Monthly Archive for March, 2006

Published on March 28, 2006 in ..The Dude, Irritations and The Ill-Literates. 12 Comments

What an existentially lousy and confidence shattering day.

First off I’ve always had this hang up about coincidences and how seriously to take them. Today had some and if i take them literally and they are telling me something it’s not good. First off I go to pick up our own beloved Brandonicus at his work place, which also happens to be my old workplace where I met past girlfriend. We’re headed over to a local cafe because he thinks I’ll dig this girl who works there. On our way down the stairs who is coming up the stairs of the house across the parking lot but the old girlfriend who lives next door. Her new live in boyfriend is of course with her as she has no identity without a nearby penis. This immediately puts me into about a 4 hour funk that’s only broken by another girl oriented coincidence at Hannaford grocery at about 7. More on that in a minute. Another coincidence happened a short time later.

But first let me admit to a couple of George Costanza moments.

First off it bothered me that her boyfriend wasn’t appreciably less attractive than me. I wanted him to be as ugly as her ex, or maybe still current, husband who is a monstrous troll of a redneck. Didn’t get a good look at him but he appeared to be more than presentable. This irks me. Very Costanza. But that’s not it.

It also annoys me that she looked better than she ever did when we were together. Part of this may be for that same tendency on display in that Seinfeld episode where George can’t wait to get out of the relationship, it might have been with Susan but I’m not sure, and how it pains him to walk the steps to her apartment and have this pressure on him. Then he is rid of her and he longs to be walking those stairs with her when he sees her and can’t believe how much more attractive she is and starts singing “Hey, if you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world, wont you tell her…that I love her…HEY!” and so on while lounging sadly on Jerry’s couch. Then he gets her back and again just about drags himself up her stairs and feels trapped and wants out.

It’s human nature I guess. But for a moment I wanted up those steps instead of that guy. And she really did look good.

But hey I’m not stupid and I know its not so pretty a picture close up. Still I was funked for a few hours and could think of little else even as Brandonicus and I chatted at the Love Boat Cafe or whatver it was called. And coincidentally it looks as if she’ll be working across the street from where I live as I once worked at the aforementioned facility across from where she lives. More coincidence.

I mean what do I have to do to escape all this? What are they trying to tell me?

So we go over to the Love Shack Cafe to meet this girl who immediately reminds me of the girlfriend of a guy who’s good friends with the ex girlfriends brother. As I’m thinking this and feeling no spark or interest from her that friend of brother-boyfriend walks right by. He doesn’t live in that area anymore but there he goes. More coincidence.

So we head back to B dogs place with me still wearing my Tracyfunk. At this point don’t care that the Love Is A Many Splendored Thing Cafe girl goes nowhere. Wasn’t expecting anything and not in the mood after the wanton display of normalcy on those steps a little while earlier. I stay for a bit, watch some short films and flip through a screenplay book which keeps mentioning a character named Olivia in a screenplay format example. Strut and Olivia. Strut and Olivia. I keep reading this out loud while our erstwhile Brandonicus tries to ignore me. I realize it’s later than I thought and I want to get to Hannaford before the fish section closes at 7 and take off. I’m still funking, tried to drown my funk in pizza that I’ve been jonesing for but couldn’t find anyone interested, and I enter the store with all this weighing on my mind and looking for an escape.

I’ve mentioned a woman I was crushing on in posts and haiku’s on this site but I don’t think I’ve mentioned her name. Well it’s Olivia as in Strut and Olivia. And I walk into the fruit area of Hannaford and there she is. A cute little girl that is apparently her daughter is with her.

I’ve never seen her outside of her workplace except for a job related party back in the Fall. I’d hoped I would eventually. And now of all times there she is. She’s on one side of a fruit stand and I’m on the other with banners announcing prices per pound strung up between up so that I kind of had to peer around to get each other in line of sight while we said hi at each other. Eventually I come around this side, make a half assed comment about Bosc pears and I get the feeling she can’t wait to get away from me. She moves away, doesn’t introduce me to her daughter, and just generally seems less than excited to see me.

So she smiles politely, makes a half-assed laugh at my Bosc pear comment and disappears out of the fruit and produce area in a surreptitious but committed fashion like she’s trying to get out of a wake for someone she wasn’t all that close to but came to say her goodbyes to out of propriety.

Thing is she also gave off this air of loneliness and sadness, and here was someone she knows and has expressed at least professional fondness for, and she can’t wait to get away from me.

Terrific I scream to myself! Tracyfunk now all gone!

Hello to much more general and all encompassing pathetic and undesirable, the window of opportunity on you has closed funk. Much Better!

Now I’ve heard Olivia is a bit introverted, maybe even more than a bit depending on how i take it, but am I being too hard on myself for thinking her hasty retreat and lack of warmth indicate pure and unadulterated disgust or fear? Did she think it too coincidental and wonder if I was stalking her? I think she knows I may have a thing for her and I know my name has been coming up around her too much lately due to a couple of friends dropping it. But damn I’m funny and charming around her most of the time. Well at least funny and personable anyway. So what’s up with the running for the exits and snubbing me on the daughter intro?

After all this goes down I get an image of us in a movie. I see that scene at Hannaford from above as it’s being filmed by a director doing a study on loneliness and repression. I could see these two people seperated by those banners with prices which were a metaphor for the walls of shyness, hurt, fear, or whatever that alot of people put up. Two people alone in a supermarket as perhaps they are in life, and they can’t get through the banners and stands of fruit.

In the movie it would still come crashing together. The walls would crumble. Maybe just a crack at first. But a light would shine through. The coincidences would be real and meaningful if only in a deux ex machina or directors poetic device kind of way.

But this isn’t a movie and maybe coincidence is just a cigar and her unavailability and disinterest is exactly what it appears to be. Certainly there was no light shining through the cracks seperating the condiment and breakfast items aisles before we left the store as would have happened if we were writ in celluloid.

So I’m feeling funky. At least it’s no longer concentrated Tracyfunk which is good though it looks like I’ll be running into her more with her across the street and it being spring time. This still irks me as it did earlier in this post. That has not changed. I get a series of women related coincidences with an overriding message that I’m universally despised by the species. Or maybe just overlooked. Whatever. Coincidences are now on notice.

Published on March 28, 2006 in ..The Dude, Politics and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

[image:118:l] There’s another Downing St memo and it provides yet more proof of just how evil George Bush is.

So according to this latest puppy published in the NY Times , not only was the scoundrel in chief hell bent for war but threw other options for provoking one out to Blair in January 2003 meeting that included having a U.S U2 plane painted in U.N colors in hopes that Sadaam would shoot it down. I guess the pilot could have been in on it and ejected in time, but who knows where he’d land or if you can even guarantee safe and timely ejection. I think the point is that he just didn’t care. What’s one more sacrifice to the greater cause of imlementing the free market ideology that rights all wrongs all across the world?

He also talks about assasinating Hussein, which doesn’t sound like a bad idea, but one that prompts me to ask why it wasn’t done if it was actually an option and we could have gotten to him? Probably because we wouldn’t have an army on the ground there to immediately take over their country. And that is, at the end of the day, what this is all about. Not freeing them from Sadaam’s horrors, which assasination could have done. It’s about the new colonialism dressed up in patriotic colors just as Thomas Jefferson knew totalitarianism would be if and when it came to America.

But when the country and media let you get away with blatantly stealing an election that in any other country there would have been worldwide outcry and maybe even U.N. troops sent in to ameliorate, it’s not a big leap of faith to assume they’ll let you steal a country too.

Bush admitted at this 03 meeting that he suspected Blitz and his inspectors would find no chemical, biological, or nuclear WMD’s, but that it didn’t matter.

Mr. Bush agreed that the two countries should attempt to get a second resolution, but he added that time was running out. “The U.S. would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would twist arms and even threaten,” Mr. Bush was paraphrased in the memo as saying.

