The day the waves stopped crashing

Tuesday marked the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, a cataclysmic event for the communities surrounding Prince William Sound, Alaska. The local fishing industry was devastated; not to mention the wildlife that flocked there--salmon, sea otters, seals, seabirds. Roughly 11 million gallons of crude oil were spilled into the ocean when a massive oil tanker struck a reef. Apparently the ship was on auto pilot as the men who should have been steering it did exactly what anyone who had not been given a six-hour break between 12-hour shifts would have done--they slept. Prosecutors claimed they were drunk.



Riki Ott, a resident of the nearby fishing village of Cordova, wrote a book about the incident and appeared on Democracy Now! the other day. She spoke of fishing communities economically and spiritually bankrupt; a mayor that committed suicide...I found her words chillingly poetic:

We were worried that the oil—the killing would not stop in 1989, the scientists. It was a huge devastation. I couldn’t even go out on the beaches initially. I couldn’t take the emotional hit. People came back, the fishermen, and they said they had sat down on what they presumed was rock to cry, and it turned out to be like an oiled sea otter or something that was dying. There were just bodies everywhere. The oil in some of the bays was over three feet thick. You couldn’t even hear the sound of the waves crashing on the shoreline; everything was muted. Some of the oil, with the storm that came through—there was a huge storm that came through, and it just smeared oil up to forty feet high on some of our coastline—was in the trees. I mean, it just took animals out, and it was very, very quiet.

And the best picture of a former president from the 20th century award goes to...




The Gipper: camping it up in Vegas variety show. Isn't he fabulous? Bonus points for sporting PBR paraphernalia.

And no religion too

I read a column in the Christian Science Monitor last week that gives convincing reasons why the collapse of Christian evangelism is fast approaching. This made me extremely happy and greatly relieved. Not because I hate religion--I respect people who are kind and moral and claim to have a strong faith. Yet I can't help but despise those who are intolerant towards others who don't think exactly as they do, and what's worse, those who make their faith political. Evangelicals tend to be this way. I mean, the whole "Left Behind" series-toting, global warming-denying, George Bush-loving, Chicken Little apocalypse-fetishising Creationists have had their time to royally fuck up this country if not world for the past eight years. I propose euthanasia for these anemic ideas; followed by a proper burial.

Oneida, Ky. - We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

Reasons for this assessment:

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap ofbelieving in a cause more than a faith.

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up.

Hallelujah!

Little Lord Fontleroy

I'd like to start a new section of the old blog entitled "Irrelevant Victorian slang terms that you will never use." It shall begin with the concept of the "Little Lord Fontleroy," a name taken from the title character of a Victorian era children's book.

Wiki description:

The Fauntleroy suit, so well-described by [Frances Hodgson] Burnett and realized in Reginald Birch's detailed pen-and-ink drawings, created a major fad for formal dress for American middle-class children:

"What the Earl saw was a graceful, childish figure in a black velvet suit, with a lace collar, and with lovelocks waving about the handsome, manly little face, whose eyes met his with a look of innocent good-fellowship." (Little Lord Fauntleroy)

Alas, you can now in fact use this term. I came across a real-life Little Lord Fantleroy recently; his name is Arlo Weiner, and he is the son of Mad Men creator Matt Weiner, named after Arlo Guthrie.


This Little Lord is so cool at the ripe old age of eight years, I wish that I too were eight so that I could ravish him (is that so wrong?). I mean, to have Beck stalk you simply because you look so awesome walking down the street--there's something beyond cool about that. (See GQ article).

Tip of the hat to you, modern day Little Lord Fauntleroy!

With one fell swoop of the text

I have become my mother. Well, almost. She's always had this strange attachment to the characters in All My Children; and, recently, a friend who had to miss the latest episode of Big Love texted to ask about it. Here was my response:

"Nicky's affair has been made public and now she's in the dog house. Barb and Margine are real mad. Staying with her brother Albie, so you know she' s up to no good."

I feel a sudden rush of unease now. I am discussing fictional characters the way my mother talks about soap stars, or the way my father references the characters in Seinfeld.

Suck It, Mussolini

The economy in San Francisco is pretty bad right now. Now I'm no economics expert, but I did read that unemployment rates for my state were up to 8.7 percent in December. While just recently, I found that the national average went up to 8.1 percent--not sure how they were in December, but most likely a few percentage points below that. So once again, California has proven itself to be ahead of the pack.

So I've been doing a little house hunting lately. With all these people leaving the city, there are indeed housing bargains to be had. However, some people in this town didn't get the memo. And the Craigslist ads listing rooms for rent are still rife with fascist, crazed a-holes who think they can still give potential housemates a series of hoops to jump through in order to "consider" them.

The first room I ever lived in, in this city, was in a four-bedroom Victorian off of Haight almost three years ago. I lasted three months before the German cancer researcher (and I quote: "I won't get offended if you call me a cleaning Nazi!") and depressive struggling actress had a confrontation with me to kick me out. I was so sad, you guys; I felt really rejected. I asked them if I hadn't cleaned enough, or if I did something to offend them? They said "no." Their reply: "You just don't fit in" and "there's going to be a lot of turnover."

