IN MEMORIAM

My last post of the year is an obituary, some belated, some current, for the lights that have gone out in our world during 2008:  William F. Buckley, George Carlin, Arthur C. Clarke, Heath Ledger, Paul Newman, Tim Russert, Alexander Solshenitsyn, and William Wharton, among others.   Here are some favorites of mine:

Cyd Charisse

1922-2008

Miriam Makeba

1932-2008

Isaac Hayes

1942-2008

Odetta

1930-2008

Harold Pinter

1930-2008

Eartha Kitt

1927-2008

Leonardo

(aka Mr. Underfoot)

1994-2008

My beloved cat is gone. For the past four years, Leonardo has suffered from diabetes stabilized with twice daily insulin injections, but time and declining health finally caught up to my dear cat. Today, an angel came and took him away.

According to legend, the Eskimo have as many as a hundred words to describe what we simply call “snow.” These so-called “focal vocabularies” supply specialized terms and distinctions that are important to certain cultures. Other cultures make do with more limited vocabularies and rely on descriptors or hyphenations to form manifold meanings.

Making do with a limited vocabulary is especially true of cats. A few simple words can represent many concepts, and the difference between “meow” versus “meow” depends upon context. For instance, the first meow in the morning means, “Hungry, fill my bowl.” At other times, meow may mean, “Hello” or “Play with me.” In full ally-cat mode, yowls of meows may represent an autistic fantasy or erotic rapture.

To an intruder into the yard, hiss means, “scram!”  In the vet’s office, hiss means, “Fahgettaboudit!” Purr is reserved for emotions such as contentment and love, and make no mistake: Cats DO give and receive love. Learning cat talk comes with bonding.  Learning French is another matter.

An interviewer once asked Jacques Derrida, “What is love?” In typical, obscure fashion, he replied that the subject is too complex for an adequate discussion but suggested that one might embark upon an examination of the subject by distinguishing between “who” as a singularity of the one who is loved versus “what” as an attribute of the one who is loved.

What is meant by the phrase, “who as a singularity?” Does “who” imply some immutable aspect of the one in abstract, something so individual and unique that there can only be one example from the beginning to the end of time? Does “what” imply only an ephemeral attribute that is mortal and perishable (perhaps even causing one to fall out of love in pursuit of a “younger’ attribute)?  Does love for the “who” connote something more enduring and noble than love for the “what?”  Is Derrida being Socratic or Sophist?

When I recall my fondest memories of Leonardo, I am a shameless sentimentalist.  If Leonardo were some immutable manifestation, any abstract concept of a cat could represent Leonardo and stand in his place.  Impossible!  So I prefer to think of Leonardo, not in terms of “who” but in terms of “what:” One salt-and-pepper tabby, one furtive shadow ruffling the curtains, one furry hunchback rubbing against corners and furniture legs, one pair of triangular ears up-periscope across an expanse of table.

So what is love?  For me, the distinction between “who” versus “what” strikes me as a false dichotomy.   I have come to understand love within the context of giving and receiving … as simple, unconditional acts that merge into one and become indistinguishable.

On this, the last day of 2008, may those whom we have loved and lost find eternal peace!

Wise to the words

This being the last day of 2008, it's customary to bring out my consultant Dr. Syntax and air his views about how none of you speak English properly. Indeed there are a number of stupid neologisms, platitudes, clichés, malapropisms and other linguistic transgressions I'm sick of hearing and you should be too.

It seems however, that academia has scooped old Syntax and released a more official list of awful verbal offal yesterday. Michigan's Lake Superior State University has taken it upon itself, or at least the English Department has, to ban a number of recent common usages, and although my cranky friend is a bit offended at the lack of respect and recognition he feels he deserves, he's used to it and he quite agrees with most of their condemnations.

Carbon footprint has been spewed forth from journalistic smokestacks all year and it deserves to be at the top of the list for many reasons, not the least of which is the inherent misunderstanding of basic chemistry. It's the compounds of carbon fouling the air and carbon dioxide is no more carbon than water is hydrogen, nor does either substance lend itself to having footprints. Find a better term, says my friend Syntax, or you may find his footprint on your you know where.

What else has brought forth the wrath of Syntax this year? Green: yes it's easier to type than ecologically advantageous and easier to attach to every trivial thing, action or policy the creativity of Madison Avenue and other enthusiastic simpletons can dream up. A thermos bottle isn't particularly green, for instance, unless it's made by Stanley, and virtually all things advertised as such wouldn't make a bit of difference even if most of the world bought them -- unless being green in the face from disgust counts. Algae is green and we could do with less of it in our rivers and ponds. Organic? Crude oil and snake venom are organic. Don't look for them at Whole Foods.

Syntax, you'll note I'm not calling him "the good doctor" because that's vapid cliché number 147 on his list, remains thoroughly opposed to a number of hackneyed metaphors, so overused that they have often obliterated more accurate and legitimate words. The now permanent fatwa on the carrion metaphor impact has been joined by ass kicking and references to suction to indicate incompetence or disapproval. These stopped being creative or even mildly humorous before you were born. Stop it.

Perhaps it will be another 4 years before we have to arrest anyone for using stumping and campaign trail, but please use the time to think of more direct replacements for these bits of verbal road-kill.

Syntax has nearly beaten efforting and texting to death, as he does with "verbed" nouns in general, but nearly isn't enough, is it?

Euphemisms such as right-sizing don't disguise the fact that your company is firing your department and it just makes your boss more of a jerk then you knew he was.

Changing the sign on your Chinese, Korean, Thai, Indian or Japanese restaurant to say "Asian cuisine" makes you sound like a moron and it's an insult to the ethnicities you're attempting to cover with some gluey "Asian sauce." There's no such category as Asian, Asiatic or Oriental food - or sauce, and yes all three words mean exactly the same thing. And while we're on the subject of food, what the hell is comfort food and what would discomfort food be?

Graphic doesn't mean scary, and issue isn't synonymous with problem or concern. A bowel movement is an issue -- constipation s a problem.

