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10/31/2006
A Cautionary Tale
Once upon a time there was a nation with enemies. The enemies were punks and cowards. The good president protected the people at the risk of bodily harm to thousands and thousands of other people. In fact, his protection cost more lives than it saved. But this was OK because he was the good president.
One day there was an election. The wrong party won and everyone was killed or tortured or made to wear burkas the very next day. The good president and his assistant, the good vice president said, "See I told you!"
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10/30/2006
Taking a nibble of the Big Apple
Hi kids,
I'm away. I've spent today and yesterday in the Big Apple. When I get back to Pittsburgh I'll post some pictures of my visit. Yesterday we went to the Frick Art Museum and today, the Guggenheim. Unless you love modern art I don't recommend the Guggenheim, even with it's small collection of French Impressionists and Van Goghs. PRETENTIOUS BULLSHIT!
We walked about a million miles and I lost my hat in a gale force wind. We paid too much for everything we bought unless it was off a street vendor and I bought gifts back for all my readers ... NOT! ... But I would like to buy the world a coke and keep it company. After all, it is the REAL thing.
I haven't read a paper or listened to a news show in two plus days and I've discovered that ignorance is indeed bliss, but only in a fools paradise, so don't get excited.
We saw dogs on the Upper East Side that eat better than most of the world's population. That's OK, this is the land of milk bones and honey and even here, money can't buy me love. (Not when I'm accompanied by my wife anyway.)
I'll see you soon, we'll talk more on Tuesday! Love, keep the faith! Gene
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10/26/2006
Sick-up and fed
A litte more Borat for your listening and viewing pleasure unless you're a jew:
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Found this on 2 Political Junkies made me chuckle:
SuperRick
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10/25/2006
Welcome to BA
Hi, my name is Gene and I'm a blogger,
I don't know how it all started. Nobody forced me to become a blogger. I came from a normal family. We had our problems but no more than anyone else's. I remember the first time I thought I could write. It was in High School. I got a "Best Short Story" award. What a thing to do to a kid.
Ever since, on and off, I've written. I always wrote alone, without the prying eyes of the world to bear witness or judgment. At first, I just wrote on paper, with a pencil or pen, later I move up to the word processor and finally the PC.
It seemed like a fun thing to do. I wrote poems and stupid stories that no one would ever read and then one day my life changed. I wrote a "letter the editor."
That was the beginning of the end for me. Suddenly I had opinions about everything. I was thrust into a world that knew no mercy, a world of words, thoughts and feelings. A world where you're only as good as your last published letter. A world long on pompousness and short on sincerity. It was too much for any one man. I wanted to stop but everything called for an opinion. The world seemed to exist just to supply me with outrage and reasons to write. It seemed hopeless.
Then one day, it was at Beth's party, I just blurted it out. "I"d like to write a blog!" Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared. I wasn't even sure what a blog was. After an inordinately long pause, someone said, "My daughter has a blog." It was like the room breathed a sigh of relief. If her daughter could have a blog, I could too. I felt determined.
Today, everything is better. I blog and life goes on. I know I'll never be a Herman Melville but that's OK. I can write and say the things that my heart and mind agree on. If it makes a difference to someone, good, if not I give it up to my higher power and move on. Gene
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The serenity prayer:
God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
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10/24/2006
When in Rome ...
By ROBERT HARRIS, op-ed contributor, New York Times
Kintbury, England - September 30 - IN the autumn of 68 BC the world's only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome's port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped.
The incident, dramatic though it was, has not attracted much attention from modern historians. But history is mutable. An event that was merely a footnote five years ago has now, in our post-9/11 world, assumed a fresh and ominous significance. For in the panicky aftermath of the attack, the Roman people made decisions that set them on the path to the destruction of their constitution, their democracy and their liberty. One cannot help wondering if history is repeating itself.
Consider the parallels. The perpetrators of this spectacular assault were not in the pay of any foreign power: No nation would have dared to attack Rome so provocatively. They were, rather, the disaffected of the earth: "The ruined men of all nations," in the words of the great 19th-century German historian Theodor Mommsen, "a piratical state with a peculiar esprit de corps."
