Roach Hotel...on FOX!
Mood:  spacey
I just woke up from a good long nap and the first thing I see on the TV is a preview of next week's Paradise Hotel, which is apparently a reality show featuring lab rats (i.e., 20-something sluts of both genders) performing for cameras (infrared in the bedrooms, of course) and idly poking at the little levers for some tasty pellets. What fucking garbage. I want a reality show where I take these kids and the soulless pimps who vetted and hired them and stick them in a darkened chamber where I can lecture them before I release the Zyklon B gas.

"This reality show should only have taken a few minutes," I intone over the PA system, "but I've padded it out to sitcom-length so that the cud-chewers watching at home will have something to [think] about.

"I am murdering all of you on film and taking plenty of close-ups so that your tortured expressions will keep me warm at night.

"The children are right to applaud me, Ralph. But this disgusting nonsense ends here and now."

It's impossible for normal people to appreciate the narcissism and sociopathy of those involved in these televised splayings of the emotional labia of the witting retarded, but it keeps the beer-drinking public feeling better about itself, so look away when you pull even with the wreck and pray that Toutatis strikes.

Toutatis, strike.

Robert Mapplethorpe's Love Loaf
I hear the Democratic Party's going to put another feather in its cap when that awful whoremonger Jerry Springer runs for the U.S. Senate from Ohio. What an incredible embarrassment! It makes Sonny Bono look like the second coming of Daniel Webster. But you just watch the "party of the people" in Ohio stand by and let a piece of crap like Springer take the nomination. The other night, I watched a bit of Geraldo River (the former Jerry Rivers) interviewing Springer and bringing up the sleaze factor and Springer says it's not about him, but about his ideas. Ha, ha. Right: noblesse oblige from the man who hosts miscegenated teenaged sluts and their stripper mothers for the delectation of unemployed drug addicts who enjoy starting their days watching people on TV marginally more fucked up than they are. There are more reasons to hate Springer (and the unironically condescending Geraldo) than there are seconds in a day, but if you want the latest and best reason to disrespect the Democratic Party, wait until they run Jerry Springer for the Senate. Is there any wonder why there's a billion psychotic fezheads out there out for our blood?

Election Night 1996
Wanted to share with you the wisdom of the late David Brinkley. I actually remember watching him make these remarks on live television. Every one of his colleagues turned in their seats like Brinkley had just ripped one. Cowards.

On Clinton's victory: "I wish to say that we all look forward with great pleasure to four more years of wonderful, inspiring speeches, full of wit, poetry, music, love and affection ---and more goddamned nonsense....Bill Clinton has [no creativity]. He has not a creative bone in his body. Therefore, he is a bore and will always be a bore."

Tee hee. Love that man. I'm just sorry that he felt the need to apologize to that used car salesman the next day.

"File-Swapping Is Cool, Daddy, and You Know It!"
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: Some Shit I Stole, Yo!
I hear that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is about to start suing hundreds of users of peer-to-peer music file-swapping networks to intimidate them out of copyright-infringement. Well, all I can say to that is "Good luck, dumbasses!" How many fingers does that little Dutch boy have? I mean, there are hundreds of hack-happy slackers out there just dying to be the one who starts up the next generation of p2p networks that operate on full anonymity. There's nothing the RIAA can really do to stop what's happening.

It may be that file-swapping is killing the recording industry, but that's only because the recording industry has been making a killing forever. Some of these "artists" have been given everything by the big corporations and the only way to justify it is to keep the price of albums artificially high. Eighteen bucks for a Jennifer Lopez album from Sam Goodys or Camelot Music? Get the fuck out of here, you fucking thieves. I'm looking at a large stack of CDs I got for twenty bucks and a big fat coax cable and I'm thinking something tells me I'm into something good, beeatch. Oh, and fuck Herman's Hermits, too.

