Friday, February 25, 2005

"If you are not thoroughly appalled, you are not paying attention."
- Bumper Sticker

And from this morning's New York Times comes this gem of pure chutzpah said by Dubya at the shared press conference with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in Bratislava, Slovakia:
"Democracies have certain things in common - a rule of law and protection of minorities and a free press and a viable political opposition."
For America, he did get one of those right... I mean the rich are quantitatively a minority. Technically.
Now what truly amazes me is the political computer of the Russian Cza.. errr.. I mean the Russian President. The truly erudite at the Times are so good, they summed up Putin's response delivery with one word. "tartly." Personally, I'd be delivering my response from the base of the podium as I rolled around, held my side, and cried from laughter. But Putin is a rational human being, or the passing proximity of one thereof, and he did have to say a thing or two about American Democracy.
"The Russian President also said that the American Electoral College was in essence a 'secret ballot' and pointedly noted, "It is not considered undemocratic, is it?"
When you get zinged by ex-KGB... no, I don't really want to know what that says.
Not been as prolific as in my blog bits at work since I moved to the solo post, even though I don't have anyone watching me over my shoulder when I write. I think the problem is the desk. My post is a desk inside a small concrete bunker of a room, in the building basement. A desk. My parents believed wholly in power of desk as the singular altar of study. Never would a good son work at the kitchen table, on the floor, or outside, for all these would be too distracting and informal. So I was expected to hammer away solely at my uncomfortable desk until all tasks were complete. I developed an intellectual allergic reaction to desks. Unless innoculated by an immediate external deadline, I can become paralyzed from the neck up when placed in a chair in front of a desk, But I will prevail over this insidious condition. Or I will get a laptop, which will happen when I start requesting my senior discount.

Saturday, February 12, 2005

I was watching NBC Nightly News, and they did the expected blurb on the one year anniversary of Gavin Newsom's opening of City Hall for same-sex unions. And there was the Golden Boy himself, Gavin Newsom. What a fuckhead.Yes, I disproval of gay marriage and yes, I think gay marriage did as much damage as a coldfish candidate during the election. What makes it worse is the elevation of Gavin Newsom as a progressive hero. Here is the classic local corrupt machine political machine's inheritor, the business interests' best boy, who is still jacking San Francisco over public utilities, affordable housing, and the general future of a marvelous city. That's what makes me so ticked, that on top of trying to gain acceptance through assimilation into the lopsided institutions of an inherently inequal society, Gays have helped gain serious political street cred for this asshole who took down a true progressive, Matt Gonzales, running to be the first major Green Party mayor. And that is why you can deeply doubt the altruism of Newsom in the queer marriageapalooza. This is how the past mayor, that sleaze, Brown kept his hold on city hall, by pre-empting social causes to cover over the wholesale gentrification of the city itself. All I am saying is that we should let the mainstream have their defunct symbolic sugarcoated practices and their two-faced self-serving politicians.
Anyway, rant over. Oh and to reiterate: Fuck Gavin Newsom.
Thank you.

Friday, February 11, 2005

I was going to write something, but I've found myself behind a cerebral blood fog that comes from overwhelming news overload smacking into my stubborn belief that humanity should still do things that make sense. Talk about foolish. I mean, I start the day with a cup of coffee and the New York Times every workday, and I finished Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed this week. Then add in hours of television news and online alternative news sites... It's just starting to blur again. Reality outpaces comedy. I think I lost it somewhere around the Virginia Commonwealth's ban of low-riding pants, as dictated by State Assembly. Least Kim Jong-Il's hair still makes me laugh. That counts for something.

Friday, February 04, 2005

"..... that those who write about religion owe it to their readers to come clean about their own theological frame of reference. So here's mine:
I don't know what God is, or what God had in mind when the universe was set in motion. In fact, I don't know if God even exists, although I confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair, or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty.
There are some ten thousand extant religious sects - each with its own cosmology, each with its own answer for the meaning of life and death. Most assert that the other 9,999 not only have it completely wrong but are instruments of evil, besides. None of the ten thousand has yet persuaded me to make the prerequisite leap of faith. In the absence of conviction, I've come to terms with the fact that uncertainty is an inescapable corollary of life. An abundance of mystery is simply part of the bargain - which doesn't strike me as something to lament. Accepting the essential inscrutability of existence, in any case, is surely preferable to its opposite: capitulating to the tyranny of intransigent belief.
And if I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few modest truths: Most of us fear death. Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why - which is to say, most of us ache for the love of our creator. And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive."

from Under The Banner Of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

(I really recommend this book and another of his, Into The Wild.)


I'm tearing through books now.. which rocks. Not that reading Harper's Magazine, The Nation, and the New York Times isn't a crapload of reading. But I've been so bad about reading, doing a bit of self-sabotage by trying to only read the "hard" ones. No wonder I didn't read much else for the couple of months I hammered at Pierre De Chardin. So hopefully, I'm back to juggling all levels of writing again. Of course, having five hours in a small concrete bunker just off a loading dock to read really does help....