Like Al Qaeda, these pirates were loosely organized, but able to spread a disproportionate amount of fear among citizens who had believed themselves immune from attack. To quote Mommsen again: "The Latin husbandman, the traveler on the Appian highway, the genteel bathing visitor at the terrestrial paradise of Baiae were no longer secure of their property or their life for a single moment."
What was to be done? Over the preceding centuries, the constitution of ancient Rome had developed an intricate series of checks and balances intended to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of a single individual. The consulship, elected annually, was jointly held by two men. Military commands were of limited duration and subject to regular renewal. Ordinary citizens were accustomed to a remarkable degree of liberty: the cry of "Civis Romanus sum" - "I am a Roman citizen" - was a guarantee of safety throughout the world.
But such was the panic that ensued after Ostia that the people were willing to compromise these rights. The greatest soldier in Rome, the 38-year-old Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (better known to posterity as Pompey the Great) arranged for a lieutenant of his, the tribune Aulus Gabinius, to rise in the Roman Forum and propose an astonishing new law.
"Pompey was to be given not only the supreme naval command but what amounted in fact to an absolute authority and uncontrolled power over everyone," the Greek historian Plutarch wrote. "There were not many places in the Roman world that were not included within these limits."
Pompey eventually received almost the entire contents of the Roman treasury - 144 million sesterces - to pay for his "war on terror," which included building a fleet of 500 ships and raising an army of 120,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry. Such an accumulation of power was unprecedented, and there was literally a riot in the Senate when the bill was debated.
Nevertheless, at a tumultuous mass meeting in the center of Rome, Pompey's opponents were cowed into submission, the Lex Gabinia passed (illegally), and he was given his power. In the end, once he put to sea, it took less than three months to sweep the pirates from the entire Mediterranean. Even allowing for Pompey's genius as a military strategist, the suspicion arises that if the pirates could be defeated so swiftly, they could hardly have been such a grievous threat in the first place.
But it was too late to raise such questions. By the oldest trick in the political book - the whipping up of a panic, in which any dissenting voice could be dismissed as "soft" or even "traitorous" - powers had been ceded by the people that would never be returned. Pompey stayed in the Middle East for six years, establishing puppet regimes throughout the region, and turning himself into the richest man in the empire.
Those of us who are not Americans can only look on in wonder at the similar ease with which the ancient rights and liberties of the individual are being surrendered in the United States in the wake of 9/11. The vote by the Senate on Thursday to suspend the right of habeas corpus for terrorism detainees, denying them their right to challenge their detention in court; the careful wording about torture, which forbids only the inducement of "serious" physical and mental suffering to obtain information; the admissibility of evidence obtained in the United States without a search warrant; the licensing of the president to declare a legal resident of the United States an enemy combatant - all this represents an historic shift in the balance of power between the citizen and the executive.
An intelligent, skeptical American would no doubt scoff at the thought that what has happened since 9/11 could presage the destruction of a centuries-old constitution; but then, I suppose, an intelligent, skeptical Roman in 68 BC might well have done the same.
In truth, however, the Lex Gabinia was the beginning of the end of the Roman republic. It set a precedent. Less than a decade later, Julius Caesar - the only man, according to Plutarch, who spoke out in favor of Pompey's special command during the Senate debate - was awarded similar, extended military sovereignty in Gaul. Previously, the state, through the Senate, largely had direction of its armed forces; now the armed forces began to assume direction of the state.
It also brought a flood of money into an electoral system that had been designed for a simpler, non-imperial era. Caesar, like Pompey, with all the resources of Gaul at his disposal, became immensely wealthy, and used his treasure to fund his own political faction. Henceforth, the result of elections was determined largely by which candidate had the most money to bribe the electorate. In 49 BC the system collapsed completely, Caesar crossed the Rubicon - and the rest, as they say, is ancient history.
It may be that the Roman republic was doomed in any case. But the disproportionate reaction to the raid on Ostia unquestionably hastened the process, weakening the restraints on military adventurism and corrupting the political process. It was to be more than 1,800 years before anything remotely comparable to Rome's democracy - imperfect though it was - rose again.
