What's in a slip of the tongue?

Yesterday, Scott McClellan, White House mouthpiece, told the press that tomorrow (tonite):


"The American public will hear from their Commander-in-Chief."

Oh don't they wish --

Hey Scott -- we're civilians.
He's THE commander-in-Chief, but not mine.
HE's in charge of the military forces.

Unlike most all the top people in this administration,
many of us ACTUALLY PERFORMED our military service --
we even completed it and fulfilled our obligations.

So we're civilians, and that means Monkey Boy and the Military work for us, not the other way around.

That's why Monkey Boy has to go to Fort Bragg, to give a speech where the highly disciplined people who actually fight the wars are under orders to "be polite."

Who applaud when the President's advance people instruct them to.

Who do NOT moan and throw things and catcall the moron in the suit.

Because they're disciplined and he's THEIR Command-in-Chief.

Try to keep that in mind. It's in that piece of paper called The Constitution.

Supreme Court won't hear CIA leak case

June 27, 2005 | Washington -- The Supreme Court rejected appeals Monday from two journalists who have refused to testify before a grand jury about the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity...

Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and The New York Times' Judith Miller, who filed the appeals, face up to 18 months in jail for refusing to reveal sources as part of an investigation into who divulged the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame...

Plame's name was first made public in 2003 by columnist Robert Novak, who cited unidentified senior Bush administration officials for the information. The column appeared after Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, wrote a newspaper opinion piece criticizing the Bush administration's claim that Iraq sought uranium in Niger...

Disclosure of an undercover intelligence officer's identity can be a federal crime and a government investigation is in its second year. No charges have been brought.

Cooper reported on Plame, while Miller gathered material for an article about the intelligence officer but never wrote a story.

Might I inquire politely why Robert Novak, a disgusting, sneering, cynical man of extreme wealth who practices the journalistic equivalent of flicking boogers at anyone to the left Grover Norquist is NOT IN PRISON? WHO WAS HIS SOURCE? With whom did he conspire to commit a federal crime?

Why is a journalist who DID NOT WRITE A STORY being hounded for information when a man who WROTE THE STORY NAMING A CIA AGENT is?

Link

Dare I eat Impeach? Impair?

My wife and I agree on many things, not the least of which that this band of "Let's you and him fight" rec-room patriots (or craven unpatriotic chickenshit second-raters, which is the technical term for them) are despicable, and while there are folk in that crowd more demonstrably and overtly evil, Hannah Arendt would be proud to see how unbelievably banal is the unholy Monkey Boy in the middle, and that we would be much much better off if he just gave that animatronic shakey playground-stalker laugh of his and went home, wherever that might be (if he doesn't need the ranch for photo ops any more, than where will this second-rate version of a second-rater live? Not my problem).

But, as she has pointed out, the process called IMPEACHMENT was totally devalued by the Republicans when they used it against Bill Clinton for having committed the High Crime of giving in to a young cutie-pie intern out to get notches in her bedpost late one night -- and then doing what any husband in the world would do if forced to discuss it in the World Press -- deny it.

Right, and you wouldn't?

My point of view at the time was that any one who wanted to point a finger at the last President we had with an actual brain had to first swear on all that was holy that he would NEVER EVER EVER accept a blowjob, no matter what the circumstances. People like Henry Hyde, who flaunted their own extramarital affairs notwithstanding.

Now of course, the issue of impeachment has become a game of who has the majority in congress and how vicious do they want to play -- in Bill Clinton's case, I recall him going after Osama Ben Ladn, but all the Good Old GOP folks started screaming "WAGGING THE DOG," that he was trying to divert attention from the very important business of Monica's blue dress, forcing him to pull back from lack of support.

Does that mean I am pointing a finger at the Republicans for 9-11? Well, yeah.

Not that they INTENDED it -- just that AFTER THE FACT they did a whole lot to cover up the embarrasing connections between Monkey Boy and the Ben Ladn family and Monkey Boy's dad wanting a base in Saudi Arabia and that pissing off Osama Ben Ladn enough for him to go back to Afghanistan vowing revenge for the sacrilege.

But the point here is this -- impeachment has become the popcorn fart of consequences, and no more noteworthy than the majority trying to force through appointments to the courts and the UN of totally unqualified people but those who have SIG'd to the Puppet Master's HEIL.

So please let's talk about something more likely to happen in this congress -- like kangaroos giving birth to laptops. Let the creeping horror plunder the country -- as they're doing -- into economic collapse, and then, we might get a decent government -- at which point, we press to put those boys on trial for crimes against humanity (using the Yamashita Principle that we created for Dugout Doug MacArthur so he could get even for the loss of his family's real estate in Manila) and watch them hanging up there, high as an unburned flag.

And we'll all salute and cheer and get out our video cameras as we watch them do the Republican Dance popularized by Dick Nixon's people -- watch the em 'twist slowly in the wind.'

IRAN? Rabid and right wing. Why would that be a problem?

A nuclear power being run by a group of rigid right-wing religious fanatics who maintain their position by threatening the public and the press? A government that tells the world -- as the new kid on top seems intent to do -- that they don't give a damn what we or anyone else thinks -- they're going ahead with their plans for plutonium manufacture, no matter how much it might further de-stabilize the world. A government that is faced with opposition that has some pretty convincing evidence of fraud in the election.

Sound familiar? I would think our coup d'fou would consider that a victory -- having a country like Iran model their political processes on ours.

If the American public is willing to elect a government like that -- TWICE -- why are we dithering about Iran?

Our particular band of Ayatollahs seem to also enjoy destabilizing the balance of civilized discourse between and among the world's nations by going out of their way to tell other leaders and peoples how little respect we have for them, how much contempt, how they had better goddamn well set up the kind of Freedom we tell them to or suffer the consequences.

Not even Stalin was so rabid as to send a sociopath like Michael Bolton to the UN to sneer at the rest of the world and pretend that he and his country had a right to own all of it and decide what was right for all of them.

So what's the problem?

We have a ruling administration that seems to considers Premature Ejaculation a philosophic principle on which to base political action:

"Damn -- I'm tired of all this foreplay --- I don't care about what YOU need -- I'm getting off RIGHT NOW and too bad if you don't."

Everything but the turbans.

WHAT IF KARL ROVE IS RIGHT?

Well, then, we can see from looking at this administration, that those Conservatives who understand war is war, respond immediately -- and find some way to get out of the draft or to join the KIND OF National Guard unit that real National Guardsmen sneer at:

The Kiddie-Car Guard for Rich Kids.

