Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
My thoughts are all over the place today…
The new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds record came out today. Its called Dig Lazarus Dig!!! Its not a concept record but several of the songs revolve around the premise of God raising Lazarus from the grave against his will, only to find himself a homeless junky tooling around the streets of New York City. It is amazing in every way.
There Will be Blood came out today on DVD. I find it highly amusing that this movie and the Nick Cave record came out on the same day. they are both superior works of art that try their hardest to be unlovable and difficult but are ultimately better for it. The whole point of the ending to There Will be Blood is that Daniel is finally satisfied and it is so perfect that it comes at the expense of leaving critics and the audience unsatisfied. Personally, I cannot wait to see it again.
Everyone called out today except for me and two other people and it feels like the end of the world. The phone will not stop ringing and nobody wants anything that i can actually give them. they all want some kind of magical special treatment that they dont deserve and are not entitled to and it is my great privilege to give them this news. I have been screamed at today, swore at, called useless and i might be mistaken but i pretty sure i was challenged to a fight. I would love to fight that guy today, its just too bad he is in another state. if he happens to read this i will be taking my break around 3, im in Connecticut, if you have the ability to get here by 3 i am going to rip your head off.
Mike and the mad Dog yesterday were debating whether or not Dick Vitale deserved to be in the Basketball Hall of Fame. They were both leaning towards answering the question No, but neither of them seemed willing to come out and say it. I will say that they are wrong. he totally deserves to be in the hall of fame soley because no one, NO ONE, loves basketball more than Dickie V and for that reason alone he should be in the hall of fame. He has been on Mike and Mike (the ESPN morning guys) every morning since Friday and he has ended every conversation in tears thanking everyone under the sun for giving him the opportunity to do what he does and for putting him in the hall of fame. Its all about the love of the game.
I think one thing the war has done for us is re-written the definition of the word ’success.’ before the word success meant ” the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.” our new definition probably reads something like this, “The semi-favorable but ultimately the same persistence down an inevitable road to failure.” I think its clear that our government has no real interest in stopping this war, pulling our troops out , or even acknowledging that the only way their surge can be deemed a success is that it put more of our soldiers in a position to die. So according to the new definition the surge/ war in iraq is a success. Hopefully, George, John, and their minions of death wont re-write the definition of victory to mean “The death toll in Iraq has reached 140,00 today.”
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Monday, April 7th, 2008
Note - I have 770 AM on my radio for Imus. Occasionally i switch over during Mike and The Mad Dog commercial breaks to infuriate myself, which is my most favorite way to be.
People should have to pass some kind of standardized reasoning test before we let them vote. This is the reason that America is suffering because people like Rush Limbaugh belittle you into thinking that he doesnt like you and the only way you can get him to like you is to agree with him. But why would anyone care if a fat drug pusher like Rush Limbaugh likes them? Because of all the things that are ruining America the most contagious and dangerous is the people of this country’s over powering need for people to like them. people cant think or speak freely because they are afraid that someone might not like what they think and say, So they float through existence trying to destroy any hint of an opinion or abstract thought before it infiltrates their brains thus making them agreeable to all people and useless to me, and the rest of society that finds this quality in people repulsive, at the exact same time. to all the people who worry about people not liking them, guess what? I dont like you. Please feel free to email and attempt to win back my affection. Im sure my disgust with you will keep you up nights. Maybe you can use that time to think about your station in life and how you can improve it. The first way i would suggest: read a book. The second?
STOP LISTENING TO RUSH LIMBAUGH!!!
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Thursday, March 27th, 2008
To answer the above question…Nope.
People, namely politicians, need to stop trying to convince me that America is the greatest nation to ever grace our rapidly disintegrating Earth. Maybe it used to be when we formed the nation and wrote the Declaration of Independence, or when we came together as a nation for all of a week after September 11th. There have been moments when we have achieved greatness as a country but please read this and tell me that this doesnt set us back as a species and specifically as a nation hundreds of years:
http://www.optimum.net/News/AP/Article?articleId=399904
I checked all the news wires to make sure women still had the right to vote and the we didnt reintroduce slavery into society. I went to the drinking fountain in my office and there is still only one and there is no designation as too which race can and can not use it. There are no crosses burning on any of the lawns surrounding me. For moment i was genuinely frightened that all of these things that we have worked so hard as a country to overcome might come back to haunt us all because of some stupid idiot parents who encourage their six year olds to beat the living s#!t out of each other.