The Lex Gabinia was a classic illustration of the law of unintended consequences: It fatally subverted the institution it was supposed to protect. Let us hope that vote in the United States Senate does not have the same result.
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10/23/2006
More Halloween parodies and a lie so obvious it establishes a new pathology
More cool Halloween videos and life in the rabbit hole,
Since it's almost Halloween and no excuse is too frivolous to jab a stick in the all seeing republican eye of Sauron (Ricky and the Stupid Brigade : PittsburghThoughts). The Daily Kos: "I'm A Democrat" and YouTube bring us: YouTube - I'm A Democrat IV (Halloween), the perfect parody of the perfectly sublime Apple vs Microsoft commercials.
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Also, this deserves to be repeated at least as many times as Bush has repeated his Iraq War strategy, "Stay the course." Crooks and Liars » Bush: Well, listen, we’ve never been “Stay the course,” George:
BUSH: Well, listen, we've never been "stay the course", George [Stephanopoulos]. We have been, "We will complete the mission, we will do our job and help achieve the goal, but we're constantly adjusting the tactics"…
"Never?" No Never! What never? "Well, hardly ever!"
Gilbert and Sullivan had this guy's number over 100 years ago.
http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/pinafore/captain.mp3
Why should we be shocked? We know Bush lies: Top 10 Bush Lies. It's the brazenness of his lies, his audaciousness that is so disturbing. I wonder if the founding fathers ever envisioned a pathological liar as president or a people so neutered, to not demand his head for lying to us?
Republicans, isn't it time to denounce this guy, he's not one of you. He's a crackpot and you know it. Or, is it the retarded child syndrome that keeps you moribund, i.e., all behavior no matter how pernicious or disturbing must be tolerated because George Bush never asked to be born? No, but he did conspire to be President and we should conspire to send this nutjob packing, the sooner the better.
Herein lies the mystery of government, of democracy, of being a civilized society. Bush looks presidential, sometimes says what's presidential, has all the power and authority granted to someone presidential but he's a fraud and we know it.
Due to our slavish adherence to order and convention we allow this comic tragedy to continue. Form has superseded function. We might as well place a crown on the dimwit's head, a scepter in his hand, sit back and really watch the show! The only analogy that comes to my mind is the Red Queen of Wonderland screaming, "Off with their head!" at the slightest infraction or provocation.
Ironically, Bush shares a similar backgound to Kim Dong Ill, both were drunken, playboy sons of a world leaders and both rule in a totalitarian vacuum punishing dissidents and critics alike.
I suppose the fact that Bush is "our guy" is enough for some to support him mindlessly. But lying is wrong and to be wrong means that you either don't know the difference between what's wrong and what's right or you don't care.
In either case Bush has lied far too often for me to feel anything except slightly amused by another one.
Just as his failures to comprehend the towering truth or maybe the "twin towering truths" i.e., Iraq and Katrina, Bush has failed to understand his own dismal truth, he has none. Gene
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Thanks to some anonymous, generous, computer savvy, artistic soul
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10/22/2006
Conservative lullabye
Go to sleep America
a long deep sleep
you deserve to sleep
you work so so hard
let the serene monotone voice take you
to where the fairies live
fields of green
butterflies and wooded dales
black and white television
Howdy Doody promenading in a one two jerky dance step
a mommy a puppy wide eyed wonder
we need to tell you a tale ... sleep ... dream ...
Breath the thick deep opium smoke of forgetfulness ... forget ... never told ... stay the course ... only a fool would stay ... stay ... the course ... we are not fools ... you are not a dummy ... we ... are ... flexible and open ... honest ... to a fault ... yes ... one small small fault ... honestly ... our honesty ... you remember ... Ozzy ... Hariet ... the Beaver told you ... We love you ... you're our baby ... our little man ... Sleep ...
Arent you tired of war ... you are ... we know ... you ... you are ... coming soon ... you will hear that adjustments are coming ... very soon ... that our plans have always been flexible ... flexible ... always ... always ... soon ... you will know in your heart ... we say is good ... and true ... Senate investigation committees ... BAD ... Ethics panels ... BAD ...
