Fragment from Act III: The Perception of Beauty:
nothing good shall grow but from forgiveness.
30.12.03
17.12.03
Another reason why a just a God would create a thing like hell.
Maybe if Bush had a few more interns he'd stop sticking it to the rest of us.
Maybe if Bush had a few more interns he'd stop sticking it to the rest of us.
Help In Understanding How A Sincere Man Is Controlled By Various D.C. Power Centers:
DIANE SAWYER: First of all, I just want to ask about reading. Mr. President, you know that there was a great deal of reporting about the fact that you said, first of all, that you let Condoleezza Rice and Andrew Card give you a flavor of what's in the news.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes.
DIANE SAWYER: That you don't read the stories yourself.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes. I get my news from people who don't editorialize. They give me the actual news, and it makes it easier to digest, on a daily basis, the facts.
DIANE SAWYER: Is it just harder to read constant criticism or to read —
PRESIDENT BUSH: Why even put up with it when you can get the facts elsewhere? I'm a lucky man. I've got, it's not just Condi and Andy, it's all kinds of people in my administration who are charged with different responsibilities, and they come in and say this is what's happening, this isn't what's happening.
From Sawyer's Interview of Bush::
DIANE SAWYER: First of all, I just want to ask about reading. Mr. President, you know that there was a great deal of reporting about the fact that you said, first of all, that you let Condoleezza Rice and Andrew Card give you a flavor of what's in the news.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes.
DIANE SAWYER: That you don't read the stories yourself.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes. I get my news from people who don't editorialize. They give me the actual news, and it makes it easier to digest, on a daily basis, the facts.
DIANE SAWYER: Is it just harder to read constant criticism or to read —
PRESIDENT BUSH: Why even put up with it when you can get the facts elsewhere? I'm a lucky man. I've got, it's not just Condi and Andy, it's all kinds of people in my administration who are charged with different responsibilities, and they come in and say this is what's happening, this isn't what's happening.
From Sawyer's Interview of Bush::
16.12.03
15.12.03
More American Jobs Go To Foreigners Who Are Too Beleagured By Poverty To Worry About Things Like Workers' Rights
Indicative of what has been happening all over the shop. Bush didn't invent globalism, but he has been busy greasing the slippery slope.
He allowed for the reclassification of several white collar jobs, in order to allow them to be sub-contracted to overseas firms. As of six-months ago, 200,000 technical support jobs have gone to India alone.
He has lobbied successfully for the increase in the number of I-9 visas the U.S. hands out to American Inc. These are the visas that allow the importing of cheap, white-collar labor.
He has killed the funds that were supposed to be used to retool the American workforce for a post-manufacturing economy.
I don't read much anymore, so I'm sure I missed a few.
Indicative of what has been happening all over the shop. Bush didn't invent globalism, but he has been busy greasing the slippery slope.
He allowed for the reclassification of several white collar jobs, in order to allow them to be sub-contracted to overseas firms. As of six-months ago, 200,000 technical support jobs have gone to India alone.
He has lobbied successfully for the increase in the number of I-9 visas the U.S. hands out to American Inc. These are the visas that allow the importing of cheap, white-collar labor.
He has killed the funds that were supposed to be used to retool the American workforce for a post-manufacturing economy.
I don't read much anymore, so I'm sure I missed a few.
We got Saddam: Hoo ha or ho hum?
Some excitement is understandable, but as far as the media pundits rushing to speculate on how his capture will affect domestic politics- I've got to say, please keep your pants up.
Opposition, to the unilateral, preemptive, war against a not-so-imminent threat was not founded on a belief that Saddam would carry on as usual despite our invasion.
We opposed the war not because we thought Saddam would elude capture and continue wrecking havec on his country. We assumed the opposite, and still opposed the war. Therefore, it makes no sense that all right-minded people reframe their opposition to this fool's-errand of a war just because yesterday Bush gave us good TV.
So give me more images of God's Army probing Saddam's pie-hole. Give me more commentary comparing him to a street bum; Tell me how the Lion of Bagdhad was reduced to a common rat living in a dirty hole beneath the ground. But please, don't expect me to change my opinion of an unjust war and the puppet-monkee who leads it.
Saddam's elusiveness highlighted the fact that victory in this war is not a puzzle to be solved with a really smart bomb, that the true enemy of the region is so ingrained that it will not be defeated with the Americana veneer of guns and love.