According to the article it doesnt seem like these parents have any idea why normal people in society think that they should be thrown into the belly of an active volcano before they infect the rest of us with their mutant strain of idiocy. These are the same people who Im sure want Michael Vick to get the electric chair for participating in dog fighting while they are essentially engaged in the same kind of scenario: things that dont know any better being pitted against one another in a competition to see who is stronger which is determined by who inflicts more bodily harm on their opponent. But these people are doing it WITH THEIR KIDS!!! We call cock fighting disgusting while we fill our bellies up with chicken almost everyday of the week. So we dont mind that chickens get killed we just dont want them to be killed by other chickens for a latin american countries enjoyment. Well guess what i dont mind my six year olds getting into fights as long as its a school yard tussle instigated by two kids who are similar in age not by their parents dressing them in their gear, taping up their hands, PUTTING THEM IN A CAGE and then cheering them on as they either pummel a child or themselves get pummeled.
I just find this completely unacceptable. If you are grown up and are capable of making your own decisions then please be an Ultimate Fighter. I have no problem with Ultimate Fighting as long as its being done by adults. While this is currently banned in most states, of course not in the Midwest, after i finish this post I am writing to my congressman and asking that they sponsor a bill that makes involving children in Ultimate Fighting a felony and that any violation of this law result in capital punishment or at least having their kids taken away from them, not that they would mind because you have to really hate your kids to involve them in something like this. As county we need to remove these stains on our society by any means necessary. if that means education, if that means outrageous law enforcement, if that means putting these parents, who loath their children to the extent that they take pleasure in seeing them being beaten by other kids, in the ring with actual Ultimate Fighters so that they can see what its like to have someone kneeling on your arms rendering them immovable while you are repeatedly punched in the face and head, then lets do that. i am for that. I would pay to see that on pay per view. I would pay a thousand dollars to watch these parents be handled and broken by an adult who made their own choice to be an Ultimate Fighter.
People need to start using their brains for something other than figuring out how best to gratify their own, to steal a line from the Mighty Bill Hicks, fevered egos. This is all a part of of the grand deterioration of our collective intelligence and ability for reason. For this i say thank you to the following people: Thanks George Bush, thanks religious fundamentalists, thanks people who watch the Hills and Flavor of Love and think that anything Justin Timberlake has ever done in anyway compares to anything that Michael Jackson has done. You people are poisoning civilization, to quote the aforementioned Michael Jackson, “…for you and for me and the entire human race.”
Thats from Free Willy!
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Friday, March 21st, 2008
He was an invited guest of Bill Clinton’s in 1998.
Boom-shaka-laka! (thats from NBA Jam, remember that game?)
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Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
In case you forgot the War is 5 years old today. I hope everyone remembered to call and sing happy birthday to it.
Remember when it was just a little War bordering on a mild skirmish. They grow up so fast dont they?
Mommy George and Daddy Dick must be so proud of you War. I even heard that Grandpa John recently paid it a visit. Thats so nice. Its like one big family cluster f#&% of death.
Come to think of if War you’ve grown up to be kind of an asshole. Maybe you should cut it out before someone gets hurt.
Oops. Too late.
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Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
First of all, what was up with the guy that introduced Barack? His name was Harris Wofford and he is a prime example of why we shouldnt discount the fact that Barack can make a good speech as a quality we look for in our president. His opening address was so awkward and poorly constructed that it was almost impossible to listen to. I found myself doing work for those couple of minutes to distract myself from its awfulness. I know it isnt the most important thing in the world but if our current president has shown us anything its that if you are an elected official and therefore a public figure you should be able to string two words together and make them make sense. if you cannot you are going to look like a moron. Im not saying Harris Wofford is a moron but he looks like one. George Bush on the other hand is a moron.
The speech:
This was not a leave me alone speech. This was not a ‘please stop calling me names’ speech. This was a speech to reaffirm in the minds of Americans that he is not your normal candidate for president. He wasnt born of the standard mold that the majority of our elected officials come from. He outlined his personal history and the history of race in our country early in this speech and spent the rest of his time tying those facts together beautifully and in a way that was designed to make anyone listening question their part in the past present and future of this country. it wasnt a speech in which Barack went on the defensive trying to provide facts to put the subject of his race and his relationship to his pastor to rest, it was a speech in which he was trying to bring those things to the front of all of consciousness so we might all consider what it means.
The thing i most took away from this speech was a call for unity. a call for the people of the united states to, as he put it, “have a common stake in one another.”
Im at work right now and im trying to put my thoughts together on what i just heard and i have so many emotions about it that im not quite sure how to begin. I guess what i most feel is relief. relief that he didnt take the low road and start calling people out about how people may have wronged him during his campaign. If you dont come away from that speech seriously considering your place in the history of our nation then you either arent listening or you have a lot more work to do regarding yourself and how you regard humanity. he said several times that he is not perfect and that he doesnt expect America to be perfect, not in one election and ultimately not ever when it comes to ones personal feelings about race. but I did get the feeling that while he doesnt expect us to be perfect he at least expects us to make the effort, whites, blacks, latinos and asians to understand where we are all coming from. where black people are coming from, where white people are coming from, where their immigrant ancestors are coming from. he expects us to do the work and consider why we feel the way we do about people that dont look like us. and it may have escaped you while you are reading this but it didnt escape me while i was writing it, he EXPECTS things of us other than that we vote for him. he wants this country to be great and he wants us to reach our full potential as people and as a nation.
im sure all the candidates in some way want this same thing and i dont question their general sincerity but i do question the level of their sincerity. I wonder how much they have actually considered the American people and their emotional intelligence, and how that emotional intelligence compassion, can be even more important than the intelligence that makes us good at math or science or remembering facts and dates, in their desire to be president. im sure some but after todays speech i wonder if they do the same way that Barack does.
