I Second the Motion

I have definitely exceeded my limit of lamentation for the death of Michael Jackson. Please make it go away. A quote from Michael David Green writing in The Smirking Chimp about the Michael Jackson memorial:

He goes on to observe about how Jackson's music compared to Lennon's is fluff, and how much more seriously Lennon was about confronting the real problems of the world in which he lived.

I don't mean to sound like somebody's craggy old grandpa, incessantly whining about how "it was better in our day", but I couldn't help thinking about the degree to which Jackson - in life and death - personified the utter shallowness of the culture we now endure.

And I certainly don't mean to play the game of My Dead Rock Star Is Better Than Your Dead Rock Star, but I also couldn't help being thrown back upon my memories and grief at the loss thirty years ago of a cultural figure who really did matter, John Lennon.

He goes on to observe about how Jackson's music compared to Lennon's is fluff, and how much more seriously Lennon was about confronting the real problems of the world in which he lived.

Disgruntlment

Recently I wrote an email to a bud in which I had occasion to enumerate my frustrations with the Obama administration. The buddy sent me an op ed piece he wrote in favor of the House energy bill. I'm not real crazy about that, but I'll leave that discussion till tomorrow. For now let me just share with you the several issues I have with Obama:

• Afghanistan war--we should be OUT, out completely, not building up; that place is a tar baby. I cannot believe this country is engaged in yet another war in the Middle East that's got no defined purpose. Why exactly are we there? What are we trying to accomplish, and how do we know when we've accomplished it?
  
• Defense of Bush wire tap policies.
  
• Continuation of Bush secrecy policies.
  
• No prosecution of torturers. In typical American fashion, this once hot issue has dropped out of sight.
  
• No prosecution of the malefactors of great wealth on Wall St and elsewhere. We're supposed to be satisfied with Bernie Madoff as a sop prosecution, the marquee bad guy. But hundreds more just as guilty remain. I don't think Obama is going to send any of these people to jail.
  
• No executive order on "don't ask, don't tell." Obama is tossing that issue to Congress rather than cutting to the chase himself. Cool strategy. It keeps the onus of what will be unpopular with some people off himself. It will take longer this way, but Obama's butt is covered because he can now claim the policy change is the will of the country and not just the president.
  
• Pussy-footing with the worthless set of bastards that call themselves the Republican party. I say to hell with these people. All they have done since the beginning is oppose everything outright. And in that vein, he better not be getting ready to sell the country out to big Pharm, AMA, big Insurance, and the hospital industry on health care. I hear disturbing things emanating from the White House about how far they're willing to go to appease these crooks.

You think that's enough? It seems to me that the core of Obama support is the left, not the mushy middle, not the Blue Dogs. He needs to start scratching that itch and soon. How else should the result of the election of 2008 be interpreted? The left didn't install this guy to accept the status quo in Washington on anything. But he seems perfectly willing to do so on too many things.

Honorable All

My guess is that the Republican party is fervently wishing that their honorable senator from Nevada, John Ensign, would just go away. Today there is new information out about how Ensign's honorable buddies in the Senate offered him helpful advice in this little matter of his screwing his senior aide's wife and getting caught at it. Turns out, according to Rachel Maddow tonight, said assistant, Doug Hampton, was trying to extort millions in hush money from the honorable Senator Ensign. But thank goodness for Senator Ensign's honorable senate colleagues, all of whom, I gather, including the most high honorable Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) offered sage advice: pay these people off. Give 'em the hush money they want. Which, apparently, the honorable senator from Nevada, did, bestowing on his paramour a $25,000 severance payment in addition to the generous salary he'd been paying her up till then.

This is just some really sordid crap going on here. After this and the Sanford thing in South Carolina, which also gets more odoriferous the more we learn, I daresay we're not going to be witnessing the usual herd of raving GOP moralists on their white horses for a while. Unless of course, you're in Oklahoma.

OK . . . Enough Already!