There's been nothing new in rocket science since Newton and as a metaphor for technical difficulty, you'd be better off talking about rocket technology. All you'd lose thereby is the association with the lemmings of language.

Warfighter. Did we really need that one and doesn't it serve to dehumanize a soldier? As the military ( right after the business school) is often at the forefront of promulgating misleading and opaque usage, I'm suspicious, although I will admit with some degree of guilty feelings that I've always liked Overkill.

So anyway, the old man is getting a bit tired of you and the thoughtless way you talk and of having to remind you of it every year. We both know you'll be eating double bacon cheeseburgers in front of the TV by next week regardless of all your resolutions and you'll still be using "fell swoop" and "control freak" as though you knew what you were saying, you reprobate you.

THINGS I LEARNED IN A PSYCHIATRIST’S OFFICE

Some people already know this but, for the record, I work a VERY part time schedule at a jail. The medical department is small, tucked in the corner of one floor, consisting of an exam room, a pharmacy and several offices.

I usually bring my own dinner and rather than battle through three locked doors and an elevator ride to the dining room, I just find an empty office to sit in.

This weekend, I found myself in the psychiatrist’s office, spending a little quiet time before embarking on the chaotic journey known as evening med pass. There are two people who share this office; the (male) doc and his (female) assistant. Their walls are covered in various “art” and here are just a few things I learned in the psychiatrist’s office:

“Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them.”

“This is a no whining zone.”

“I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming in terror like his passengers.”

Not pictured; "Dr. S____ is in the office; no girls allowed!"

My favorite ( also not pictured), “You’d have to be crazy to see a psychiatrist!”

I know, it doesn’t seem like I learned much, but I only had ½ hour …

Light at heart

“Paul Shanklin is a long-time friend, and I think that RNC members have the good humor and good sense to recognize that his songs for the Rush Limbaugh show are light-hearted political parodies,”

said "Chip" Saltsman. I'm sure that many of them would see "Barak the Magic Negro" as hilarious, that many of them would see Rush Limbaugh as a funny man.

“Please enjoy the enclosed CD by my friend Paul Shanklin of the Rush Limbaugh Show”

read the note RNC candidate "Chip" attached to the CD containing 41 tracks of "light-hearted political parodies" and distributed as a message of Christmas cheer to Republican National Committee members. Republicans love Christmas and all it's religious meanings, you know. It's titled "We hate the USA." These light hearted bozos of course can't be accused of hating the USA, they just think most of the people in it are comical Poles, Jews, Liberals, homos, Mexican illegals, murderous Muslims, and of course Negros, any of whom can be stereotyped, ridiculed and condescended to over Scotch and sodas at the good old boy's club where loving America's most obnoxious traditions is as de regeur as a good old black-face minstrel show or lunch at the Coon Chicken Inn.

Rush Limbaugh, you know, the guy who avoided the draft because of an anal infection and who let his housekeeper take the fall for his drug addiction and who thinks it's "light-hearted" to compare a homely self conscious adolescent girl with a dog on national TV, predicted a while back that featuring the song on his radio program would foster accusations of racism. That wasn't hard to predict seeing that it is racism of the most arrogant sort. But no, Chip and Rush and the rest of the country club comedians haven't broken any laws. It's possible that they truly don't see anything wrong in being the douche bags they are and will go to their graves thinking they've been put-upon by moral censors and do-gooders and humorless liberals and there's little we can do about it other than to hope the event comes soon.

A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

Blogging Dino with a Brief Merry Christmas

Hello to all,

Sorry I haven't been contributing lately -- I have tried to keep up with the posts and will return to posting regularly early next year. But I want to wish everyone a fine Christmas and a Totally Jurassic 2009. (Coming from me, "Totally Jurassic" is a good thing. Dino valley-speak!)

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Credit: Odd-Fish.net

Afrikaans - een plesierige kerfees
Arabic - I'D MIILAD SAID OUA SANA SAIDA
Argentine - Felices Pasquas Y felices ano Nuevo
Armenian - Shenoraavor Nor Dari yev Pari Gaghand
Azeri - Tezze Iliniz Yahsi Olsun
Basque - Zorionak eta Urte Berri On!
Bohemian - Vesele Vanoce
Brazilian - Boas Festas e Feliz Ano Novo
Breton - Nedeleg laouen na bloavezh mat
Bulgarian - Tchestita Koleda; Tchestito Rojdestvo Hristovo
Chinese - (Mandarin) Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan (Catonese) Gun Tso Sun Tan'Gung Haw Sun
Cornish - Nadelik looan na looan blethen noweth
Cree - Mitho Makosi Kesikansi
Croatian - Sretan Bozic
Czech - Prejeme Vam Vesele Vanoce a stastny Novy Rok
Danish - Glædelig Jul
Dutch - Vrolijk Kerstfeest en een Gelukkig Nieuwjaar!
English - Merry Christmas
Esperanto - Gajan Kristnaskon
Estonian - Ruumsaid juulup|hi
Farsi - Cristmas-e-shoma mobarak bashad
Finnish - Hyvaa joulua
French - Joyeux Noel
Frisian - Noflike Krystdagen en in protte Lok en Seine yn it Nije Jier!
German - Froehliche Weihnachten
Greek - Kala Christouyenna!
Hawaiian - Mele Kalikimaka
Hebrew - Mo'adim Lesimkha. Chena tova
Hindi - Shub Naya Baras
Hungarian - Kellemes Karacsonyi unnepeket
Icelandic - Gledileg Jol
Indonesian - Selamat Hari Natal
Iraqi - Idah Saidan Wa Sanah Jadidah
Irish - Nollaig Shona Dhuit
Italian - Buone Feste Natalizie
Japanese - Shinnen omedeto. Kurisumasu Omedeto
Korean - Sung Tan Chuk Ha
Latvian - Prieci'gus Ziemsve'tkus un Laimi'gu Jauno Gadu!
Lithuanian - Linksmu Kaledu
Manx - Nollick ghennal as blein vie noa
Maori - Meri Kirihimete
Marathi - Shub Naya Varsh
Navajo - Merry Keshmish
Norwegian - God Jul
Pennsylvania German - En frehlicher Grischtdaag un en hallich Nei Yaahr!
Polish - Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia
Portuguese - Boas Festas
Rapa-Nui - Mata-Ki-Te-Rangi. Te-Pito-O-Te-Henua
Rumanian - Sarbatori vesele
Russian - Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva is Novim Godom
Serbian - Hristos se rodi
Slovakian - Sretan Bozic or Vesele vianoce
Sami - Buorrit Juovllat
Samoan - La Maunia Le Kilisimasi Ma Le Tausaga Fou
Scots Gaelic - Nollaig chridheil huibh
Serb-Croatian - Sretam Bozic. Vesela Nova Godina
Singhalese - Subha nath thalak Vewa. Subha Aluth Awrudhak Vewa
Slovak - Vesele Vianoce. A stastlivy Novy Rok
Slovene - Vesele Bozicne. Screcno Novo Leto
Spanish - Feliz Navidad
Swedish - God Jul and (Och) Ett Gott Nytt År
Tagalog - Maligayamg Pasko. Masaganang Bagong Taon
Tamil - Nathar Puthu Varuda Valthukkal
Thai - Sawadee Pee Mai
Turkish - Noeliniz Ve Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun
Ukrainian - Srozhdestvom Kristovym
Urdu - Naya Saal Mubarak Ho
Vietnamese - Chung Mung Giang Sinh
Welsh - Nadolig Llawen
Yugoslavian - Cestitamo Bozic
Papua New Guinea - Bikpela hamamas blong dispela Krismas na Nupela yia i go long yu