You want the real story behind the decline of the recording industry? There's an immense amount of unlistenable horseshit out there. That's it. That's the whole of it. If someone were to shove the American Top 40 (do they even have that anymore?) in my face and threaten me with death to hum a few bars of any one of those songs, I couldn't do it. Songwriting has absolutely and undeniably died. Pop music is now solely the domain of untalented and uncreative young black people. It's an enormously embarrassing passage in the history of American music these days. The only songs that it's even possible to like are re-makes of songs I grew up with. What are today's kids going to grow up to remember? Nothing created by those of their own generation, that's for sure.

I hope that file-swapping destroys the music business so that it will have to resort to such things as promoting talent that can actually create its own music in a live setting. I'll take it up the slopchute for a thirty dollar ticket or a twenty dollar tee-shirt if the band who's doing it makes me give a damn five minutes after I've heard 'em play their hearts out for me.

Victor Davis Hanson Is God
Mood:  loud
Now Playing: "Pollo Asado" by Ween
One of my favorite writers at National Review Online is Victor Davis Hanson. And, today, he is on fire:

"We must accept that it is a cornerstone of Mexican foreign policy to export illegally each year a million of its own to the United States to avoid needed reform at home and to influence American domestic policy."

That is as clear and concise an assessment of what we are faced with as any I've ever read. Man, when I was younger, I was absolutely inflamed against that whole situation. Pissed at the left for adulterating white Protestant culture and pissed at the right for betraying our society for the sake of cheap labor. Where did my anger go? Maybe it was in the incubator for a while, but the power went out and they had to throw out all the spoiled passions. That's what happens when you "grow up." Things are left to slide and the old Irish has to get tamped down to keep the neighbors from calling the cops.

But take it from one who was steeped in venom and gall: there's Mexican politicians and bandleaders out there who think and talk as naturally as breathing about the reality of la raza and Aztlan. Don't you fucking doubt it, holmes. It'll do you and us no good to ignore it, although that is what is happening. You'd just better hope they lose their tongues and crucifixes faster than we lose our will to fight or the demographic beast will consume this culture from the inside out. You gotta cut that shit with some Cotton Mather and Woodrow Wilson and some other uptight honky-assed bidness if you want there to be some semblance of Lincoln's last, best hope of Earth left at century's end.

Tops Have Bottoms!
Mood:  cheeky
The United States Supreme Court says that Texas' anti-sodomy laws are unConstitutional and that y'all can assume the position once again in freedom and pleasure.

And now I am wondering why they can't declare involuntary celibacy a crime against humanity (or, maybe just a crime against me).

Legal Query
Mood:  not sure
Is there a law against me sending a sealed tin of dog shit to Molly Ivins? Maybe one that's labelled as her favorite brand of sweeties or snuff so that she'll eagerly pry it open and it will unload all over her? I think she's a lousy old hag of a poser. She had a column in the paper the other day about how fascinating Sidney Blumenthal's new book on the Clinton years is and how the "vast right-wing conspiracy" was the prime mover in Clinton's disgrace and impeachment. Well, that's a lot of nonsense, lady. Clinton himself was the cause of all his problems. The longer you repress that fact, the more I'm going to laugh at your yellow dog shit democrat-ism. You and Hightower and your whole bunch of liberal "populists" are a joke.

Word from the Bench
It was a mixed bag from the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday on affirmative action ("racial preferences," if you prefer). The big University of Michigan rulings came down in a somewhat Solomonic fashion: yes, race can be considered for admission to law school, but the automatic awarding of points to minority undergraduate applicants based merely on their ethnicity is no longer allowed.

Actually, I'm fine with this first ruling because I accept the fact that a law school is inherently oriented toward an elite portion of a school's student body; there is an expectation that candidates to a law school would be subject to a more rigorous and individualized assessment than those in the larger-scaled admissions process to the undergraduate program. Moreover, being elite, law schools have a special prerogative in maintaining their political, philosophical, and cultural identities. Perhaps I romanticize the claim to unique reputations that certain law schools have (having experience of none of them), but I can accept that certain law schools do, in fact, have these reputations and, therefore, may reserve the right to cultivate the kind of student bodies they wish to instruct.