Lately, me and a friend have been comparing our room rental finds. Some of our favorites included an ad that was entitled: "Cool people--let's live together!" --while it gave very little details about the actual house and room, it did contain a collage of people the Craigslist ad creator thought looked "cool": a late 70s surfer dude with wavy highlighted hair on a skateboard, a band shot of some mod rockers, etc. It was weird. And apparently he swtiched the images around almost every day.

Another ad was put up by a married couple. They were strictly looking for a young bisexual woman and requested pictures. Below, a similar ad:

We are three friendly people who share a very large 4 bedroom Victorian flat in the lower Haight. One of us is a youthful older woman who is a body worker, the others are two forty-something men, one a student, the other a body worker.
We have varied schedules and busy lives, but enjoy a friendly atmosphere at home.
Two of us are bisexual and poly, so we'd like someone who is queer-friendly, meaning someone who gets it and won't make us feel like weirdos, even though we are weirdos, if that makes sense.

Right. I'm going to live with some weirdos while living in a state of denial that they are in fact weird. Got it...

Some people are such fascists that they don't even realize they are fascist because they probably don't understand the meaning of the word:

hi
this place have Comes \
Comes with electric kitchen, Dishwasher, garbage disposal and over the range microwave. Indoor Parking for a reserved garage spa
you will share with two korea room mate there both go to school and nice
this picture is you room !! (insert really ugly, terribly-lit room here)
asia only

Awww man, I really wanted the room, but unfortunately I'm not the world's largest and most populous continent and I don't cover more than 25 percent of the Earth's surface area!

And then this one--a true "diamond in the rough" of absurdly fascist Craigslist ads--popped up on the internets just today:

Hallo! Let's get to the skinny. Ideally, you are somewhere from between 30 to 40 years old. You are healthy and shower daily. You appreciate a nice living situation by being quiet during quiet hours (10 pm to 10 am), and you like to clean up after yourself always and after others occasionally. You are not a TV couch potato and have a life. You are not a Bush neo-con supporter and recognize that even Obama has his hands tied by the corrupt party that nominated him. In other words, you'r not clueless and blindly patriotic. NO drug abusers beyond the occasional spliff (that means NO daily pot heads), no alcoholics, no TV couch potatoes will be tolerated. I need to stress this b/c you won't last a week if you say you are one thing but you are not. This is a trial period for you as a housemate. Also, and I stress, I am looking for a NON-SMOKER.

Please tell me about yourself: your age, your work and length of employment there, your waking and sleeping hours on weekdays and weekends, your noise level, your interests, your former residence and city. Send photos or online profile if you like.
First month, last month and a $400 deposit required and I might ask to see proof of income and savings...We are all mellow, respectful, quiet in the mornings and nights, clean and responsible. You must be, too. No posers, please. Again, NO drug abusers beyond the occasional spliff (that means NO daily pot heads), no alcoholics, no TV couch potatoes will be tolerated. I need to stress this b/c you won't last a week if you say you are one thing but you are not. I am also looking for a NON-SMOKER because we've got one who smokes (outside only) and is trying to quit. Feel free to include photos of yourself, a profile or of anything creative you've done. Oh yeah, you must love or at the very least enjoy a small and sweet Dachshund perrito who weighs only 15 pounds. He is all love and is part of the household as much as we are. Alas, that means no more pets so those of you who are inextricably tied to your pets must look elsewhere.
Again, first and last month plus $400 required. That's $1500 plus $400 = $1900. Don't break anything and you'll get all your deposit minus owed utilities. Write Ben at the address above. Move-in date is the 8th of October.

October! Ha! Seven months away, good luck you sweet bastard! Aww gee, I can't wait to tell you about myself. I'm sure we have so much in common! Do you accept political theory essays about the elitist Left and the hypocritical culture of moderates? Because I have one up my ass somewhere...er, lemme just try to find it...OMG Dachshund perritos are my FAV! City dogs that yap all day are the greatest! Now I know you just asked me for my work and sleep hours for both the week and weekend, but can I tell you more? Like, I think you should know my kitchen hours--how long the average meal, the average snack (midnight snacks not included (-;) and oh, I would love to calculate the average time I spend both on the toilet and in the shower per week--month if needed.

I look forward to seeing this ad up for months until these a-holes finally given in and accept a (shock! horror!) COUCH POTATO! Ooohhhnoooo!

Suck it, Mussolini!

Blast from the Past

I spent over five years as a student and resident in Santa Cruz, California--a little dabbling in the extremely liberal arts here; a little reporting for the local newspaper there. I felt I knew that city well.

Nevertheless, it was so shocking to see the following montage of "public comment" before the city council and board of supervisors recently.

Welcome to the patients-running-the-asylum bubble town that is Santa Cruz. Around the time I moved there, the mayor was giving away medical marijuana on the steps of city hall, a former Black Panther lectured at the university, and there was a spot in the middle of the woods where the center of gravity went awry ("The Mystery Spot"--they still give tours). The Daily Show had reported there twice, once referring to it as a town with "more dreadlocked white men per capita" than any other place in the nation.

And as for the city's politics, Santa Cruz had out-progressived Berkeley by several initiatives, making them look more akin to Orange County than your typical liberal college town. Among them: impeaching former president Bush, and immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq. Welcome to the circus:

Cuteness Showdown: Kitten v Japan's finance minister

Kitten?




or a drunken Shoichi Nakagawa?



Which one's cuter? It's a battle of the adorable! Bonzai!