Did I leave anyone out? (I think I like Navaho the best)

Hatemonger leftists

Well The Swash Zone has made the cut. We're finally the target of the Psychotic Right, who think that sentimental reminiscences about Christmas in Austria and cynicism about the way our nations affairs have been carried out makes us "hatemonger leftists."

My post about how Christmas has become too much about angry denunciations of those who prefer to put their own interpretation on it and demands for government mandated observance, merited the attention of American Power, the site hosted by a Community College instructor from California and which is, according to him, all about power, victory and mindless support for whatever the military chooses to do.

Donald Douglass says that getting angry about enemies of freedom invalidates my distaste for the irrational anger of the religious right. Of course if that were true, the raison d'etre of the American Revolution would evaporate, but that's right wing dementia.

We have arrived.

FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS

Every year from November through New Year's Day, Tanglewood Park in Clemmons, NC presents a drive through light display complete with music (you tune in the radio), roasting marshmallows, hay rides or a carriage ride. It meanders through the park for about four miles with enough color, size and animation to warm the heart of the crustiest old Scrooge.

We usually go between Christmas and New Year's when things have slowed down and we can relax and enjoy. And every year, we seem to have someone around who has never seen the lights - this year we are taking the grandkids and probably my mother (but only if I can tape her mouth shut!)

For more information go to Tanglewood Festival of Lights.

Entry to the park.

They have the holidays covered.

Nonstop Displays!

To All A Good Night!

A Solitary Eve Remembered

In my memory, the streets, the sidewalks, the trees & bushes, the bridges & pathways were blanketed in powdery snow. I remember no ice, though it was cold. Very cold. The sky was never blue but rather an icy gray. It had been snowing for days. Austria could not have looked more like a picturesque winter wonderland if it had tried.

The small city – Saltzburg – in which I found myself that Christmas Eve was both foreign & familiar. People hustling about doing last minute Christmas shopping, yet without the glare of consumerism. Saltzburg, in the gently falling snow & cold felt too old-European for such garishness. Yes – so idyllic in my memory.

That evening – Christmas Eve – I was bound & determined to go to church. I simply always had. Not because of any particular Christian longing but out of a culturally bread sense of spirituality on this eve. But this was Saltzburg so going to church meant taking my Protestant self to Catholic mass. In a massive, echoing cathedral that was as inviting with its Christmas greenery & candles as it was strange with its Latin accompanied Catholic rituals. I stood in the back in a mass of people, most of whom were quiet, only occasionally respectfully whispering. They too might as well have been speaking Latin for all I understood. I stood gazing in wonder at the looming cathedral ceiling over my head – Catholic art work on display – saints watching, gazing back at me – the Protestant intruder in their midst? They were welcoming & comforting – oddly enough. An unseen choir sang from the rafters, its eloquence magnificently filling up every inch of space in the cavernous cathedral. A priest spoke somewhere way down in front. Through the crowd – I never saw him. Just heard his rhythmic Latin chanting.

It was not the simple, spiritual Christmas Eve of my youth. No. But it was moving in its own unique way. I recognized some of the music played & sung - a genuine connection from Catholicism to Protestantism, from Austrians to the American in their midst.

I stayed an hour. Then I left. The mass was still going on. Leaving the crowd behind indoors & walked outdoors into the quiet winter wonderland of snowy Saltzburg. Alone I walked, taking my time, listening to my feet crunch in the snow, as I crossed a bridge headed back to the hostel where I was spending the night. My solitary walk home that Christmas Eve I remember well. One of the best Christmas Eve’s I have ever spent.

No prospect for recovery

The New York Times humor section asks you to come up with a caption for this picture. I don't find anything funny about it, other than the fact that Americans have so long sneered at the idea of small, fuel sipping American cars while complaining that Detroit isn't technically adept enough to produce them. The little Nash Metropolitan was one of many failures in the era of "bigger is better" and that's an era with no signs of ending. In fact nobody makes cars big enough for us, or clumsy, or unstable enough, so we drive trucks and vans and pretend, like Governor Schwarzenegger said on 60 minutes last night, that magic technology will allow us to keep driving them and keep making them bigger.