You will listen like you always do ... some other country ... somewhere ... you don't know ... you don't remember ... lied ... not YOUR country ... never your country ... sleep ... little sleepy head ... Momma's good little boy ...
Fun and candy ... the house of mirrors its all there ... in your head ... Sleep ... sleep America ... sleep ...
P.S. No sooner was the above posted than this came across the wire: Media Matters - Stephanopoulos left unchallenged Bush's revisionist history on "stay the course," Woodward books containg this Bush quote, Think Progress noted, Bush asserted that his administration has "never been stay the course." Nagog...nagog...nagog....
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Happy Halloween
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Huffery, puffery and blowing ourselves up
Maher launches an idea, Hannity never fails to stir my most pernicious tendencies,
Sometimes wrong, sometimes condescending ... I LOVE THIS GUY! Video-WMP Video-QT
Always wrong, always condescending ... I HATE THIS GUY! Media Matters - Hannity to Democrats: "[S]tay home on Election Day ... for the sake of the nation"
Everything reported or addressed on Fox should start with this caveat:
Look, we have a good thing going here, we make tons of money, we get to play in the big kids sandbox and some real babes think we're cool, so don't fuck it up OK? If you do ... we will say bad things about you, your mother, your kids and your dog.
In fact, let's just ignore the truth. What good is it? It doesn't make us money, suck our dicks or kiss our asses and that especially disturbs us. To think that there are people out there that support concepts because they happen to be the truth and not because they enrich a few privileged people is abhorrent to us.
Don't be one of "Them" OK? Watch sports and drink beer, slap the old lady around a little whenever she needs it and raise your kids to pay lip service to equality. It's how OUR: white, republican, never even SAW a black person or immigrant, parents raised us.
And, since it's not really popular to hang, kill or work you to death anymore, we have to rely on propaganda to further our nefarious goals, and you know what? It works even better! Hahaahaah the jokes on you morons! We'll throw you a crumb from time to time, so SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Next up, a FOX exclusive: Bill O'Reilly to demonstrate why having sex with little children is harming America!
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Republicans are like Puffer fish, no ... they're worse, Puffer fish only try to make themselves big. Republicans, not only pump themselves up with God, guns and gays ... they endeavor to make everyone else look small.
Maybe, when on Nov. 13, 1956, in Browder v. Gayle, the Supreme Court outlawed segregation on buses in response to Rosa Park's refusal to move to the back, the Supreme Court didn't get it quite right. Maybe they should have ruled that for the next 200 years, or so, white people would have to ride in the back and that white people could be hanged for looking at a black women the wrong way.
Maybe, we're real good at making laws to make us feel better about ourselves but just can't get the real hang of this equality and freedom stuff.
Of course, white people, those white ones at the top I mean, do need the poor, the downtrodden and minorities to fight their battles for world domination ... oops, I mean, world peace ... they just want us to be good little fishies swimming in their big ol' fishbowl serving at their pleasure or whenever they need a quick fix.
How about a deal? Some democrats will stay home on election day if Billy Kristol and his think tank buddies take a hiatus. Better yet, send them to the front lines of the very wars that they so enthusiastically promote but so assiduously avoid, to explain to our young men how noble and honorable it is to die, how being blasted to bits isn't all that bad if it gives guys like Rush, Shawn, Bush and Cheney a hard on.
Maybe Kristol and his angry hordes can specialize in weapon recovery, prying the cold dead fingers of real patriots off their guns and passing them on to the next batch of under-educated, under-appreciated and under-utilized young Americans, the same young Americans that they have marginalized and excluded from their plans, schemes and policies to enshrine a perpetual ruling class.
That way, I'd have some respect for them, at least I'd know that maybe they believe their own bullshit. But, if they had to suffer the consequences of their beliefs, we wouldn't go to war so easily or often. War would then become what it should have been along: the worst, last resort, to only be employed after ALL ELSE FAILS, meaning: REAL diplomacy and negotiation, not this: DO AS I SAY BULLSHIT that they love because it makes them look like such big, tough Puffer fish. Gene
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