The Education of a Blogger, Continued....
I will now provide you with this fun link. But, surely there's an easier way to do this!

Terror Alert Level Orange
Okay, so now we're back to security level Orange (which is high). With everything going on in the lands of That Peaceful But Misunderstood Religion, it seems, indeed, quite likely that something could also be afoot here. But, if you think about it, we've been spared terrorism domestically since September 11th. That's coming up on two years now. Maybe we should thank our police state-like government and all of its Constitution-circumventing right wing Nazi cowboys for doing us a good job.

Cutting off Noses, Spiting Faces
There's a lot to feel sorry for the Iraqis about, but when we hear stories about them stealing crucial monitoring equipment from water treatment plants, there's nothing else to think but that they are dumbasses. What sort of black market for such machines do they imagine? They're good for one thing: monitoring the treatment of water in water treatment plants. It's pathetic.

We're glad you're happy with the outcome of the war, Mo. Now it's time for y'all to grow up and quit fucking around.

Hear, Hear!
I could watch the question sessions from the British House of Commons all day long. It is clearly the most entertaining program on television. Heh, heh. Just listen to all of these "honorable friends." It's really the best.

Hail Britannia!

Take This Cup of My Irrationality
Quaff on this, jackson: I don't want or even need to "understand" or "tolerate" Islam or any of its psychopathic offshoots. You might think that's a necessity for a thoughtful person, as I presume myself to be, but no way. Any belief system that could even be misconstrued into what you see before us today is one not worth reasoning with, but one worth crushing. Cut its throat, drain it off and pump it full of formaldehyde, and stick it under glass and charge the tourists, but don't let it continue to fester and infect the whole world.

It comes down to making a judgement: holding one thing above another. Of course, it's a distasteful attitude to take when the guiding principle for Leftists and the masses of the ignorant is to not judge certain things superior or inferior, but to accept the beliefs of others on their own terms. Well, that's the conduct of a polite dinner guest or partygoer, not the course of a spiritual or political person declared to be independent or constituted of real human rights and liberties.

I don't bend my knee to the east or lie prostrate on the ground in worship of some ancient desert marauder and his imaginings. I don't live my life by the nonsensical gibberish and xenophobic bile found in some holy book. I don't treat women like garbage or hide them in veils or cut out their clitorises. The golden age of Islam is a far distant memory. The only thing its adherents now should undertake is to make of their worship what the great majority of Christians and Jews have made of theirs, which is to secularize it into a harmless idolatry. We can't have these beliefs in monotheism merge entirely into our political lives. Modern man cannot stand a theocratic state; it is anathema to the rights of the individual.

I haven't known many Muslims in my time. Maybe I should be ashamed to think so little of their religion and to heap the easiest-going Shiite together with the most psychopathic Wahhabist, but it's clear that their common denominator is a real problem. Islam was founded by military men and forced upon the world at the point of a blade. There is a savagery inherent in their beliefs that no amount of protesting to the contrary is going to ameliorate. It may some day be difficult and embarrassing for me to face a Muslim in light of my beliefs and explain my intolerance and irrationality, but I can't pretend that Islam is a peaceful and progressive religion if I know it is not.

If it takes a hundred years and the blood of tens of millions, it will not lessen the pain and suffering of those whose experience and sacrifice it was, but, in the end, the Earth cannot abide the expansion of such a regressive belief system. Let the fire of war burn it away. Let the arts of propaganda confuse it into the ground. Let the market buy and sell it. But don't let it continue to sicken and metastasize.

The Old Feigned-Knowledge-of-US-Treasury-Anti-Counterfeiting-Measures Ploy
On my way home from work last night, I stopped by a grocery store to pick up a few items. With my shopping done, the check-out counter I picked was ideal: the line consisted of only a pair of really pretty blonde-haired college-aged girls with just (it appeared) a few items left to be checked out. I didn't realize, of course, that they had bought so much crap that the cashier was running ragged trying to scan and also bag all of it to keep his counter from stacking up. The poor guy was starting to run out of gas. I wasn't really in any hurry, as I was fully enjoying the sight of these very well-designed young ladies, so it took me longer than usual to slip into my slightly-annoyed-with-our-progress-here mode.