It doesn't matter how many Guardsmen Bush and his Hidey-Hole buddies (or is it his Butt-hole hide-outs? Hmm.) get killed in Iraq. NO one impugned the national Guard, even though Rove and his pals tried to convince people that's what was being said. People pointed to a bogus outfit in which MonkeyBoy learned to fly a jet that had been already declared obsolete for Vietnam, and then didn't even attend enough to fulfill his legal obligation, presumably because it would have taken time away from knocking up all the local girls a uniform could entice and snorting up all the coke his grandaddies' money could buy.

But along that line -- what is the family tradition here?

Well, impending war in the Bush-Walker generation meant getting in there and selling enemy bonds for the Third Reich -- in fact continuing to do so for nearly a year after WWII began, until congress stopped them. In other words, Bush's money came from selling the bullets to Reich Soldiers even as they were actually using them to kill our people. Nice going Mr. Moral Stance.

As to the Grand-pere of the Rove family (still Roverer then), it meant personally designing the Birkenau section of Auschwitz, the section with the gas chambers and crematoria.

In short -- these are the scions of the scum of the earth -- third generation slime molds in human form -- and there's not a goddamn thing any one of them can tell any one of us about patriotism, not today, not yesterday, not tomorrow.

As to the committment of the National Guard in general-- I come from Pennsylvania -- a state where the National Guard went FIRST to Europe in WWI, with the AEF, and more than 80% were killed. And -- nationally speaking -- guess who went among the first in Korea? Yep. Of course, joining the Guard always meant you MIGHT just do charity drives for your military obligation, but not always. Unless you were a rich kid and daddy bought you a PlayPen with a Uniform.

Oh, and Karl -- it's my understanding that your first wife in Houston -- the rich one -- had more than a few interesting things to say about you in an interview. I don't know what they were, but I can tell you this -- the person who told me about it -- a person who despises you even more than I do -- talking about it made him smile like a Cheshire Cat. Of course that could just be wishful thinking and rumors. I can't verify that any such interview ever took place or that there is any such tape.

In the interests of what certain people call decency (i.e, God is He and therefore Male and therefore has a Willy, but we can never admit that anyone else does) and to keep them from accusing me of whatever sick salaciousness thunders through their minds concerning the arousal they get from seeing some kid take a wizz, and to prevent Michael Jackson from calling me up for info, I have obscured this young man's innocence. Still, his political commentary should still be clear. I took this photograph during the Thatcher Years, but like all great art, it still rings with the clarity of today's headlines.

Ooops, almost forgot -- Friday is Catblog day -- this is Chloe, writhing in the throes of catnip ecstasy.

President plans push to restore support for war

--- the first step, make sure no one pays any attention to the man behind the curtain ... nor the man with his hand up the sock puppet's ass....

From the Chicago Tribune, June 24, 2005

WASHINGTON -- As Democrats began a somber recital of names of the war dead Thursday evening on the floor of the House, Bush administration officials seemed to contradict each other on the strength of the insurgency in Iraq, a clash punctuated by fresh news of 40 deaths in a 12-hour span.

At a Senate hearing earlier in the day, Gen. John Abizaid's assessment of the war appeared to be at odds with Vice President Dick Cheney's recent assertion that the insurgency is 'in the last throes.' And Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was peppered with questions challenging the administration's prosecution of the war.

At this potentially crucial turning point, with public opinion noticeably shifting against the war, President Bush is embarking on a renewed campaign to bring Americans back to the cause that he has made a centerpiece of his presidency. Bush faces a political imperative to avoid a toll taken on presidents before him: Regaining support for an unpopular cause before his party pays the price at the polls.

His challenge is whether presidential suasion can turn the public back in favor of a conflict mired in grim news.

Bush will seek a national audience for a crucial address next week as he attempts to 'sharpen the message' with a forceful explanation of why the United States is still engaged in deadly combat one year after handing civilian authority to the Iraqis. He will also describe what it will take for American forces to come home"


-- it's not like we don't already know he's a lying poofter, that he's starting to squirm now that he's gotten a clue that the people he's enriched are leaving him holding the bag.
Remember during the Tet offensive how Macnamara lied about the weather, told Americans the rains had ended (thereby allowing air support to come in) because he decided we were tired of hearing bad news. Of course the soldiers and marines up to their asses in mud were ALSO tired of the rain, but THEY couldn't just change the fucking channel.

Link

Bush to Veterans: "I got mine, my pals got theirs -- you can go piss up a rope for yours."

Funds for Health Care of Veterans $1 Billion Short:
2005 Deficit Angers Senate Republicans, Advocacy Groups

By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 24, 2005; A29

The Bush administration, already accused by veterans groups of seeking inadequate funds for health care next year, acknowledged yesterday that it is short $1 billion for covering current needs at the Department of Veterans Affairs this year.

The disclosure of the shortfall angered Senate Republicans who have been voting down Democratic proposals to boost VA programs at significant political cost. Their votes have brought the wrath of the American Legion, the Paralyzed Veterans of America and other organizations down on the GOP."

It's a good thing the ranch in Crawford was a stage set -- land bought in 1999, house built in 2000, just for photo ops to make it appear he was a rancher -- to everyone except people who shook his hand and noticed how soft his hand was, more a video game-player's hand than a rancher's -- because what a sight it would be -- thousands of maimed combat veterans with no VA benefits crawling toward the ranch, weapons strapped to their crutches and the backs of their wheelchairs, blood in their eyes.

But Monkey Boy will be in an urban compound, one where even rockets can't hit, and never realize what a curious thing it is that so many Americans -- Americans who love their country enough to have joined the military -- despise him and want to see harm come to him.

And the rest of us? We'll watch it on the evening news.

Link

Support for governor plunging, poll finds / Special election, budget unpopular among Californians

"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suddenly ranks among the most unpopular governors in modern California history, as residents grow increasingly unhappy about the action hero-turned-politician's budget plans and his call for a special election, according to a new Field Poll.

"Less than a third -- 31 percent -- of the state's adults approve of the job the governor is doing in Sacramento, down from 54 percent in February. The numbers are only slightly better among registered voters, 37 percent of whom are happy with Schwarzenegger's performance and 53 percent dissatisfied."


"Were are the shtuntmen?" asks Ahnold, "Where is post-production? Where is Special Effects? -- I haff told you all what you MUST do, so where are the shtunt doubles and the special effects people to come in and make you do it for me? I can't be expected to do my own shtunts. I'm too valuable."

Link

Karl Rove (nee Roverer) dual German citizenship (the better to slip away in the night), grandson of the man who designed the Birkenau section of Auschwitz -- the section with the gas chambers and the ovens -- the man his boss calls "turd-blossom," laughing at you and me, absolutely certain there will NEVER be justice meted out to him for his slanders, libels, murders, and other crimes. Laugh while you can, Karl, laugh while you still can. Time changes things.