The document added, “But he had to say that if we ultimately failed, military action would follow anyway.”

Blair particularly wanted this second U.N. resolution because as he puts through the Times article:

The memo said Mr. Blair told Mr. Bush, “If anything went wrong with the military campaign, or if Saddam increased the stakes by burning the oil wells, killing children or fomenting internal divisions within Iraq, a second resolution would give us international cover, especially with the Arabs.”

If Saddam started killing children Blair’s concern was having some cover and not having the Arabs get upset with them. Not dead children. Collateral damage and all that. For the best of causes.

But the U.N. didn’t give them that cover because it was all a sham. Neo-colonialism. For god’s sake Hussein offered to surrender and invited inspectors in! Guardian.

When Bush had the unmitigated gall to get indignant at Hellen Thomas for questioning his motives for going into Iraq he was doing what he always does. Play make believe and put on a show for the people who want to believe. Here’s a segment of the exchange that particularly shows how Bush continues to stand by the lessons learned from Orwell and Joseph Goebells.

Q They didn’t do anything to you, or to our country.

THE PRESIDENT: Look — excuse me for a second, please. Excuse me for a second. They did. The Taliban provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That’s where al Qaeda trained –

Q I’m talking about Iraq –

THE PRESIDENT: Helen, excuse me. [...] I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That’s why I went to the Security Council; that’s why it was important to pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences

See how he did that bludgeoning with the propaganda thing the Nazi’s did so well? She asks about Iraq and he jumps into Taliban and Al-Qaeda leading people into thinking there’s a connection through suggestion and repetition. And then he lies about the supposedly global affirmation he received. Another Orwellian tactic as history is changed by those in power and the media they control. And for anyone who doubts that media control check out the documentary Orwell Rolls In His Grave. Or just trace Rupert Murdoch’s history.

That exchange of Bush and Thomas along with the rest can be seen at Daily Kos’s permanent link to story.

The sad thing is the outrages I’ve talked about on this site are only a fraction of what these human atrocities have done. Sadder still that the media knows about them but chooses not to make a fuss. But since all the media is no longer in perfect goose step Bush has now started taking to private meetings with individual media members. This is a clear and blatant attempt to curry favor again by charming people in private as he’s supposedly good at since he doesn’t have a prayer behind a podium unless the questions are rigged. Clinton took to doing this late in his administration too. And for that he too was a dirtbag. So far Bush has entertained with reporters from The Washington Times, Wall Street Journal and L.A. Times. Not exactly the enemy. Kind of like Tom Cruise trying to make people understand his Scientology fixation by having John Travolta, Beck, and Isaac Hayes over.

Any journalist who accepts the invitation, and I might add that Bush does this with the understanding that the meeting are off the record, are hacks and should lose their jobs. Once they set foot in the door under those circumstances they are forever crippled with the presidential limp of sodomization.

But in this corporate culture when there is so little doubt of how the corporate media own politics, are indeed among the biggest lobbyists, helped conduct a coup in 2000′s election, ignored reality in the buildup to Iraq, and have played every game this administration has wanted them to play, it is an amazing testement to just how bad a president this guy is that he is actually feeling some heat. Helen Thomas called him the worst President she’s ever covered and shes been around for decades. I think he’s the worst president ever and many more knowledgable historians have agreed. He’s sodomized and crippled our entire nation with the Bush family penis of overcompensating largesse and privelage. We will ever walk upright again? Will our young be stained with his narrow eyed and moral empty DNA?

We won’t know for a long time but unless we get the media on board and stop the conglomerizing of our culture, history, and future, no one will ever sleep in the White House again who is not a corporate tool serving the highest ideal of the free market economy that elevates the few. No one will take the oath of office who gives a damn about the idiots his strategist and that complicit media got to vote for him. America is indisputably a liberal country that’s being run by conservative forces and economic powerhouses trying to brainwash American’s into thinking capatalism is an inviolable religion that whatever your issues, can not ever be questioned. Communist Russia did the same thing with their state religion-economic system. They control almost everything now accept the internet. And if your paying attention you see they are trying to control that too. When and if that goes, America is most probably finished and Bush will become a trendsetter rather than the sick and most regrettable mistaken abberation he should become.

Published on March 27, 2006 in ..The Dude, Lists and The Ill-Literates. 2 Comments

A list of classic beauties I’ve longed for and that have stood some sort of test of time. No hot girl da jour here. This should be undertaken with the knowledge that it is based on woman of fame and renown since I see women in stores and walking the streets of Manhattan and Woodstock as or more stunning than any actress or singer on a regular basis. But I can’t list them now can I. Or get pics without risking restraining orders. They would make a very vague list not worth listing at all. And list I must damnit!

Phoebe Cates. Oh my god her in that red bikini in Ridgemont High. An epic generationally defining moment. I think we all locked the bathroom door after that. Just such an adorable 80′s girl and also very sexy. [image:23:l]

[image:71:l] Catherine Bach. Daisy Duke in Dukes Of Hazzard. She coined a fashion term. Denim shorts became Daisy Dukes because of her. That’s hotness and power combined. It’s “hotter”. Those cut offs made alot of young boys self aware. Saw her recently on TV Land countdown of a similar list and she’s still beautiful. The Simpson woman looked ok in the movie (only seen clips), but she’s still not in Bach’s class. Make a Bishop kick out a stained glass window she would.

Jodie Foster. I know she’s not the typical hottie in the way these others are, but she’s mesmerizing to me. She’s rarely on tv but when she does an interview I’m transfixed by the combanation of her gorgeous eyes and amazing intellect. [image:31:l]

Susannah Hoffs. Lead singer of the Bangles. Dangerously cute. That look out of the corner of her eye she did in some of their videos should be illegal. She’s still damn cute today. [image:67:l]

Khrystyne Haje. The red haired girl of Head Of The Class. Have never been able to remember her name. Had to do a search for it. Like with Charlie Brown she was just always my red haired girl. Remember that face though. Hated the show. Dug her.

Maureen McCormick. Yes Marcia Brady. The older later version of course after Greg had violated her. The non-biological sister we all wish we had. She took a football to the nose for our sins and knew how to make something suddenly come up, if you know what I mean. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! [image:60:l]

Melissa Gilbert. Laura Ingles. Had an innocent and church approved crush on her when I was young which grew into more as we both got older. Almonzo wasn’t good enough for my half-pint. I don’t need to explain this any further to you people. You can’t understand. [image:46:l]

Jennifer Connelly. Everyone I know pretty much knows about this one. It goes back to that Career Opportunities movie she did about 15 years ago. Our admittedly one sided relationship has stood the test of time though and I feel myself ready to move on soon. Although she lived in or around Woodstock much of her youth. I didn’t even know that until somewhat recently. My friends grandson goes to school with her son. Celebrity marriages don’t last…I’m just saying. [image:25:l]

[image:56:l] Diane Lane. From The Outsiders to her cinematic rebirth as a 40+ year old adulterer the past few years. She was damn sexy then and shes damn sexy now. She needs two pictures on here because she may be the sexiest woman to span three decades since they started keeping records of such things. Both photos here make me want to hurt myself. [image:58:l]

Winona Ryder. She’s lost me a bit with the smoking, the stealing, and the dating a guy from Saugerties, but she was that approachable beauty with every girl qualities for many generation Xers for a long time. [image:69:l]

Honorablementions: I had a huge thingie for Loni Anderson circa WKRP as many a young lad. Pure lust as opposed to my crush on Bailey. I no longer find loni attractive then or now. I feel similarly about Samantha Fox, Belinda Carlyle, and Lita Ford. Jaclyn Smith was my Angel of choice but never felt as close to her as the other women on this list who all share an equal passivity in their feelings towards me. Newer one sided relationships include that Catherine Mcphee from this years American Idol, Scarlett Johanson, Jessica Alba, and Elisha Cuthbert.

