This blog is still dead. Kaput. Phhhht. Not alive. It has gone to meet its maker and joined the choir invisible. It's still bleedin' dead.
And it will not be revived.
I only haven't deleted the whole thing because I don't want some low-life jumping on it and putting up a temporary porn site.
My main blog is Next in the Series: The Blog. All are welcome there.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Change of Venue
From now on, all posts of mine concerning politics will appear on my main blog, Next in the Series: The Blog. The Commisariat feels that centralization will help the collective attain the goals as set forth in the Five-Year Plan. Also, maintaining a huge number of blogs is a drag.
Do svidaniya!
Do svidaniya!
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
The Fort Dix Six
Or, as they should be known, Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp, Joe, and Curly Joe.
I just wanted to try to put this most recent arrest into what I think is the proper perspective.
First, this was not a significant terror threat. This was a bunch of overgrown adolescents playing army. Although they had bought some weapons and spent some time going up to the Poconos to shoot them, they were not close to seriously attacking Fort Dix (where they would have gotten slaughtered in short order had they tried it). They had no date set. Their "substantial firepower" included "handguns, an assault rifle and a semiautomatic assault weapon," which means that they would have gotten wiped out immediately since everybody in the Army has an assault rifle, as well as all the most sophisticated weaponry imaginable.
Despite their claims to be participating in jihad, it seems that none of the six were especially religious or observant, and the jihad business was clearly just part of a greater rationalization and fantasy on their part. They claimed to be waiting for a fatwa to be declared, but isn't that exactly what someone would come up with if they wanted to put off their rendezvous with destiny indefinitely? It seems to me that, if you wanted to attack an Army base for real, you would just set a date, not wait for a fatwa to be declared by somebody you had never asked to declare one.
These were boys who could not figure out how to be men, so they developed a fantasy in which they could pretend to be action heroes. You don't get somebody who is not part of your group to transfer video tape to DVD for you if you're serious about an attack. You do that if you want to watch the DVD because it helps you to believe that you're a grown-up.
Now, I'm glad they were arrested, glad they will be tried. I hope they do long, hard time. However, we cannot let the government and the press try to convince us that these idiots were terrorists. They were fools, nothing more or less.
I just wanted to try to put this most recent arrest into what I think is the proper perspective.
First, this was not a significant terror threat. This was a bunch of overgrown adolescents playing army. Although they had bought some weapons and spent some time going up to the Poconos to shoot them, they were not close to seriously attacking Fort Dix (where they would have gotten slaughtered in short order had they tried it). They had no date set. Their "substantial firepower" included "handguns, an assault rifle and a semiautomatic assault weapon," which means that they would have gotten wiped out immediately since everybody in the Army has an assault rifle, as well as all the most sophisticated weaponry imaginable.
Despite their claims to be participating in jihad, it seems that none of the six were especially religious or observant, and the jihad business was clearly just part of a greater rationalization and fantasy on their part. They claimed to be waiting for a fatwa to be declared, but isn't that exactly what someone would come up with if they wanted to put off their rendezvous with destiny indefinitely? It seems to me that, if you wanted to attack an Army base for real, you would just set a date, not wait for a fatwa to be declared by somebody you had never asked to declare one.
These were boys who could not figure out how to be men, so they developed a fantasy in which they could pretend to be action heroes. You don't get somebody who is not part of your group to transfer video tape to DVD for you if you're serious about an attack. You do that if you want to watch the DVD because it helps you to believe that you're a grown-up.
Now, I'm glad they were arrested, glad they will be tried. I hope they do long, hard time. However, we cannot let the government and the press try to convince us that these idiots were terrorists. They were fools, nothing more or less.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Stuff & Nonsense
Just some thoughts that have been accumulating:
First, it has occurred to me that part of the appeal of The Sopranos is that the organizational ethos in use is roughly similar to the one in use by the Bush Administration. And in that spirit, I'd like to pitch a new series that can replace The Sopranos on HBO or, at least, compete with reruns of it on Showtime or USA.