The more broad-ranging and influential ruling now keeps schools like Michigan from rewarding undergraduate applicants for being black or Latino or whatever. Giving a middle-class black kid 20 points (on a 150-point scale) he needs to qualify for admission just because he is black is ridiculous when his white counterpart might be the one who hails from a lousy neighborhood with no ethnic-based scholarship or help from his parents to smoothe the way. It's simple racism. Minority parents, kids, and politicians aren't going to like it, but it does an unqualified black kid no good to admit him to a school where he doesn't belong just to see him drop out after a harried semester or two.

Here's the deal, folks: I taught a year in a middle school in Los Angeles. Small experience, you may say (although, if you've never even taught a day, you may not), but look at who my kids were. All but one or two were black, Latino, Filipino, Vietnamese, etc. I had some magnificently talented and bright children (whose names I fairly expect to hear again some day) and I know that they can compete with any kid anywhere. That's a fact in your Library of Congress. Some of my kids will be in the very top few percentiles of their senior high classes. They will find a way to pay for their college and to succeed wildly. But it all has to do with the way they are being raised and prepared now. Some of my kids' parents are going to be involved with their educations like crazy; some are going to be abandoned to the wolves ---and it makes me cringe. But the ones who show the promise and who exhibit the character in their teens are going to make it. They will. They don't need some pencil pusher in Ann Arbor to pity them or make an exception for them: they already are the exception. They will succeed because so many more will not. You can't, as Sgt. Hartman might say, "miracle" their asses over that obstacle; they have to do it for themselves. If they have the ability, they will; if they don't, they shouldn't be there, anyway.

You know the difference between the damned and the elect? Free will. It's a lie that we are pre-ordained by external forces to be what we are; the real choice has always been for each of us to make for ourselves. Aware of that, you strive; unaware, you moulder away. But that's nothing harsh: an active conscience is some evidence of election, but you can still wilfully betray it by ignoring its dictates. Someone wholly ignorant of those dictates and lives conscienceless is, therefore, damned.

Come Listen
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: Adam Bork's "Lester the Clown"
Yeah, actually that Beck song is called "Nobody's Fault But My Own." It's really nice. If you're ever lucky enough to catch his performance of that song from his Austin City Limits appearance (earlier this year, I guess), it'll put chills down your spine.

Speaking of chills down spines, an old friend of mine named Adam Bork (who, in certain contexts, calls himself Earthpig) is back from his exile on main street (3 years plus in NYC) and is playing for the edification of us mere mortals. He is a talented singer-songwriter, but the thing I cannot tire of is his guitar-playing. There are certain sounds he makes with his Stratocaster that are his. That is to say, he owns those notes or tones or whatever they're properly called like they were individually-wrapped candies from the Adam Bork Auditory Meme Company. No one else can make them, which is just part of why he is a rare guitarist. Anyway, his work deserves far wider currency than it has, but people are unaccustomed to Adam's little ironies, I guess it is, and so he plays to small rooms when he should be playing to large clubs. Caviar to the general he is not.

If you're in Austin, Texas on any of the next several Wednesday nights (about 10 PM), drop in on him (and probably me) at Flipnotics on Barton Springs Road.

Sure. Why Not?
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: "Wasted Blues" by Beck
Obviously, I feel very foolish for having believed that everything was alright with my friend and his daughter, but I just didn't know. I suppose I could go ahead and compound my folly by wondering out loud about the state of law enforcement in Mexico and why these people can't help execute a Federal warrant on a fugitive from their neighbors del norte, but what good would it do? You see, sovereignty is a fiction that some nations sell to others to help keep their spirits up. Can't have the neighbors see what a ramshackle house of cards you live in. The corruption and incompetence of the Mexican police is proverbial. And I'm pissed off. This should have been over by now.

Hang in there, Greg. Right makes might.