Published on March 24, 2006 in ..The Dude, Irritations and The Ill-Literates. 3 Comments

Well my talk about quitting has an outside chance of becoming moot since I may get fired. I’ve never been fired and can’t imagine it happening over this. But due to an amazing stroke of bad luck and a possible confluence of events and forces this past Saturday it may happen. Pearl Jam is number 1. The Ryche is back, gay cowboys redux, and oh yeah Joe Lieberman and democracy in Afhganistan suck.

Ironically my job trouble is being cause by the head of Q.A. of my former agency one Mr S Ramos, where I was considering going back to work. This could have the effect of shutting me out of that job as well. As a manager in said agency Brandonicus may be able to help determine an answer to that question. I don’t want to get into details because I’m bored with it all and resent being in a position to care due to not being completely alone and independently able to destroy my life without it hurting my dad. This is also ironic seeing as how much being completely alone sucks. I want my dad here. Just don’t want to bear it all alone or stress him if things ever hit rock bottom.

Saw all of last nights Lost and I think Henry Gale is GIlligan and Mary Ann’s conniving love child raised by Ginger and Mr Howell. And yes Mr Gale they do indeed have trust issues.

Crazy Joe Lieberman is at it again. On radio show, responding to the hosts switching of allegiances for the upcoming Senator race in Connecticut due to Lieberman’s moving too close to the Bush administration and questions regarding Lieberman’s saying that those who criticized the president were basically traitors, the following exchange took place:

McEnroe: You probably know that I wrote in the Currant last Sunday that if I had to vote in the primary right now I would, with some sorrow vote for Ned Lamont simply because you have kind of drifted so far towards the Bush Administration whose policies I don’t approve of very much. Tell me why I’m wrong, tell me why I should vote for you.

Lieberman: Well I…I think that your statement just then was as ridiculous and unfair as your column was. I was really upset by it. I don’t get to hear you a lot because I’m in Washington but if you’re saying that on the air really I hope your listeners are taking it with a grain of salt.

First off let me go to something that really bothered me. You have this line saying that I’ve come to a point where I’m saying that those who do not parrot my support of the war are unpatriotic and then you take TOTALLY out of context something that I said in a speech that I gave last December when I came back from Iraq and I urge you to go back and look at that whole speech.

McEnroe: Okay, tell me why…

Lieberman: Let me just finish this!

McEnroe then went on to try and read the quote in question and force Lieberman to respond but Lieberman kept cutting him off, he wouldn’t have it:

McEnroe: Let me read the line to you and then you tell me how to interpret it.

Lieberman: I know what the line is! I said it!

McEnroe: Okay but the listeners don’t.

The line actually reads:

“It’s time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander in chief for three more critical years and that in matters of war we undermine the president’s credibility at our nation’s peril.”

Lieberman’s response?

Lieberman: This quote is totally out of context. You might have gotten it from the bloggers, who love to do this.

McEnroe: No actually I got it…

Lieberman: Read the whole speech, it’s below your standards.

McEnroe: Senator actually I got it from the New York Times.

Lieberman: Well that’s just as bad! Go back and read the speech, be more responsible.

Moorings sound like they’re coming loose on our former V.P candidate. Would he have been this bad in the White House if Gore had won? Let me correct that. Would he have been this bad in the White House if Gore had been allowed to take the position he won instead of being ousted by a right wing coup de tat?

Hard to say. i think maybe 9-11 shook some marbles loose in crazy Joe. Or maybe it just gave him the chance to show his true colors. I don’t know but it could have been an interesting ride in the Oval Office with him battling Gore if 9-11 had still happened on Gore’s watch.

Speaking of which Al says he’s not planning on running in 08. This probably doesn’t bother many of you. It does me. I still he think he’s one of the best qualified people out there and still young enough to be the virile figure Americans prefer. He’s changed his image some too. Not that he needed to for me. I like Gore. Always have. He might be the smartes guy in politics outside of Clinton. And I think were developing an appreciation for the benefits of having a man of some learning occupying the highest and arguably most important post in our sector of the galaxy.

Democracy is for smart people and it needs smart people to administer it.

Speaking of democracy, that process in the Middle East takes another wonderful step forward as Karzi’s-Bush backed shiny new constititution in Afhganistan is about the get someone executed for converting to Christianity. Now as sweet as an idea as that may be when you first hear it, it is of course somewhat at odds with some of the tenets of basic constitutional democracy we said we helped set up there. It’s actually kind of Taliban-esque don’t you think? It also puts Bush in kind of an awkward spot. This is his government there that he supported and wants us to believe is no worse for having an Islamist basis for it’s laws and constitution. And now they want to kill a guy for wanting to be more like Bush.

Word is the out may involve claiming that the guy is too insane to stand trial. Supposedly they are making this up. Most probably it will lead to vigilante justice as religious clerics have him hunted and killed extra-legally. But judging by the converts to that religion I’ve known, and particularly born-agains, i got to wonder if maybe those Taliban have some keen psychological insight.

I really really want to see Thank You For Smoking. I really hope it doesn’t pass this area by though. I think it is in limited release now. Everything I’ve read and the commercials I’ve seen make it sound like a brilliant satire.

Brokeback Mountain is out April 4th on DVD. Man that was fast. And you know what? I’m picking that puppy right up because damn it I miss those two fellas. They’re under my skin damnit and I may not get them out until I shed it. If you haven’t seen it yet you have no excuse now. No one will see you cry and hug yourself in the privacy of your own home. Let Jack and Ennis in. You wont ever let them leave.

Also out on April 4th is Queensryche’s Operation Mindcrime II. I don’t expect this to mean anything to any of you. The bands Operation Mindcrime, that I guess I now have to refer to as I was a defining hard rock concept album back in the 80′s. I loved this band and that album was sort of a V For Vendetta anarchist, rebel story that I guess I gravitated to even then. I’m not expecting the same level of genius all these years later especially without original guitarist Chris DeGarmo, but if I could get just a bit of that feeling that created emotions and rythmns that have me still invoking them out of nowhere 20 years later, it would be sweet.

And on May 2nd one of my all time favorite bands releases their first self titled cd. Pearl Jam, not quite as out of the blue as Queensryche, actually had the #1 single last week with the new albums first single World Wide Suicide. Numver 1 singles are not very Pearl Jam like anymore but the songs seeming lack of commercial appeal certainly is. Not sure how that happened. But it will be nice to visit with old friends again in both their case and Queensryche’s.

Don’t disappoint me. You wouldn’t like me when I’m disappointed.

Published on March 23, 2006 in ..The Dude, Films, Reviews and The Ill-Literates. 3 Comments

[image:115:l] It’s such a rare thing to go to the movies and see something that challenges you to think or act. Few movies are about ideas as much as they are about actors, images, and technology. Still fewer are those movies that can combine good acting startling images, fx, and ideas. When that happens it tends to make for a movie that gets under my skin and becomes a favorite of mine. I’m happy to report that it’s happened again with V For Vandetta.

I’m not familiar with the 80′s comic by Alan Moore that this is based on, nor do I know Moore’s reasons for taking his name off the movies credits and disassociating himself from it. Obviously the original was not an allegory for the Bush administration while this certainly has Patriot Act era undertones. Taking place in the 2020′s we even see old news footage of anti-Bush demonstrations that are protesting events including Iraq that are alluded to as being part of the chain of events leading to the authoritarian Britain of the film’s present. Exposing and avenging a long running government conspiracy is at the root of the actions of the masked lead nicknamed V and played by a Hugo Weaving. We never see Weaving who is not so much a hero but the welcome villain the governemnt has created and that they and the people deserve. It’s a bit annoying to try and listen to a man speak who’s mouth I can’t see move, but on some level it works as a symbol of V’s status as the voice of the oppressed speaking from a collective muffled silence so that all may speak freely again. Fortunately for this theory it is backed up by later imagery of the film in which V’s role as everyman and his plan for the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot of 4 centuries ago, come together. I found the visuals of the movies culminating actions epic and exillarating for both the cinematic scope of them and their kinship to the themes that they gave visual representation for.