I was waiting at a light to turn on to old Dixie Highway yesterday, top down and shades on, when a venerable Porsche 356, followed by a TR-4, followed by an XK120 rolled past in convoy making a joyful noise; tops down in the fragrant, 75 degree Florida sunshine. I had hoped to catch up with them and share the country road and the joy of life for a moment, but of course by the time the light changed, there was an SUV and then another and a van and a huge jacked up pick-up lumbering along, their timid occupants sealed in bank vault vehicles, breathing canned air and peering through their tinted windows darkly.

But of course Americans are always victims, so it's the manufacturers' fault that we hate and fear small cars and Americans hate being American so it's Detroit's fault that it isn't located in Japan. Funny though, that Toyota, who also makes the same kind of misbegotten vehicles Americans crave is suffering too and so is Honda and so, it seems, is everyone else. Toyota announced after Monday's close that it expected to lose more than a billion and a half dollars in 2009 and Japan's exports are already down 26%. Spokesmen for Honda say they see no prospect for recovery. But when it does come, if it does come, won't we go back to our same old trucks with renewed lust?

So how do we convince the mothers of America that they don't need 4 ton trucks to go to the beauty parlor and that safety has a much to do with putting down the Evian and the cell phone and learning how to pick a line through a corner as it does with Gross Vehicle Weight? Does it even matter if we will have to resort to buying cars we can actually afford because we can't get credit or are out of a job? Whatever happens, the open road and the spirit of adventure and freedom are gone and those "On The Road" Dean Moriarty moments won't ever happen again if Mom and her Hummer can help it.

Sorry - But I Am An Angry Feminist Today

Not to be a divisive downer at holiday time, but Katha Pollitt offers some troubling food for thought on the issue of Rick Warren & the inauguration.

To be blunt - As a feminist - I am sick & tired of men such as this being held up as "OK" - & what better way to say that someone is "OK" than to give them such an international stage. And don't, Mr. Obama, talk to me about the need to make nice with his sort. Don't talk to me about the need for us all to overcome our differences. NO! It's time for the Rick Warrens of the world to learn how to make nice with us! HIS SORT needs to learn to overcome OUR differences. I am sick & tired of having to do their work for them because all that means is that THEY WIN! Much of this election was about the fact that the Warrens & Dobsons of the world were becoming more shrill! Why the hell are we appeasing them?

No - I will not be nice or quiet about this. I have been being asked by my society to let male sexists off the hook ever since I was a girl. I've been told for decades to be patient - that change takes time. Well - I am sick of it! I am tired of waiting for some kick-back - like full respect & equality in my society - for my peaceful efforts. For women, Warren is a disrespectful choice (& for other "groups" as well.)

I am such a tired, worn out feminist today . . .

And So This Is Christmas…

Tonight I once again performed the age old tradition of erecting my Christmas tree. It doesn’t have a particular color scheme or theme; unless you would call ornaments collected through the years a theme.

The Christmas tree has its origins in pagan ritual performed by ancient Germanic tribes. In fact there was, initially, much opposition to Christmas trees until they gained popularity in the late 19th century, becoming readily accepted by the 20th century.

No matter, for those of us who celebrate Christmas, decorating the tree is usually a much anticipated winter event. I can remember waiting anxiously with my brother and sister for our father to arrive home Christmas Eve with our tree (this in keeping with the European tradition; our parents being from the Old Country).

And then we began to unwrap the old glass ornaments from their tissue paper nests, taking care to hang them in just the right place. Each ornament a memory of a Christmas past.

Later, I began my own family and my own ornament collection; some bought, some gifts, some hand made by little hands; each a precious memory. In years past, all the children would help me decorate the tree. And how carefully even the youngest would handle the fragile ornaments, perhaps instinctively understanding the important part they were playing in our family tradition.

I’m late getting my tree up this year. Usually, I have it up right after Thanksgiving and I annoyingly hum carols from that moment until Dec 25. But this year, my heart is heavy with the violence around me and the losses so many have suffered. It seemed obscene to enjoy the holiday preparations. But my husband pushed me to do it; he knows how much I've always enjoyed this season.

So, I turned on some Christmas music and decorated my tree, carefully unwrapping ornaments and hanging them in just the right place while ghosts of Christmases Past whispered in my ear; “If you don’t settle down, Santa Claus is NOT going to come!” “Ok. Mom, we’ll stop!” “Oh, wow! Just what I wanted!” “Wake up! Come on downstairs; Santa Claus came!”

And it dawned on me that I should enjoy every precious moment I have on this earth and use my money, my time and my talents to be a positive force in the universe; not wallow in despair - that would truly be an obscene waste of life!

Christmas Eve, my children will all be here for dinner and my grandchildren will marvel that Santa Claus came to Meemaw’s house early! And another set of memories will be created and cataloged in the family consciousness. And I WILL enjoy every minute of it.

Holiday of Hate

Michelle Malkin is talking about Christmas cheer. Yes, it's like Kim Jong Il talking about threats to civil liberties, only worse, because we don't have Fox News bleating his demented ravings or calling them "conservative comment."

Yes, it's the atheists, as though they were a group: it's the atheists, the non-believers who are getting in the way of her cheerful enjoyment of Christmas and the atheists who should be treated like "Internet trolls." That, I presume, means to ignore them. Of course, in Fox speak, that means to continue their mythical battle between retail Christianity and the nefarious forces of religious freedom.

Gretchen Carlson, who apparently has a good shot at surpassing Malkin for sheer vituperative viciousness disagrees, saying that religious freedom will be the death of Christianity.

"If you don't stand up and fight for it, it might just disappear! I'm talking about Christianity!"

No, you're not, you're talking about forced unanimity and mandatory expressions of official faith. Christianity thrived actual persecution for enough time to make me doubt that it's future is injeopardy , at least from other religions, and it has thrived through persecutions of it's own, but it's having a tougher time in some places that leave everyone alone to celebrate if and when and how they like and restrain them from forcing their practices and rituals on others.