Spurs
Practically every commentary I've read on the San Antonio Spurs' world championship has been negative, except for the obligatory compliments to Robinson and Duncan for their good character. Why should it matter that the championship series was one of the lowest-rated ever? I know it's all business, but there is still a sport there and all its attendant pride and joy. I don't give a good damn that Jordan or O'Neal weren't in on it, either; a very solid team won as a team. Is that too boring for you hotdog-eaters? Like your basketball full of showboat and egotism? Tough. That shit got beat by the Big Fundamental and a deep bench.

Hold On Just a Second
Mood:  incredulous
And now I'm hearing that the Mexican authorities have somehow allowed the situation with Sabrina Allen to deteriorate. Not sure what's happening. But, I think something ridiculous is going on.

The Allens' Prayers Are Answered
Mood:  celebratory
It gives me great pleasure to announce that Sabrina Allen has been found alive and well in Mexico City. Her daddy's hard work down there has paid off. Just as Greg had suspected, his ex-wife had taken Sabrina there and had colored her blonde hair black. But that stuff was never going to work so long as Greg was making his own efforts at detection.

Apparently, it was one of the signs that he's been posting all over Mexico City that finally got the attention of a woman there who had seen Sabrina and her mother.

Let's just hope that the Mexican authorities expedite matters and let Greg come home with Sabrina right away.

I don't know what fate will befall Greg's ex-wife, but I hope it's appropriate.

I can't help but note how soon after I performed my own craniorectal extraction on this subject that it all came to a wonderful and just resolution. Not that the two events are related, but I am quite pleased that one followed the other so closely. I didn't even have the time to find the e-mail addresses of my old friends in Los Angeles to write to about this before it worked itself out.

If I had a cigar, I'd probably smoke it.

Come home soon, Greg and Sabrina.

A Tip for "Our" Media
Mood:  on fire
Quit acting like there's some value in perpetrating this pose of "objectivity" and fairness and balance. You are American media (no offense, Rupert): quit giving these pieces of Palestinian shit a forum to spread their lies and nonsense about the Jews and the state of Israel. America stands with Israel and always will. Fuck these camel-humping losers. If they want to get our attention, let 'em make war on us so we can have an excuse to exterminate them from the face of the Earth.

These Are the Days When Vermin Pose
Mood:  on fire
Just look at these pieces of Palestinian shit. Walking around, looking into the lenses of sympathetic cameras, rushing about, moving bodies on gurneys in masses of fifty and more. Oh, I am impressed, you subhuman jackoffs. You want a war against Israel and the Jews? I hope they give it to you, Apache-style. DOWN WITH THE FUCKING ARAB CONTAGION!!!

Remember that there is no such thing as a Palestinian. These huge masses of unemployed and unemployable sacks of garbage are the sons and grandsons of Jordanian immigrants who came into Jewish Palestine to find the work that they couldn't find back home. (Sound familiar, si?) They eat, sleep, and live hatred for their betters (the Jews) off of whom they leach and against whom they spread contamination. Ever read excerpts from their kids' schoolbooks? They refer to Jews as pigs and monkeys. They refuse to live with the Jews in peace; all they want is to cause death and destruction.

I hope Sharon kills Arafat deader than a fucking roach. Down with these worthless bastards.

The LBJ Exception
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: Naked Raygun's Throb-Throb album
The world has certainly changed since the days of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. We can get ourselves embroiled in a decade-long civil war over a deliberately concocted story (and, ultimately, rooted in a questionable ideological obligation), but we have to beat ourselves up over a two-month-long war of liberation based on actual dangers arrayed against our country. What's the difference? Well, the level of distrust and cynicism is far higher now, but that's only because such attitudes were born then.

That's right, kids: LBJ got us into a war against communism to show Goldwater how tough he could be against the Reds. But his pretexts were excused because he was wrapped in the mantle of an assassinated man and because he was throwing open the flood gates to the Great Entitlement Society.

Bush the Younger, of course, won't get any such slack. He's an ignorant cowboy-madman. Never mind that the war he is fighting is entirely just and necessary; he's going to have the anti-Zionist, pro-Islamofascist Left riding his and Tony Blair's asses all the way down to Hell. There's no love for him on the Left because he stole their crown.