[image:117:l]

There’s alot of dialogue to sift through and wax philosophic about in V and I’m not sure I agree with all of it; but it’s certainly all interesting and worthy of debate. V believes for instance that the people should not be afraid of their government but rather governments should be afraid of the people. While being an inspiring line that appeals to the anarchist in me I’m not sure I want to live in a world where average citizens run amok causing chaos when they’re not happy. Of course if the choice is one or the other I might waiver and I certainly want politicians fearing for their jobs. Preferably they’d lose them through voting rather than beheading though. Otherwise were in Robespeirre country and watching revolutions eat their young.

But much of what V stands for, says, and does is operating on that higher level of genius that is beyond simple black and white colorations. While he kills alot of innocent people he is admittedly a product of system, a sort of Frankenstein’s monster turning on it’s creator with all that creatures ill-fashioned clumsiness and lack of subtlety. And yet he is still charming, brilliant, heroic, and human. Natalie Portman becomes his connection to humanity and the relationship between the two is genuinely interesting and meaningful. At his core V may just be a vulnerable and rejected man just looking for a little acceptance and connection. Just feeling as if he’s understood by someone he respects and gets him makes a world of difference in the end.

The whole segment that leads to Portman shaving her hair is interesting in and of itself. I can’t mention much about it here due to its spoiler potential, but I will say that it connected with something I’d been thinking about alot lately regarding froth coming through hardship, and becoming free by losing one’s self and ego. [image:116:l]

I really liked the movie and don’t discount my bias towards its political message as being part of the reason. It’s probably not a non-partisan movie or one that conservatives would find as truly disturbing and incendiary as I did. At least not in a good way. The mask V hides behind is intended to look like the Gunpowder Plot mastermind Guy Fawkes and after the movie I wanted to don me a John Hinckley mask and take to the streets in the name of the ever decreasing abstractions freedom, justice, and liberty. This is probably one of the reasons many will dislike this film and I certainly don’t advocate a bloodspree. But in a country where the media is owned by corporations that own the politicians, a country where 1% control 90% of the wealth, and one in which the President makes laws and breaks them at will with no ramifications we might soon be at the point where we have nothing to lose but our chains.

Published on March 23, 2006 in ..The Dude, Irritations, Politics and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

Some politics and South Park stuff all god fearing people should care about.

The Washington Post hired a guy to do an opinion column who has called Coretta Scott King a commie and has a family tied to the GOP and even the Abramoff bribes. The online column is called Red States and they claim this was done to bring balance to the paper. Daily Kos We’re in the looking glass here people and Orwell is staring in from the outside at us and shaking his head sadly.

Knight Ridder is reporting on a pretty legitimate claim of an American Massacre of Iraqi women and children at a house north of Baghdad last week. Iraqi police are among those attaching their names to a complaint that seems to have some corrobarating evidence behind it.

“The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 persons, including five children, four women and two men,” the report said. “Then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed their animals.”

Alot of these reports are exaggerated but certainly there have been some atrocities committed. If this one is true it’s another Mai Lai and an example of what happens to people that have been trained to kill and often come from troubled backgrounds when they are let loose in a place without laws or order.

Helen Thomas was awesome yesterday at Bush’s press conference. That is why she goe 3 years without Bush calling on her. And why does anyone have to be called on? The president is our public servant and the media are supposed to be our watchdogs. So shouldn’t every media venue automatically get their chance to speak whether Bush or any other President want’s to talk to them? Granted you can’t have every media outlet in there asking questions. What should be done is to have a rotating cross representation that includes the whole gamut of the political spectrum with everyone in the room that day getting their chance. While we’re at it the president should have to stand before the people every month and take questions. Non-screened people without questions given to them by administration spin Dr’s.

Great to see Bush still finding the war so funny at the press conference. This idiots lack of persective or decency is a true testimony to his mother and father. What absolute atrocities of wealth and privelage they are. Yeah Jesus would have loved these folks.

Watched som School House Rock with a 13 year old today and man did it just reiterate waht geniuses the guys who put those together were. The lyrics, the music, the learning, it’s all there and comes together in a way that seems effortless and damn catchy. It’s been said that they defined a generation and that’s ok with me.

A Republican Senator on Bush and Team America The World Police: “”They want to do just as they please, for as long as they can get away with it,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I think what is going on now without congressional intervention or judicial intervention is just plain wrong.” Yahoo Ding Ding Ding!

South Park premiered new eps tonight and immediately dealt with Isaac Hayes departure. I don’t know how they put this stuff together so fast but man are they brilliant. Sick and twisted. But brilliant. Very clever and funny way of dealing with his absence while still ending the Chef’s storyline in a fittingly ignominious way that made clear allusions to the events of the past week that Kyle mentions and to a sick group that brainwashed and twisted the Chef’s mind. The group is a bunch of League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen type really made of pedophiles that stands in for the scientologist Kyle is clearly referencing. You have to see how they do this without Hayes and the final scenes for yourself if you haven’t. I can’t do it justice. A very fitting and clever end for a once great man and a still great show.

Hillary Clinton said the following to Immigration advocates in regard to legislation designed to stop immigration: “It is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scriptures,” Clinton said, “because this bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself.”

Ok it’s official, not only is she dead to me, but she’s fucking Karl Rove. Revenge for Monica? You make the call.

I’m half way through tonights Lost and the only thing that’s happened is that I have confirmed that Sun is a damn sexy woman and that the islan heals people, a fact i already knew. Come to think of it I already knew both these things though the opportunity to see Sun in negligee on a 50 inch screen was much appreciated.

I really hope I’m not coming across as pathetic being at Barnes N Noble as much as I am. But considering there are 2 or 3 people I always see there, not counting the homeless woman that’s always there sleeping, my 2-3 times a week might not look so bad compared to them. It’s a safe guess they are there much more. And where does that woman go when they close? It’s cold out there.

This is far more sad than my being into a woman who works there who didn’t give me a second glance. It is also more sad than the fact that another woman who works there that is far younger and cuter but less appealing because of that, does make alot of eye contact with me.

I’m sad but I’m not homeless on a 20 degree night. So I can’t complain. I want to talk to all three of these women for different reasons but don’t know what to say. The homeless woman in particular is hard to approach because I’d just be some little pissant voyeur trying to make myself feel better by not ignoring the plight of someone less fortunate who I can’t do a damn thing to help.

This inability to talk to people and express waht I feel or take chances will all seem silly someday. Humans do alot of this inner head game stuff that wisdom later shows was stupid and a waste. We know this. And yet many of us do it. Why is that?

Published on March 22, 2006 in ..The Dude, Irritations and The Ill-Literates. 2 Comments

[image:113:l] [image:114:l] Step inside, walk this way, you and me babe, hey hey.

Warning to Ulster County area people. Stay away from Dr Grossman’s dental offices. I switched there recently and boy am I regretting it. First I go in to get my teeth cleaned and they tell me I need 5 crowns, have a cavity, and then they’ll do the teeth cleaning. I was skeptical. They had been recommended by a person at work I don’t trust, but at the time was still on the fence about (see previous post regarding him). I called a dental hygenist friend to find out the reputation of the office or if in her professional opinion this sounded on the up and up. Unfortunatley I couldn’t get in touch with her during the week or two leading up the first appointment. So I tell them we can do 3 crowns on the one side but I’m not approving any more than that yet. I have it done and the guy at work chooses that time to mention that he went in there for a cleaning and received the same diagnosis. I then come to find out the same has happened for at least 2-3 other people I was later able to find out about.

If I had had that info originally I never would have let them back in my mouth. Then after the crowns are in I notice discomfort right around the area they did the work on when I chew on hard stuff. I go in today and the saw off part of the crowns the adjust the bite after making me wait an hour past my appointment time and I come to realize after leaving the teeth there now feel sharp at the edges and that the area that felt out of whack feels untouched.