Back before Christianity was coopted by those who play to the stupid and ignorant and hateful; back before Fox News and the Aryan Nation, it was an inclusive holiday. As a non-Christian and an atheist and someone who knows all too much about Christian history, about early Christian, Greco-Persian, Roman and Norse practices that form the basis of Christmas: as someone who knows how the holiday (and yes, it's a goddamn holiday) owes more to Coca-Cola, Hallmark and Charles Dickens than to some Jewish baby born to a teenage mother in April of an indeterminate year about 2000 years ago, I've always celebrated it anyway. After all Christmas as we know it is an American holiday and one that used to bring about a spirit of tolerance, brotherhood and generosity to a unique degree. It was a holiday that brought out the liberal in most of us.

Now that it's become a bloody piece of meat in the claws of harpies like Malkin and Carlson, now that we've become as stupid and superstitious and as ready to rend our neighbors as any of our subhuman cousins at the behest of Fox and its stable of demons, I'm no longer interested. Its just another hot poker in the dungeons of the Fox inquisition.

Of course if their were any real Christians in this country they might propose at least to ignore this attempt to make it a holiday of hate, but perhaps that, like liberty and the pursuit of happiness just another lost hope of the secular humanists who first dreamed of it.

COMING TO A POST OFFICE NEAR YOU

These are the good old boys who refused to bailout the American auto industry. They deserve a prominent place in every U.S. Post Office from coast to coast. Their anti-union, anti-labor views are so perverse, they don’t mind taking down the entire U.S. economy. They would rather support foreign car assemblers in their home states than save our iconic industries ... and an estimated 3.5 million jobs. Criminals! Traitors!  Here is Octo's list of public enemies:






















SENATOR KIA
Saxby Chambliss (R) Georgia






















SENATOR HONDA
Richard Shelby (R) Alabama






















SENATOR TOYOTA
Mitch McConnell (R) Kentucky























SENATOR BMW
Jim DeMint (R) South Carolina























SENATOR NISSAN
Bob Corker (R) Tennessee
Although camouflage is a natural endowment, it is easier for an octopus to take out one's aggressions in Photoshop, morph these enemies of the people with liquify tools, and show their true faces. Now, if only there were a Voodoo button ...

DOWN IN OLD MEXICO!

Disturbing news coming out of Mexico about U.S. security consultant Felix Batista being kidnapped which has become, once again, a rising problem in Mexico. According to this article:

“Coahuila state law enforcement officials who were not authorized to be quoted by name said Batista had been giving talks to local police officials and businessmen on how to prevent or avoid kidnappings.”

I really hope this situation has a good outcome and that Batista is returned safely, but can you imagine all these people who he’s been advising? All those prevention tips? Toss them in the trash, barricade all the doors and lock and load because it’s going to be a long night in old Mexico!

one by one

Printing things on sheets of paper and using an army of planes, trains, automobiles and sometimes bicycles to carry tons of printed material all over the country in order to keep the public informed is an increasingly anachronistic process. More ironic is the need to pay other people to collect, remove and recycle all that paper.

Even the most anachronistic technologies can take a long time to die. Decades after the advent of the telephone, it was still necessary to cajole a fearful and suspicious public into realizing that they needed one and of course the habits we make using outmoded processes are hard to break. People older than I am often cite the Sunday morning ritual of coffee and three pounds of newsprint as a high point of the weekend, but people younger rely more and more on the Internet, with it's vastly greater diversity of information, constantly updated and always available.

Television never was the threat to printed paper that the Internet has become. Around the clock news coverage has devolved into the constant mastication of a small handful of stories and is increasingly limited to local and sensational news and sometimes outrageously biased propaganda. The Internet has few limits.


The venerable and respected Christian Science Monitor has now ceased to use the wood pulp technology and has gone to the Web. Virtually all the print media has a Web presence. Advertising revenues are falling substantially and it's hard to think that we're not seeing the accelerating demise of the newspaper as we have known it. The Chicago Tribune has filed for bankruptcy, Detroit papers may soon curtail home delivery, publishers of local and regional papers are laying off staff.

Of course we will lose something intangible along with our very tangible piles of paper. When has there ever been change without loss? I'm guessing that one thing we will lose is the credibility of mainstream sources relative to the blogs, the fringe web sites, the loony bloviators and the special interest propagandists. Just who will the reporters at tomorrow's presidential news conferences represent?

Some seem to be making a joyful noise at the prospect; irresponsible polemicists for profit like Ann Coulter, for instance. Those who thrive on half-truth, fabrication, slander, slur and sleaze might well prosper in an Internet sea of smaller fish, where established entities aren't as easy to differentiate from crackpot sites and propaganda sites and blogs with plain old irresponsible reportage. Such places have little to lose when exposed and can change names and re-emerge. The New York Times cannot and it's far easier to hold reporters and editors who use real names accountable.

Still I won't mourn the inevitable extinction; the gains far out weigh the losses, but still -- if Ann Coulter likes it, it can't be all that good.

The Lucas Legacy

Many moons ago, in a galaxy far far away - a teenage girl named Squid went to see STAR WARS. She was so enthralled that she went to see the film 6 more times before summer's end. That fall, when back in school, she even wrote an essay for an English class assignment on Darth Vader. No kidding.

That same squidly girl would avidly await each of the subsequent 2 sequels. Decades later, as a squidly woman, she would stand in line for tickets to see the three original films - re-released onto the big screen - one more time. However, she did not watch her beloved films with the same eyes as she did as a teenaged girl. As STAR WARS played out before her eyes this time she began to think - wait a minute - how come every humanoid except Princess Leia is a white male? Can't people of color or even women! drive fighter jets? Or, at least, operate the controls back at headquarters? What do you mean, G. Lucas, that your awesome fantastical world is no more enlightened than mine?! I do not remember it so. I was once thrilled by Leia - the very concept of Leia. She was one of the first strong, do-it-yourself type of female characters I had ever seen (sadly) by the time I was a teenager. She was inspiring! She was AWESOME!!!! Now she seems, well, token-like in a sea of white men.

