Saturday, February 21, 2009

Weekend Update



  • Well I've just started something called MySpace on this infernal machine. Strange friends from long ago are popping up from "out there." It's weird. Now there's this thing called "Twitter." Mark Morford tells us all about it.

  • Kathleen Parker flies on Air Force One. Goshalmighty, she gets all titillated.

  • Pardon me, but am I the only one who thinks Alan Keyes is certifiably insane? Someone should get this man the mental health help he obviously needs. Has anyone checked to see if he owns any firearms? Come on, help me out here.

  • Well we've all been told that Islam is the "evil empire," but what the hell is this all about? In an exclusive interview, investigative reporter Mike Reynolds uncovers the special relationship between Iraqi Kurds and a group of American evangelicals that practices “spiritual warfare,” harbors a deep animosity toward Islam, and views the region as the evangelistic final frontier. What in the Name of the Crusades are Tennessee Evangelicals Doing in Kurdish Iraq?

  • It's a cartoon. It's Spike Lee. It's Al Sharpton. Boycott the New York Post? No problem, but let's take a deep breath and get past this as soon as possible. Please.

  • While we honestly have nothing against Jesus personally, we have problems bringing him into the stimulus argument. Seriously. Oh, and there's a video.

  • A treat for us all: Dana Milbank reports on neoconservative mastermind Richard Perle's speech at the Nixon Center on Friday. "Prince of Darkness Denies Own Existence."

  • Here's our Al Franken update. Hang in there Al, we're all rooting for you.

Cracker Bashing


Just watched Alexandra Pelosi's new HBO Movie, "Right America: Feeling Wronged," about the angry right-wingers. I saw Pelosi be interviewed by Rachel Maddow. My wife looked at Pelosi's kind of greasy hair and retro glasses and said, "Is she gay?" and so we talked about that. It turns out, no, she just has greasy hair and funny glasses and she really, really likes herself.

That's nice, because I thought her HBO movie was a hit-piece. "Cracker Bashing" one might call it. Joy at the discomfort of others, after the irony of their lost cause and lost dreams is well-known. Then you edit your film and people go "Ooooo" and think you are edgy and trendy. Or something. But anyone could make a piece like that, of raving liberals, gay people and black people. Oh wait, someone did. Remember the film some guy did where he interviewed Obama supporters, a lot of whom were people of "color" (what am I, "monochromatic"?) who were, let's politely say, not the brightest bulbs on the cosmic Christmas Tree? They were dumb Obama voters, okay? Many of them could not explain issues, or speak intelligibly. I forget who the right-wing moron was who made that bit of snark, but he was, as we intellectuals say, a complete dildo. But wait, if he was a jerk to make that hit-piece, what is Pelosi? Roberta Redford? a snarky version of Clint Eastwood? or just someone who enjoys shooting fish in a barrel?

She spent some time dishing upstate Pennsylvania. Those (morons) are some of my relatives. Okay, the really retarded ones, but what is the point? They are not very well-connected with the world, their lives are often fairly crappy, their educational background may in many cases leave something to be desired. Wait, isn't that kind of like people who live in urban ghettos? Gosh, this is getting confusing...

What we all need to do, in my opinion, is stop demonizing other Americans. Okay, just STOP. Sure, some of them are dipshits and believe really, really a lot in Jesus, but why is black gospel music trendy and songs by evangelicals in failing congregations of no interest? Are African-Americans just naturally gifted in the music department? Naah, I can promise you that some of them can't hold a tune in a bucket.

Now that I have stomped on poor Alexandra, the smug pseudo-leftist, it's my turn:

When we think about "natural resources" why is it that we only think about coal, oil, water and timber? Great stuff, but once you burn, flush or saw it up, it's gone. What, pray tell, about the people of our nation? the jovial morons who love NASCAR and the nut bags who dress like gangster wanna-be's in the ghetto, neatly making everyone in their right mind now want to hire them. What of those pillars of our society and their slightly-deranged girlfriends and wives? Are they just there to amuse us, to give us something to shake our heads over and feel smug by comparison to? or aren't they a valuable human resource that our society has simply abandoned... as if they were land not worth trying to farm?

I am here to tell you that in a lifetime of meeting people and deciding they were terminal airheads, who would never amount to a good Goddamn, a lot of times those people have favorably stunned me by what they have accomplished, who they have become, the children they have raised. Not always, but nothing in life is ever 100%. But there is a lot there, that can be worked with. I would argue that we have, as Americans, a responsibility to all other Americans to try to help, support, encourage and enable our fellow citizens. There are a lot of opportunities out there, both in good and bad times. I HATE the offshoring of jobs that Americans could do, and do far better than some poor guy in Hydrabad, India who is trying to convince me his name is "Frank". Frankly, I don't think it is.

But I digress. Mocking our countrymen for their ill-considered statements during an election is a waste of film, video-tape and broadcast time. Personally, though it may make me retch to think I am agreeing with the reviewer for the Wall Street Journal, I thought the film was sort of cheap pornography, nothing more. John probably loved it. But you know what? If you want to see a really great movie, drop everything and go see "Slumdog Millionaires". I am going to faint if it wins some academy awards, but it knocked me out. The aerial photos of sheet-metal roofed slums in Mumbai, India stunned me. One of the slums in the film has two million people living in it. Stop and think about that for a moment. TWO MILLION people living without good water supplies, sanitation, food, refrigeratiors and all the things we take for granted. And you think your school was crappy? you are going to love the one in the movie, which I believe is accurate. Now just stop and ask yourself: what sort of place would be perfect to breed the next global epidemic?

See... that's the kind of thing I worry about, not whether some kind of fairly amusing cracker in sunglasses is upset because he can't fly to the Rebel Flag anymore. I hated Pelosi's movie, I love Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. It is about ten or twelve movies shoved into a box meant to hold just one. Damndest thing I've ever seen.

Oh, and that Stimulus Package thing? It's going to be fine. It is just like FDR. Ever wonder why the GOP are spending to much time trashing the New Deal? Because it was so popular that they were wiped out in the 1932 election and the 1936 that followed, leaving them limp dishrags. They are scared shitless history is playing out the same way again, so they are going to get out ahead of events and work to try to convince all of us that the New Deal prolonged the Depression.

I wish, for this and many other reasons, that Uncle Bob were here to comment.

Okay, okay, so it would burn out segments of the Internet with its emotional voltage, but this is the biggest load of horseshit ever. If you believe this I have a Bridge to Nowhere that I'd like to sell you. You can ride on it with your Rainbow Pony. I don't hold any ill-will against the GOP foot-soldiers. Their mistake is drinking the Kool-Aid that their Jim Jones act-alikes are pouring out for them, there in the jungle of electoral defeat. I fault the top dogs, the serial liars who are now trying to spin the New Deal in a frantic attempt to save their worthless hides. The facts? Oh, please, when one's job is at stake? don't talk to them about facts! But watch, that is going to be the theme. Dump on FDR, try to contain his heir. Won't work, probably will sink them faster and deeper, but they don't want my advice, or yours. And I suspect that panic has spread so widely that they are no longer thinking clearly.

It's really going to be an interesting year. So far I am loving it. Call me crazy, but when things get dodgy, amazing things can happen. And by God, we needed a change of the storyline, didn't we? Maybe these were the eggs we had to break, in order to make the omelet? We shall see.

Arthur

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Weekend Update - EoB Edition