On Noble Ideals

Ideal — definition, an ennobling and enlightening concept which exists in the ephemeral to thus justify our doing terrible things to people in the material. See Liberation, Peace & Justice, etc.

The Slime

You know, I haven’t written much about Dickie (“Quick-Draw”) Cheney and his fun little gun. Mostly that’s because, at first, I thought it was just an accident and a personal tragedy.

Yet, with the passing of time, that’s gotten harder to believe. We have discovered that there were so many lies and evasions . . .

And, you know, I can’t help thinking, you remember back when President Clinton’s secretary of commerce, Ron Brown, was killed in a plane crash — which was, gawdamit, an accident — and almost instantly all the Neocon GOP slime spreaders came out from under their rocks to tell the world that he’d been assassinated?

Well, imagine, just imagine what would have happened . . . the stories, the falsehoods, the dis-information, the smear job up the wazoo . . . that we’d be living with now if Cheney had been a Democrat.

Search Engine Boogie

So the Feds want all the search engines, like Google, to provide the details of anyone who looks for illegal stuff. But, not to worry — the Feds tell us — we’re only looking for perverts, child pornographers, and terrorists.

Well . . . them . . . plus ACLU members, people who voted for Gore, New Orleans residents who aren’t thrilled with FEMA, Blue State citizens, critics of the war in Iraq, and anyone who has ever vaguely suspected that Karl Rove looks lot like a warthog with a glandular problem.

But, hey! Six of one, half a dozen . . .

Those Cartoons

So, like most of us, I’ve been watching the riots in Islamic countries about those rather vile cartoons published in Denmark.

And, like most of us, I get all huffy about freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, and, besides, maybe we in the West would be a little less eager to print pictures of the Prophet with a bomb on his head if maybe his followers had declined, at least once in a while, not to blow us and each other up at regular intervals for about the last half century.

But, that said . . . given the realities of modern international strife . . . and all those hyperventilating mobs in places like Teheran . . . and everything . . . well . . .

Note to the Danish Press: If you really wanted to commit hari kari, couldn’t you have stayed at home and shot yourself in the head? Would have been a lot quicker.

Knight Mare

J.J. Bittermuch writes me from the fifth circle (the Wraithful) of Hell:

In Boston there’s a local publication that covers the night-life and café scene. In a recent issue, the publication printed the results of an informal survey of women asking if chivalry was dead. The general opinion was that it was not only dead but dang near starting to draw flies.

One typical comment from an interviewee was “Although [we are] independent, equal, and fabulous, we still deserve to be treated like ladies. Pay for my meal, open my door, pull out my chair, damn it.”

Fascinating. A total crock of hairy quadruped excrement, but fascinating.

Look, Lady, and I use the term loosely, most men of the last few generations grew up listening to Feminists define all men as pigs and all sex as rape. We listened while women announced that the Y-chromosome was a sexually transmitted disease. We were there while female academics proclaimed us the children of Cain. We watched while women announced that every male was, at best, an impotent sit-com daddy, and at worst, an animal.

And now you have the brass-plated chutzpah to demand that we treat you like a fairy tale princess?

Whoa.

Listen, redefine me . . . at least a little, at least once in a while . . . as Saint George rather than the Dragon, and then maybe we can talk about the shining armor.

Until then . . . well . . .

Galahad has left the building.

Rolling Stones of the Union

So I watched the State of the Union thing the other night. In it, our fearless leader said we were addicted to oil and needed to mend our ways.

Truth enough, but, you know . . .

This is an administration which is so wired into the oil industry that you can’t figure out where the pipeline leaves off and Cheney’s pacemaker picks up.

And these guys are telling us to consume less?

Come on, that’s like Keith Richards passing out DARE stickers.

Notes from the Academy

I am amazed at the number of historians whose writing is basically, bottom-line, awful. Sentences go wandering around, passive voice rules, jargon fills every nook and cranny, impenetrable academic-speak and obscurities are the order of the day.

In fact, I’m convinced that most of them secretly want to by Toynbee …who secretly wanted to be Oswald Spengler … who secretly wanted to be one of the German Metaphysicals . . . who secretly wanted to write so badly that no one would notice they didn’t have a single freaking idea in their pointed little heads and were just spouting gibberish for the hell of it.

shoes

I write this (in my head) as I watch a young woman in backless high-heel shoes teeter across a brick courtyard in downtown Boston. She comes within a hair’s breadth of falling at least twice, and then totters unsteadily off along the sidewalk.