The Science of Hell

Supposedly a student at the University of Washington came up with a most profound explanation as to whether Hell is endothermic or exothermic. In response to a bonus question on his Chemistry mid-term, the student wrote:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave.

Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, thenthe temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you, and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."

Wow, reading about the "afterlife" in scientific terms really magnifies the absurdity of the concept.

So glad I don't live in Montgomery

Because if I did, I would allow this man to sell me all his furniture as I danced my cares away.

Shepard Fairey picture subject of copyright heat

From the NYT:

In a pre-emptive strike, the street artist Shepard Fairey filed a lawsuit on Monday against The Associated Press, asking a federal judge to declare that he is protected from copyright infringement claims in his use of a news photograph as the basis for a now ubiquitous campaign poster image of President Obama.

What really gets me is this quote, from the photographer whose photo provided the template for the artwork:

“If you put all the legal stuff away, I’m so proud of the photograph and that Fairey did what he did artistically with it, and the effect it’s had.”

--so the photographer, Garcia, is neither mad nor offended by the image's use. And the AP's impending lawsuit isn't frivolous because...?

Michael Cera does Christian Bale

Wait, that sounds rude...I mean, he does an awesome impression of Bale flipping out on the set:

Illustration of a handmaid from Atwood's book

Religious leaders+a zealot president=human rights violation

That's my equation for what is going on with Eluana Englaro, the 38 year-old Italian woman who has been in a coma for 17 years and could stay that way forever if Silvio Berlusconi and the Vatican have anything to say about it.

This is like Italy's Terry Shiavo. Only, fortunately for this woman and her family who want nothing more than for her to die with dignity--to die the way she would have chosen to--the doctors are moving forward with her food rationing and letting her go, as the Italian supreme court had ruled in favor of.

What angers me most are these absurd comments made by Berlusconi:

"This is murder. I would be failing to rescue her. I'm not a Pontius Pilate."

--yeah, and she's not a Jesus, so get over it!

He also stated that Englaro was "in the condition to have babies."

--unbelievable. This is like Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, reducing a woman to indentured servitude to the State, simply because men in power like to control women's bodies en masse. The right to control her own body (or, in Englaro's case, how her family would control it) is not considered a civil right, after all, she's still fertile!

Again, as with my previous abortion rant, I must ask--what would happen if Englaro was a man? When one notices the double standard, we are left with an issue of women's rights. This "right to life" argument is just smoke and mirrors, a way to avoid the real topic at hand.

Free Eluana Englaro!

Liveblogging: a reading of "Lee Atwater's Last Campaign"

Right now I've got, in my hot little hands, a copy of LIFE magazine from February 1991. Inside of it, there is an article written by Lee Atwater, political adviser to Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush (later to become chairman of the RNC). Two months after this article was published, Atwater would die of a brain tumor.

Atwater was responsible for Dukakis's defeat against Bush I in 1988, when he decided to exploit the fact that Dukakis backed a furlough program in Massachusetts that saw convicted murderer Willie Horton rape and kill while out of prison. Atwater had attack ads run in the hopes of, in his words, "making Willie Horton a household name." Soon, the public was associating Dukakis with Horton. It worked, Bush I won.

So here we have a pretty good idea of the roots of neocon political strategy: exploit middle class fears of blacks and you have an economic foundation for cutting social spending, as well as a tangible target for fear and hate.

The following is an excerpt from Southern Politics in the 1990s :

Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn’t have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he’s campaigned on since 1964… and that’s fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster...

Questioner: But the fact is, isn’t it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps...?

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can't say “nigger”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

This ad that cost Dukakis the presidency, and, in my opinion, paved the way for the future ideologue prince that is Bush II:



Atwater had two high profile disciples: Tucker Eskew and Karl Rove. Eskew has been linked to the McCain/Palin strategy of smearing Obama by accusing him of "palling around with terrorists." I don't even need to get started on Karl Rove.

The rise and fall of this sinister, Machiavellian henchman is nearly operatic in its theatrical element; the LIFE article the only significant account of the man behind the legacy. In his own words, Atwater highlights his accomplishments, as well as the ugly remorse he held with him to his death bed.

And how, I shall read through it and break it down:

9:42: The article begins stretching over two pages, Atwater's massive, bloated face stretches across 1 1/2 pages with the title to the left of his gargatuan head. It appears that Atwater is looking into a sunset, with a crosshatch pattern of dark bars falling against his chin and darkening half of his face. This both brings out his turquoise blue peepers to make him look steely, and suggests that he is in some kind of prison. A prison of the mind, with no furlough in sight, haha!

9:46: His writing begins by talking about his awesome accomplishments before hitting the age of 40: managing a winning presidential campaign, and getting the chairmanship of the RNC. (At this point the reader is supposed to think, "whoa, this dude is so important. I better read about him!")

9:50: Atwater on top of the world, wife is preggers, what a MAN! Successful in every way! What cajones!

9:51: Recounts how he started spasming at a fundraising event and knew something was deeply wrong when he couldn't feel the left side of his body. Ironically, Atwater was trash-talking Dukakis at the time of spasing out, comparing him to "Rocky Squirrel" (whoever the hell that is).

I'm no god-believer, but you'd think the "man upstairs' was trying to tell Atwater something (perhaps something to the effect of, "Stop being evil, asshole! Or I shall punish thee for thy toxic tongue!")