Here's what I say: Thank God they've finally got Michael Jackson in the ground--well, maybe not yet because I think the family still has a private thing to do. But the massive memorial today in Los Angeles which was broadcast live worldwide and viewed by millions is finally over. (Thousands more people came to Los Angeles from Japan, Scotland, Aftrica! just to stand outside on the sidewalk near where the memorial happened.) After almost two weeks of near saturation coverage of the death of a song and dance guy, maybe the frenzied, slavering networks can get back to their normal task of dispensing just their normal eyewash and brainless banalities. Instead of the unrelieved, breathless hype they've been spewing for days about this pop star. You would think they were covering the death of president or something. Only difference: the TV would not go on this long if it were a mere president. Nor would people be interested this long. There are people out there who have been watching TV about Michael ever since the guy died almost two weeks ago.

Here's what I say: Don't ponder too long what all this hoopla and solemnity over the death of a maladjusted pedophile freak might mean. Or what it says about our society. Might give you an Excedrin headache.

Wait a Second . . .

If I understand this correctly, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is moving its baseball tournament games from South Carolina to North Carolina for the years 2011-13 because of the Confederate flag? Oh, no . . . that's not exactly right. It's because the NAACP doesn't like the Confederate flag. Does that make it all better?

No, I don't think so. Apparently the thought of the Confederate flag in sight at the capitol in Columbia, SC, is so offensive to the sensibilities of our black brothers and sisters--at least those in the NAACP (and admittedly lots more)--that they cannot abide the thought of a baseball tournament even taking place within the boundaries of the state because of it. Background: the state heeded protests about the flag being flown at the capitol nine years ago; they took it down and displayed it at the Confederate memorial. But since it's still in sight, the NAACP is still not satisfied. They want the flag in a museum. South Carolina said no to this, and the NAACP has led a boycott against the state ever since.

Naturally in our oh so sensitive times when avoidance of offense to just about anybody--except fat people, they're still fair game--the ACC, given its obligatory "commitment to diversity, equality and human rights," pulled the plug on the tournament in South Carolina.

This is not a silly redneck screed on behalf of the Confederate flag, brothers and sisters. This is simply a lament that we've reached the point of utter silliness with this stuff. Why don't institutions take decisive action against some things that are genuinely offensive: the fact that 48 million people don't have health care in this country, that we put mentally disabled people out on the streets, that we're spending billions upon billions for war, that we treat the vast majority of people of color in this country like dogs, etc., etc. Being offended by these things doesn't do squat. But a flag from a war that's been over for almost 150 years . . . well, stop the damn presses. Call out the guard!

Evolution in Indiana

Evolution in Indiana

by Richard Cecil

I thought that species took ten thousand years
to gradually evolve new strategies
to deal with shifts in climate or environment,
but after two snow-free years in a row
the local robins all at once decided
to winter here instead of flying south.
I watched them pace my lawn in late November,
debating like small Hamlets with their instincts:
"It's way past time to migrate; why haven't I?"
Since, every fall, a few old feeble ones
decide they'd rather risk starvation here
than drop off dead of fatigue in Alabama,
at first I thought it was their kind I glimpsed
rummaging discarded Christmas trees
for grubs and squabbling with the greedy squirrels
stealing birdseed from my neighbor's feeder.
But then, one drizzly January walk,
I spotted dozens, looking sleek and healthy,
plucking worms who'd washed up on my sidewalk.
Why here, where I was forced to grub for money
all winter long, when they could fly away,
I wondered as they hopped out of my path.
Does flying hurt so much they'd rather shiver
and see the sun once every other week
than perch in palms swayed by an ocean breeze?
If I had wings, I'd use them…and on and on
I muttered as I trudged around the block
in pointless circles, just for exercise,
hands thrust into my pockets, arms tight to sides,
like some huge flightless bird, while overhead
the most successful members of my species
winged effortlessly southward in high Boeings
invisible from our side of the clouds —
we well-fed and hard-working flock of Dodos.

USA! (<===irony)

I was at a wedding today. Yes, I know, it's July 4th. Odd time for a wedding. But there it is. Some holiday observations:

• It's a terrible burden for me to be somewhere in a crowd of people whom I don't know. I'm not the least concerned about this in crowds at games, concerts, church, movies. It's not the crowd part that's uncomfortable for me. Not at all. It's the socializing part. A wedding reception is a social event. You sit at tables with people, and you have to talk to them. I have little or nothing to say to strangers, especially if . . .
  