I feel as if part of the reason for this is that they took no time to work with me and locate the problem because they are running a high volume business there that ushers people in and out like cattle. The place is huge, you never get the same Dentist or hygenist twice, examinnig chairs are set up either in tiny rooms or out in hallways with one next the the other with little space or privacy. The people who work there look right through you and you can tell their is no recognition of patients as anything more than a faceless and nameless commodity. It’s very impersonal there and I am developing an intense dislike for everyone assocaited with it. As I sat there in the chair in that tiny room with the saving grace of an Edward Hopper painting on the wall I saw staff outside my door giving me strange looks. I waited and waited as they peered in with sidelong glances like they didn’t want me to know they were there. And when the Dentist did his thing I could, out of the corner of my eye, catch sight of people at the door looking on like an unusual event was happening. I felt like I was in some dental horror movie where I was being sized up by dental technicians of death and their wary assistants stealing covert looks of sadness and curiosity over the next office sacrifice.

And I didn’t even get fondled like on Seinfeld.

Time to head on down to South Park and have ourselves a time. Isaac Hayes has quit the show because he’s a Scientologist that was unhappy with an episode called Out Of The Closet that originally aired in November making fun of that oh so silly religion. When the episode was set to be rerun last week it was suddenly pulled with word that famous Scientologist and subject of said title in need of coming out of a closet, Tom Cruise, was unhappy. Now consider this: Cruise, who has MI3 coming out for Paramount, who in turn is owned by Viacom, who also owns Comedy Central is rumored to have told the company he would not promote the new movie if the episode was allowed to air again. His publicist has denied this. And yet the episode was pulled. Hmmm.

True to their irreverence and brilliant sense of normalcy, Trey Parker and Matt Stone issued the following statement in regard to the decision to pull the show last week:

“So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun!” the “South Park” creators said in a statement Friday in Daily Variety. “Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies… You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail!”

South Park

In regards to Hayes quitting, the South Park creators had the following bit of sanity and coherence to say in response to Hayes claiming he could no longer, “tolerate the shows religious intolerance and bigotry.”

“This is 100 percent having to do with his faith in Scientology…He has no problem–and he’s cashed plenty of checks–with our show making fun of Christians.”

We had some good times with the Chef and his chocolate salty balls but it’s over. He’s dead to me and I only hope Trey and Matt find a fitting way to remove him from the show. Guys like him and Cruise exemplify the worst of religious intolerance. The more someone can’t take being hit the more vulnerable you know they are. Tomorrow a new slate of South Park’s begin with an episode being billed as the Chef’s return to South Park. My guess is it was done before all this and features Hayes, but I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of what usually is an 8 episode run we see something having to do with the above.

Speaking of religion you can go to this site, beliefnet to take a quiz that will supposedly tell you what your best religion would be and rank according to percentage how much you have in common and fit in with a whole list of the worlds belief systems. It determines your ranking not only through answers to the questions but on how highly you rank the questions. My own number 1 with 100% was Unitarian Universalism. Secular Humanism and Theravada Buddhism ramked as my 2nd and 3rd best matches.

Frighteningly this thing has me ranked as a slightly better fit with Islam at 17% than Roman Catholicism which was last on my list at 14%.

What’s the 14% I have in common with Roman Catholacism I have to wonder? Our mutual disdain for Born Agains? A love of loose clothing?

At 23% I’m a better fit for the Jehovah Witnesses according to the quiz. Not with a birthday coming up in a month I’m not.

Scientology came in at 14 on my list with an amazing 46% match. Maybe me, Tom, and Isaac aren’t that different after all.

Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants came in at 5 at 74% prompting me to ask if there is any such thing in America anymore?

Mainline to Conservative Christian Protestants came in at 21 with 27 %. That’s a hefty difference for people supposedly part of the same religion. And I resent any poll that says I have 27% in common with George Bush or Pat Robertson. The only thing I have in common with these guys religiously is that none of us are good Christians.

I tend to think I’m more of the Secualar Humanist, not really knowing what the Unitarian Universalist are and only feeling like it sounds a bit suspicious. What little I could find out on the above site seems to have them a bit all over their place and pretty excepting and tolerant, but at the same time perhaps showing a bit too much tolerance of the Christian thing for my tastes. There is a bulletin board I’m going to check out later to find out more. If i start acting strangely in the coming weeks this may have something to do with it. If I start smiling alot, calling everyone my brother and sister, and not caring about trivialities like the upcoming Baseball season, the summer movies, or eating, please feel free to shoot me. I may protest at the time but that won’t be me. This is me telling you now before it happens. REMEMBER!

From the same packed site that you can find the home page of by clicking the above link or the following one, I also took a quiz that helps determine your spiritual type belief net II I was labeled a Spiritual Dabbler — Open to spiritual matters but far from impressed, just 1 point off of
Active Spiritual Seeker – Spiritual but turned off by organized religion, which I probably would have picked for myself if I had looked at the categories beforehand.

There are other quizzes on the site like the one judging how optimistic you are which i didn’t take because I didn’t have a good feeling about it.

These are of course very unscientific and I wasn’t always happy with the choices available. This is especially true of the later faith quiz in which I would prefer to not have had to choose any of the choices available but had to. It was not unlike my dating history.

Barry more that a Manillow night on American Idol tonight but unfortunately they didn’t do Barry tunes. He coached them through 50′s standards. Man what I would have given to see the perfect Catherine Macphee belt out Mandy. That would constitute girl on girl action wouldn’t it? Then again it kind of does when Barry does it too. I actually thought Chris is it? and his rendition of Walk The Line was pretty damn good. Good rocking version I’d actually listen to again. He’s got a good rock voice and I could easily see him fronting a rock band. Love Tyler but thought he sucked tonight. Mandissa was very good again. Pretty boy Ace needs to disappear. I don’t like the idea of him hanging around Catherine. He’s bad news.

Now that the topic of Idol has been broached and the tension regarding it’s silence on this site the past few months is hopefully alleviated let me say that I almost always agree with Simon. The man is brilliant and honest. He’s a straight guy with a lovely woman but his mannerisms and demeonor confirm my long held suspicion that all English people are a little gay.

And that’s a good thing.

As far as better tv goes 24 has rocked lately. No deaths this week but Palmer’s brother is in trouble as he tries to get to everyone’s favorite secret service agent Aaron. And a possible bombshell regarding Audrey gets dropped at shows end. Why is Palmer going to Aaron and not Jack? Is there another mole in the administration? The VP knew he was there and then he gets hit. The smae Vp with the MArtial Law agenda now being implemented. Everyone in LA has an angle man. If 24 has taught us nothing besides the greatness of Jack Bauer it has taught us that LA sucks arse and that bad shite happens there. LA should be renamed Jack Bauer because they wouldn’t exist without him. They could shorten it to JB. People would fly into JBX. THey couldn’t stay long though. Just an hour or 2 because nobody pisses on Jack Bauer and gets away with it.

Man did Jack screw over that German agent though. Actually felt kind of bad for him. But Jack’s not German. Jack assesses things and makes hard decisions fast. That’s why they keep a clock on him. I think the German guy could be back someday and i welcome him. He and Jack shared a bond in their brief time together. “Are we still good?” Jack asked him from the backseat of the car. Secret agent manlove baby.

And Tony and Edgar are still dead.

Rumor has it that show Lost is throwing one of those, what do you call them?. . . new episodes. . . on tomorrow night. Nice of them. I don’t even remember what’s happening on that show which is strange because nothing really ever happens on it. They’re on notice and better have a scintillating last month or two of the season. Gilligan gave us more island drama than this. Something tells me Gilligan would have stumbled and bumbled his way into solving all this Lost island stuff along time ago. maybe it would been a 2 parter, I’ll give you that. He may not have understood it but he’d have exposed all so that the Professor could explain it to everyone in the epilogue of part 2.

And Ginger was hotter than Kate.

