in the home. Does having more help make kids smarter? At first glance it appears so. They do test higher. But regression analysis reduces this to a correlation by seperating the commonalities in the data until left with the control categories correlating to books in the home. What you find is that books in the home dont cause smarter kids but are indicative of a household that has the qualities that will likely also have smarter kids. This includes the genetic and educational, as well as economic predispositions towards having more books.

Again this does not rob the parents of influence at some point down the line. Though adopted kids do test worse despite the influence of adoptive parents that tend to be better educated, more stable, and higher paid than the parents that gave the child up, their influence does eventually pay off. Their adopted kids, despite genetic weaknesses and personality traits more in line with the genetic parents, do finish school more, go to college more, get better paying jobs, get married later, and dont get into as much trouble, as kids not adopted.
So the generally more serious and better educated parents who tend to adopt and are more committed to raising children than a mother who usually falls into the trouble d categories that would be disposed to give them up, do have their stabilizing influence felt down the road.

Among the interesting factoids associated with this topic is that low birth weight is an important factor in determining outcome of a child (in a bad way), going to museums alot has no effect, age of the mother is an important factor (older is correlated with more success and higher intelligence for kids) and watching alot of tv has no effect good or bad.

And speaking of kids destinies, what of a name? Does it hold power?
Studies involving black and white gaps have looked at black culture and its effect as a possible detriment. Levitt reduces that study to the names society gives its kids. And it holds up well not only for black-white differences but for upper, middle, and lower class white ones as well. Turns out there’s alot in a name. Not for reasons people would think though. A name won’t influence destiny, rather it is the parents life or past destiny reflected in the name they choose that is a measure of a kids background and possible prospects.

A disparity has grown since the civil rights and black power movements that has cause black families to use more unique names to signify their newfound identity and refusal to sell out to white culture. Over 40% of California’s names given to black girls were unique to them and not shared by white babies. Even the name Unique becomes an example. The 90′s featured various black girls being named Unique, Uneek, Uneque, Uneqqee, or various other spellings of the word. It will surpise no one that of the 626 girls named Deja in the 90′s almost 600 were black. Nor that 431 of the 454 girls named Precious were black. Needless to say these names are not a good sign for future success either due to the low education, low income backgrounds that produce them. One woman mistook Tempest Bledsoe from the Cosby Show for Temptress, named her daughter that and when a judge at her daughters bail hearing for lewd behavior of some sort chided her for the name she had no idea what it meant. This gives you an idea.

Whites choose more common names signaling value in conformity, but they do distinguish themselves on economic levels for which ones they choose and when they choose them. Whites tend to try and create an illusion of prosperity or affluence that comes with names that have been popular with higher income, higher educated whites. The names then filter down societies economic ladder and signal an attempt of lower classes to attain to a status previously beyond them. This was the phenomenon behind the rash of Heather’s and Amber’s named so in the 80′s. Those names had run their course in the upper spheres of society and became a sort of middle class cache or even white trash ambition.

Names are charted in the book including the most common white baby girl top 20 (1 is Molly-20 is Kathryn), Top 20 black baby girls (1 is Imani, Raven 20) and the same for boys ranging from Jake and Dylan for white boys to DeShawn and Darryl for black boys. Also included is most common middle income white girl: Sarah, Emily, Jessica, Lauren, Ashley are top 5. Megan gets in at 7 Jennifer at 16, and Madison at 15.
Most common low income white girl names: Ashley, Jessica, Amanda, Samantha, Brittany plus some others from above list that have begun to filter down.
Then there’s a series of top 5 lists, me being a High Fidelity fan and general fan of lists must now list them all:
Most common high-end white girl names:
Alexandra
Lauren
Katherine
Madison
Rachel
Most common low income white girl names
Amber
Heather
Stephanie
Alyssa
High end income boys names:
Benjamin
Samuel
Jonathan
Alexander
Andrew
Low end white boys
Cody
Brandon (my favorite)
Anthony (my confirmation name which I actually chose myself)
Justin
Robert

Most common white girl names among high education parents:
Katherine
Emma
Alexandra
Julia
Rachel

Low education
Amber
Heather
Brittany
Brianna

White boy names among high education parents
Benjamin
Samuel
Alexander
John
William

White boy names low education
Cody
Travis
Brandon
Justin
Tyler

There’s a top 20 of white girl names best signifying low income without having as many in common as the above lists. Number 1 and 2 on that list are Angel and Heaven. There’s also a list of many other names in the books notes that show the avg years of schooling for the mothers of each particular name. The lowest number avg i could find was 8 years of schooling. And what name did that level of schooling have in common?

Jesus.

Angel, Heaven, and Jesus. Notice a religious people are stupid theme here? (Not that its their fault). Destiny was 4 on that list which shows a nice measure of irony. There are 3 variations of the name Brandy on that top 20 and a Britany and Tiffanie. A veritable who’s who of young pop stars being named by some of the least educated people in the nation. This sort of also explains Britany Spears devotion to George Bush. Jihadi shows up with a mom’s 11the grade education avg which shows that a little bit of education is indeed a dangerous thing.