9:55: Medical stuff. You must know the heartache, the intricacies of the doctors' visits, oh the horror! The horror! A "roller coaster of good news and bad news."

9:57: And I quote: "Though I've cried many times during the past year, that day I tried to be strong. 'Never underestimate your enemy,' I said, shaking my head." --wow. Confusing a brain tumor with Democrats. Sorry dude, but no attack ad can squash the grim reaper. *Also note, what a man! Of course he didn't cry when faced with his own mortality. What a man.

10:00: More medical details: decides to do some sort of experimental process whereby tubes or straws or something are inserted into the brain to inject some toxic gunk. Weird. Oh, a Plato quote! What a man of letters!

10:03: ...blah blah...."I had listened to the pundits of traditional Western medicine." --everybody's a pundit!...weird, he saw some Tibetans that told him to eat more herbs. This is why Tibetans aren't considered proper medical doctors in this country.

10:04: He watched movies to make him feel better--a little laugh therapy--oh and he lists them: Redneck Zombies and Hillbillies in a Haunted House are favs.

10:06: Daughter impersonates Oprah and does a mock interview, she is 11. Dan Quail makes a visit and it is surreal.

10:08: Moving back in time now, rant on personal politics. Atwater fancies himself a revolutionary--the 60s and 70s hippie liberal movement somehow didn't speak to him; it offended him.

10:09: Three books of inpsiration: Plato's Republic, Machiavelli's The Prince, and Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Wow, this man is just full of surprsies.

10:12: Third spread of pages now, note, there have been all sorts of pathetic pictures of this man in his hosptial bed all bloated. He likes to wear old school New Balance tennies. Oddly I want to purchase a pair.

10:13: Name-dropping visitors. Mrs. Bush visits him regularly because he is special.

10:15: Rediscovers Jesus. Previously had called himself Christian but never went to church or picked up the bible. I have a hard time conceptualizing a neocon that I am more religious than, but it's true.

10:16: "A group of young black kids came to visit their pal, a gunshot victim, and I talked to them about what is important in life...I felt someone else drawing me into the arena, someone else speaking my words for me..." Whoa. Heavy. This is the only moment in the reading that I am wanting him to have lived. Imagine if he went with this thought and became a civil rights leader or something? What if he used his evil powers for good?

10:19:The remorse is beginning to show. Quotes himself in '80 when launching a campaign against Democrat Tom Turnipseed, who had psychological problems and underwent electroshock therapy: "I'm not going to respond to allegations made by someone who was hooked up to jumper cables." --crap this man was evil. Also, when attacking Dukakis, said that he "would strip the bark off the little bastard" and "make Willie Horton his running mate."

10:22: Revelation: politics and human relationships are separate. Admits that he personally despised politicians he attacked professionally.

10:25: Moment drawing near. Funeral discussions.

10:26: Quoting Sun Tzu's quote about drawing enemies near. Finally realizes that cancer is not the same enemy as a Democrat.

10:27: More specifics about his physical pain and overcoming, blah blah...

10:29: "My illness helped me to see what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood." Talks of going beyond partisan politics. Amazing that it takes facing death to come to this recognition.

10:30: Ooh ooh! Commentary about the gluttony of the '80s, all about "acquiring"...here's a quote for the modern times: "I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul."

10:33: Okay, conclusion time. He now has a "fourth favorite book," has a few mantras about courage, likes to have his driver cruise around Capitol Hill so he can watch all the suits scurry about. Very sad indeed.

Oh snap!

For my second installment of snaps, I would like to revisit a time, two years ago, when I attended a talk and screening with Crispin Glover, author and actor best known for his role as George McFly in Back to the Future.

Glover held a screening of a film he had wrote, directed, starred in entitled, "What Is It?" at the Castro Theatre here in San Francisco. It is described, via IMDB, as "The adventures of a young man whose principle interests are snails, salt, a pipe, and how to get home. As tormented by an hubristic, racist inner psyche." This film features: nude female porn stars wearing animal heads, music by Charles Manson, a talking snail, and--most controversially--a lead character played by an actor with Down Syndrome. As of yet, the only way to see this film is to attend a talk with Crispin Glover himself, which allows for a slide show and Q and A session. I hope it stays that way. At least his acting career will be salvaged if it's never released.

While I actually sat through the entire film, I couldn't get through the Q and A because I was so angry and disappointed at Crispin Glover. When someone asked him what he would say to charges that the use of Down Sydrome actors was exploitative, he said that he talked to an audience of people who had Down Syndrome and they were happy to see others like them on the screen. He even told the audience that he is friends with the lead actor, and knows a lot of people in that community. That is when I walked out. I was indulging in an enormous amount of open mindedness up until that point. This is what I would have wanted to say to him:

I'm sorry, but will all due respect you as an artist, your justification for using people with Down Syndrome is complete bullshit. My question is, Mr.Glover, are you conscientiously trying to give the cliche excuse of "I'm not a racist, some of my best friends are black"? Down Syndrome people are not black people, Mr. Glover, they are mentally vulnerable and it is more than possible that they have no concept of being exploited when they are. In my opinion, you've done a really stupid thing here. I know the point is that you're trying to be thought-provoking, an agitator of incendiary symbology in a surrealist context to place you in line with the elite of the American avant-garde. But you're no Harmony Korine, or David Lynch for that matter. You should go back to making Charlie's Angels movies, amatuer.