There I said it.

You know why Gilligan would have ended this all by now? He’s a free spirit man. He’s not all repressed and scheming. He’s like Forrest Gump just living and acting. Man if you had Gilligan, Forrest, and Homer Simpson on this island the Others would have bailed out along time ago. Those 3 are men of action you see. They live by the adage that you have to be in it to win it and that the times make the man great not the other way around. The man needs simply to engage with his times. These current Lost fold are disengaged. They’re caught up in their flashbacks, their insights about the island they don’t share, their lack of communication, their ennui, angst, fear, and inability to ask the obvious questions at the obvious time.

But Gilligan, Forrest, and Homer? Maybe throw Peter Griffin in there too and that’s a can do spirit that’s not going to spend half an episode flashing back or getting all worked up about a black foggy monster. Peter would suck that thing into a vacuum. Forrest would run to the other side of the island and back searching every nook and cranny of that place until he found JFK, Emelia Earhart, the Lindhberg baby, and MLK who were all part of past experiments while Homer battled the evil mastermind with dueling motorcycles. And who might that mastermind be? Wouldn’t matter to Homer. It could be the Hanso guy, Monte Burns, Dick Cheney, or Stewey Griffin. But Homer would win because Homer doesn’t mess around like these hippie castaways today.

Don’t want to get too down on the show. It still has its moments and I’ll hang in a bit longer. Jack let the button go to redeem himself, Hurley may be the first to get laid, and Sawyer is a magnificent bastard who might be funnier than Hurley. But for god’s sake advance the plot a little each week! There’s more clues and progress on websites than the actual show. It’s getting a little too much like Kiss albums back in the day. A couple of cool episodes and alot of filler to make a whole album or season. Not just Kiss I know, most bands do filler. Some shows do it too. If it continues though this show is going to start taking some hits from fans and critics soon.

But anyway they have managed to muster together something like the 3rd or 4th new episode since the end of November for tonight so enjoy. If the past and the commercials I’ve seen this week for it are any clue I’m not expecting much to happen beyond a few mind games getting us closer to the tribal divisions that I could see coming about 6 months ago. 24 and Lost are at such opposite extremes.

Please feel free to post your religious quiz results and discuss your experiences and thoughts pertaining to the test. Like to see if I have any fellow Unitarians out there. Secular Humanists are my favorites though. Just realized that in both tests taken it was my first choice that came in 2nd according to their rankings. Does this show a glitch in their test or in me?

Published on March 21, 2006 in ..The Dude, Irritations and The Ill-Literates. 3 Comments

Some random stuff from around the world and my brain.

Ok check this link out. It’s about a study that indicates that talk shows and soap operas do one of two things to people. It either makes them dumber or that dumber people gravitate to these types of shows. I watched some soaps back in the 80′s and this explains alot. It also helps make Saugerties easier to understand.

The Dallas Cowboys signed Terrel Owens who onced danced on their beloved midfield star after running there from the endzone after a touchdown that didn’t get him enough attention. This confirms that both Owens and the Cowboys are evil. Now they can be evil together. Bill Parcells is now dead to me. More on that in my next post of that name.

Bush said this: “Now, it’s important to remember what al Qaeda has told us — their stated objectives. Their goal is to drive us out of Iraq so they can take the country over. Their goal is to overthrow moderate Muslim governments throughout the region. Their goal is to use Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks against America.

To achieve this goal, they’re recruiting terrorists from the Middle East to come into Iraq, to infiltrate its cities, and to sow violence and destruction, so that no legitimate government can exercise control.” CNN

Once again we see that this guy lies like he’s dating me. Al Qaeda has told us their objectives? When did this happen? So they moved from their previous stated goal according to this pathological liar, of destroying Western civilization and undermining democracy because they hate it, to now wanting to use Iraq as a staging ground?

And they’re recruiting terrorists to come into Iraq to do it? Funny I thought it was our hapless invasion that invited terrorists that had never been in Iraq to come on in.

And there’s not a shred of evidence any of it is tied to Al Qaeda. In fact evidence shows just how loose and uncoordinated it all is and how it’s more a manifestation of an unstable situation in Iraq that we made more unstable by tearing away their supports so quickly and haphazardly.

Bush also said about Iraq, “Others look at the violence they see each night on their television screens and they wonder how I can remain so optimistic about the prospects of success in Iraq. They wonder what I see that they don’t.”

No you ridiculous silly little slug of a man, people wonder why you can’t see the facts that they do. And is it possible that what he sees is dollar signs, an unending supply of oil, and U.S. supremacy? Obviously he doesn’t see the body bags, mangled survivors, civil war, or decline in quality of life that Iraqi’s have suffered since we bombed the holy Muslim shit out of them.

Maybe Bob can help me with this next thing. What does anyone out there know about the airline related insider dealing that supposedly went down before 9-11 and the controversy regarding the gold bullion under the towers? On the latter point the little I have been able to find out indicates that about $160 Billion in Bullion was hidden under one of the towers but was moved just previous to the attacks and that feds seemed to know exactly where to find them. I’ve also heard that alot of this gold has disappeared. This has fueled speculation that the gold is helping to fund our boys in D.C. and their incredible growing military among other things. And of course it’s part of theories that Bush’s team of traitors are so much more the vile treasonous pigs worthy of death that I’ve thought them to be and in fact participated in the events of 9-11.

First off I’m admittedly anti Bush administration. Secondly I’m also very anti conspiracy theories. Friends of mine having pushing this administrations complicity in the events of 9-11 for years and I’ve always tried to keep a cool head about it and give this group of politicians who I really think are evil the benefit of the doubt and give them credit for not being that evil.

But sometimes I ask myself why they deserve this benefit. Even if not true their actions over the past few years, actions that have included the cynical and reprehensible using of those terrible events to push forward a well known pre-existing agenda and having people look into options for putting troops into Iraq from his very first security meeting well before 9-11, have cost them any benefits more honest and competent administrations might deserve

I’ve seen how scary ideologies can be and how they can be used and manipulated to condone horrors and these are guys who really are deeply wedded to their way of thinking. It’s religious with them and religious type ideologies make people do very bad things. It’s not that much of a stretch to imagine the kind of rationalizations about the greater good that might go on in the minds of men like this when contemplating allowing something like this to happen.

If I had to bet I’d still say they were just asleep at the wheel and that their willful deception of the American public didn’t happen until after 9-11 when they realized this could work really well for them. But at this point I wouldn’t bet my life on it.

If there turns out to be some truth behind the conspiracy charges than my oh my do we need a bloody and nasty revolution to take place. It will be V for Vandetta stuff kiddies. We’ll need to don our American equivalent of Guy Fawkes masks, oh I don’t know, maybe John Hinckley masks, and all meet at the White House on September 11th and burn that motehr down. Preferably with the pigs inside. If it turns out to be true. If now mere execution for treason still applies. I will settle reluctantly for impeachment though.

By the by: V For Vandetta was pretty good. Definitely timely and able to stir the emotions a bit. At least my emotions. Further review may follow soon, but if you want to see something with an anarchist political spirit, a movie with cool stuff to look at which nevertheless is a movie of ideas and not a special effects flick, and a film whcih will make you think, check out V.