Perhaps it's once again time to remind yet another arrogant bullying hateful asshole of the immutable law of the universe:

BE CAREFUL THE ASSES YOU KICK ON THE WAY UP -- THEY'RE THE SAME ONES YOU HAVE TO KISS ON THE WAY DOWN.

So pucker up you disgusting piece of perverted protoplasm -- smoochin' time is right around the corner.

I stand by yesterday's words, but add an optimistic aspect to it...

I still hold that Karl Rove is a slimy, sleazy, undead, flatulent, mud-slinging shitbird in the disgusting lowlife tradition of Richard Nixon and various rabid animals -- the physiology of rabies being that with loss of vision, the infected creature can't see jack shit and so attacks anything that moves. That seems to me to be a statement of fact... all of it. And I'm actually being tactful here. (And I admit, he has his fans, but even they know him as "Turd-blossom." )

But his hysteria also betrays his panic. When a band of -- if you pardon the vile and sexist Anglicism -- vicious, greedy, craven, homocidal cunts -- a pack of Rec Room Patriots who were too goddamn precious to answer a draft call back when another idiotic patriot-wasting war was in full flower -- start pointing fingers of disloyalty -- well, strike that --

They have ALWAYS pointed fingers of disloyalty at anyone they couldn't meet face-to-face on even ground without lying and flinging shit like a highly-stressed ape -- from Nixon on Jerry Voorhis to Nixon on Helen Gahagan Douglas to Nixon on Hubert Humphrey to Nixon on George McGovern to George W Bush on John McCain to George W Bush on John Kerry ("He's a disloyal coward because his THIRD wound fighting in Vietnam wasn't all that bad, while I bravely flew obsolete jets in Texas -- when I could find the time away from my busy coke habit to actually fulfill my obligations.").

But when the level of hysteria rises to Karl Rove's level of late, we're looking at the screaming heebie-jeebies of a bunch of turd-creatures circling the bowl

"You unpatriotic people -- It's all YOUR fault for flushing... Aiiyeee!"


So it could be good news.

That the people of our country are finally realizing that 1700 Americans who swore to do whatever shit they were told was needed to protect this country have died in vain, the tens of thousands who have had their lives and minds destroyed in pursuit of this vanity also. And the dozens and dozens of thousands of Iraqi's -- oh well who cares about THEM? Forget them. We don't care how many, except as body counts for the hometown papers."

That this war of total self-serving inutility (it's a Tejano term) is no more than an exercise in greed and sexual sickness, cheer-led by a boy in a man's suit out of Oedipal vanity, and approved (almost UNANIMOUSLY) by a pack of terrified chickenshits who panicked the first time they were really tested -- i.e., "Jeezus -- they might actually try to kill US instead of just the poor people!" (Barbara Lee, congressperson from Oakland/Berkeley, CA) being the lone exception who kept her head while all around her were losing theirs. And she had her life threatened for doing so -- by other members of the guess-which party in congress.)

So let us all stand on the rim of the toilet-bowl of politics and watch and cheer as this particularly diarrheac bunch of stinkos swirl and scream and insist it's all a conspiracy and lie and lie and lie right down to the final SWOOSH into the sewer of those like them, there to spend eternity with the people they paid off and the people they killed.

We've had more than enough of these people who think other people's lives are toys to play with and break while they hide out in dark corners of "undisclosed locations," like Vlad Cheney and George W Renfield -- Rehnquist? -- Nope, Renfield is the one that eats bugs, Rehnquist is someone else.

To paraphrase Marie Antoinette: "Let 'em eat shit."

Their turn to find out what it's like to be on the receiving end of that long spoon.

There's really no polite way to say it...

Karl Rove is a slimy, sleazy, undead, flatulent, mud-slinging shitbird.

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers..."


"...Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?" Mr. Rove asked. "Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."

In the disgusting lowlife tradition of Richard Nixon, a man who killed millions of people for his own glorification, Rove goes along with everyone who has taken a small snippet of Dick Durbin's commentary on the FBI's disturbing report and twists it in the same way these subhuman scum have danced on the bones of the 9-11 dead to bolster up the make-believe that George W Bush is actually a leader, and of course, to shovel billions to Dick Cheney's pals.

Got a thing for you to think about -- when Monkey Boy is safely out of the White House and bathing in daddy's money, and the public realizes how much you did in the coverup of 9-11 because there were too many people too close to the Imitation Prez or Cheney or Rumdum paying for the monstrous acts of that day, too close for your fat, soft, white-ass comfort that thinks nothing of sending Americans who have some ACTUAL patriotic feeling to their deaths while you all crack jokes at banquets ... you'll be all alone out there, and the mob that you call your BASE (Al Quaeda in Arabic) will turn their pitchforks and torches away from the liberals you demonized all the way around to you, and will have the image of the inverted Mussolini in their minds. And we'll see how fast YOU can run then, and we will watch it on the evening news and go "tsk tsk -- but y'know, he stirred up the kill frenzy so I guess it's poetic justice."

I'll have to tape that one.

Lions rescue beaten Ethiopian girl

--well, at least there are signs of SOME civilized behavior out there.

June 21, 2005 | Addis Ababa, Ethiopia -- A 12-year-old girl who was abducted and beaten by men trying to force her into a marriage was found being guarded by three lions who apparently had chased off her captors, a policeman said Tuesday.

The girl, missing for a week, had been taken by seven men who wanted to force her to marry one of them, said Sgt. Wondimu Wedajo, speaking by telephone from the provincial capital of Bita Genet, about 350 miles southwest of Addis Ababa.

She was beaten repeatedly before she was found June 9 by police and relatives on the outskirts of Bita Genet, Wondimu said. She had been guarded by the lions for about half a day, he said.

"They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest," Wondimu said.

Link

New mag coming out: https://secure.palmcoastd.com/pcd/document?iid=021HEI5FRBB --- I like it already just fromthe debut cover

Crucified nun dies in 'exorcism'

---oh those wacky Christians -- no wonder they look down on those 'uncivilized' Muslims

A Romanian nun has died after being bound to a cross, gagged and left alone for three days in a cold room in a convent, Romanian police have said.

Members of the convent in north-west Romania claim Maricica Irina Cornici was possessed and that the crucifixion had been part of an exorcism ritual.

Cornici was found dead on the cross on Wednesday after fellow nuns called an ambulance, according to police.

On Saturday a priest and four nuns were charged in connection with her death.

Orphan

Police say the 23-year-old nun, who was denied food and drink throughout her ordeal, had been tied and chained to the cross and a towel pushed into her mouth to smother any sounds.

A post-mortem is to be carried out, although initial reports say that Cornici died from asphyxiation.