Indeed, his capture denies Bush's opponents a powerful symbol of his failures as President of the United States of America. However, beyond the symbols, there waits the substance.
Bush has so bungled foreign policy and the decades' worth of diplomacy that made it possible. There used to be a time when the world, generally, recognized the office of the American Presidency as being "Leader of the Free World." We have traded our position on the global stage to fulfill the narrow interests of the Neo-con hunting buddies who pass for enlightened advisors.
Some excitement is understandable, but as far as the media pundits rushing to speculate on how his capture will affect domestic politics- I've got to say, please keep your pants up.
Opposition, to the unilateral, preemptive, war against a not-so-imminent threat was not founded on a belief that Saddam would carry on as usual despite our invasion.
We opposed the war not because we thought Saddam would elude capture and continue wrecking havec on his country. We assumed the opposite, and still opposed the war. Therefore, it makes no sense that all right-minded people reframe their opposition to this fool's-errand of a war just because yesterday Bush gave us good TV.
So give me more images of God's Army probing Saddam's pie-hole. Give me more commentary comparing him to a street bum; Tell me how the Lion of Bagdhad was reduced to a common rat living in a dirty hole beneath the ground. But please, don't expect me to change my opinion of an unjust war and the puppet-monkee who leads it.
Saddam's elusiveness highlighted the fact that victory in this war is not a puzzle to be solved with a really smart bomb, that the true enemy of the region is so ingrained that it will not be defeated with the Americana veneer of guns and love.
Indeed, his capture denies Bush's opponents a powerful symbol of his failures as President of the United States of America. However, beyond the symbols, there waits the substance.
Bush has so bungled foreign policy and the decades' worth of diplomacy that made it possible. There used to be a time when the world, generally, recognized the office of the American Presidency as being "Leader of the Free World." We have traded our position on the global stage to fulfill the narrow interests of the Neo-con hunting buddies who pass for enlightened advisors.
11.12.03
That liberal media...
If you read this article without the benefit if a credit line, you'd probably conclude this was a p.r. puff piece for Bush and Dick Inc., yet in fact it is an AP story, picked at by more than a few of America's newspapers.
If you read this article without the benefit if a credit line, you'd probably conclude this was a p.r. puff piece for Bush and Dick Inc., yet in fact it is an AP story, picked at by more than a few of America's newspapers.
Justice Texas-Style:"'THE FRAMING OF YEE: The case that Muslim military chaplain James Yee was a spy for Syria or anyone else has been falling apart. It's not even clear that the documents he was carrying - the original basis for the charge - were in any way classified. For this, he was put in solitary confinement for three months. Worse, the military - having failed to make their case - subsequently used their search warrant to reveal an extra-marital affair by Yee and are now prosecuting him under military law for this indiscretion. This is called framing someone. The trial has now been suspended because the prosecution cannot prove the classification of the documents in question. This seems to me to be a text-book case of military abuse of basic standards of fairness. A Muslim-American, who may well be completely innocent of all espionage charges, may now face years in jail for having an affair." [Sully, The Independent]
Perhaps, if we bought more red, white, and blue bumper stickers, this sort of thing would stop happening.
Perhaps, if we bought more red, white, and blue bumper stickers, this sort of thing would stop happening.
Busting Unions in Bush's Bagdhad
The coalition of the killing ransacked and defaced a fledgling labor union's headquarters. Many are looking at this as an extension of the hostility this administration has towards an Iraqii organized workforce. Perhap's there is a simpler explanation, but in the absence of an official response, I can only wonder. This is after all an administration rushing to privatize an entire culture, yet can't find the time to recall Hussein's laws banning labor unions or collective bargaining.
The coalition of the killing ransacked and defaced a fledgling labor union's headquarters. Many are looking at this as an extension of the hostility this administration has towards an Iraqii organized workforce. Perhap's there is a simpler explanation, but in the absence of an official response, I can only wonder. This is after all an administration rushing to privatize an entire culture, yet can't find the time to recall Hussein's laws banning labor unions or collective bargaining.
8.12.03
A Song To Brahma:
To stand between two tracks
with my legs slightly spread
the same with my arms
only more so, and above my head,
a full-bodied embrace
of a greasy locomotive’s
omnipotence,
its iron barreling with a plud
and waning roar
through my disheveled hair
and other assorted parts,
slinging them beneath its sweep
over its shoulder,
onto the stones and sturdy weeds,
is like what I really want
(except the exact opposite).