Well, fuck off and get over it. What's your next bunch of garbage going to be when our soldiers turn over the next round of evidence of WMD? The mobile weapons labs weren't sufficient? How about the bio-chem suits that Saddam had laid out like the kids' school clothes for the next day? Or, what about just conventional weapons? Like how they had giant stockpiles of them stored in what used to be girls' boarding schools? The anti-American liberal media can look these things over and over and face to face and never see the justification for our having gone to war because it's that clumsy, conservative Christian in the Oval Office calling the shots ---and not one of their own liberal vote-buyers trying to purchase the approval of his party's base.

A Few Things about Greg and Sabrina Allen
First off, I don't know enough about HTML to make Greg's banner ad active, but the link in the text I provided will take you directly to their site. If someone can tell me how to make the banner an active link, that'd be great.

Second, reading through Greg's site for Sabrina is a sobering experience for this reason alone: here I am in a not-too-big-a-city (am I actually saying that?!) where I watch the local news and read the local paper as thoroughly as the great majority of the people here ---and, yet, I was only half-aware (at best) of what had happened. It may well be that I had simply tuned the story out until I realized who, exactly, this child is. That's not an admission I'm proud to make, but my point is that I can think I'm in touch with what's happening around me and only belatedly come to find out that this man (an old friend) has been looking for his daughter for over a year now and that I barely realized it.

I've never been too quick, but I hope I make up for it by being thorough.

It will take more effort from more people to help Greg get Sabrina back. The Allens are a great bunch of folks and I am keeping a good thought for them.

Down with NPR
Mood:  incredulous
Y'all gotta check out this great story at NRO. If you ever had any doubts about what a big bunch of commie rat bastards National Public Radio are, this piece will set your mind to rest. And be sure to use the included link to read the NPR style guide: it could've been edited by Bill Moyers.

Remember: the greatest enemy of Jews and Zionism today is the Left. Liberals in this country and Europe will absolutely stick a knife in the back of Israel if given half a chance. They're on Arafat's shriveled up joint like a crack whore with a date to keep.

Tossing a Pebble for Greg
Mood:  sad
A few weeks ago, I caught the end of a story on the local news (Austin, TX) about a little girl named Sabrina Allen who had been abducted by her non-custodial mother and very probably taken to the area in and around Mexico City. Somehow, this beautiful little blonde-haired child looked familiar to me, but, for what reason, I had no inkling. Slowly, it occurred to me that this child, whom I had never seen before, was the daughter of one of my best friends from high school, Greg Allen. It was interesting to me that maybe there was something in her face that reminded me of Greg's mother and sisters, all of whom are very lovely women.

Anyhow, I had heard before about this abduction from another old friend, but didn't know what the appropriate thing to do would be. I hadn't spoken with Greg in more than a decade (see this space about two weeks ago on the issue of long-unseen friends), but I kept his plight in mind.

Now, there has been a push in the local media to help Greg find his daughter. The local ABC affiliate(KVUE) and the Austin American-Statesman have run stories on Greg's trip to Mexico City, where he is taking a crash-course in conversational Spanish (to help him with the local authorities and any possible witnesses) and plastering signs all over town featuring Sabrina's and his ex-wife's pictures.

I realize, of course, that this weblog is as far from the appropriate forum as it can be to be a place where an appeal can be made, but who can say what a random reminder may or may not yield? I'm simply tossing a pebble into a pond. If, somehow, these words are being read by someone who has just returned from Mexico City and who remembers seeing a blonde-haired six-year old girl in the company of a dark-haired, light-complected woman (neither of whom is fluent in Spanish), that person should consider logging onto Greg's website and comparing his or her memory to the many pictures of Sabrina found there.

I don't know Sabrina, but her daddy was one of the brightest guys I've ever met. He was one of those guys back in high school who was so adept at technical issues that he made wise-crackers like me look like the poser I was. Eagle Scout, salutatorian, or doctoral candidate at the University of Texas: this is a man who would trade any of that for the safety of his child. I wish him all good fortune and hope for the day that I can shake his hand in congratulations ---as I have many times before.