Local media reports that the young woman had arrived at the remote convent three months before, having initially gone there to visit a friend and opted to stay.

She grew up in an orphanage in Arad, in the west of Romania.

Mediafax news agency said Cornici suffered from schizophrenia and the symptoms of her condition caused the priest at the convent and other nuns to believe she was possessed by the devil.

"They all said she was possessed and they were trying to cast out the evil spirits," police spokeswoman Michaela Straub said.

Father Daniel who is accused of orchestrating the crime is said to be unrepentant.

"God has performed a miracle for her, finally Irina is delivered from evil," AFP quoted the priest as saying.

"I don't understand why journalists are making such a fuss about this. Exorcism is a common practise in the heart of the Romanian Orthodox church and my methods are not at all unknown to other priests," Father Daniel added.

If found guilty of killing Cornici, Father Daniel and the accused nuns could face 20 years in jail.


*************************************
"I don't understand why journalists are
making such a fuss about this."
Father Daniel
************************************

Link

Terminology 101

When THEY do it, it's

"Vicious kidnapping by terrorists"

When our guys do it (right now, the Kurds, with us helping), it's

"Extra-judicial detention."

It's interesting -- I guess they need to do that kind of stuff, what with global warming causing a rise in the waters, and Washington D.C. a swamp only a few mere inches above sea level, I suppose, without the bullshit, they'd ALREADY be 10 feet underwater.

The sooner the better.

Dick Durbin and the rest...

Another blog today denounced Dick Durbin as a traitor because he talked about the unpleasantness in Gitmo. Nothing new there, just some self-serving asshole using other people's pain for his own advancement. Not unlike MonkeyBoy Bush standing at ground zero and slurping up the suffering there like some WM Burroughs insect-conspirator, jerking himself off while holding his arm around an uncomfortable NYFD fellow and pretending to be an actual president.

So ok -- Dick Durbin is an asshole, Joey Lieberman is a whining ass-kissing embarrassment. Di-Di Feinstein is a right-wing Democrat. Nancy Pelosi is a real fighter -- just so long as it isn't YOUR small business she finds expendable for getting votes from the San Francisco Chinese version of the Anti-Castro South Florida Cubans.

They're pretty much ALL assholes ...

but the ONLY traitors I see, if ANYONE deserves such a harsh tag, are the vicious sonsofbitches who cooked up an illegal war as a way to pay off their pals with government (meaning OUR) money -- or is it merely a coincidence that Halliburton just landed a no-bid $30 million contract to upgrade the conditions at Gitmo?

And now, one of Bushie's own is suggesting that the WTC wouldn't have come down if someone on the inside didn't add a little bit of explosive to help it along...

If you're looking for traitors, don't look at the people who are true patriots, who are trying to force our government to be honest and live up to our own law --- look at the people who are actively betraying the constitution, stealing from the people, and killing thousands for their own profit. These are the people Henry Miller once said didn't exist: traitors to the human race.

Mr. Miller may have been right about a lot of things, but he was wrong about that one.

It's sad to see an old friend go brain-dead ...

One of the sharpest minds I knew back in theold hippie- and post-hippie days has now become a neo-Kate Smith, waving his little flag and shrieking like a cartoon hausfrau up on a kitchen chair -- "Eeek, a mouse!" in this case "The First Terror War."

It seems axiomatic that the more loot a person accrues, the more time he or she spends worrying about who will take it away -- government liberals? Arab terrorists? Extra-terrestrials? Usually, they're not white, the lifters of "hard-earned" fortune because, usually, the possessors are.

He had a nightmare, long long time ago, woke up in a room in some foreign country with the distinct unshakeable feeling there was a dark entity in the room with him, watching him and its presence filled him with overwhelming fear and despair.

Scared the crap out of him, and perhaps he never stopped running.

I kind of think it was his time-travelling self, his today person travelling back to his 20-year old lean mean options-a-plenty mind machine and projecting the overwhelming ineffable sadness today might see when it sees what yesterday has become.

And he's become that because it scared him so much.

Kind of appropriate that his hysteria would be about Iraq --

Since the O'Hara re-telling of an old story is very much to the point -- the man seeing Death giving him the wide-eye and arm-wave in downtown Baghdad, and the man telling his boss he had to leave town, death was on his tail, he was going to Samarra to lay low for a while.

And the boss, later in the day, running into Death and saying, "Hey how come you threatened my man?" And Death said, "Threatened? I didn't threaten him -- I was just surprised to see him here in Baghdad since we have an appointment, he and I, in Samarra."

Some say "you never see the one that gets you" -- others say:
"the ONLY one you ever see is the one that gets you."

Oops -- almost forgot, Friday is Cat-Blog Day -- how rude of me -- this is Tara aka Bean a big girl (15 pounds) with fur so thick (and silky soft -- but not long) you can NOT get to skin to put the drops of The Program on. Good Girl, Tara, catnip addict.

Regarding the UN and the Oil-for-Food chicanery

There are few things lower than well-positioned people stealing money (food and medicine) from sick and dying children, but it happens.

One thing that MIGHT be lower and more vicious is using a run-of-the-mill graft scam as a pretext to totally destroy an organization -- the ONLY organization, flaws and all -- that COULD represent an international consciousness, that COULD (AND HAS) decrease some of the viciousness, that COULD work to some extent if our know-it-all people would put some energy INTO it instead of just taking nattering potshots at it.

To follow through on one more of those "if you don't do this, we'll do that" ultimata involving pulling most of the funding out of the organization, in other words, making a big show prior to destroying the UN -- yeah, that's most probably even lower.

There's a simple way to overcome the frustration we feel at the corrupt way of doing business over there in New York -- ambassadors and others to the US get Diplomatic Immunity -- Ambassadors and others to the UN DON'T.

Present THAT at the general council -- that every one of them is subject to the laws of the host country -- and see what happens. At the very least, it could be fun to watch.

I'm NOT a NAZI -- just because I'm a bully and a thug, an overbearing Aryan who has no respect for anyone else's point of view, just because I tell any lies I can to get my way (i.e., the Democrats want to repeal Prop 13), just because I lied about my childhood, pretending the Russians were occupying Austria in the 50's, and just because I haff the same accent as Mein Fuhrer doesn't mean I'm a NAZI. Look -- I haff no little funny mustache like Bob Barr.

They call it "Class War" when we complain about it.

Time for some action.

So Union members are feeling failed by the AFL-CIO? Well, how about the guys that got 'em their unions in the first place?

The IWW.

The bosses called 'em "the commies," but when the bosses convinced the new union men to dump the people who went to the line for them, then the bosses called the union men "the suckers."
Bring back the IWW -- there's a reason the status quo doesn't approve of them.