Top 20 low education white boy names feature Ricky at #1, Joey at 2 and such staples as Bobby, Steve, Johnny, Tommy, and Michael.

High education parents for white girl names and this is significant because it will be a sign of whats to come in 2015 for the rest of us. Sort of the new Heathers and Jennifers.
Lucienne is 1 on high education which I dont see catching on. Number 2 Marie-Claire who’s parents avg 16.5 years of schooling. That one I can see getting big in a few years. Glynnis, Adair, Beatrix, Rotem, Oona, and Neeka arent going to happen as long I’m alive. Philippa, Flannery, Linden, Waverly, eleanora, Elika, and Meira have a shot. But my bet is on Marie-Claire from a previous list.

High education parents white boy names:
Dov is #1. Then you get some Akiva, Sander, Sacha, Ansel, yonah, Finnegan, MacGregor, Florian, Beckett, Sumner and assorted Jewish sounding names. I’d bet on MacGregor and Beckett.
Levitt shows how names like Lauren and Madison went from high end in 90′s to common in 2000 just as Amber, Heather, Michelle and Melissa were the rage in the 80′s. The popular 2000 names like Ashley, Emma, Sarah, and Madison (which I think we can blame on Splash), are about to become popular among low income and less educated people occupying the spots held by the aforemetnioned, and now held by Brittany and Stephanie. Parents who once named their kids “Justin or Brandon and are now calling them Alexander and Benjamin,” in the higher reaches of our social ladder according to Levitt.

Out of curiosity I looked for my name and it wasn’t listed which in itself says something since there were pages of names in the back with mothers average educational level. Possibly this says something about not being consequential enough to notice. I’m ok with this. The name I’ve thought of calling a daughter f I were ever lucky enough to have one is Chloe which was listed with a 14.52 avg which is pretty good. Kind of an educated hippie vibe and educational level connoted to me in that number and name. Another low one was Chastity at 10.66. Emma and Ella were both over 15. Maxamillian 15.17 and Lars 15.09 (the brains behind Metallica). Sophie a 15.45 while Tabatha and Diamond not surprisingly came in under 12. Whitney surprised me a bit only getting 13.79. I would have guessed at least high 14′s there. Cooper came in at almost 15 for a boy.

I go on about these names simply because for some reason I find it fun and interesting, though it’s getting away from the review of the book and its ideas a bit. But the name thing does break it down some and show the a-priori effect parents can have and is an encouragement to make the most of our lives even before we have kids. And names do appear to be a quick peek at the myriad levels of variables that go into plotting our destinies though the names themselves mean nothing. The beauty of this stuff is, like science and Einstein who said the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is entirely comprehendable, economic theories encapsulating all that these do such as regression analysis shows us that we can get to any truth with proper methods. Nothing is unknowable. We may not always like the answers but as the authors put it, morality represents how we would like the world to work and economics represents how it actually does work.

Back to names and lists. Most people have given thought to names for their future kids. Here was my top 5 male and female before reading this book. Please feel free to list your own.
Girls: Boys:
Chloe Nicholas
Megan Christopher
Zoe Dylan
Kate-Katherine Jacob
Penelope Ben

Book predicts Annika, Ansley, Ava, Avery, Aviva, Clementine, Elaonor, Ella, Emma, Fiona, Flannery, Grace, Isabel, Kate, Lara, linden, Maeve, Marie-Claire, Maya, philippa, Phoebe, Quinn, Sophie, and Waverly as most popular in 2015.
For boys, 2015 may popularize these: Aidan, Aido, Anderson, Ansel, Asher, beckett, bennett, carter, Cooper, Finnegan, Harper, Jackson, Johan, Keyon, Liam, Maxamillian, McGregor, Oliver, reagan, Sander, sumner, and Will.

In light of this new information I think I’d strike Megan and Kate but I still feel pretty damn good about the other 3. On the boys I really dont want dylan or Jacob now since they made the whitest boy names list. They do seem effected to me in retrospect. Lucas was also on that list unfortunately since I always kind of liked that. From the 2015 list Finnegan is too ethnic but not bad. McGregor is also borderline. Aidan is ok, as is Oliver, though it has the unfortuante connotations of invoking the imagery of a pig as well as the cutesy Brady cousin brought in to plug the sitcom formula for adorable kids once Bobby and Cindy starting aging out. Most of the other ones sound like prep school assholes. I like Phoebe on the girls end and probably should have thought of it myself. Maya is nice too. Quinn makes me think of Jane Seymour. That’s not good. Isn’t Aviva a skin care product? If not it should be. Not a girls name. Emma and Marie-Claire have a shot on my list but I’d avoid conformity so Chloe remains #1 with Penelope moving to 2 slot after Odessyeus’s wife who was the portrait of literary loyalty.

The thread is now open for your favorite names as well as predictions for name popularity or general thoughts oncurrent and past naming trends.

Breaking News! Democrats Grow Balls!