As does black Lando Calrissian, now, of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.

Sigh

It's hard to go back onest one eyes have been opened.

As I watched the 3 films of old unfold before my eyes on the big screen, I willfully tried to silence the complaints of my enlightened, feminist mind, to fully engage the film, to recapture myself of old. It only half worked. Maybe. The experience of seeing these films again on the big screen was fun - but the magic was gone.

To his credit - in the face of such complaints from "special interest" groups - Lucas did present a somewhat more "enlightened" view of humanoids in the subsequent 3 installments (parts 1, 2, & 3).

So what's brought on all of this Squidly angst? My child, with light saber at the ready, is currently engaged in combat with evil droids in our living room. As I type this post, its familiar sabery sounds fill the air, conjuring up memories of Obi Wan Kenobi in my mind. Six installments later, G. Lucas' CLONE WARS has now captured the imagination of my child's generation. I asked my child recently - are there any female characters in the CWs? Used to the question by now, said child responded - oh yeah, there are some. Some? mmmmm

I'm so suspicious, jaded even, on the whole subject these days.

In time, said child will no doubt see the original 3 films (parts 4, 5, & 6). Part of me looks forward to introducing my child to a wonderful part of my imaginative past, though part of me hopes the earlier films do not re-inscribe my child with certain narrow views of humankind. It's the same problem with children's books of old . . .

So G. Lucas' wonderful - I mean that sincerely - world of Star Wars lives on in my home. Trying to change with the times, G. Lucas is now capturing the imaginations of another generation of children - I hope - I fervently hope, anyway, that girls are as captured by the mythic world of Lucas' mind as are boys. I HOPE parents do not convey to them that such stuff is just for boys. Though I have my doubts. I actually think the gender coding of toys, movies, etc. has gotten worse, not better. Even my child is aware of it without prompting from me. Another post for another day . . .

So as I depart to go & assess the droid carnage in my living room I will imagine myself as Princess Leia - patiently picking up the pieces of the chaos wrought by men (Luke & Han). She had a great line in STAR WAS as she grabbed a weapon from one of them quipping - "This is some rescue. Either of you have a real plan for getting us out of here?!"

Ha! I will forever have a forgiving feminist heart for Lucas because of that line! Oh so sarcastically delivered by Carrie Fisher.

The Floodgates Are Open!

The SEC has a lot of 'splainin' to do; This time to explain how a $50 billion dollar fraud scheme involving one of Wall St’s biggest movers and shakers could have happened right under their noses.

The full story is HERE but here are some highlights:

Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement attorneys were in federal court on Friday to seek emergency relief for investors, including an asset freeze and the appointment of a receiver for Madoff's firm, in an alleged $50 billion fraud that could be the largest ever pinned on an individual.

"If the SEC didn't come in and inspect (the Madoff hedge fund), then they have a hell of a lot to answer for," said James Cox, a Duke University law professor and securities law expert.
Other SEC critics questioned how Madoff could pull off, without the agency's notice, such an audacious fraud that prosecutors said amounted to a giant Ponzi scheme.

"Someone should have asked harder questions, but I'm not really sure" it was the SEC, said Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University who was an SEC enforcement attorney. "Their hands were tied" by not initially having oversight of the Madoff hedge fund, he said.
The investors in Madoff's business were not asking questions while the fabulous returns were coming in — and maybe they should have, Henning said.

So much corruption has been allowed for so long that there is no way these financial big wigs can behave with honesty and integrity. I think the exotic trips and obscene severence packages have proved that!

We need to let the new administration know that enough is enough. No more wholesale bailouts! Whatever money is left when Obama finally takes office should be used with plenty of oversight and accountability and make sure the SEC is NOT a part of it. If those getting money don’t like it, screw ‘em; let them go home empty handed!

If you want to tell the Obama administration your ideas about restoring sanity to our economic crisis let them know HERE.

OBAMATCHOTCHKE

At hat tip to Becks at unfogged for reminding Obama supporters that there only 65 firing days left to get one of these.  I like the word “firing” because it captures the essence of "throw the bums out."  I also like some of the unfoggetariat comments:

Well, shit, man. I better order 2 I guess. (Stanley @ 12-11-08 9:53 PM).

I'd donate money to get Obama some big-ass KISS boots to wear to summits. (apostropher @ 12-11-08 10:09 PM)

And thanks to Jackmormon for the title idea.  Only one problem. I am not especially fond of chotchkes.

Step by step

It wouldn't be Christmas if we didn't have the mindless, botox-faced zombies at Fox yelping about the insult to religion. Of course it wouldn't be a free country if we weren't allowed to express our objections to anything or were forced to make religious oaths and follow religious practices. Oh, wait a minute -- we are. It isn't; at least not yet.

Lyin' Bill says he expects "they" (Jews, Atheists, Muslims) will try next to remove the national holiday (what, he called it a holiday?) on the premise that we can't have a holiday based on religion. Of course we can have a holiday based on the fact that nobody would come to work anyway, but that's inconvenient to his scenario and it annoys him that in fact, nobody seems to object to a day off for any reason.

It's my constitutional right to insult your religion, I'm proud to say, and it's only fair since your religion in and of itself insults mine and several others. In fact I take offense at some aspect of every religion I've yet heard of. It's good to live in a free country.

Apparently the sense of relief at being newly out from under the bootheel of religious tyrants seems to be spreading. Newsweek has a very objective over story on the empty bigotry of the war against gay marriage; one that I think couldn't have got past the editors before the election. Keith Olbermann came out last night and condemed Lyin' Bill's comic opera about Christians under siege as the stepchild of xenophobia and anti-Sematism.

It's not as if freedom is breaking out all over, but I sense a weakening of the old guard; the passing of an old, worn out tyranny and again, I'm no longer ashamed to be proud of being an American: not because I think we're the best, but because we're not as ashamed to admit our faults and more likely to do something about it.

Merry Christmas.