It's so important to have a CONSISTENT foreign policy that stands the test of time. Even the English have to agree -- 100 years ago in PUCK -- they saw the same policy we have today.

Newt Gingrich -- did he have a twin brother?

Slobodan Milosevic --- did he have a twin brother?

Chris Matthews -- Prime Time Punk

I watched as much of Chris Matthews interviewing Condeleeza Rice as I could stand last night ...

Hey Chris -- change the name of the show from HARDBALL to WHIFFLE BALL. (Or mo' bettah, like a bit of complex fungus known as a "Whiffle Ball Stinkhorn" pretty, but nothin' there.)

Larry King could take lessons from you on how to do that old forelock-tugging "yassuh, boss, mind if I smooch yore ass a bit, boss?" shuffle..

Mess-making geese spared from slaughter

"Officials in this affluent suburb were fed up with Canada geese soiling local parks, to the point that mass execution was contemplated. After intense public debate, the plan was dropped in favor of non-lethal alternatives -- including deployment of a border collie in a life jacket, yapping from aboard a kayak."

---oh, everyone says, we all saw Auntie Mame, we all (think we) know about Greenwich, Connecticut -- they're so stuck up ... those poor birds ... I'm not defending people I don't know, but in realistic terms, just in case YOU don't know -- EACH Canada goose drops around 3 POUNDS of crap EACH day.

"Protected by the federal government, which must grant permits for any slaughter, Canada geese have multiplied dramatically in Atlantic Coast and Midwestern states. There are now an estimated 2.6 million resident Canada geese in the United States who don't migrate; they prefer wide-open, mowed grass to natural terrain, so their prolific droppings often litter parks and golf courses...

"Two geese in the park are cute -- 1,000 geese are not so cute," said Nicholas Throckmorton, a Wildlife Service spokesman.

---THREE POUNDS OF CRAP PER BIRD PER DAY. And you complain about the panhandler who pees in your alley.


... town officials announced June 1 that they would pursue a non-lethal plan devised by a Virginia-based group called GeesePeace ... two border collies -- one by land, one by kayak -- chased a dozen geese away. Feld explained that the collies, though trained as herders who would not attack, are nonetheless viewed by the geese as menacing predators.

--- but wait -- here's where some fun begins...

"The GeesePeace plan, tried by a dozen or so towns in other states, includes harassment by dogs and an educational campaign to persuade people not to feed the geese. A third component, which won't start in Greenwich until next spring's nesting season, calls for volunteers to find nests and cover each egg with corn oil, a technique which prevents hatching. "

---So they're talking about Goose abortion. Killing any further growth of fertilized eggs that, if left to mom and pop goose, will become big full-grown magnificent honking crap machines.

Is this a job for the Anti-Choice crowd?

I'm pretty strong about animal rights, and I've NEVER met an abortion foe among the ranks of us animal crazies.

Now that necropsy has proven that the Unfortunate Mrs. Schiavo was not seeing and smiling at her parents, but was completely blind, didn't have enough basic neural material left to EVER be brought back, and had NOT been beaten or abused, perhaps we'll see one of the great grotesque odd-couple alliances of modern political history -- Anti-Choice Fundies buddying up with Buddhist, Taoist, Jain, Yoruba, Voudon, et al Animal rights activists to bedevil White Christian Greenwich-ers.

(Well those so-call Pro-Life folk are certainly NOT going to complain about Iraq, where our tax money is being used to pay for the Bushwah War that's killing thousands of fully-developed walking , talking post-fetal babies every day. And perhaps a good number of late-term pre-born fetal people, given that gravid women don't run too fast.)

Could be lots of fun to watch.

Link

About loyaty and soldiering

---No matter how hard they try, no matter how much peer pressure they try to apply, or how many times they try to tell you "Oh, this time it's different. No Geneva Conventions here," there will always be people of conscience in uniform:

An open letter to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan – on loyalty:

I was a soldier for most of the time between 1970 and 1996. I signed out on my retirement from 3rd Special Forces in Ft. Bragg. I had also served in 7th Special Forces, on three Ranger assignments, with Delta for almost four years, as a Cavalry Scout for a while, and in the 82nd Airborne Division as an infantryman. I started my career in Vietnam with the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

I thugged around in eight different places in East Asia, Latin America, and Africa, where I pointed guns at people. Like you, I was an instrument of American foreign policies – policies controlled, then as now, by the rich.

Gee, that sounds rather familiar... hmmm:

Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

War is just a racket.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

... I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

... I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.



---and he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor twice for his efforts.

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It's not the desecration of the Koran that bothers me ... whether it happened or not ...

... it's the ongoing desecration of the Constitution of the United States of America that is TRULY obscene.


And oh -- how many of our military officers in Pakistan have to say "The riots had NOTHING to do with the NEWSWEEK STORY" and how many times before our so-called MEDIA is able to correct the story -- or at least stop repeating over and over and over what they SHOULD know by know, is not true.

They're fighting for their home -- we're not ... want to guess who'll hang in there longer?

Phony policeman ignites bomb in Baghdad

June 11, 2005 | BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A suicide bomber dressed as a policeman blew himself up during roll call at the heavily guarded headquarters of an elite commando unit Saturday as attacks in and around Baghdad killed at least 23 people.

Or as they say in our very own good old US military -- "A little guy'll always beat a bigger guy if the little guy just keeps on coming."

But -- oh, I forgot -- none of the dummies in our current Coup d'Fou, none of those Rec-Room Patriots who were just too goddamn precious to lower themselves to actual military duty when the call came would know about that.

Jane Fonda and the NEW Republicans

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Jane Fonda was the most exemplary dim-witted cheerleader of her day -- and I was an already-discharged anti-war person when that moronic bimbo went to Veetnam to rub up and down against NVA artillery. ("Oh, those long guns... oh General Giap, your long guns are so ... long. Oh, Uncle Ho, can I sit on your lap like I did with Daddy?")

I found that people who cheered her on seemed to be at least as partially mentally-diminished as she was. But hey -- she had a cute little pussycat face and a highly callipygian ass, so the boys all liked watching her and dreaming about slurping her presumably custard pie clam. (And oh, yeah, she did the movie Coming Home later in which she played a Marine officer's housefrau who took paraplegic Jon Voight in to her heart and her bed like a stray kitten, where he, paralyzed from the waist down -- Mirable dictu -- he slurped her clam as if it were a custard pie.

The point was this -- if you were against killing, maiming, murder and mayhem, like, oh, say Joan Baez was -- then you were against killing and maiming and etc...

If you were a moron, you said, "We should NOT be doing that -- it's BAD ... therefore the guys on the OTHER side who are doing that MUST BE GOOD." ("Rackety axe -- bite my slacks -- push 'em back, shove 'em back -- yaay team!"