Published on November 3, 2005 in ..The Dude, Politics and The Ill-Literates. 4 Comments

Well the Democrats have finally been emboldened to grow a couple as the last few days have indicated. Tuesday we had the mandated closing of the senate to more forcefully probe the faulty Iraq intelligence conspiracy that Republicans had been avoiding and running around for years. Now we get Colorado Senator Kenneth Salazar saying a fillibuster on the Alito nomination is a real possibility. Combined with Minority Leader Reid’s tough guy stance in the face of Tom Delay’s hypocritical whining about the closed Senate we now get to see what an actual opposition party looks like.

I can’t give the Democrats too much credit here since they are only doing their jobs now that they are like vultures circling or a sharks smelling blood. Where was the courage and the sense of duty before it got easy? If they had been doing their jobs we might not be in this bad of a mess. So in that respect Democrats are also culpable in the sorry state of our government. If they say they couldn’t see any of this coming, or cop a who knew these guys were so bad tude, as they’ve tried to blame faulty prewar intel for them voting to go to war, it’s just more of the same tired bullshit. I found the evidence there was nothing in Iraq. Hans Blitz found the evidence. Most CIA reports found the evidence. Once again I found the evidence for christ’s sake! They couldn’t?

Likewise enough informed and reliable information was out there indicating just what this administration was up to and what kind of people they were. I saw it all coming and so did many others so they have no excuse. They were either complicit due to being birds of a feather or they were cowards who didn’t want to go against what the mdia was portraying as some kind of mainstream shifting to the right.

But that too was bullshit since every poll known to man still shows that even though most idiots won’t call themselves liberals (its about 16-20% that admit it), that when asked particular questions an average of two-thirds of respondents favor the liberal point of view as in universal health care at the expense of more taxes, legal abortion, and stricter environmental controls. Despite the pall created by the hate of this administration and the religious ignorance they feed and support America is a liberal country and that’s just the facts. It’s sort of like polls regarding belief in god. Almost everyone polls that they believe. Almost no one acts like they do.

This is the power of Karl Rove and propaganda to filter their agenda through a compliant and complicit media and turn people on themselves by demonizing the word liberal. Liberals of the past are somewhat to blame for this for their own largesse when in power in past decades and the the liberties and extremes of the 70′s like that of the push for criminals rights and abuse of welfare programs. But the right-wing machine uses advertising techniques and creates talking points that make Dem’s dead in the water before they even get going. So good and evil are they in this capacity that skin heads and neo-nazis can walk around with more pride in their perverted belief system than a liberal can. How many times have you seen a Republican talking head on a news program or a politician deflect a left wing argument by going the “liberal agenda” route? They set up the parameters with a campaign of such techniques and then don’t have to argue any point rationally because they can just pull out the liberal agenda line and have people say, “oh shit, yeah, i’ve heard of that. That must be what it’s about.” Boom! No need to have a supportable position. It’s all part of the minimizing of attention spans, soundbiting of information and using buzzwords or phrases to stand in the place of content since lunatics with a selfish agenda rarely have any content to bring to the table.

Eric Alterman has done much work on teh subject of the right wing media and such propaganda techniques. He’s authored What Liberal Media? and When Presidents Lie. He has an another article on the topic in last weeks The Nation. Here’s an example of what allowing the far right to color the political and national agenda does:

New York Times columnist David Brooks–the writer who best understands the dynamics of the contemporary Democratic Party, according to the smart boys at ABC’s The Note–began a recent screed with the proclamation: “After a while, you get sick of the DeLays of the right and the Deans of the left.” Note the implied equivalence between the corrupt and extreme Tom DeLay–who regularly compares the Environmental Protection Agency to the Nazis–and Howard Dean, a balanced-budget fiscal conservative and ally of the NRA whose “radical” position on Iraq now puts him to the right of most Americans. Or how about the treatment meted out by smarty-pants pundits to Al Gore, one of the few politicians who have given voice to majority American positions on the war, the environment and the dishonesty and ideological obsessions of the Bush Administration. Brooks termed him “unhinged.” Fred Barnes said he was “nutty.” Charles Krauthammer, speaking, he said, in his capacity as a psychiatrist, called him on “the edge of looniness.”

You can also check ALterman out at his blog Altercation at MSNBC.

So good for Democrats finally standing up to the machine a bit. But shame on them for taking so long. No matter what the reason though the point is to act, even if mechanically, in the dictates of our constitutionally based system of checks and balances. I don’t care if they believe in the cause or not. What I care about is that they believe in the underlying principles of our nation, which insists on the powers of the executive branch not being unchecked, and in a free exchange of ideas with everyone’s being represented. But for far too long those legislative delinquents haven’t been representing for the majority of us. They still won’t completely, but at least we’re getting a hint of what a country not run by corporate interests looks like. And it’s nice to see criminals as universally accepted for their dirty dealing like Delay get all righteously indignant about Democrats acting just a tiny bit like Republicans have been for years. It’s also nice to hear this from Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist (also being investigated for criminal charges I might add- in relation to insider trading), in response to Reid’s calling out of the Senate. “Never have I been slapped in the face with such an affront to the leadership of this grand institution.”

Boo-fucking-hoo scumbag.