To stand between two tracks
with my legs slightly spread
the same with my arms
only more so, and above my head,
a full-bodied embrace
of a greasy locomotive’s
omnipotence,
its iron barreling with a plud
and waning roar
through my disheveled hair
and other assorted parts,
slinging them beneath its sweep
over its shoulder,
onto the stones and sturdy weeds,
is like what I really want
(except the exact opposite).
6.12.03
3.12.03
Has Kazaa Lite been taken over by the heavies?On August 11, 2003, Kazaa served Google with cease-and-desist orders, as it was enforcing its copyrights per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. All links to K- Lite were to be disabled or removed.
K- Lite is, of course, not owned by the corporation that owns Kazaa. K- Lite is not owned by anybody. It is a freeware response to the obtrusive, secretive Kazaa, which, unknown to its users, embeds spyware into their customers' computers and feeds the data to its sister corporation.
It seems a little ironic that a company whose chief function is facilitating the sharing of copyrighted material and thereby subverting traditional copyright law, would take some a heavy hand to protect its its brand.
A connection: Twice while downloading from K- Lite my computer revolted and I had to reinstall my network drivers to get back on the web. Figuring my K- Lite software had somehow been corrupted I decided to dump the software and start anew. While reinstalling K-Lite, my computer once again shutdown, forcing me to reinstall my network devices. I am not a computer whiz, but could there be a connection in K- Lite's sudden loopiness, and the original Kazaa reigning in its "copyrights."
K- Lite is, of course, not owned by the corporation that owns Kazaa. K- Lite is not owned by anybody. It is a freeware response to the obtrusive, secretive Kazaa, which, unknown to its users, embeds spyware into their customers' computers and feeds the data to its sister corporation.
It seems a little ironic that a company whose chief function is facilitating the sharing of copyrighted material and thereby subverting traditional copyright law, would take some a heavy hand to protect its its brand.
A connection: Twice while downloading from K- Lite my computer revolted and I had to reinstall my network drivers to get back on the web. Figuring my K- Lite software had somehow been corrupted I decided to dump the software and start anew. While reinstalling K-Lite, my computer once again shutdown, forcing me to reinstall my network devices. I am not a computer whiz, but could there be a connection in K- Lite's sudden loopiness, and the original Kazaa reigning in its "copyrights."
2.12.03
26.11.03
24.11.03
21.11.03
19.11.03
11.10.03
Noam Chomsky: “Dominance and Its Dilemmas”
A s always, Chomsky adds a bit of perspective. If you want to talk about Big Media bias, it's against people like him. People who have lost the two-party paradigm and are looking at our world in terms of the power of economics. This guy is famous the world over, but you will never see him on the O'Reilly factor.
A s always, Chomsky adds a bit of perspective. If you want to talk about Big Media bias, it's against people like him. People who have lost the two-party paradigm and are looking at our world in terms of the power of economics. This guy is famous the world over, but you will never see him on the O'Reilly factor.
Conservatives are crying foul yet again. It seems this time the Big Media is conspiring to deceive the American people, trying to convince the herd that there is some sort of chasm between Saddam's true colors and those with which he was painted before the war. I know some of you are thinking, "Hey, isn't this the same big media that ooed and awed with every shock and awe?" And to you I would say pipe down someone is trying to play victim here. As bright young conservatives point out, if Big Media wasn't so busy hugging trees and kissing poor babies, they'd have noticed David Kay's assessment of Saddam's threat proves justification for the war: "We have found people, technical information and illicit procurement networks that if allowed to flow to other countries and regions could accelerate global proliferation." [fanfare]
It is amazing how many people see no disconnect between the prewar mythologies and the postwar realities.
"Finding an illicit procurement network justifies war": There used to be a time I when assumed that kind of bull oozed from a hole that some public relations specialist used as a mouthpiece when on TV defending party lines. But no more. It seems there are a multitude of folks out there who honestly do not have the mental capacity to recognize when they've been duped if such recognition requires they admit their President overstated the case for war to insure it took place- and on his timeline.
We didn't go to war because Saddam was bad. We didn't go to war because Saddam was a threat. We supposedly went to war because Saddam was such an imminent threat that a hasty, unilateral, preemptive war was the God-given duty of the leader of the free world.