On a personal note it seems there is yet one more pathological liar in my life. I’ve come across an astounding number of them since moving upstate from the environs of the city. This one is a guy I work with that’s not my boss, who as has been stated in the past, is one of those liars. I kind of knew he was a bit of a bitch, a bit drug addled, and even at least somewhat of a liar. But he just keeps going to lengths to downgrade people and upgrade himself in the moment despite on some level knowing the rest of us will talk and put 2 and 2 together. Yet he does it. Yesterday he did some silly stupid stuff and then when I left blamed it on me. I mean he blatantly told them something I watched him do and warned him not do to, was my fault. This stuff continues to boggle my mind. Are we all 10 years old that we need to lie and aggrandize ourselves to appear to be more? This is a pretty intelligent guy, but his negativity towards the guys we care for, his constant passive aggressive shots at staff not there at the moment, and his tendency to make up excuses that he can’t keep track of are absolutley amazing. He’d come in late alot last summer acting quite hung over and almost every time blame it on accidents on the thruway and cops pulling him over but not ticketing him. This is like 10 times in 2-3 months these things prevented him from getting to work on time. These pathological people really do seem to think we’re all as stupid as they are. And now he’s all tight with another staff who hates me because I wasn’t as malleable as she wished, too strong minded to play along with her and nod in agreement, and unwilling to enter into a private relationship be it friendly or more outside work. Now this guy has filled that role and the two of them have a bond that includes hatred of the guys, massive self-aggrandizing at the expense of others, and the sharing of each others pills.

It’s really amazing stuff from grown-ups is all I’m saying. None of these people are kids, most older than myself. And nothing. No recognition, no perception, no lessons learned. I’ve lied in my life, I’ve acted innapropriately at work, and even downgraded others to make myself appear more elevated. I’ve embellished my stories and life to make myself appear a greater hero or more exciting character in the story of my life. And over time I grew out of most of that. I got cognizant of the psychological reasons for it and with that awareness I could rise higher above past standards of behavior I could see were childish and immature. I realized quite naturally through observation and a modicum of contemplation how little any of this gets people. How the truth will always out us and the lie will consume us and make us its tool rather than it being ours.

I thought it was a natural growing process, but I’m seeing now that alot of people don’t really go through this process. Not everyone needs to. Some are above this and live with a natural honesty and inner confidence from an early age. It’s one of the reasons I respect and like our own Brandonicus so much. He, despite being 23ish is one of those people. Far ahead of where I was at that age. I’m not sure most of my friends were there at that age but for the most part are there now. Visible growth and maturing has taken place. This includes in other illiterati like Bob, and posters like Gantor.

But I’m really struck the past year or two how many people go through their lives without this stuff and find it hard to fathom how that happens.

Published on March 14, 2006 in ..The Dude, Literature, Politics, Reviews and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

[image:104:l] This is probably one of the more balanced and “non-partisan” tomes written about the post 9-11 fall out and invasion of Iraq. That’s a bit of a mixed compliment because if someone is right and has the facts on their side who really cares if their partisan. That’s one of the right’s favorite tactics. To discredit an argument simply because its coming from a “liberal,” and move people away from the fact that the person is armed with an unguarded Iraqi munitions dump full of facts. But I do mean it as a compliment in author George Packer’s case for bringing not only an introspective American eye to Iraq but one that examines the conflict from the street level eyeview of ordinary Iraqi’s and U.S. soldiers who run the gamut of emotions and points of view regarding an occupation that whatever its nefarious motivations, had a chance to be successful, but got bogged down in the usual incompetence, ideological rigidity, and arrogance of an administration becoming all too known for those characteristics.

Packer starts the book with one of my favorite chapters that deals with the ideological underpinnings of the neo-cons including their historic roots in liberal intellectual history dating back to the far leftist movements of the 30′s. More recently, then Secretary of Defense under Bush Sr, Dich Cheney, commisioned a paper called the Defense Planning Guidance which Paul Wolfowitz oversaw. Parts of it were leaked to the N.Y. Times and drew criticism so Bush, not too happy with it anyway due to his more “realistic” foreign policy philosophies, ordered it changed. But it’s heart remained intact. It said things like, “Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival,” and talked about stuff like American preeminence and discouraging competition by increasing defense spending. Once it was toned down the clueless media of 92 gave Cheney credit for bringing a cooler head to things and reigning in the rambunctious Wolfowitz. Then in 02 came Bush Jr’s National Security Strategy which basically said all the same stuff as the 92 paper outlining the Bush Doctrine, which Cheney, as everyone now knows, used as a vessel for his belief system.

These were clearly guys who didn’t believe as Bush Sr and other realists like Kissinger did, in balance of power and acting in vital national interests. The real tipping point in the balance of power was when Reagan got power. In him people like Jeane Kirkpatrick, who criticized Carter for his committment to silly things like human rights because it undermined our friends like Nicaragua, South Africa, and at that time Iran, had their ideological love child. Sure those authoritarian despots weren’t perfect. They tortured, had death squads, openly practiced segregation etc etc, but hey at least they weren’t Communists. And if we didn’t protect them they might become red some day. Reagan wet his pants when he heard that and hired Kirkpatrick as UN ambassador right after he was elected. Reagan then had one more cohort that would stand by and allow his crimes against the country including his illegal dealing with the Contras and attempting to help El Salvador whitewash mass murders, including the El Mezote incident. Bonzo’s favorite president had people around him who would wink and “get it,” when Ronnie would pretend to not know any of this was going on or that he didn’t remember any of what he did know.

Packer gets into alot of the connections between right-wing players, their influences, and concerted efforts to silence those who weren’t on board with their worldview. It’s all interesting stuff, as is most of the book I can’t begin to get into here, but one of those key groups of interest that provided an ideological excuse to the invasion was of course former Iraqis who hadn’t been anywhere near the country in decades.

The Iraqi exiles such as Kanan Makiya and Ahmad Chalabi were at the forefront of the push to invade. Packer gets deeper into their influence, or at least their beliefs which gave the administration another sector they could claim showed how easy this invasion would be. The ultimate goal was to plug many of these guys into key roles once in Iraq. Chalabi especially was set up as the heir apparent head of the new government. Of course the administration never bothered to look at things like Chalabi’s absence from Iraq for the better part of half a century, his chance to gain personally by feeding the U.S. reports of flowers and candy waiting to be thrown at us, and the fact that he’s a wanted criminal embezzler. Or maybe they did.

But they were one of many policy friendly chickenhawks who had all the pull in the decision making and who wouldn’t challenge the idea that American interests and values always go together. This is an idea Bush has hinted at before and which comes from a head of the think tank the Project for the New American Century, Robert Kagan, who had formed many of his beliefs in the crucible of the Reagan years where he wrote speeches for administration officials and helped developed S. American policy. He is one of those key roots in the corrupted and dessicated tree of neo-conservatism Packer traces for readers. He, along with guys like Paul Wolfowitz affirmed a more proactive American foreign policy that would no longer condone those that Kirkpatrick had once called for coddling. We should shape the world and bring democracy everywhere . No more putting up with bad guys anywhere.

Packer is critical of left and right in the book, often chastising liberals for their naivete and pointless griping, which I actually enjoyed. Some of it was warranted and some I thought, not so much. But mostly I grew agitated with his selective criticisms of the right. When he writes about the above policy he does so with a certain reverence, or at least respect, but calls no attention to the fact that the only places we ever want to bring democracy too are places where we stand to gain economically. I’m sure he would answer such criticism with more brushing off like flies the liberal tendency to believe we live in a perfect world where there is no acceptance that some bad things have to happen to get some good results. While I don’t disagree with this sentiment entirely it is a bit too glib and pat, and for all its realism, it still comes up short in the ethics and morality department where people in Darfur are dying and dying, wishing a few of those troops getting killed in Iraq for ideological reasons were there to keep them from just plain dying. And I bet they wouldn’t throw IDE’s at them.

Packer gives the case for the more learned side of the right-wing argument for invasion while himself questioning the administrations motives and sincerity. But for those he paints as true idealists like Wolfowitz I still have to wonder how it jibes with some of the right’s anti-intellectualism. There’s alot of nice intellectual rationalizations for this whole thing that are out there, many served up nicely and succinctly in this book, but it still sounds like people with pro war motivations who stand to gain looking too deep for a reason to cover their pure pragmatism and greed. Even with Packer’s balanced look there is still a strong sense of evidence being overlooked purposefully while user friendly evidence was cherry-picked based on the predisposition the lookers with a long standing interest in invasion brought to the search. Some of the searchers may have even been consciously unaware of their manipulations of reality as they gravitated naturally to outrageous sources like Chalabi and other ivory tower detached personages with an interest to be gained like the exiles and the Pentagon warhorses invested in themselves and companies profiting from the war.