NO CHILD'S LEFT BEHIND

Who will President-Elect Obama choose for Education Secretary?  Lets hope he picks a better one who knows the difference between learning versus testing.

rags to bitches

The McCain Campaign is unloading their surplus property this week in Arlington,VA. I'm surprised that they didn't put the laptops, Blackberrys and folding chairs up for sale on eBay, but perhaps the failure of Sarah Palin to sell that surplus Airplane on eBay (despite the fact that McCain said it sold at a profit) was a lesson to them. Too bad, I'd have liked to run some undelete software on one of those bargain laptops and see what kind of porn the righteous right prefers.

But one thing we aren't seeing is that fantastic wardrobe of Sarah Palin's -- the one she claimed would be returned to the GOP after the campaign. She certainly seemed well and expensively dressed when she was cheerleading for Chandless. Nothing she wore looked like the small town resale shop she claims to frequent, but perhaps I'm being premature. Perhaps it just takes longer to remove the stains of hypocrisy and the odor of mendacity than it does to erase those Blackberrys and hard drives.

This seat's for sale

Let's hear it for young Rod Blagojevich,
Put his state up for sale, oh boyavich!
They surely won't fail
To put him in jail,
Where his cellmate will make him a a toyovich.

REVISIONISM REDUX: PART DEUX

December has become National Revisionist Month for the bloodsuckers.   It started on the Second of December when Charlie Gibson interviewed the War-Criminal-In-Chief, whereupon your enraged Ninja 8pus posted this:

After the WMD argument proved bogus, the Bush administration advanced yet another false premise to justify themselves:  The “pied piper” argument.  The one that states:  “We are fighting terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.”  When intelligence fails, “staying the course” is the cowardly way to avoid owning the mistake.

Within a week, The New York Times published this editorial, calling Bush The Deluder in Chief:

The truth is that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had been chafing to attack Iraq before Sept. 11, 2001.  They justified that unnecessary war using intelligence reports that they knew or should have known to be faulty ...

Despite it all, Mr. Bush said he will “leave the presidency with my head held high.”   And, presumably, with his eyes closed to all the disasters he is dumping on the American people and his successor.

Hours later, the arrogant Stephen Hadley, responding on behalf of the petulant POTUS, released this statement condemning the NYT editorial:

The New York Times continues to have difficulty acknowledging the undeniable success of the President's decision to surge an additional 30,000 troops into Iraq.  Because of the surge, Iraq is a more stable and secure country.  It is the success of the surge that is allowing American troops to withdraw from Iraq and return home with a record of heroic service and still unheralded success.

Even former administration officials are feeling the basses of their being throb with sacraments of praise for their simpering Byzantine:

We are better off for having woken up to the fact that we were in a war, and, mark my words, no president in the foreseeable future is going to step back from the tenets of the Bush philosophy, which are: better to fight them over there than to fight them here, and we will not wait until dangers fully materialize before we strike," Rove said.

Presidents come and go with a rhythm of lapping waves.  They arrive in tumult and, after their days are done, should leave gracefully, spent of their devotions.  Not this president.   Bush intends to finish as he began ... with attacks against any critic, smears against any opponent, denials of any fact, and falsifications of any record.  He intends to spin his own legacy to the bitter end.

Why should we care?  Because old lies and new infamy condemn us to repeating our mistakes, and our only recourse left, our only justice, is the truthful reckoning of history.  Consider this perspective, The GOP's McCarthy Gene:

In this tale, the real father of modern Republicanism is Sen. Joe McCarthy, and the line doesn't run from Goldwater to Reagan to George W. Bush; it runs from McCarthy to Nixon to Bush and possibly now to Sarah Palin … You demonize the opposition and polarize the electorate to win.

Republicans continue to push the idea that this is a center-right country and that Americans have swooned for GOP anti-government posturing all these years, but the real electoral bait has been anger, recrimination and scapegoating … The party belongs to McCarthy and his heirs - Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Palin.

Not this time.  To prevent a repeat of the Nixon and Bush disasters, we should say “never again” and force the “undead” of McCarthyism to look in the mirror and despair of their works.

World Record Or?.......

Lebanese farmer Khalil Semhat holds his giant potato in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre. The enormous vegetable weighs 11.3 kilos (24.9 pounds) and Semhat says he is planning on contacting the Guiness Book of Records.

Perhaps we have finally discovered where all those Iraqi WOMDs went.....

If I was Mr Semhat I'd be getting a radiation check before I made that phone call to Guiness!

Mary on my mind

I have to admit that it looks more like medieval images of Mary than most apparitions appearing in the news: burnt toast, rust stains, grilled cheese sandwiches. Usually any inverted U shape qualifies. This one however appears in one "slice" of an MRI scan of a local woman's brain and the woman's sister, hoping to raise needed funds for medical care intends to put it up on eBay.

I could ramble on about the sad story of someone growing up in a town polluted with dioxin and with a lifetime of health problems, including cancer, someone who our "every man for himself" medical care system has left on the side of life's road, but instead I'll talk about my kitchen counter. It's a large grained slab of granite and there isn't a morning when I don't discover another hitherto unobserved face in it. It's not that I'm hung over or astigmatic or even mentally unbalanced. Our brains seem to be wired to seek out faces lurking in the weeds. It's probably a survival thing even if it's only Millard Filmore or Maynard G. Krebs staring at me, eating breakfast.

Of course nobody knows if there really ever was a Virgin Mary or whether she actually was Virgo Intacta until Yahweh shagged her -- much less what she looked like. I'm certain she wouldn't have worn medieval European clothing, but none the less, just like we know that Jesus had long, straight, lanky and light colored hair, with northern European features and was somewhat underweight, we know what she looks like. She looks like a structure in the brain of Pamela Latrimore, in blurry cross section.

Ms. Latrimore has no medical insurance and needs the money, so for once I'm hoping that the deranged and delusional will want some object to pray to (God screens his calls these days) and will bid it up. Unlike Burnt French Toast Jesi or tomato slice apostles it won't rot and unlike road stain apparitions of Jesus you can hang it on your wall. Maybe God made us prone to see faces just so that he could inspire people who pray to bird shit splatter on car hoods to actually do some good in the "love thy neighbor" department. Maybe not, but Pamela definitely needs the money.