However, slip I did. Not really all that much, but I was interested in seeing their huge purchase be completed and moved out of my way. After all, these girls' perfect faces and sleek, manhandlable little bodies with long, luxurious, tuggable heads of hair weren't doing me any good. So, when the shorter of the two little chick-a-dees hands over her money to the poor cashier guy, my heart sank as he began to study ---really study--- the $100 bill she had given him. For a good minute, he held it up to the light and in different positions and, finally, told my imaginary lover (is "object of my erection" too crass?) that the bill was a phoney.

"Please don't be telling me that. I just got that from my bank this morning."

At this point, I butted in and asked the cashier if he was looking for the security thread. He nodded, then got on the horn and called out for his manager.

I noticed from a distance that the bill was pre-1996 (the year of the great makeover) and so I asked the girl what year was printed on the bill.

"Nineteen seventy-five."

At that, and without any good reason (other than to appear knowledgeable to this exquisite pair of Tootsie Roll Pops), I casually offered up AN ABSOLUTE LIE:

"Nineteen seventy-five? They didn't start putting security threads into hundreds until the Carter Administration."

Just like that. As matter-of-factly as giving my name, rank, and serial number. I said it with such ease and conviction that the poor cashier's manager, who had shown up to help, nodded his assent. "Yeah, that's a good bill."

"You're so smart," the one girl said to me. I just shrugged, making sure not to make eye contact with my conscience, who was gazing at me with a contempt for balls.

"THE CARTER ADMINISTRATION?! Where the fuck did you get the Carter Administration?"

Anyhow, by the time I had finished up with my own business and was on my way to my car, it started to occur to me that I might just have facilitated a major theft. Then again, I was even more certain that I had done something to move things along and prevent a whole bunch of register-voiding on my time. Still, the whole way home, there was but one question on my mind:

"When did they start putting security threads in our hundreds?"

Bless Your Heart, Mrs. Cash
I didn't know that June Carter Cash had co-written "Ring of Fire," which is one of the all-time best songs ever. Who could ever truly be said to have died who had played some hand in that?

I don't know how long it's been out, but Mrs. Cash appears along with Johnny in that incredible video for his song "Hurt." I'm sure Country Music Television (CMT) will have it in rotation for a while yet. The first time I saw it (heard it), I was woefully unprepared for the impact. It is absolute genius. And I cried big, manful tears for such beauty. Be sure to catch it, if you can, and realize what he's singing to you. It is devastating.

Heroes? Get the Hell Out of Here!
You know, I actually know a few of those derelict state reps from my time as an "operative" with the Texas Democratic Party: Richard Raymond, Eddie Rodriguez, Pete Gallegos, et al. One of my brothers went to high school with Jimmy Dunnam there in Waco. They're personally likeable, but that don't pay the bills. People aren't going to look at what they've done with the proper dispassion; it's too much an act of political disobedience with too much of [local Texas flavor] to be seen for what it was, which was an infantile outburst against a whole new partisan paradigm in the Lone Star state. They didn't solve shit; they postponed it. They didn't make friends; they alienated the opposition in ways they haven't thought of yet. Oh, and Tom De Lay? That old bug exterminator's got a hard-on for every one of you foot-draggers.

By the way, I watched a little of the coverage of that welcome rally down at the Capitol today. If you look real carefully at the very farthest point on the perimeter from the Heroes of Ardmore, you can see old Lloyd Doggett a'clappin' an' a'grinnin'. What were you holding back so far for, Lloyd? Your fellow-titty babies wrecked this session for YOU. So that YOU won't lose Mr. Pickle's seat.

(If he ever came up to the front for a photo op, can someone tell me here? Drop me a line in the comments link, if you will.)

The Mets Have Won the Pennant! The Mets Have Won the Pennant!
Man, did I ever enjoy watching the Spurs beat the Lakers! And there at Staples Center ---right in Jack Nicholson's fucking face!!! Ha, ha, ha, ha!!!!