I call my new show The Bushis (pronounced "Bushies"), and it would follow the melodramatic travails of the Washington, DC, crime family headed by Giorgio "Dubya" Bushi. Like Don Corleone in The Godfather movies, Bushi is basically incomprehensible when he speaks, however, he seems more of a figurehead than the man who is really in charge.
The real mastermind behind the family's crimes is second-in-command Ricardo "The Dick" Cheni. Cheni is Bushi's mentor, and when Bushi asked him who he should choose to be second-in-command, Cheni chose himself. Bushi, having risen through the ranks through family connections rather than intelligence or competence, easily falls under the older man's sway. They gather about them a group of like minded incompetents, including Condi, Wolfi, and their consigliari, Alberto. Carlo Rovo is their faithful hitman.
I think that gets across the flavor of it. Storylines would involve election-fixing, large-scale gang warfare, corruption in government contracting, all culminating in a series of episodes dealing with the slow destruction of the family and the internecine fighting that ensues.
In other news, how naive can the New York Times editorial board be? According to an editorial published today, May 5, 2007, they are amazed that the Presidential diaries of Ronald Reagan showed him to be, in their words, "a prosaic and amiably unrevealing drone." This is news? Do you mean to tell me that they have thought all along that Mr. Reagan was something besides a figurehead, an actor called upon to play the role of the avuncular and often condescending Grandpa-in-Chief? Say it isn't so!
Ever since he was wheeled out of office in January 1989, I've said that a good title for a book about him and his administration would be Asleep at the Wheel. It was obvious from the very beginnings of his first term that this was a guy who was mainly a PR device to be used by others as they implemented an agenda that he neither formulated nor understood. He was a mouthpiece, a beard, a front bought and paid for originally by a bunch of Southern California rich guys who noticed what a good job he did pushing cleanser in the breaks on Death Valley Days.
As for Mr. Reagan, he was one of those people who could fall face first into a pile of manure and come up smelling like a rose. He pretty much lucked into every job he ever had, from radio sportscaster to President of the United States. His only known skills were those of amiability and a willingness to mouth whatever palaver he was asked to by whoever was paying the bills.
Most incredibly, The Times board seems amazed that there were no phrases as pointed as "Evil Empire" or "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem," which were touches provided by speech writers anyway. Mr. Reagan, like Mr. Bush, was always trouble when he ad libbed, and was more likely to talk about trees causing more pollution than cars than coming up with pithy political slogans.
The right wing of the Republican party likes their Presidential candidates in this mold: not very bright mouthpieces and figureheads. Mr. Reagan fit that mold and so does Mr. Bush. They are the Trojan Horse candidates, the ones who present an attractive front that conceals the forces of your doom.
First, it has occurred to me that part of the appeal of The Sopranos is that the organizational ethos in use is roughly similar to the one in use by the Bush Administration. And in that spirit, I'd like to pitch a new series that can replace The Sopranos on HBO or, at least, compete with reruns of it on Showtime or USA.
I call my new show The Bushis (pronounced "Bushies"), and it would follow the melodramatic travails of the Washington, DC, crime family headed by Giorgio "Dubya" Bushi. Like Don Corleone in The Godfather movies, Bushi is basically incomprehensible when he speaks, however, he seems more of a figurehead than the man who is really in charge.
The real mastermind behind the family's crimes is second-in-command Ricardo "The Dick" Cheni. Cheni is Bushi's mentor, and when Bushi asked him who he should choose to be second-in-command, Cheni chose himself. Bushi, having risen through the ranks through family connections rather than intelligence or competence, easily falls under the older man's sway. They gather about them a group of like minded incompetents, including Condi, Wolfi, and their consigliari, Alberto. Carlo Rovo is their faithful hitman.
I think that gets across the flavor of it. Storylines would involve election-fixing, large-scale gang warfare, corruption in government contracting, all culminating in a series of episodes dealing with the slow destruction of the family and the internecine fighting that ensues.