• . . . the wedding reception has not one discernible drop of alcohol, save the champagne the bride and groom sipped oh so delicately as part of the severely scripted event. Everything was on a schedule. Let me say this about that: I come from south Louisiana, New Orleans and Baton Rouge. You don't have a gathering of more than three people down there without alcohol. And you would risk social ostracism and perhaps a visit from a shrink if you threw a wedding celebration without alcohol. Wedding receptions? Hell, these are over when they're over. It's certainly most unnatural to have a wedding reception on some kind of schedule: this special dance, cake cutting, toasts, another special dance, now we're going to have the bouquet toss . . . give me a break! Wedding receptions are supposed to be spontaneous and noisy. Loud music, loud people. At times today, you could have mistaken the gathering for a funeral.
• There are 84 houses in the little corner of suburbia I live in. A number of these are flying the flag today, of course. As you know, or might have guessed. I don't fly the flag. I think the flag is flown and waved way too much in this country. It's what defines our patriotism: waving the flag. I don't regard waving the flag, flying the flag, worshiping the flag, treating the flag like it was the Eucharist, as patriotism. Flags are symbols of the globe's national states. The national state is useless as a way of organizing people. By definition, it makes your nation superior to other nations. No one would think of saying that your race makes you superior to another, so why does another accident of birth make you superior? Patriotism has other unfortunate tendencies. It almost always stokes "love of country" to the point where you will kill somebody just because "your country" tells you to. But the point of this bullet is that of all the houses I could be residing next to, I reside next to a dude that's got a frigging flag pole that flies the flag every day. Every day. Today there are a slew of red, white, and blue decorations all over the yard in addition to the obligatory flag. USA! USA! USA!
• Ended the day watching a DVD of Richard Wagner's Sigfried--that's four hours to end the day. I don't know which is more compelling: the magnificent music or the desire you feel to have the story move along a lot faster than it does. Nothing is slower to happen than something substantial in a Wagnerian opera. And Sigfried is notoriously slow to get off the runway.
  

Don't Ask

Here is a question that you should not ask your spouse: "If I were an animal, what kind of animal would I be?" Now, mind you, when I put this question to my dearest one, it didn't occur to me to apply the maxim I'm so fond of quoting, to wit: don't ask the question if you can't stand the answer. Anyway, I don't really know what I expected she would say, but I can tell you this, it was not what I actually heard.

Question: If I were an animal, what kind of animal would I be?
Answer: A turtle.

I won't even go into the explanation of why this answer was, according to my spouse, exactly right. She was surprised at my negative reaction to this characterization. (See accompanying photo.) Upon reflection, I think I can think of at least 100 animals off the top of my head that I would rather be. This is one of those sayings that even with my wretched, truly wretched memory, I won't be forgetting.

Beautiful!

Do you like it? I just stumbled upon this. Fantastic!

Petri Dish for Wingnuttery

The title is a perfectly accurate description of the state legislature of Oklahoma. As a resident of this state, I must confess that any notice of Oklahoma politicians, local, state, or national, is embarrassing. Some of the things our illustrious senators have said border on outright gibberish. (See below) Yet these guys are perfectly representative of the population at large here in Indian Territory. Case in point: a resolution introduced by state rep Sally Kern--you wanna guess which party?--calling for an "Oklahoma Citizen's Proclamation for Morality." (This the same Sally Kern who says gays are a bigger threat to America than terrorists.) Which proclaims, as anyone with half a brain knows already it's so obvious, that the collapse of morality has caused the economic collapse of the U.S. Please allow me to quote from the proposed proclamation, which I really do hope passes so the rest of the country will again be treated to a dose of true 'Muricanism from right here in the Heartland:

WHEREAS, we believe our economic woes are consequences of our greater national moral crisis; and

WHEREAS, this nation has become a world leader in promoting abortion,
pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse, and
many other forms of debauchery; and . . . [so forth]

And while we're on the subject of idiots, that paragon of intelligence, the pride of the Sooner state, Senator James Inhofe, has announced that the legislative body which he disgraces by his presence every day is soon going to be getting "the clown from Minnesota." Can you believe this guy? Al Franken is a clown? This from a guy who compared people who believe in global warming to supporters of Hitler! and called Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth "science fiction." The guy who refuses to even meet with Supreme Court nominee Sotomajor, who goes on about how the Gitmo detainees have the opportunity for a free colonoscopy as well as better health care than they've ever had before. And this blithering moron has the gall to talk about a fellow U.S. senator as a "clown"?