Anyway, you gotta love Popovich and the Admiral and Duncan and all those guys. They've got more class than pro teams are supposed to have.

Robert Stack, RIP
One of my all-time favorite voices has been silenced with the passing of actor Robert Stack. His performance in Airplane! is a work of comedic genius.

I thought about sending his family a card, but ---no.

That's just what they'll be expecting me to do....

How 'Bout Them Texas Democrats?
Isn't it funny how much mileage these Democratic state reps are getting out of not doing their jobs? The national press is certainly enjoying the spectacle of watching these rats take refuge in Oklahoma like conscientious objectors chaining themselves to the pews of a church. It all sounds very romantic and principled, but I don't know what they're thinking of. Texas is no longer a Democratically-controlled state. That isn't going to change for a while yet, so, in the meantime, what do these clowns think their job is? Whatever you think of their asylum-seeking, it must be admitted that they are doing nothing more than throwing a fit.

Welcome to minority status, wankers. If your message is so great, why are you no longer in the majority?

It would be a mighty odd development if Austin, that big hippy what's sittin' in the middle of Central Texas, went ahead and lost Mr. Pickle's seat, but it's no worse than what these cross-dressing, anti-war, pinko subversives deserve.

Regarding Julie Kavner's Disappearance
Several weeks ago, the professional sycophant James Lipton managed to gather together the six principal voices/actors of The Simpsons on his Bravo show Inside the Actor's Studio. (I say six, but it should be seven: Phil Hartman, the comedic genius who contributed so much to The Simpsons in its heyday, was taken from us far too soon.) Despite Lipton's usual obsequiousness, it was a real treat to get to see everyone together in the flesh. However, as you may have noticed, Julie Kavner (the voice of Marge and her sisters, as well as Rhoda Morgenstern's little sister Brenda back in the day) disappeared about a third or so of the way through the show. Apparently, Kavner had asked to go to the restroom at an inopportune time for Lifton who, rather than letting her go easily, insisted that she first respond to his requests to "do" her characters. I'm not clear on how things went down, but, when Kavner finally got away to the restroom, she didn't come back. She was reportedly furious at Lipton.

Anyhow, that's why Kavner's there one minute and gone the next.

The Hostesses with the Mostesses
The Fox News Channel's growing success isn't necessarily a reflection of America's turn to conservatism, but is, more likely, entirely attributable to my own prurient interest in certain of their female reporters and anchors. Is there really any question that there should be a 24-hour Laurie Dhue Crossing and Uncrossing Her Legs Network or a Lauren Greene's Glossed Lips Channel?



Oh, and the Jennifer Eccleston Reading the Baghdad Phone Book News. That one can't be lived without.

What Nothing's Worse Than
Yep, that's right, jackson: there's nothing worse than the ex-smoker. He's the very limit of self-righteousness, quick to condemn what he himself long enjoyed. But, you can understand his turn to zealotry. If he doesn't lash out against smokers and smoking, he fears he will start from his three-week dream of self-denial with a myoclonic jerk and find himself living comfortably in a 40s-era film where everyone smokes without fear of consequences.

I encourage the Austin City Council to keep at it: ban smoking everywhere. You can't trust people to do what they should for themselves. Don't listen to these owners' stupid arguments about how a ban will kill their businesses. People will still go out to hear a band or get drunk or try to get laid. That's not going to change. And if these smokers say that keeping them from smoking will adversely affect their enjoyment of the music scene or keep them from riding the beer-and-ass circuit, be sure to ask them whether their smoking is a choice. Ask them why they can't "choose" to stop smoking for a few hours while they're out in public. Could it be because they're a bunch of nicotine addicts who have given their right of self-control over to the Altria Corporation or whatever it is that Philip-Morris calls itself now?

More on Hazing
I can't really condone the infliction of physical pain or injury as part of hazing or initiation rites ("Do unto others....," you know), but for those who wish to get their anthropological freak on, I say get to it. Young people need their bacchanals and their ritualized public humiliations. So long as they are going through these things as parts of groups, there's a kind of validation and safety in numbers. (There's also a false sense of impunity and a very real one of recklessness in numbers, but that's the consequence of a lack of character and good breeding.)