Buy 'em while you can!

So I leave the dim coolness of the ophthalmologist's office and emerge into the Florida Noonday blaze and gain an immediate appreciation of how a vampire feels when he can't make it back to his coffin before the sun rises. Even with my darkest sunglasses on, my dilated pupils won't allow me to drive so I decide to get a haircut at Bob's, where you can look at his massive collection of old guns, antique ammunition signs and cowboy paraphernalia while you and the good old boys get your hair length reduced.

Even after an hour, I still can't see well enough to drive, so I go across the street to the gun shop looking to chat with the proprietor who, up to now, has been almost as lonely as the Maytag repairman would be if the claims were true, and willing to pass the time talking about outdoorsy things. Of course since Obama the Antichrist was elected, things are different at gun shops and the place was full of people and almost devoid of those non-automatic, civilian versions of military weapons that the more hysterical of us like to call "assault weapons."

The conversation was lively and as gun shop conversations have been of late, all about "that man" and the certainty of his rabid opposition to all forms of weaponry in private hands.

"I don't know" said the creepy guy, using a magnifying glass to inspect a nickel plated double barrel derringer chambered for .45 long colt and 410 shotgun shells.

"I just change channels when that guy comes on" says he. " I can't stand to listen to him."

"Well it's all on his web site." says the Deputy Sheriff, lovingly examining a monstrous, long barelled Smith &Wesson .460 SVR Magnum revolver with green laser sight and bipod. "Jesus, there's nothing in Africa you couldn't take down with this one."

"You've read it?" asks the store owner. "No, but his whole gun policy is on his web site. I just can't stand to read it, but I'm telling you if we're supposed to knock on doors looking foreveryone's guns, it ain't gonna happen. I mean he's talking about making lists of all registered guns and there is no gun registration in Florida in the first place. You just know the crime rate's gonna skyrocket."

"I guess the ATF has the authority to come in here and look at my books though" says the owner, let's call him Joe.

"Yeah, but I'll just tell them I sold them all privately or at a gun show and I don't have any guns any more" says creepy guy with a creepy, conspiratorial grin.

"Well it's all on his web site" says the Deppity. "He's going to bring back the Brady bill and the assault rifle ban and all the rest. It's on the web site."

It's not, actually. I looked and what it does say is that Obama believes the second amendment conveys an individual right, that he is concerned with the impediments to hunting and fishing and is determined to increase access and provide incentives to open more land to those uses and that he will protect the rights of law abiding citizens to own, transport and use guns. Of course that's not enough for the NRA and a lot of other people, but it's not wholesale confiscation and it's not the rabid, hysterical and diabolical plan to disarm the general public that theDeppity says it is.

Anyway I asked if he had sold all the AK's he had on the racks last Summer and he said he had, and I asked if was getting any more and he said yes, but he wouldn't say when because it would be a mob scene if word got out, but it should be soon and they would all be gone within hours.

Pasted on the glass counter where bowie knives and ear muffs and safety glasses were displayed was a cartoon of a car plastered with Obama stickers. The driver was saying to a questioner: "No, I don't, but I own a gun shop."

For some people, business has never been better.

The Last Time We Would “Feel Safe”

Today marks the 67th anniversary of the last day that America would truly feel safe. Today is Pearl Harbor Day, “a date that will live in infamy.” (President Franklin Roosevelt)

About 2,400 Americans were killed and 1,180 injured when Japanese fighters bombed and sank 12 naval vessels and heavily damaged nine others.

We learned a lesson that day that somehow faded into forgotten lore over time – we are never safe. We can be attacked from without or within at any time. The events of 9/11 should not have been such a shock – it had happened before.

We can build that border wall along our Southern border. The Russians used a similar wall in Berlin to great effect.

Our government can listen in on our conversations and read our writings and train others to help them – Hitler had great success with his Hitler Youth and a similar plan.

Our country cannot afford to go around responding to perceived threats with knee jerk reactions based in hatred and ignorance. In the end, we will do more harm than good and we will be no safer than we are now.

On Dec 7, 1941 our country went to war. We had no choice; we had to defend ourselves and our allies. What we didn’t need to do was inter thousands of Japanese-Americans, many of whom had been born here. A knee jerk reaction that did great harm.

On this day, I want to remember and thank each and every military man and woman who has served honorably, with great courage and compassion in the protection of our country and its citizens. Your sacrifice and the sacrifice of your families is remembered and truly appreciated.

To our leaders I would like to say, you are in charge of some very precious lives – please consider your moves carefully and take every care not to waste those lives.

And I want to remind my fellow Americans that what we do and what we say still counts in the world. Many look to us as a beacon of light and so we have a great responsibility to the world to light the way. I don't want to leave my grandchildren a legacy of hate and war. I want them to know we lived, we learned and we changed...

Never…Never…Never…Never Give Up!

It seems the issue of president-elect Obama’s citizenship has NOT yet been resolved.

Yep, that old fake birth certificate controversy apparently lives on. This from the LA Times:

But here's the thing: The United States Supreme Court officially takes up the issue of whether to ponder whether Obama can become president in formal discussions today in Washington.

The complete article can be found here. But how do you like this irony?

In one of those delicious ironies that makes life so interesting, the justice who distributed the case to his colleagues was none other than Thomas, only the second African American to sit on the high court. One presumes the justices saw some legal issue to mull.

Seems there is a legal avalanche ready to tumble downhill from a multitude of suits filed nationwide claiming either Obama is not a natural born citizen or renounced his citizenship at some point.
Got to hand it to the right wingnuts – they sure never give up!

DETROIT - 2 BAIL OR NOT 2 BAIL?

Should we bail them out or let them go under?  Here is a photo essay on the past, present, and future of our car industry from an 8pus perspective.  What are your thoughts?