Hallelujah

for Maira Kalman and her NYT "And the Pursuit of Happiness" column:

You know there's something wrong in the world

When an appeal for humanity is labeled political by the BBC (emphasis mine):

London - Britain's public service broadcaster, the BBC, is facing unprecedented criticism for refusing to broadcast an emergency fundraising appeal for people living in the Gaza Strip.

Long used to winning plaudits for the quality of its journalism, staff at the 97-year-old institution have become accustomed to allegations of left- or right-wing bias.

However, even many BBC journalists are furious at a decision by senior management not to air the appeal this week by an umbrella grouping of 13 charity organizations including the British Red Cross and Save the Children.

The appeal to help Palestinians facing homelessness and hunger following the Israeli onslaught in the Gaza Strip was broadcast Monday night by three rival broadcasters – Channel 4, ITV, and Five – although not by Sky News, which is owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

Mark Thompson, BBC's director general, said he could not permit the BBC to endanger its impartiality by appearing to endorse an appeal for the victims on one side of a complicated conflict.

"For us to broadcast such a thing would in my view be out of keeping with our strict duty to be impartial," he told one of the BBC's radio channels.

The two-minute appeal, which went out on Monday night, began with images of child victims from Gaza.

A narrator said: "The children of Gaza are suffering. Many are struggling to survive, homeless, and in need of food and water. ... Today, this is not about the rights and wrongs of the conflict. These people simply need your help."

Latest Palestinian death toll: around 1,400. Israeli death toll: 13.

The State of my heart

Tomorrow I'm going to see a live reunion tribute show to The State, a sketch comedy program that had quite an impact on my teenage drama nerd days of the mid-90s, and I'm incredibly excited.

I would describe the show as a hybrid of Monty Python and Kids in the Hall--but it was so very original, so brilliant in essence. We used to reenact key sketches and impersonate the characters all the time in my high school drama class. (To this day I get one of those "I'm not so sure I trust or could ever really like you on a personal level" kind of feelings about people whenever they badmouth the show, or the best comedy movie in the world, Wet Hot American Summer).

It was the tail end of the "grunge era," and MTV was still relevant. Liquid Television and all things "indie" were embraced without seeming exploitative. It was fertile soil for an absurd, experimental sketch comedy show like The State to come around. It would never be given a chance in today's jaded, reality-television obsessed youth market, but I do find comfort in the fact that cast members have cropped up in some of the best, most original tv and movie projects available over the past decade: Wet Hot American Summer, Stella, Reno 911, The Ten, et al--all of these were written, directed and/or starring members of The State.

And although, in my own little teenage world, the show went leaps and bounds beyond all predictable, mainstream shows like SNL, the humor never seemed to break into the mainstream. After two years, The State went off the air. I just assumed the humor didn't resonate with the humorless masses and it was canceled. But apparently, as I later discovered, they actually sold out to CBS, where they created a Halloween special featuring Sonic Youth, but then weren't opted for further episodes.



While it's upsetting that the original 11 cast members couldn't keep on performing as a unit, the ways in which they manage to crop up in various projects is always a surprise and pure joy for me. And as a testament to their timeless originality and cult appeal, they are working on a State movie for Comedy Central. There is also a DVD of all the of the episodes that may be released one day, however, MTV shelved it for unknown reasons and won't release it--yet.

Here's one of my favorite sketches, one that me and some friends recreated in drama class (ah the good old days, when everyone thought they were going to grow up to be a movie star):

Michael Ian Black and Thomas Lennon performing "Monkey Torture"

Rolling Stone recently interviewed a few of the cast members about their upcoming reunion in my fair city:

What does the Great Recession of '09 mean to comedy and the State?

Black: It's good for comedy. I mean, people are miserable, they want to laugh.

Lennon: We actually have a really wonderful sketch in the SF show called "The Great Depression" and it's really sort of a charming, Hallmark Hall of Fame scene about a family that's trying to decide whether or not they should eat their baby.

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Nine members of the cast did a dress rehearsal of this new show in March 2008. How has time affected your writing and delivery?

Marino: I'm happy to say that our material has not matured at all. It's the same stupid fun stuff I hope.

Black: It really comes down to "are we making each other laugh?" and if we are doing that, then it goes on the show. To me it's just a really personal voice, in the way that retarded monkeys are personal.

Well, retarded monkeys are hilarious.

Black: I agree. I've made my career on that very premise.

I just thought of a good snap

I have decided to add a new section to this blog, one that I shall entitle "I just thought of a good snap." As in, a really good comeback to some issue or person that really chaps my hide. Today, on the 36th anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision, I would like to address the anti-women's rights/anti-civil liberties/anti-reproductive freedom demonstrators that are flooding D.C.:

Hey idiots, count your blessings that the media for some strange reason chooses to give you the microphone and positions you at the top of the news priority list for the entire day even though your crazed evangelistic, backwards folkloric ways only represent a minority of the many belief systems practiced in this country. Your opinions, however impassioned and however entitled you are to them under this great nation, are also things you should count your blessings for--these basic human rights of expression. Because if it were up to you and your oppressively barbaric ways, you would strip very similar human rights from women who are not anti-life, but rather, are placed in very dire situations that involve their bodies and hearts and minds completely. And you want hand over the very basic right to be in control of one's body to the government? Because you have a definition of what it is to be human? Well I've got my own definition of what it means to be human: respecting the rights of people to control their own bodies. Here, I've got another: respecting the idea that every person that is born into this world should be given the opportunity to an equal shot at a basic quality of life. That every person born should not be birthed from a woman who was raped, a woman who was molested or a victim of incest, a woman in a third world country that cannot provide for a child and will end up dying or enduring the pain of watching a child starve because they cannot provide for them, a woman with a severe mental or physical condition that is not capable of raising a child, a young and/or underage woman who's chance at going to college or providing for herself will be shot to hell...YOU anti-choice bible thumpers demean and cheapen human life. YOU ARE NOT PRO-LIFE.
P.S.: if men could get pregnant, abortion would be legal. AND YOU KNOW IT!