Apparently, the [currently-famous] hazing incident involving the girls from that suburban Chicago high school was fueled by alcohol provided by some of their parents. Naturally, this will lead to a slew of wankerous tort cases ---none of which will take into consideration the issues of free will and the desire for group participation, or the relative safety of the location where the hazing took place or the interests of adult chaperoning of such activities.

No government or authority in a free society will prevent young people from getting drunk or high with their peers. Where the possibility of such rebellious and debauched behavior is absent there is no life. The occasional and ritualized acceptance of drunken and silly behavior ---as part of some rite of passage or as an unanalyzed gesture to the rule of peer approval--- is a sign of healthy socialization.

When I was the age these girls are now ---16 and 17--- there was probably nothing more important to me than to be included with my group of friends in a night of prowling through our neighborhoods' creeks and dead-ends, getting drunk and listening to music with each other in places no parent would think to find us. We took stupid chances and upset a few garbage cans or road signs or whatever, but I think we did all of that then because we knew we weren't going to be doing it now. We governed ourselves in large part, only sometimes going over the line in cruelty, but we survived. I suppose we could have "survived" by even higher standards of lawfulness, but what a boring lot of bastards we'd be.

Ultimately, the only thing to be regretted from those few years of teenaged rebellion (and, God, what middle-class Caucasoids we were about it, too!) is the legacy of drink. I like to think that my own peer group was an anomaly because such a disproportionate share of them were the very best and brightest minds our whole city had to offer ---and, yet, there is no question that their behavior was that of alcoholics. Was drinking their way of damping down the pressures of the expectations placed on them? I can't say. I was never in their league. And, besides, my own choices in addiction (made shortly thereafter) cannot be ameliorated or justified by comparison.

Those girls up near Chicago need to think long and hard about whether they, too, want to take refuge in alcohol or anything else. Every statistic I see says that binge-drinking is on the upswing among the college-aged set, especially for young women. Who knows what vulnerabilities they're open to when they embrace a life of alcoholism? Enjoy your youth, ladies, but don't forget your selves.

Some Splaining to Do
I still don't understand how cutting the taxation on stock dividends is going to encourage consumer spending or provide new jobs. After all, that's what's going to get our economy going again (if anything will). What the President and his economists are asking for is, to my untutored mind, a huge tax break for people who are already so wealthy that the income they make on stock dividends constitutes a considerable part of their income. But these are rich individuals, right? They're not the ones who need help, goddammit! They're not, as the President suggests, going to rush out and "buy new equipment" or "hire new employees" for their businesses; they're going to feather their nests or sink the savings back into the stock market. That's dead money or fuel for more of the same speculative crap that made the bust so severe in the first place. (That's another gap in my understanding of economics: bull markets don't pay my bills, beeatch!) If there're going to be any tax cuts, they need to go to people for whom a few hundred bucks is the difference between making the rent and not. These jag-offs who nearly kill me every day with their SUVs as they make their way to the golf course or to pick up Caitlin or Jeremy from soccer practice don't need a break: they need to get broken.

I hope the moderates in the Senate keep to their guns and don't allow the President to bully them into going along with what his own father once called voodoo economics.

Sean Hannity Is Unlistenable
At particularly newsworthy times, I will turn on my car radio to a local talk station here in Austin (AM 1370) and check out stuff like Don Imus or Bill O' Reilly or Sean Hannity. Basically, I like Imus because his curmudgeonosity is an equal opportunity trait. Plus, when he gets down to an actual discussion with someone informed on the issues, he becomes quite useful to the audience because he knows how to stand back and listen.

O'Reilly is basically a prick, but it's hard for me to dislike him completely because he will ---very occasionally--- let the other guy have his piece, too. He usually has on someone he's opposed to for the purpose of having a prop to beat down. O'Reilly's usually so sure he's right that he can't keep from bullying the opponent, but he does back down and show respect if the other guy has his argument down and doesn't get frightened off.