So I'm supposed to be impressed that she comes back from playing Millionaire's Wife to take a role as a dumb-ass growing old? What a stretch...

Now follow the logic ...

As someone who has been a Democrat, raised as a Democrat in the days when a Republican was Joe McCarthy or the Chicken-shit-come-lately hero of D-Day, Ike, who was afeared to say word one about integrated schools, it saddened me no end to watch as the principles of the Democratic party, responding to the resurgence of the Republicans, fell down as fast as a turd falling off the Bank of America building.

But the Jane Fonda conclusion goes like this: "Our formerly Good Guys have become hypocritical, greed-crazed assholes, i.e., Bad Guys, so I should decide the OTHER hypocritical greed-crazed assholes are GOOD GUYS. -- is just more horseshit cheerleading stupid -- "Push 'em back, shove 'em back, drill for oil, eat my clam so it won't spoil. Yaaay, team."

I know -- I'll become a...REPUBLICAN!

Makes me think of when Nixon's rabid dog, Haldemann complained that he couldn't get away with the same anti-ness the other people did, referring to the famous photo when the cutest little lightly-clad Suzie Creamcheese in the world was dropping a flower-stem into a National Guardsman's rifle barrel. I think their downfall had more to do with the fact that those guys couldn't tell the difference between the two in terms of public image, more to do with that immense blind spot than that a vicious prick inthe FBI got together with his pal Woodward to pad his part and take down another vicious prick -- hell, a whole nest of 'em.

(Still goes on -- Dick Cheney, perhaps the most offensive thug we've seen above ground in any administration -- being "offended" by Amnesty International puts him in the class of people with world-class level distorted and perverted ideas of what they look like to the rest of the world, like, say, Michael Jackson... and I get the image of Dick Cheney talking in a high squeaky voice and saying, "Oh, but I just want to HUG Iraq. I wouldn't hurt Iraq. We just play together.")

The Democrats died when they DIDN'T have a real Republican Party to oppose them, just as the Republican Party has died/is dying in the immoderate grip of the Bush-wah people because it doesn't have any real oppostion form the Democrats.

And the choice to become a member of the OTHER moribund organization is just a matter of deciding to jump to the winner's side whether they be Vegetarians, Nazi's, Bull Moose, or what.

And if you do -- you'd better have a tush as cutesy pie as Ms Fonda's was when she still didn't mind making her money saying cutesy things like, "That's some Tintoretto."

Now -- as to Howard Dean --- Jeezus, I don't have to worry about my effect on voters and local organizations, and even I know Republicans who not only work hard -- long hard days -- but believe in certain principles and stick to them, have stuck to them even living in San Francisco where being GOP does not improve your chances of being invited to parties.

Makes me think an old friend -- Howard Gossage -- was right many years ago when he said, "Aside from you and me, I've never seen another man named Howard worth pissing on."

So to those of the formerly us (Democrats) now the currently YOU (Democrats) who were so sorry the only kid in America born richer and whiter than Monkey Boy and who had an even WORSE record of service during Vietnam didn't get to run for prez .. you get it now?

And just in case my point was obscured by the various tangents I brought in:

Becoming a Republican because the Democrats turned out to be as woofty and weak as a collective popcorn fart, is trading one bad bag of crap for another and then having to smack your lips and say, "Mmmm-good, yummy, mmm."

Becoming a Republican because you can't handle the idea of joining any party that actually represents your ideas and ideals, but isn't about to win the big ones -- or perhaps even the small ones -- is behaving as Monkey Boy and Howard Dean BOTH did during the Vietnam era -- craven, hypocritical, and chickenshit chickenshit chickenshit.

The loss of Communism has caused Capitalism to grow fat, arrogant, overbearing, stupid, and moribund.

The loss of Republican opposition after Ike cause the Democratic party to grow fat, arrogant, overbearing, stupid, and moribund.

The loss of Democratic opposition since Reagan-Bush has caused the Republican Party to grow fat, arrogant, overbearing, stupid, and moribund.

The empire doesn't collapse because people go to strip clubs or hookers, take drugs or say to their gay acquaintances, "Hey, you want to get married? Why the hell not?"

The empire collapses because of its own success.

It's called CYCLES, and even Harley-Davidson had to go through a great big up-and-down one.

We've had a real good ride, and now we have a government that KNOWS it's going down and instead of doing anything to relieve the pain and suffering that comes with the down cycle, is just in there, all asses and elbows, down on the floor like pigs fighting for the trough, to get every last bit of whatever they can get before it's gone.

And the Late William Burroughs, who wrote the history of Post-WWII America in Naked Lunch and, more so, in Nova Express, described it so well:

"So pack yer ermines, Mary, cause the whole shithouse is about to go up in chunks."

One thing we can assume about the perpetrators of the AXE ad campaign...

They never read The Bacchae --

when the Maenads loved you long time so much they wanted to tear off a piece...
they tore off a piece. Or two.

I guess that's the difference between an MBA and Liberal Arts.

The 5th season of 6 Feet Under begins

Ho-hum.

Supreme Court rules against pot for sick people

D-DAY, the SIXTH of JUNE, 60 YEARS LATER -- THE SUPREME COURT INVADES AMERICA ---

So -- now we see that the Reagan revolution has been completely successful insofar as now, even former liberals realize that can have NO TRUST in the federal government. And Dick Nixon and Ronnie and Big Georgie and Little Georgie proved it to us, what Ronnie said, that you can NOT trust the Federal Government. They proved it the way true poets do -- by showing us what it looks like when vicious, conscienceless, paid-off, ass-licking, selfish morons occupy public office.

June 6, 2005 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal authorities may prosecute sick people who smoke pot on doctors' orders, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, concluding that state medical marijuana laws don't protect users from a federal ban on the drug.

The decision is a stinging defeat for marijuana advocates who had successfully pushed 10 states to allow the drug's use to treat various illnesses.

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the 6-3 decision, said that Congress could change the law to allow medical use of marijuana.

The closely watched case was an appeal by the Bush administration in a case that it lost in late 2003. At issue was whether the prosecution of medical marijuana users under the federal Controlled Substances Act was constitutional.

Under the Constitution, Congress may pass laws regulating a state's economic activity so long as it involves "interstate commerce" that crosses state borders. The California marijuana in question was homegrown, distributed to patients without charge and without crossing state lines.

---Hey, notice to you assholes on the Supreme Court -- we DID pass laws making it legal here.

Stevens said there are other legal options for patients, "but perhaps even more important than these legal avenues is the democratic process, in which the voices of voters allied with these respondents may one day be heard in the halls of Congress."