In other news, how naive can the New York Times editorial board be? According to an editorial published today, May 5, 2007, they are amazed that the Presidential diaries of Ronald Reagan showed him to be, in their words, "a prosaic and amiably unrevealing drone." This is news? Do you mean to tell me that they have thought all along that Mr. Reagan was something besides a figurehead, an actor called upon to play the role of the avuncular and often condescending Grandpa-in-Chief? Say it isn't so!
Ever since he was wheeled out of office in January 1989, I've said that a good title for a book about him and his administration would be Asleep at the Wheel. It was obvious from the very beginnings of his first term that this was a guy who was mainly a PR device to be used by others as they implemented an agenda that he neither formulated nor understood. He was a mouthpiece, a beard, a front bought and paid for originally by a bunch of Southern California rich guys who noticed what a good job he did pushing cleanser in the breaks on Death Valley Days.
As for Mr. Reagan, he was one of those people who could fall face first into a pile of manure and come up smelling like a rose. He pretty much lucked into every job he ever had, from radio sportscaster to President of the United States. His only known skills were those of amiability and a willingness to mouth whatever palaver he was asked to by whoever was paying the bills.
Most incredibly, The Times board seems amazed that there were no phrases as pointed as "Evil Empire" or "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem," which were touches provided by speech writers anyway. Mr. Reagan, like Mr. Bush, was always trouble when he ad libbed, and was more likely to talk about trees causing more pollution than cars than coming up with pithy political slogans.
The right wing of the Republican party likes their Presidential candidates in this mold: not very bright mouthpieces and figureheads. Mr. Reagan fit that mold and so does Mr. Bush. They are the Trojan Horse candidates, the ones who present an attractive front that conceals the forces of your doom.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
No Opinion
A lot of things, including my own displays of idiocy, are pushing me to what the Wizard called "a cataclysmic decision." I'm tired of opinion pieces. As my previous entry demonstrates, it's not writing opinion pieces that get you anywhere. It's making fun of things that gets you noticed. I mean, somebody had to notice my comments in order to delete them. Publishing them is actually a far more passive activity.
Argument does not work. People refuse to be persuaded. You have to sneak up on them by being entertaining.
Therefore, I am devoting myself to satire. No more logical arguments, just jokes and ridicule. Get 'em while they last! Unless, of course, the Moriarity who deletes my stuff at The Times finds out about this blog. Then I might be in danger of being [CENSORED].
Irving Washington
Argument does not work. People refuse to be persuaded. You have to sneak up on them by being entertaining.
Therefore, I am devoting myself to satire. No more logical arguments, just jokes and ridicule. Get 'em while they last! Unless, of course, the Moriarity who deletes my stuff at The Times finds out about this blog. Then I might be in danger of being [CENSORED].
Irving Washington
Help! Help! I'm Being Repressed
I finally broke down a couple of months ago and got a subscription to the New York Times Select service. This entitles me to access to the copious archives of The Times, as well as the privilege of reading any current articles and online content that has been labeled "mitts off" to the general public.
Among these online features is a weekly blog written by Stanley Fish, a well-known college professor. This week, Professor Fish considered the case of the College Republicans at the University of Rhode Island who offered a $100 WHAM Scholarship (WHAM stands for White Heterosexual American Male) and were later threatened with revocation of their charter by the Student Senate if they didn't apologize.
Professor Fish made his points about the balance between free speech and, I guess, unfree speech and left it for the commenters to sort out. After almost 70 comments had been posted, mostly in the self-righteous, why-can't-you-idiots-understand-the-truth mode popularized by blogging, I decided to post a slightly satirical comment in which I purported to replace sections of text with [CENSORED]. I signed it "Irving Washington," in the body of the text, which is a reference to Catch-22. (My first name would appear as a signature to the whole thing. I really wasn't trying to mislead anybody.)
The Times squelched it. That's right. My joke about censorship was censored. The comments are, of course, moderated, and whoever is in charge of moderating that discussion felt that my jibe was too much to be born and some sort of threat to society, so they deleted it.