Saddam gave us access to scientists and is allowing spy plane fly-overs.
Too little.
Saddam is destroying his missiles.
Too late.
We will have the full support of the United Nations Security Council if we wait sixty more days.
No time, boys; trust me this threat is so imminent...
It reminds me of a cop shooting an unarmed man. The cop’s defense? The man had a knife buried in the backyard. Good job, there officer. Who knows when he would have dug that rusty old thing up and run about the neighborhood wrecking havoc? Oh, and also, inscribed on the knife: good luck with the Iranians, love, the cop, 1981.
It is amazing how many people see no disconnect between the prewar mythologies and the postwar realities.
"Finding an illicit procurement network justifies war": There used to be a time I when assumed that kind of bull oozed from a hole that some public relations specialist used as a mouthpiece when on TV defending party lines. But no more. It seems there are a multitude of folks out there who honestly do not have the mental capacity to recognize when they've been duped if such recognition requires they admit their President overstated the case for war to insure it took place- and on his timeline.
We didn't go to war because Saddam was bad. We didn't go to war because Saddam was a threat. We supposedly went to war because Saddam was such an imminent threat that a hasty, unilateral, preemptive war was the God-given duty of the leader of the free world.
Saddam gave us access to scientists and is allowing spy plane fly-overs.
Too little.
Saddam is destroying his missiles.
Too late.
We will have the full support of the United Nations Security Council if we wait sixty more days.
No time, boys; trust me this threat is so imminent...
It reminds me of a cop shooting an unarmed man. The cop’s defense? The man had a knife buried in the backyard. Good job, there officer. Who knows when he would have dug that rusty old thing up and run about the neighborhood wrecking havoc? Oh, and also, inscribed on the knife: good luck with the Iranians, love, the cop, 1981.
10.10.03
8.10.03
TCS: Tech Central Station - An Open Letter to Arnold Kling:
Type M arguments must not be to the exclusion of Type C arguments. In fact, in many good political arguments they go hand in hand, as surely as cause and effect.
Having once exposed the fallacies of a given policy, there is left a begging question in the minds of many: “if what you argue is true, then how come the president and his legion of wonks don’t see it this way.” Explaining the underlying politics behind dubious policies is an attempt to answer this question.
Do you suggest writers argue party politics while ignoring the overarching themes of the Republican Party? For example, how stretched is that mind that realizes public funds for private schools agrees generally with the principle that privatization is good for business. How strained is the eye who sees Bush unceasingly working towards tax policies whose overriding concern is America Inc. How deaf the mute, that didn’t hear the rumors of war several months before the word "Iraq" left the president’s lips, left his lips just in time to give voters a picture of democratic candidates standing behind their president in a time of war. Were congressional elections the motivation for war? Of course not. Was the timing suspect? Not if you’re Karl Rove.
Type M arguments must not be to the exclusion of Type C arguments. In fact, in many good political arguments they go hand in hand, as surely as cause and effect.
Having once exposed the fallacies of a given policy, there is left a begging question in the minds of many: “if what you argue is true, then how come the president and his legion of wonks don’t see it this way.” Explaining the underlying politics behind dubious policies is an attempt to answer this question.
Do you suggest writers argue party politics while ignoring the overarching themes of the Republican Party? For example, how stretched is that mind that realizes public funds for private schools agrees generally with the principle that privatization is good for business. How strained is the eye who sees Bush unceasingly working towards tax policies whose overriding concern is America Inc. How deaf the mute, that didn’t hear the rumors of war several months before the word "Iraq" left the president’s lips, left his lips just in time to give voters a picture of democratic candidates standing behind their president in a time of war. Were congressional elections the motivation for war? Of course not. Was the timing suspect? Not if you’re Karl Rove.
5.10.03
26.9.03
Now that no weapons have been found in Iraq, it is getting pretty hip to distance oneself from the Iraqi war. Likewise, it seems the White House’s defense of war is to remind critics of the global consensus concerning Saddam's possession of WMD’s. Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfield need to be reminded, I think, why we opposed the war.
We did not oppose the war against the nation of Iraq because it did not pose a threat the rest of the world.
We opposed the war on three counts: the imminence of the threat, the preemptive doctrine, and the who-needs-friends approach.