California's medical marijuana law, passed by voters in 1996, allows people to grow, smoke or obtain marijuana for medical needs with a doctor's recommendation. Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state have laws similar to California.

In those states, doctors generally can give written or oral recommendations on marijuana to patients with cancer, HIV and other serious illnesses.

----oh let us see the Federal marshalls dragging wheelchair-bound terminally ill people out to take them to trial. For that sort of shit, we can also include Willie among the vicious unsympathetic ass-licking bastards in DC, since his administration hastened deaths from cancer by prosecuting people using marijuana to develop enough appetite to eat, hold weight, survive. But I guess Willie never could understand the possibility that someone could have no appetite. ----

In a dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said that states should be allowed to set their own rules.

"The states' core police powers have always included authority to define criminal law and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens," said O'Connor, who was joined by other states' rights advocates.

The legal question presented a dilemma for the court's conservatives, who have pushed to broaden states' rights in recent years, invalidating federal laws dealing with gun possession near schools and violence against women on the grounds the activity was too local to justify federal intrusion.

O'Connor said she would have opposed California's medical marijuana law if she was a voter or a legislator. But she said the court was overreaching to endorse "making it a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one's own home for one's own medicinal use."

So, bearing in mind what a man who actually fought for his country said:

"War is just a racket.... There are only two things
we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes
and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other
reason is simply a racket."

Major General Smedley Butler, USMC,
twice awarded the Medal of Honor

Well, as peaceful a person as I am, I find it difficult to avoid recognizing this IS defense of our homes (and health) and the Bill of Rights.

So I can only say to our esteemed bought-and-paid-for Supreme Court, with all due respect:

"FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU and do NOT let the sun rise or set on Federal marshalls trying to arrest sick people in California. You will NOT enjoy the public reception you get."

You people are below despicable, and apparently, only one of you took time out from filling up your offshore accounts and getting government jobs for your relatives to actually read the constitution. Thank you, Judge O'Connor, for at least having the prerequisites for the job.

AND oh, to the rest of you -- FUCK YOU. I

HL Mencken had it right when he said:

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."

And oh -- a necessary note to the Thought Police who were cleverly put solidly in place BEFORE the Coup d'Fou took over -- I have no plans to break the law or harm anyone -- I suppose I should consult a lawyer to find out if I still have the right to disapprove of a ruling, but I must assume I still can.

Still, this is NOT a threat, just an observation and a reminder that, as the man said, "Be careful the asses you kick on the way up -- they're the same ones you'll have to kiss on the way down." We can only wait and hope we get to see it.

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Six Feet Under Buried Alive

 

Six Feet Under Returns MONDAY June 6th for a Fifth Season on HBO

(This article appeared in Crapshoot in June of 2003 in a somewhat different form and in May of 2004 under the Title “Six Feet Under returns June 13^th for a Fourth Season on HBO – for this reason it begins, referring to the THIRD season -- )

All the critics hailed the Third Season of Six Feet Under

"It was brilliant," they said --- sure it was, as brilliant as a slug trail shining in the moonlight.

The critics got there too late. They didn't recognize the genius and the magic of the first season and by the time the third season began, the producers had lost the handle and started playing every tired old TV trick they could think of to get it back. At which point the critics finally began to praise the series, perhaps because it had descended to the type of TV they knew -- manipulative formulaic games. The quality level of the third season fell like an angel's turd off the top of the Bank of America building.

Until the last episode of the third season -- when it pulled a Lazarus, sat up from its chalk outline and said, "Huh? What? Where have I been? Well, I'm back now."

Let's go back to the first season when the critics couldn't deal with an easily-paced coming-together of characters and situations. The series took a few weeks to get rolling. But, apparently, the critics didn't understand that this one was just building itself up at its own pace, and couldn't wait, so they decided it was crap, although the first episode featuring Prodigal Son Nate (Peter Krause) banging the woman he'd just met, Brenda (Rachel Griffiths) in the airport restroom as his father (Richard Jenkins) was simultaneously being killed in a car crash on the way to pick him up surely should have been an indication that something other than usual was up.

The critics lumped the Sopranos and Six Feet Under together for a lot of reasons -- both HBO, both Sunday night, both dramas involving families and their outsideresque sources of income, both extraordinary high water marks in television -- but aesthetically, they were always opposites.

With the Sopranos, we knew every step of the way that we were in the hands of a master storyteller using perfectly cast, skilled, experienced actors. Week after week, even with one of the principle actors (Nancy Marchand) dying of cancer, they spun the story and it gripped and held. And we waited for it on Sunday night.

Six Feet Under did something completely opposite, and the opposite of brilliant may also be brilliant, but in another way. Obviously the cast and crew and all concerned were equally skilled -- but in the first year and most of the second, we were often able to feel as if there were no story teller at all, that we were actually watching lives unfold, and that each next bit of reality was still hatching in the cosmic aether, to be stimulated into reality by the momentary dynamics of the event in progress. In other words, the stuff on the screen was just happening.

And that was an amazing thing to achieve. Hard enough for anyone to script, but even more impossible to realize on a set with 10 or 20 techs moving lights and mikes and cables; actors working under blazing lights, and, for example, playing Nate and Brenda as lovers in bed getting after it in intimate and salacious ways despite doing retakes, each time rising above the presence of a macro lens poking in under Rachel Griffiths' left breast. Or to feel that way as actors play mourners responding to seeing a casket and feeling a loss; or son David (Michael C Hall) coming out and coming in to his love life with Keith (Matthew St Patrick), a black LA cop, and theirs being the most wholesome relationship going on.

Through it all, there was a continuing tension between the characters' daily physical and emotional involvement with death and their total inability to understand what that means -- the fact that we all die – what that means in terms of how we might live our lives. Not "denial." Just a failure to appreciate the meaning of the presence of death, even though the recently dead appeared throughout each show, displaying grim existential humor, discussing intimate matters with the living who never seemed to address such subjects in their own lives. And when the newly-dead cadaver being prepared in the basement wasn't talking to the attendant, the father's ghost was chatting up family members from time to time. That was there for all of the first year and well into the second year, that continual presence of death, but in the third season, somehow it got lost.

Somewhere in the second season, this unheard-of act of magic began to slip away. And the people -– producers, writers -- who had been bringing forth this idiosyncratically magical wandering through the lives of people who were involved one way or another in the undertaking business started to notice something was missing, and they did the wrong thing. They tried to grab it, hold it more tightly, mold it, hang onto it ... and the more they did, the more they lost it, the kind of flop sweat where working harder and harder at it only makes it worse. The dead didn't even sit on the opposite embalming table any more to discuss matters of moment with the morticians.