What's even funnier is this: Later on, when I realized that my contribution had gone missing, I wrote another comment that explained what I had written before and reported how that had been censored. That comment has also been censored. I'm beginning to think that somebody at The Times doesn't like me. And here I thought that I was one of the Select.
Among these online features is a weekly blog written by Stanley Fish, a well-known college professor. This week, Professor Fish considered the case of the College Republicans at the University of Rhode Island who offered a $100 WHAM Scholarship (WHAM stands for White Heterosexual American Male) and were later threatened with revocation of their charter by the Student Senate if they didn't apologize.
Professor Fish made his points about the balance between free speech and, I guess, unfree speech and left it for the commenters to sort out. After almost 70 comments had been posted, mostly in the self-righteous, why-can't-you-idiots-understand-the-truth mode popularized by blogging, I decided to post a slightly satirical comment in which I purported to replace sections of text with [CENSORED]. I signed it "Irving Washington," in the body of the text, which is a reference to Catch-22. (My first name would appear as a signature to the whole thing. I really wasn't trying to mislead anybody.)
The Times squelched it. That's right. My joke about censorship was censored. The comments are, of course, moderated, and whoever is in charge of moderating that discussion felt that my jibe was too much to be born and some sort of threat to society, so they deleted it.
What's even funnier is this: Later on, when I realized that my contribution had gone missing, I wrote another comment that explained what I had written before and reported how that had been censored. That comment has also been censored. I'm beginning to think that somebody at The Times doesn't like me. And here I thought that I was one of the Select.
Friday, April 20, 2007
I Recant
According to this article from the January 2000 Harper's Magazine, I was completely wrong concerning my interpretation of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. That doesn't change any of my conclusions, but it is still important that I come clean and say that I screwed up. I've learned something, which, in itself, is unusual for a 47-year-old man.
We regret the error and return you now to our regularly scheduled programming.
We regret the error and return you now to our regularly scheduled programming.
Part 3: A Miscellany
A couple of more quick thoughts about gun control:
First, just because I knock down the idiotic arguments presented by the gun lobby doesn't mean that I'm in favor of banning all gun ownership. This is a very thorny and complicated issue that defies easy answers. And while I think there are certain reasonable limits that can be placed on ownership--background checks, cooling off periods, and the like--and while I cannot be convinced that there is any legitimate use for an assault weapon other than in killing lots and lots of people, and while I think that people who own handguns are more likely to kill someone they love than an intruder, I also think that it's too late to impose some sort of comprehensive gun law. The genie is out of the bottle and he's not going back in. And, just as in the case of abortion, outlawing it would just drive it underground, and it's hard to deal with anything that's happening underground.
Legislation is not the cure. The problem goes deeper than that.
I'd also like to address the most preposterous suggestion being made by the gun lobby now, and that is that the massacre in Virginia could have been contained had there been more people carrying weapons at the time. Their theory is that, had the campus not been a gun-free zone, some lone ranger could've killed Mr. Cho before he could have killed all those people. Of course, I think it is more likely that even more people would have died as there would have been entire rooms of morons blasting everything that moved, including friends and well-wishers. In situations like this, panicking is bad; panicking with a firearm would be worse.
Behind all the sour grapes aimed at the University Administration for not locking down the whole school after the shooting in the dormitory, I'm beginning to see the outlines of the problem that makes these events inevitable, and that is the culture of fear.
My thoughts on this are nascent, so don't expect a full-blown thesis here. However, in the course of my lifetime, I have seen our nation turn into a society of scaredy-cats. People spend too much time fretting over the unlikely and avoiding problems they would never encounter anyway. And while it is sometimes necessary to make adjustments in order to ward off threats, it should be a bit more of a balancing act, and less of an ill-considered rush. To use one of Mr Bush's favorite words, fear emboldens those who would frighten us.