Oh snap.

Words and action

Obama signing off on orders to close all secret prisons and detention camps, and to close Guantanamo within the year. (NYT)

This image made me teary-eyed. President Obama's speech the other day did not, however. Words can be beautiful things, but words put to action are something magical.

JFK's Speechwriter on Obama today

Ted Sorensen, of "Ask not what your country can do for you" fame, gives his interpretation of today's inauguration and speech to the Guardian:

My experience is that great speeches are frequently in the eye of the beholder: Obama is so respected, even beloved, around the world that I think the speech will be hailed.

I have been speaking for two years of the parallels between Obama and Kennedy: two young senators, Kennedy even younger than Obama, two men committed to peace. Two men with progressive domestic policies and a multilateral foreign policy. Two men who reached out to young people and brought them into the campaign, and now, in Obama's case, bringing them into government.

President Kennedy, I am sure, would be beside himself with joy at today's events, having turned our country around in its attitudes towards our black citizens, with his speech to the nation, and then his legislation to Congress in June 1963.

The very idea of a black man being elected president, when in those days blacks could not be elected to almost any office, including the House of Representatives; he would think it was a wonderful day for America

Happy MLKJr Day of Service Inauguration Eve!

So I decided to do some gardening at the Island of Alcatraz for this fine volunteer day (i.e. national "Day of Service"). That is, since my employers are not racists and understand the importance of taking an entire day off in reverence of the great King. Anyways. Working through the Golden Gate Parks service, I joined about 60 volunteers in vegetation management duties. After four groups were sent to various spots (I would later kick myself for failing to join the Agave Trail group, who got to work on one of the most recently renovated areas to the south, facing the city) I was assigned to weeding ye 'ole rose garden on the shady east side of the compound. Shady as in there was a lack of sun, not as in, there were rastafarians trying to sell us ecstacy. While the flower bed I worked on did not contain roses, there were a few areas with rose bushes where, for seasonal reasons, the flowers had yet to bloom. My team leader said that no one has seen the roses bloom since the Penitentiary closed in '63. The island, or "Rock," became a park in 1972, yet no one has seen the roses bloom since there hadn't been enough money to revitalize the gardens until more recently. By the summer, park service men and women will finally see them bloom--which, according to my team leader, is going to be a real treat since they will probably be of some outdated 50s variety that you just don't see nowadays.

I leaned over the bed, reflective in my silence for a while as I ripped clovers and dandelion leaves from rich dark soil. I later began picking my team leader's brain. I found out that she lived in London around the same time as me, working at Kew Gardens. I also found out that she has found molded spoons in other gardens on Alcatraz, and that a maintenance man found a shiv in a drain pipe once. A few minutes later, someone found a rusty old oyster fork buried in the dirt. I frantically began ripping the little green buddies harder and digging deeper. I really wanted to find a shiv. 'By god if only I could find a shiv' I thought. It's probably best that I didn't find one, because I would probably keep it for myself and forget about it and find it hidden under a pile of post-it notes and collages and half-finished greetings cards in a desk drawer a few years later, forget what it was, and toss it out. I am like the anti-Indiana Jones. "This doesn't belong in a musem! It belongs with me!"

After about three hours of gardening, it was time to call it quits and we were all satisfied, having weeded and ripped it up so nicely that a massive flower bed looked barren and brown, dirt brown. It looked really ugly, but somehow made us all feel real good.

Unbeknownst to me and my fellow volunteers, we would soon be greeted by a park ranger that wanted to take us all on a special guided tour. He took us into the Pen, where we were able to walk near the cell blocks on the second floor, in caged corridors and to the prison's mini-chapel, guard's recreation room, and later up to the rooftop. It was a great tour, filled with anecdotes about the Indian occupation from '69-'71. I took a picture of some graffiti in the chapel and asked what it was; he told me it was probably from the wild parties that were held during the occupation. The IWW, the Hells' Angels, Jane Fonda--it could have been anybody. It was in blood red and I spotted a soviet symbol and a swastika. Jane Fonda probably did it.

Towards the end of our tour, our friendly park ranger guide said it was his great pleasure to give us this tour, and that he was very excited today. And the way he said it was so funny--he used almost the same exact words that our volunteer organizer from the beginning of the morning had used: "I'm not getting political...but...this is an exciting time for us. This is and exciting time for America."

Bush: a "good person"

According to a Fox News poll:

A 72 percent majority of Americans believe Bush is a good person, including an overwhelming majority of Republicans (93 percent) as well as majorities of Democrats (56 percent) and independents (74 percent).