This third season opened to kudos and hurrahs and high hopes, and while some of
the characters still were interesting, especially the daughter Claire (Lauren Ambrose), entering art school and played painfully well in extraordinary performances. But Ms Ambrose, as good as she was, couldn't carry every entire show all by herself, and there were too many episodes where her character was the only living thing in the funeral home.

The character of Ruth the mother (Frances Conroy), devolved from innocence, no longer sweetly naive and newly born into independence through widowhood, to being merely pathetic, desperate and dumb. The Prodigal son and his neurotic hysterically-vegan wife Lisa (Lili Taylor) were given far too many episodes to establish that they were destined to be no more than romantic straw men, a partnership made out of a poor compromise. Finally, Brenda returned, and even though it was way too late -- about four episodes after we all saw that there was no life left in the dynamics -- it breathed a bit of life into the little world of Fisher and Sons Funeral Parlor.
But then, in a massive display of desperation, the producers played a thuggishly overt game of manipulative pseudo-suspense -- bringing it all down to second-rate soap-opera.

Rico (Freddy Rodriguez), finally a partner, found his life slipping out of his hands. His wife (Justina Machado), a nurse, got strung out on self-prescribed antidepressants and other drugs stolen from the hospital pharmacy; Claire found out she was with child just bout the same time her boyfriend admitted he had done the deed, or at least, some deed with their mentor; Mother Ruth came onto the larval human who was the company's apprentice; David and Keith broke up again after a phony argument set up with a visit to Keith's parents' home; and finally, last and most loathsome, Nate went nuts after his wife Lisa disappeared on the way to her sister's house and went missing for three weeks. Some people I knew found it gut-wrenching, saying that if one's own wife were missing for all that time, any man would go much crazier than did Nate.

My point of view was somewhat different. I was very clear that if some writers made my own wife disappear for three weeks, I would be infuriated, would seek them out and kill them, painfully, because I couldn't overlook the fact that they had decided "Let's lose Lisa. Let's just manipulate the living crap out of our faithful viewers and keep our plummeting ratings high." Unlike The Sopranos, when the hand of the writer-director-producer appeared, it was not comforting -- it was intrusive.

That's why I had pretty much given up on them, but then, after a bye week to build the ratings, the final episode of season three came on. And the magic was back, at least some of it. The dead walked among the living once again. The living were living their own lives and mirable dictu! Mother Ruth who had been unashamedly enjoying lots of hot sex from a new boyfriend with six former wives to his credit, announced she will marry him, right away. When the children protested, she said what was always been there to be said by anyone in the house -- "Life is too short. I will take my chance at happiness when it comes along."

Finally, someone who lived in that funeral parlor noticed that every one of their cadavers had been a life cut short, whether through violence, accident, or disease. (Perhaps, and if so, it was to their credit, the producers and writers were responding to outrage from cast and/or crew and/or disappointed fans)

Admittedly, my disaffection was the result of the series' decline from a magical excellence which was by all reasoning impossible to achieve -- even though they did it; more impossible to sustain -- and they did that fairly well; and totally impossible to bring back once it's gone, which they managed to do, in a way, just under the wire. Perhaps I was being a spoiled brat to say this magic just didn't happen often enough in the third season, but if so, it was the people who made Six Feet Under who spoiled me.

One more point, to be fair -- the first two seasons, Six Feet Under followed The Sopranos on Sunday night so you had "Wow!" followed by "More Wow!" The third season, it was on its own without the lead-in, without the advantage of following a satisfying drama.

So now we can only hope that in the fourth season, the writers and producers will allow the actors to carry believable stories, without needing to fetch the elements of character and plot from too far away for us to care. Because learning how to live, knowing what to do with one's life while recognizing that death may always be standing in the shadows is the most important thing any of us can do, and every one of us can use all the help, insight, and reflection we can get.

********************************

 

Well, that there column sure was a throwback to hippie optimism, because I wanted to be not so cynical, to be more open to possibility. I was trying to be nice.

Sooner could my computer grow breasts or the Scalia-Rehnquist-Uncle Thomas axis of the Supreme Court actually read the constitution.  The fourth season was met with us – the viewers – responding by saying, “Yeah, sure, if I’m home on Sunday night, and have nothing else to do, sure, I guess I’ll watch.”

 

True, it’s damned hard to achieve what was achieved in the first place, but – the neverending story is this – it seems to be a whole lot harder to show a bit of respect for the art of the story, for themselves, and for the intelligence of the viewers by resisting the temptation to debase, degrade, and destroy all the good feeling that had existed  in order to milk a few more (million) bucks out of the suckers by shoveling a steaming pile of loose watery odious shit into our homes under the same title.

 

But, ever the optimist (it goes hand-in-hand with the cynicism), perhaps they’ll actually do more than phone in a script and destroy the actors’ self-respect with a decent final season – even though we all know, the final season should have been the second one.

 

Ahh, we can only hope.

 

 

Rumsfeld: Al-Jazeera promotes terrorism

Right -- blame the messenger once more for reporting what's happening ... oops, I mean reporting the part of what's happening that they don't like.

Yet another asshole who thinks he's King of the World, but we already knew that. Hey Rummy -- give you three guesses who's in the middle of the stuff - -who's ordering up the stuff that makes people think America is EVIL.



June 4, 2005 | SINGAPORE (AP) -- Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Saturday the Al-Jazeera television network promoted terrorism by airing beheadings and other attacks.

"If anyone here lived in the Middle East and watched a network like Al-Jazeera day after day after day, even if you were an American you would begin to believe that America was bad," Rumsfeld told an Asian defense conference.

"Quite honestly, I do not get up in the morning and think that America is what's wrong with the world. The people that are going on television, chopping off people's heads is what's wrong with the world.

"And television networks that carry it and promote it and are Johnny-on-the-spot every time there's a terrorist act are promoting it," he said.

Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, a pan-Arab station, denies it holds any anti-American bias and says it reports the news objectively.


And the curious thing is, first time I checked in to look at Al-Jazeera online, I was shocked to find there was basically no anti-American rhetoric, no rabid finger-pointing, in fact they seemed to be considerably more objective -- given that they are looking at the world from a different geographic and cultural location -- than many of our own media.

But then, even after we've blown up their studios and killed their reporters (oh, accidentally) they still won't get as forelock-tugging, shuffling, mumbling, "yassuh boss" as the American media has been.

And that's what pisses him off -- the Great Know-It-All who has almost single-handedly destroyed the US military capability through stubborness and threats, whose policies have made most boys and girls of the right age think of joining up as a prospect about as attractive as the idea of camelingus.

They used to say, "If the Russians did to our rivers and air what the big coporations have -- we'd be at war."

Well, if Al Quaeda could have done to our military what Redrum and his slaveys have done, they'd all go home and take it easy.

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