Hannity, on the other hand, is just a prick. He's a big cheerleader for the right and he absolutely explodes if he gets shown up. It's a real embarrassment. I just heard him talking to a couple of commies from MoveOn.org on his radio program and, before I tuned in, the one guy had gotten him in a headlock and all he can think to do is call the guy a coward and cut him off with an ad break. When he comes back from the break, he says that the guy had hung up on him and then begins his tirade, certain that he won't be interrupted. Well, too bad for him that the control room had not, in fact, cut the guy off and, during a pause in Hannity's breathlessness, the guy from MoveOn.org starts talking again and turns the table on Hannity, accusing him of being the one who had hung up. Hannity's reaction: he immediately calls the guy a liar and says that he has no control over the technical end of the program since he is on a remote feed. So, that justifies his immediate characterization of the guy as a liar? That's about as shrill and immature as it gets. He's no better on the Fox TV show he does with the house liberal Alan Colmes. He's all bark. Do your homework and tone it down, irish. You're annoying your natural allies to the point of antagonism.

Haze
You know this town's going to hell when the only meteorological variable is the quotient of Mexican smoke lingering over us. We're choking ahogo, Vicente. Maybe y'all can find some other way to clear your fields?

And, further on the question of our hazing (as it were), this story out of suburban Chicago about the teenaged girls getting loaded and beating on each other with shit and mud and whatever else was at hand is simply pathetic. Once again, here's a story that gets lots of attention in the major media and you honestly have to wonder why. It wouldn't be any sort of prurient, sweeps-weeks type stuff, of course, so what could it be?

First and last of all, these chicks aren't even hot. They all look pretty homely to me. Why couldn't their school's drill team have been the group to do the hazing? Now there's some video worth checking out. What them drill team girls need is some discipline. You know: a good, loooong spanking from Uncle Tobe. Heh, heh, heh....

Man, I could go for a smoke!

On the Matter of Cussing
My Mother just told me that a man with so good a vocabulary as mine shouldn't have to reduce himself to the use of profanity in his writings. Well, I am genuinely sorry for any offense that I give her with my cussing, but I like to use all the words I know. People cuss naturally, casually. If they're raised right, they'll usually know when and where it's not appropriate to use certain words, but, otherwise, cussing is a perfectly acceptable part of our natural speech. The thing is, though, I don't like censorship ---and not using the "F-word" (as my Mother puts it) when the only thing that will work is the F-word is extremely annoying and unnatural.

This question extends itself to racial, ethnic, and class slurs: when do they get used? That is, I ain't no Mark Fuhrman: when the defense attorney asks me if I've ever used the "N-word," I'm not going to be able to deny it. If, like Fuhrman, I do deny it, everyone will know that I am a liar ---and that is a hateful thing to bear. That's far more hateful, in fact, than striving to have never used the "N-word" at all. Why? Because if a black guy makes me mad (e.g., by driving recklessly and endangering my life), why wouldn't I use the ugliest, most hateful term I can think of? Am I a passionless robot, programmed by my betters to rein in my heart and tongue and personality at all costs? No one who lives is above being chewed out or hated or denigrated or praised or loved or exalted. Niceties are sterile; inoffensiveness as an end is the end of human being: don't ask me for that; don't want that for me.

Oh, Cut the Crap with This Laci Peterson Business, Already!
I really resent the major media forcing this story down our throats. I don't care that Diane Sawyer scored an interview with the villain of the piece, and I don't know why we had to watch "breaking news" coverage of this dead woman's memorial service on the cable news outlets. These murders, despite their general horrificness, are of absolutely no social or cultural relevance to the world at large. Several days ago, I mistakenly believed that the cultural relevance angle was going to be the question of the unborn child's rights, but I have yet to see this question pursued. Rather, the media only seems interested in the forensic evidence that the cops had taken from the Peterson home before the bodies surfaced. I swear, this isn't even a good episode of Law & Order. Write your favorite networks and tell them to cut the crap with this Laci Peterson business, already. It's beyond absurd.