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Monday, March 10th, 2008
I know nothing about Eliot Spitzer nor do I know anything about what he has done during his term as Governator of New York, but is anyone really surprised by this, being part of an elaborate prostitution ring? And if you are why? This is just what our politicians do. Its their job. We elect them to engage in the illegal activities they put us in jail for. Good work Eliot Spitzer! You are just the next in a long line of huge embarrassing failures elected to serve a branch of the United States Government. Presidents, congressmen, senators, governators and mayors i hope you’re watching how this is done. I hope youre getting some good tips and ideas for when its your turn to stab each one of the citizens you are supposed to represent in the back by being selfish arrogant pigs. This makes me laugh more than anything else.
And Im sure his wife will stay with him because one day shes going to run for president.
i suppose that was uncalled for.
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Monday, March 10th, 2008
My Tuesday nights usually look something like this: get home at 6, pet the cat, talk to Nicolette, determine if we have anything better to do that night, decide we dont, order Chinese food around 7, pick it up around 730, watch American Idol from 8-9 pretending like there isnt primary coverage for that hour and then when American Idol is over settling in behind the “Best Political Team on Television” to watch hours of primary coverage on CNN. Its been this way since primary season began and only once have we had any kind of break from the routine, the week there were no primaries on Tuesday, and even then i was itching like an addict for the sweet sounds of Anderson Cooper and his never ending cast of talking heads and punditing showoffs.
I think though, tomorrow, the routine will come to an end. Ive been sitting here all day reading articles about Barack and Hillary and how they might run together and Barack saying theyre not. Ive read every one of Newsweeks dozen or so articles published online today about Hillary Clinton culminating with an exclusive Q&A during which she says nothing new or interesting or anything that might dissuade me from thinking that this ‘interview’ is really just a series of quotes put into the context of an interview using newly written questions that correspond to a previous statement. To be honest, I am just tired of the whole process. The back and forth and the, quite literally, he said she said, its just so tiring and if you’re supporting someone its nerve racking and i just dont want to do it for a while.
I think i might swear off primary coverage until Pennsylvania by then, hopefully, a victory either way will really mean something. Hillary won both Texas and Ohio and what did it mean? Nothing, it didnt mean anything. Any delegates that Barack lost on Super Tuesday 2 he got back by slaughtering Hillary in Wyoming. So, he still has a sizable delegate lead. He is still leading in the popular vote. In polls he is still beating John McCain soundly while Hillary struggles to maintain even a one or two point lead. They even have her losing in some polls. Congratulations Hillary on your big wins last week. They were totally meaningless.
I think this Tuesday im going to make a big salad, watch American Idol and then read a book or work on wedding plans. Something constructive. and if between now and Pennsylvania something monumental happens and a group of primaries in smaller states may actually shape the end result of this thing maybe I’ll tune in to Anderson, Wolff, Candy and Dana and let them sing me sweet lullaby so that when i wake up the next day this whole crazy thing is over and we can get down to the business making a real difference.
Keep on Chooglin’
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Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
Doesnt it sound like the title of some new Ashley Judd movie? In reality, from everything i have read this morning, the title of this blog refers to the situation Hillary Clintons presidential campaign finds itself in. One of the things i had recently begun to admire about her campaign is how it generally acknowledged the fact that it was in bad shape. I think its pretty classy when someone can admit that someone else is probably going to win but that you are going to buckle down, give it your best shot and hope that things turn around for the better. She said during the debate last thursday that if things didnt turn around and she didnt win the nomination that she “would be fine.” Thats nice i thought, now i dont have to feel bad when Obama wins denying America its first female President, which, i have to admit, i was sort of starting to feel bad about. Apparently however, Hillary was just really really wonderfully high on Thursday, woke up on Friday, still a little hazy but generally cognizant, watched the video of the debate and said, “What? What did I say? I’m not going to be fine! Im going to be pissed! Much like I am right now!” And so Team Clinton got desperate but unlike before she decided to garnish her desperate with a heaping spoonful of crazy and now instead of seeming determined she seems ruthless.