Speaking of Mr. Bush, he advised everyone yesterday to be willing to report anyone "exhibiting abnormal behavior" to any authorities willing to listen. As someone who can be described as quiet, eccentric, and something of a loner, I'd like to see some further definition of what constitutes "abnormal behavior." I'm not quite ready for the nuthatch yet. At least that's what the voice in my head tells me.
Oddly enough, I think that the inability of the State of Virginia to commit this boy may be the fault of the Reagan Administration. In their rush to stuff as much of the Federal budget as possible in the trousers of defense contractors, they came to the conclusion that the mentally ill would be better served on an out-patient basis. (You can read a scholarly article about this here.) As a result, they engineered the release of hundreds of thousands of crazy people into the general population, many of whom eventually became homeless. Cho Seung-Hui should have been locked up in a mental institution long ago. He was deranged. Maybe the time has come to reverse the Reagan-Era policies and to decide, as a community, that we can do better for the insane and for ourselves.
First, just because I knock down the idiotic arguments presented by the gun lobby doesn't mean that I'm in favor of banning all gun ownership. This is a very thorny and complicated issue that defies easy answers. And while I think there are certain reasonable limits that can be placed on ownership--background checks, cooling off periods, and the like--and while I cannot be convinced that there is any legitimate use for an assault weapon other than in killing lots and lots of people, and while I think that people who own handguns are more likely to kill someone they love than an intruder, I also think that it's too late to impose some sort of comprehensive gun law. The genie is out of the bottle and he's not going back in. And, just as in the case of abortion, outlawing it would just drive it underground, and it's hard to deal with anything that's happening underground.
Legislation is not the cure. The problem goes deeper than that.
I'd also like to address the most preposterous suggestion being made by the gun lobby now, and that is that the massacre in Virginia could have been contained had there been more people carrying weapons at the time. Their theory is that, had the campus not been a gun-free zone, some lone ranger could've killed Mr. Cho before he could have killed all those people. Of course, I think it is more likely that even more people would have died as there would have been entire rooms of morons blasting everything that moved, including friends and well-wishers. In situations like this, panicking is bad; panicking with a firearm would be worse.
Behind all the sour grapes aimed at the University Administration for not locking down the whole school after the shooting in the dormitory, I'm beginning to see the outlines of the problem that makes these events inevitable, and that is the culture of fear.
My thoughts on this are nascent, so don't expect a full-blown thesis here. However, in the course of my lifetime, I have seen our nation turn into a society of scaredy-cats. People spend too much time fretting over the unlikely and avoiding problems they would never encounter anyway. And while it is sometimes necessary to make adjustments in order to ward off threats, it should be a bit more of a balancing act, and less of an ill-considered rush. To use one of Mr Bush's favorite words, fear emboldens those who would frighten us.
Speaking of Mr. Bush, he advised everyone yesterday to be willing to report anyone "exhibiting abnormal behavior" to any authorities willing to listen. As someone who can be described as quiet, eccentric, and something of a loner, I'd like to see some further definition of what constitutes "abnormal behavior." I'm not quite ready for the nuthatch yet. At least that's what the voice in my head tells me.
Oddly enough, I think that the inability of the State of Virginia to commit this boy may be the fault of the Reagan Administration. In their rush to stuff as much of the Federal budget as possible in the trousers of defense contractors, they came to the conclusion that the mentally ill would be better served on an out-patient basis. (You can read a scholarly article about this here.) As a result, they engineered the release of hundreds of thousands of crazy people into the general population, many of whom eventually became homeless. Cho Seung-Hui should have been locked up in a mental institution long ago. He was deranged. Maybe the time has come to reverse the Reagan-Era policies and to decide, as a community, that we can do better for the insane and for ourselves.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
A Quick Interjection
It has occurred to me that the Bush Administration's argument for continuing our presence in Iraq is really just another restatement of that greatest of all catches, Catch-22. What they say, in a nutshell (which is where most of them live), is: We can't withdraw from Iraq until there is peace and there can be no peace if we withdraw. Somewhere, Yossarian is wincing.
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