--and by "a good person" the pollsters must mean "will smile and pat you on the back (massage your neck if a female European leader) and offer you a beer while he strips away your civil liberties, deregulates markets until--in the blink of an eye--you have lost your job and are homeless, keeps your son/daughter/husband/wife/mother or father of your child/neighbor/friend in the desert until they come back (if they do not die) with PTSD or missing limbs and no programs to support their recovery, rapes and pillages the environment to pad the pockets of said buddies yet again, denies the validity of modern science, common sense and just plain rational thought.

Funny how the mouthpiece of the administration has become just as lame as the lame duck itself.

I live in California. Hallelujah.

CNN(yesterday):

In Minneapolis, Minnesota, it felt like 40 below because of the wind chill, CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano said. It was 48 below in Fargo, North Dakota, where unprotected fingers could suffer frostbite in 60 seconds.

This morning, my mom checks in from northern Indiana, takes a picture of her street sign:



Isn't it ironic, donchaknow?

Part three of a youtube series on Minnesota weather hell:

An idea to save our economy

Using the new Los Angeles model of prosecuting gang members--which involves confiscating the assets of gangs and investing that money back into the community--I think the new administration should prosecute all the private military corporations like Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater, DynCorp et al on war crimes, bankrupt the hell out of them, and give all our local municipalities community economic packages from the billion dollar settlements. It's our taxes being wasted on this Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction scam, and I think we have every right to reclaim them.

From the CSM:

Los Angeles - The gang capital of the world is taking a new tack against them: cash damages.

The city of Los Angeles, plagued by 23,000 violent gang crimes since 2004, including 784 murders and 12,000 felony assaults, announced Tuesday that it had won its first civil judgment, for $5 million, against a criminal gang that had dominated the heroin trade downtown for decades.

The verdict could bode well for another first-of-its-kind lawsuit the city filed last month that goes after all assets of gang leaders, not just those associated with their criminal activity. Both suits seek to plow the money back into improving the neighborhoods affected by the gangs through a fund.

"By giving prosecutors more tools to fight gang activity at the local level, we are protecting our communities at the same time [that] we're able to strengthen our statewide anti-gang efforts," said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a statement released with the announcement of the $5 million verdict against the 5th and Hill gang in L.A.

From CNN:

Five former Blackwater Worldwide security guards pleaded not guilty Tuesday to voluntary manslaughter charges and other crimes stemming from a shooting incident in Baghdad that left 17 Iraqis dead.

Each of the former guards has been charged with 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempted manslaughter and one count of using a firearm in the commission of a violent crime.

...The Baghdad incident, which occurred September 16, 2007, exacerbated the feelings of many Iraqis that private American security contractors have operated since 2003 with little regard for Iraqi law or life. It also created an extremely delicate political situation for the Bush administration and the Iraqi government.

...The company of Blackwater Worldwide does not face any charges.

Exercise:

1. Read the article about the LA model and then read about Blackwater. Notice the similarities in gang members and military corporations--they're both thugs, terrorizing, killing, and injuring innocent bystanders. Replace all phrases such as "criminal gang" "gang leaders" "gang members" etc with "private contractors" "military corporations" "war profiteers" etc etc.

2. Read this Amnesty International report.

3. Get real mad.

For those about to rock, I salute you

From CSM:

(JAPAN)The latest sensation on the baseball diamond here is a five-foot-tall, 114-pound, dimpled high school girl who throws a nasty knuckle ball.

Eri Yoshida, who left a line of male batters hitless in tryouts in November, recently signed on to become the first woman to play in professional baseball in Japan. Her drafting into pro ball has catapulted her from little-known high school jock to media darling, with camera crews following her daily rounds from calligraphy class to the dugout. Clips of her quirky side-armed pitch seem to be stock footage on nightly sports and news programs.

Yoshida’s spot on the bench of the new team, the Kobe 9 Cruise in the Kansai Independent League, which launches its inaugural season in April, has many women here hoping that she is more pioneer than token.

“She is a symbol of the changing status of women in Japan,” says Machiko Osawa, an economist at Japan Women’s University and an expert on women in the workplace. “She’s been accepted in sports, a very conservative world.”

Indeed, the United Nations’ Development Fund consistently ranks Japan as the most unequal of the world’s richest countries when it comes to gender equality. Women are not only barred from participating in Japan’s national sport, sumo wrestling, they can’t even step foot into the sumo ring, which is considered sacred and, therefore, off limits. Japan’s other national pastime, Kabuki theater, also remains an exclusively male domain.

Barack in the day



From Time photos, "Obama: The College Years"

Greetings from the O.C., China

45 min outside of Beijing, right next to Vancouver Forest

...when I ask a resident, Tong Xiaobo, about the appeal of the development, he explains that the American lifestyle represents health and freedom. What about it, exactly, is healthy, I ask. In America, after all, we associate suburban sprawl with the sedentary lifestyle that has led to our national obesity epidemic. The healthy aspect of the design that stood out, Tong explains, was having a bathroom next to the bedroom. Traditional Chinese homes have only one bathroom, shared by all the residents. Orange County’s homes boast lavish bathrooms adjoining the master bedroom complete with his-and-hers sinks and a Jacuzzi. Tong extolled the additional bathroom as “an innovation in construction and design [that] represents modern health.” He then lit up a cigarette. Having explained what he meant by “health,” I pressed him to explain what he meant by “freedom.” He simply ignored the question.