It is difficult to imagine how an aging despot, handicapped from the first Gulf War, hamstrung with sanctions and surveillance, could sustain a threat to anyone. Even if Saddam tried to attain WMD's, which there is no evidence that he did, how would he go about building a deployment system sufficient to attack his enemies without triggering the ire of those who watch him for a living.
Before going to war, Bush succeeded in getting inspectors back in the country, succeeded in getting Saddam to agree to Drone fly-overs, succeeded in getting Saddam to destroy his most powerful missiles, and succeeded in allowing Iraqi scientists to meet privately with inspectors.
Now, please, tell how is this man posing a threat to anyone? I don't care if he packs his WMD's in the trunks of small cars and drives them around the country averting detection (as the administration asserted in the lead up to the war). The simple truth is there is no way that Saddam, given the bubble in which he was forced to live, was anything more than a paper tiger. The average American had more chance of dying from a bad taco, than Saddam's hand.
As for the preemptive doctrine, if one studied this situation in a vacuum one might conclude that utilitarian ethics justified a war in which 10,000 innocent Iraqi civilians were slaughtered (William Bennett’s estimate). However, one does not have the luxury of dealing with the situation in a vacuum.
To think we could break the centuries old rules for what constitutes a morally justifiable war without lowering the hurdle other sovereign countries much clear before launching similar attacks on others is nonsense. Every precedent breeds. For every action, let's say it together, there is a reaction. We traded the high road for God's know what.
Deciding to go attack Iraq on the advice of his Neocon hunting buddies, Bush didn’t feel the need to garner an international consensus. It was not until Bush received pressure from Colin Powell and, indirectly, Tony Blair's constituents did he began paying lip service to the UN.
I am not going to spend the time outlaying how Bush has systematically given the cold shoulder to our traditional allies for the simple fact that Bush’s proponents should not argue against this. His published foreign policy calls for a de-emphasis on international organizations, such as NATO and the UN, in lieu of ad hoc coalitions. Those not quick to sign on to these coalitions are publicly slighted, even longtime allies such as Turkey.
I, for one, do not see the point of abandoning the UN just because it couldn’t “break up a cookie fight at a Brownie meeting." The UN has always been a bit of a toothless watchdog, but yet for the past 50 years they have served the purpose of giving moral cover to most our policies.
Before Bush came along it was a rare occasion for America to not get its way at the UN. So much so, that had the blue helmets invaded Baghdad themselves, most of the world would have seen it as a thinly veiled American invasion.
I just don’t see the rationale in demeaning, and thereby weakening, UN and NATO, when they serve our national interest 95% percent of the time. By some estimates America, received so much economic support for the first Gulf War from UN members that America actually made a bit a profit (other estimates put our cost at seven of the war’s $92 billion price tag).
We did not say going to war was wrong because Saddam was no threat. Finding weapons tomorrow in Iraq, which is possible if not probable, does not justify the war. However, their allusiveness underscores the reason against the war: the threat was not so imminent as to justify a preemptive, unilateral invasion.
We did not oppose the war against the nation of Iraq because it did not pose a threat the rest of the world.
We opposed the war on three counts: the imminence of the threat, the preemptive doctrine, and the who-needs-friends approach.
It is difficult to imagine how an aging despot, handicapped from the first Gulf War, hamstrung with sanctions and surveillance, could sustain a threat to anyone. Even if Saddam tried to attain WMD's, which there is no evidence that he did, how would he go about building a deployment system sufficient to attack his enemies without triggering the ire of those who watch him for a living.
Before going to war, Bush succeeded in getting inspectors back in the country, succeeded in getting Saddam to agree to Drone fly-overs, succeeded in getting Saddam to destroy his most powerful missiles, and succeeded in allowing Iraqi scientists to meet privately with inspectors.
Now, please, tell how is this man posing a threat to anyone? I don't care if he packs his WMD's in the trunks of small cars and drives them around the country averting detection (as the administration asserted in the lead up to the war). The simple truth is there is no way that Saddam, given the bubble in which he was forced to live, was anything more than a paper tiger. The average American had more chance of dying from a bad taco, than Saddam's hand.
As for the preemptive doctrine, if one studied this situation in a vacuum one might conclude that utilitarian ethics justified a war in which 10,000 innocent Iraqi civilians were slaughtered (William Bennett’s estimate). However, one does not have the luxury of dealing with the situation in a vacuum.