Packer acknowledges much of this but sometimes I felt a bit too cavalierly, perhaps he himself vested too deeply in the world of detached intellectuals he offers a critical look inside of.

A large section of the book takes place in Iraq where a picture is painted of a liberation that had a chance to succeed but became a hated occupation because of bad planning and that very tendency to ignore those who didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear and listen only to those friends who did. Guys like the State Department’s Drew Erdmann in Iraq working for the Coalition Provisional Authority were ignored when they dared do some research and provide expert analysis as to why the U.S. couldn’t succeed without international support and more troops. Pre-invasion we had seen many goverment employees fired for not getting in lock-step with the administration. Men like Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki were fired for testifying to the Senate Armed Services Committee that we need far more troops that Rumsfeld was telling people. The admin economic advisor met a similar fate for tellling them how much more the war would cost than what they wanted people to believe, or maybe even believed themselves in their neverending incompetence and committment to delusion.

But in Iraq the troops, the CPA, and Iraqi people were seeing firsthand in frustrating after frustrating example how incompetent and detached the administration really is. The book is full of departments and agencies with vague purposes, unclear intent, and misapplied personnel. There’s one exchange as CPA officials are literally entering Iraq and looking at each other in a sort of comedy routine as each is asking what the plan is and hoping the other guy had the plan. It’s more interesting than it sounds because Packer tells the stories from the ground interspersed with the trials and evolution over the first couple of years of the invasion of different American and Iraqi people and families. Seeing the way these people live, and the kind of commonplace torture that was life under Hussein does give one pause who wishes we weren’t there. Alot of hate and ignorance pervades Iraq, but there are also alot of bright and hopeful people with an amazing amount of perspective for people so isolated and oppressed for so long.

But those sectarian differences we see erupting into a potential civil war now, one which Packer foresees as a possiblilty, offer a real testimony to how far even the more enlightened Iraqis have to go. The lack of imagination of many of both the educated and non-eduacted is really striking. Everything is so ethnically and sexually identified to them that even having been aware of this before the invasion, it’s first hand accounts made me feel a new sense of hopelessness.

We’re talking about a nation where whole agencies and departments of forensics in women’s virginity exist due to a females status in that area playing such a role in murder investigations and disputes of various natures. All forms of creativity and passion seem to be funnelled through these objectifications along with the ethnic-religious differences seperating Kurd from Arab from Shia from Sunni and from Turkman. This seemed to me to create displays of passion equivalent to stick figure drawings-fine lines-nevertheless without subtlety or complexity that signal the arrested development of cultures stuck in adolescence.

Packer does a good job of getting close to real people on both sides of this, even on the same side perhaps when all the political and ethnic garbage is taken away. He offers an insightful and erudite look at the most important story out there the past few years and does so with balance. It’s hard to come away from reading this with a good idea at what Packer’s political affiliation is, which is probably a positive testimony. It’s one that’s deserved for a book I enjoyed alot and highly recommend to anyone looking for a meaty political piece of modern history that may go down as one of the better and more important chronicles of these times were in and this war a relative handful of white guys who have never fought in a war made happen. Packer had hope it could be for the better no matter what the motivations but seems, by books end, to feel that it will probably be for the worse. Certainly it has been to this point, but he offers some legitimate hope, mostly through the auspices of the Iraqis he interacts with, that there’s a still a chance to pull this one out of the fire.

I get the impression he’d agree that it won’t happen because of any of the people who got us there though.

Published on March 11, 2006 in ..The Dude, Films and The Ill-Literates. 4 Comments

[image:106:l] I saw the movie when it came out and liked it. I just watched it on DVD and now love this movie. What’s more important is that it’s inspired me. Like many people I’ve always had that inner relationship with Batman, but now, at the point in life I’m at, with the Gotham around me crumbling, I finally feel a guiding force showing me the way out of that figurative tunnel full of bats along with all the pain, regret, anger, and fear. And he’s showing me with a sweep of his cape.

First off this movie was even better than I originally gave it credit for being. Christopher Nolan really did an amazing job creating a story that works on multiple levels. Credit is of course due for his inspirations which came from more recent comic updates from people like Frank Miller and Joseph Loeb, but Nolan rendered it cinematically and was part of the scriptwriting process. When I originally saw it I came away cutting it a little short of great and I seem to remember one of my chief complaints being that the Gotham aspects weren’t as engrossing as the origin aspects of the films first hour. In particular I thought the whole evaporating water device was a bit too comic book and took me out of the gritty realism a bit. It seemed a bit too out of nowhere at the time.

But upon further review it was always part of the plan that Gul hints at back at the mountain top when he says Gotham must be destroyed. It was also always connected to the Scarecrow and Falcone’s drug smuggling operation in a way I didn’t fully appreciate the first time. Ok that cleared up its ok to love the movie. And love it I do because at it’s heart I can now really appreciate more than ever how Batman Begins is about some of the things maybe a few of you have heard me complain about alot the past year. It’s about raising the bar on our behavior. It’s about idealism, the right thing without reward, evolving of the individual and society, rising above our inner demons to be better than ourselves, resisting temptation, and my somewhat curious fashion desire to wear a cape.

And it’s about these things in a smart and coherent way that didn’t violate any of its rules or premises. There are more moments now that seem iconic for me like Batman’s final words to Gordon after the future Commisioner says he still hasn’t thanked him: “And you’ll never have to.” That almost made me cry. Of course I have spent much of the past 5 days with a fever.

And when that crooked cop Batman has hanging upside down from a firescape says “I swear to god,” and Batman roars, “Swear to me!” Well let’s just say that hit me in a very special place.

And of course the explanation of the cool Batgear was done very well and plausibly. I especially like them giving Batman a plausible reason for having a cape. As well as one for future villains to up the ante and copy Batman.

But it’s theme and message connected with me in a more personal way this time. My job dissatisfaction, social ennui, desire to make a difference, all of it’s heightened now. Maybe being sick the past 5 days played a role too. I get mawkish when I’m sick. I’m on the upside now but there’s still that residue of disgust with my self, my life, my regret, anger, fear, guilt. . . alot of that Bruce Wayne type angst. But after watching the movie again tonight I feel a resolve. I always wanted to be Batman and now I’m going to do it. [image:105:l]

No I haven’t gone mad from the brain fever. I don’t mean I’m going to be a literal superhero in a costume, though I am reserving the right to the cape. I’m talking about the committment Bruce Wayne showed. From his training to his return and aiding of Gotham. He overcame his fear, guilt, and anger and found a focus for them. He exerted his will as Gul tried to get him to. He acted with resolve and decisiveness.

And now so does the Dude.

He took 7 years to hone himself with sacrifice and dedication. I can handle a few more years of school. I can write more diligently. I can get in better shape. I can use those years of dedication to put myself in better position to make a difference. . .to clean up Gotham. My will won’t accept a lifelong servitude to the wretched villains I work for. I can’t let the past rise to submerge me. Instead I must rise because of it. I’m not sure if it will mean quitting the state shortly or in 3-5 years yet. I’m not sure if the writing or the return to school will become the higher priority. I’m not even sure if I’ll suffer for it financially though I can’t allow much of that to happen at present. I don’t know if stuff like companionship and financial improvement will come with it all. But things will change again and I will make things just a bit better. Maybe more than a bit.

Here I was waiting for Superman Returns to have that hero we so desperately need and his more human brother was here all along. Well since last june. Of course I’m still looking to Superman also. We need him. He’s perfect. Better than Batman in his pureness. A great role model we created to pattern ourselves after. Like god. Batman of course is more human though. Perhaps he should be the ladder we climb to reach Supergod.

So that’s what I’m doing with the rest of my life. I’m becoming a superhero.

Don’t tell anyone.

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