--from "Welcome to the O.C." (Good magazine)

Frank Rich's Bush Farewell

Rich is a poetical columnist/propaganda fighter unleashing hyperlinks that burst like cannons through the hot air of the cyber ether. I took the time to reconnect all of the links to the right places at the last sentence of this excerpt. This week's column is a real gem; worth reading the whole thing to see the meticulous placement of links in the piece's entirety.

From "A President Forgotten but Not Gone":

The joke was on us. Iraq burned, New Orleans flooded, and Bush remained oblivious to each and every pratfall on his watch. Americans essentially stopped listening to him after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, but he still doesn’t grasp the finality of their defection. Lately he’s promised not to steal the spotlight from Barack Obama once he’s in retirement — as if he could do so by any act short of running naked through downtown Dallas. The latest CNN poll finds that only one-third of his fellow citizens want him to play a post-presidency role in public life.

Bush is equally blind to the collapse of his propaganda machinery. Almost poignantly, he keeps trying to hawk his goods in these final days, like a salesman who hasn’t been told by the home office that his product has been discontinued. Though no one is listening, he has given more exit interviews than either Clinton or Reagan did. Along with old cronies like Karl Rove and Karen Hughes, he has also embarked on a Bush “legacy project,” as Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard described it on CNN.

To this end, Rove has repeated a stunt he first fed to the press two years ago: he is once again claiming that he and Bush have an annual book-reading contest, with Bush chalking up as many as 95 books a year, by authors as hifalutin as Camus. This hagiographic portrait of Bush the Egghead might be easier to buy were the former national security official Richard Clarke not quoted in the new Vanity Fair saying that both Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, had instructed him early on to keep his memos short because the president is “not a big reader.”

Another, far more elaborate example of legacy spin can be downloaded from the White House Web site: a booklet recounting “highlights” of the administration’s “accomplishments and results.” With big type, much white space, children’s-book-like trivia boxes titled “Did You Know?” and lots of color photos of the Bushes posing with blacks and troops, its 52 pages require a reading level closer to “My Pet Goat” than “The Stranger.”

This document is the literary correlative to “Mission Accomplished.” Bush kept America safe (provided his presidency began Sept. 12, 2001). He gave America record economic growth (provided his presidency ended December 2007). He vanquished all the leading Qaeda terrorists (if you don’t count the leaders bin Laden and al-Zawahri). He gave Afghanistan a thriving “market economy” (if you count its skyrocketing opium trade) and a “democratically elected president” (presiding over one of the world’s most corrupt governments). He supported elections in Pakistan (after propping up Pervez Musharraf past the point of no return). He “led the world in providing food aid and natural disaster relief” (if you leave out Brownie and Katrina).

If this is the best case that even Bush and his handlers can make for his achievements, you wonder why they bothered. Desperate for padding, they devote four risible pages to portraying our dear leader as a zealous environmentalist.

But the brazenness of Bush’s alternative-reality history is itself revelatory. The audacity of its hype helps clear up the mystery of how someone so slight could inflict so much damage. So do his many print and television exit interviews.

The town fool sings to me.

Tropical Christmas, take two

Tomorrow I depart for Costa Rica for eight days. This will be the second tropical Christmas/hunt for dad's new retirement community I will have endured. He assures me this year won't be like last year's "journey into the heart of Dominica's darkness" (as I refer to it).

Dominica, for those not familiar, is one of the most rural of the Caribbean islands. The rain forests comprise more land mass per acre than any of the other islands, and it is the only island with a Caribe indian reservation. In my father's words, it is "not safe for whitey," i.e., there are no major hotel resorts and it is not a popular stop for cruise ships. From a distance this seemed like the idyllic retreat for him. But what we discovered, upon arrival, was a very rugged terrain and a lot of discomfort. Every beach took at least 45 minutes to hike to, and the roads were so narrow, the cliffs so very treacherous, that we constantly struggled just to get around.

After a few days, the daily dose of mortal fear was getting me down. One time, while in the car, my father remarked while speeding through a hairpin turn and nearly colliding with an oncoming van whose windows were brimming with villagers: "Wow honey, with all them hail mary's, I'd think you were turning Catholic on me!" I'll never forget how he laughed as I contemplated the cliffs and ravines to my right, whose only barrier was a bamboo fence and bright yellow caution tape.

The following is a list of random notes from our trip. The only notes I took:

- driving down Dominican roads is as thrilling as a jungle safari; instead of the threat of wild animals, you have the fear of head-on collisions and driving into ditches or off of cliffs.

- I think I heard a woman assaulted and/or killed last night. The Belgiums denied hearing anything the next morning, but I could tell they were lying.

- the buzzing and chirping of insects, the rooster calls, and the mangy dog barks drown out the human presence. But when a man yells he can be heard a mile away.

- the fan makes a galluping sound. Where is it leading me?

- passionfruit is much more passionate here.

- the villagers are like helpful zombies that don't want to eat at you, all they want to do is stare.

- i was serenaded by the "town fool" (local boozer) tonight, that is, until I backed away from the balcony and he started yelling out "bitch" to me.

- "travel" comes from the word "travail."

- the percussion of soft rain is overwhelming yet of some comfort.

- parrots show yourselves!

- I will find a good man one day.


Happy Holidays!