I am convinced, now, that the women’s shoe industry is dominated by a sinister conspiracy of orthopedic surgeons drumming up future business, or else of geeky hetero white guys who nobody would date in high school and this is their way of getting revenge on women everywhere.

feathers

J.J. Bittermuch writes me from Hell:

Read in an old Scientific American a while back that some researchers have figured out how to make plastic out of the otherwise useless chicken feathers from poultry-processing plants.

Wonder if we couldn’t do the same thing with left over liberals.

~

And, in almost precisely the same terms.

Sewage treatment and Neoconservatives . . .

But maybe that would come under the heading of hazmat.

There is a species of bully . . .

There is a species of bully . . . most recently manifested as Republicans and Feminists, but found in every age and every movement. . . which starts off with taking a swing at your head with an ice-ax and then, inevitably, dissolves into bewildered fury and cries of “oppression” when you have the audacity to duck.

Blog Whacking

I see in the paper that corporations are beginning to crack down on employees’ private blogs (even when they’re hosted by some other company) because of the possible “legal ramifications” of what the employees might make public.

Oh goody gum drops.

Yet another justification for our masters to muzzle us.

Sort of makes you long for Fascism, doesn’t it? At least it was up front about being a bastard.

I'm back

like it says

Stay Tuned

I'm off to visit my family in New Mexico for a ten days or so. But stay tuned. I'll be back with more drivel soon.

Definitions

Ideology — definition, the learned study of idiots; a field of research whose major question is how can people strive for liberty and well being, and then go out and shoot somebody and giggle. See Fascism, Feminism, Capitalism, Radicalism, Democracy, Vegetarianism, etc.

Female empowerment

J.J. Bittermuch reports from hell:

The woman MBA says proudly: “They’ve found something that will do the work of three men . . . one woman.”

And her corporate master responds with a smile: “And if the silly cow is willing to let us exploit her like that, who are we to object?”

Subalterns

Notes from the academy:

Subaltern historians: in theory, these are (mostly third world) scholars who look at effects on vulnerable cultures of Western colonialism and economic exploitation.

That’s in theory.

In practice it means that the people who were powerful and bloody rich before the British got there, and then got richer and more powerful while the British were there, and own the whole damn country now that the British are gone … announce that they’re victims and you should damn well hurry up with the foreign aid. And while you’re at it, apologize.

In a word . . .

Happy New Year . . .

Let's hope we survive it.

Road To Hell

Liberals, as a group, have often attributed Geo. W. and the Neocon’s boneheaded decision to invade Iraq to their (or at least W’s) pure stupidity. In fact, of course, nothing of the sort is true. The decision to send troops was a perfectly rational move to establish an American presence – “an unsinkable aircraft carrier” – in the heart of the Arab and Moslem worlds. From Iraq, the US could project power in any direction, toward Iran, Syria, or Saudi Arabia, depending on the need. From Baghdad and Basra, American land and air forces could range out over deserts and seas to threaten our enemies, protect our friends, and, oh, yes, secure American access to oil.

The problem? Well, you already know it. The invasion was predicated on the assumption that we were liberating a nation-state that which would remain coherent even if its resident despot were removed. In fact, of course, nothing of the sort was true. Iraq was cobbled together by Gertrude Bell and the British who thought it would be fun to see if you could make a country out of people who hated each other. Without a thoroughly totalitarian despot at the helm, a Frankenstein’s monster like that is going to fall. And, now, we’ve got the results of our war of liberation . . . chaos, civil strife, roadside bombs, and death by a thousand cuts.

So, in other words, the invasion wasn’t stupid.

It was, however, a gross criminal error.

And . . . in the real word . . . that’s whole hell of a lot worse.

Keep the Nay in Napalm

So, a few days before Christmas I was out getting a some last minute gifts. In the parking of the Mall I spotted a car parked near mine. It was a new one, rather expensive, and all nice and shiny.

It also had a bunch of bumper stickers. They read (from right to left) something along the lines of “Keep Christ in Christmas,” “Shock and Awe” (this with a small picture of a jet dropping bombs), “America, love it or Get Out,” and, last, a modified pro-George W. Bush sticker with a large “W” attached to an American flag and, below that, “whup ass.”

I hurried away.

I didn’t want to meet to the person who owned that car.

I might have been forced to admit that I didn’t know what part of the Bible it was that Christ (as in “Keep Christ in . . .”) said something along the lines of “Blessed be they who napalm women and children.”

I suspect it may be in the Sermon On The Artillery Platform, but I don’t really remember.

holiday greetings

Merry Christmas to all! And to all a good night.