And people are starting to notice. Here are todays headlines from some of Americas major news soures:
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/us/politics/26clinton.html
The Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/columnists/lupica/index.html
New York Magazine
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/02/clintons_barbs_condoned_by_the.html
Im sure this list can be updated as the day goes on (we can also debate the term “major news source”). During a normal election, and issued by a standard candidate, Hillary’s attacks might be seen as just that, attacks politically motivated and not personal but, when they come from the mouth of a Clinton, they sound petty and jealous and rude and condescending. Some part of me would feel bad for the way she comes off during her speeches and press conferences if i didnt think she wanted to look this way. I think she wants to seem desperate. I think she wants people to think that she will do whatever it takes to be president. i think she is hoping that people connect this ruthless desire of hers with the thoughts that maybe, because she wants it so badly she is willing to risk her reputation and her sanity, that she really loves us, that she really cares for us and that she really would be the democrats best candidate for president. Unfortunately for Hillary the more people see her in this desperate and flailing state the more people see the underlying truth of her campaign: that it doesnt have anything to do with you, me or America, its all about Hillary and her Arthurian quest to be president. I do feel, if Barack had to drop out for whatever reason and she became the default nominee and managed to beat John McCain, that she would make a decent president while in office, i dont question her intelligence and her policies and vision seem to be grounded in a general willingness to be a good person and a good president. But in the same way that George Bush’s White House has been described as having a “mob mentality” so will the Clinton’s. It will cost our government and our country dearly if anyone stands in the way of her “causes.”
Am i being to hard on her? I dont know, maybe, maybe not. What i do know is that her plan is back firing on her. Every-time someone reads one of the stories listed above, of which a differenent but similar version will be printed in every newspaper and magazine from now until she decides to drop out, the American people wince and then run to embrace the candidate that doesnt make them feel like a bad person for supporting the candidate of their choice. Your not going to hear Barack tell the American voter that their delusional for not voting for him but you are hearing that from the Clinton’s everyday. When Bill Clinton, in Texas last week, told a crowd of people, “If we win in Texas and Ohio i think we an get the nomination, if we dont then we probably wont. Its in your hands,” he was basically saying My wife and I are holding you all personally responsible for not letting us be president. It has nothing to do with how they ran their campaign or how they spent their money or how the conducted themselves or how seriously they took Baracks initial bid for the nomination. Its our fault. Yours and mine. She wanted it and we took it from her. We should be ashamed. Well, Im not ashamed and neither is anyone else. we will be ashamed if Barack wins Texas on Tuesday and she doesnt drop out of the race. we will be ashamed if she continues to try to pry elected delegates away from Barack just because the DNC’s arcane election rules says she can. We will be ashamed when the Clinton campaign starts to circulate a picture Barack should be proud of, dressed in a traditional African outfit while visiting Africa, in an attempt to appeal to America’s “ignorance” hoping we will mistake his attire for something having to with being a Muslim. Oh wait, thats already happened. Well then you win Hillary Clinton. I am ashamed. Ashamed that our electoral process has come to this. Ashamed that someone cannot remark on your record and your positions without you running around and unfoundly calling them a liar and a cheat. Ashamed that everytime you say that this election has nothing to do with race and gender you try and drag it back through the mud of gender and racial divide.
I will close today by saying thank you to Hillary Clinton for confirming that i made the right choice on Super Tuesday. That i chose to support the candidate that himself chose to stay above all of this nonsense.
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Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
Big win by Barack Obama last night. That’s 10 in a row folks. Keep on chooglin’.
Alright. I told anyone who would listen that i wasn’t watching American Idol this year because of the bull crap that they pulled with Josiah (although, after watching last nights proceedings, i am actually sort of glad he didn’t get put through. I forgot that the goal of these early elimination rounds is to pick a song and turn it into adult contemporary trash. Im not sure how well he would have accomplished this and im glad he was spared the embarrassment). Anyway, i DVRed and I watched and half way through some random crumb bum’s rendition of Moon River i was wishing i had stuck to my guns and not compromised my principals due to an absence of acceptable time killing activities while waiting for the polls in Wisconsin to close so that i might bathe gloriously in election night analysis and punditry. Every male performer this year is terrible. TERRIBLE. Even the Australian guy with the record deal, Michael “Two First Names” Johns, was sub par and he sang one of the same songs he sang last week in LA. I can only hope that the girls tonight are better because now, since i have already forfeited my integrity, i have to watch and root for all the men to get kicked off before all the women the same way i rooted for Ace to spontaneously combust mid-George Michael song during season 5.
Also, it’s lunch time here in corporate hell and I just ate a Quizno’s. its close to the office and never crowded. I was nursing a substantial hunger and had forgotten to bring myself a microwavable soup or even a small plastic sack of pretzels. Let me tell you something faithful blog reader, don’t be fooled by advertising or praise from a colleague or friend, eating Quiznos is never a good idea. Ever. I did however just find a piece of Orbit gum, flavor spearmint. Which is always nice
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