To think we could break the centuries old rules for what constitutes a morally justifiable war without lowering the hurdle other sovereign countries much clear before launching similar attacks on others is nonsense. Every precedent breeds. For every action, let's say it together, there is a reaction. We traded the high road for God's know what.
Deciding to go attack Iraq on the advice of his Neocon hunting buddies, Bush didn’t feel the need to garner an international consensus. It was not until Bush received pressure from Colin Powell and, indirectly, Tony Blair's constituents did he began paying lip service to the UN.
I am not going to spend the time outlaying how Bush has systematically given the cold shoulder to our traditional allies for the simple fact that Bush’s proponents should not argue against this. His published foreign policy calls for a de-emphasis on international organizations, such as NATO and the UN, in lieu of ad hoc coalitions. Those not quick to sign on to these coalitions are publicly slighted, even longtime allies such as Turkey.
I, for one, do not see the point of abandoning the UN just because it couldn’t “break up a cookie fight at a Brownie meeting." The UN has always been a bit of a toothless watchdog, but yet for the past 50 years they have served the purpose of giving moral cover to most our policies.
Before Bush came along it was a rare occasion for America to not get its way at the UN. So much so, that had the blue helmets invaded Baghdad themselves, most of the world would have seen it as a thinly veiled American invasion.
I just don’t see the rationale in demeaning, and thereby weakening, UN and NATO, when they serve our national interest 95% percent of the time. By some estimates America, received so much economic support for the first Gulf War from UN members that America actually made a bit a profit (other estimates put our cost at seven of the war’s $92 billion price tag).
We did not say going to war was wrong because Saddam was no threat. Finding weapons tomorrow in Iraq, which is possible if not probable, does not justify the war. However, their allusiveness underscores the reason against the war: the threat was not so imminent as to justify a preemptive, unilateral invasion.
23.9.03
16.9.03
I agree with but one aspect of Poindexter’s Total Information Awareness program, its motto: scientia est potentia. Knowledge is power, and before we grant our government capacity for omniscience we’d need to believe it could weld the capacity for omnipotence. How can we do this when every decade provides an instance of elected officials conspiring to deceive the American people in order to fulfill some hidden, private agenda under the pretense of serving a greater good? I fail to understand how Poindexter, who confessed to multiple felonies for his role in Iran-Contra, doesn’t understand this.
On second thought, I also agree with Poindexter’s choice of logo for TIA: the all-seeing eye hovering atop the grand pyramid. While this emblem adorns our money, for many cynical Americans this mysterious symbol forebodes an Orwellian new world order. In Poindexter’s Utopia, Big Brother is indeed watching.
On second thought, I also agree with Poindexter’s choice of logo for TIA: the all-seeing eye hovering atop the grand pyramid. While this emblem adorns our money, for many cynical Americans this mysterious symbol forebodes an Orwellian new world order. In Poindexter’s Utopia, Big Brother is indeed watching.
14.9.03
"Well you know, I'm a body builder. I do some pretty heavy weightlifting, so I think the weightlifters of the world need to unite," Pat Robertson said. "They don't want anymore Davis, so who else you gonna put in? I think you don't have anybody else that's coming up on the radar so the other alternative is just stay home."
Don't you wish the anti-abortion camp to whom Robertson usually panders could be so pragmatic, could understand what his money-driven organization always has: the distinction between policy and politics.
Robertson doesn't believe a vote for a pro-choice candidate is immoral, but come November '04, I guarantee all the fundamentalist foot soldiers will believe voting for a pro-choice candidate is tantamount to killing the Baby Jesus with their bare hands.
This belief keeps those good Christian sheep in the fold, even those disgusted by Bush's zealous policies.
It is shame these Christians do not bother to examine their leadership as much as they do us "heathen." If they did, they would understand that for the Fundamentalist Leadership, abortion is important only insofar as it can bring in the horse on whom they've placed their bets.
Don't you wish the anti-abortion camp to whom Robertson usually panders could be so pragmatic, could understand what his money-driven organization always has: the distinction between policy and politics.
Robertson doesn't believe a vote for a pro-choice candidate is immoral, but come November '04, I guarantee all the fundamentalist foot soldiers will believe voting for a pro-choice candidate is tantamount to killing the Baby Jesus with their bare hands.
This belief keeps those good Christian sheep in the fold, even those disgusted by Bush's zealous policies.
It is shame these Christians do not bother to examine their leadership as much as they do us "heathen." If they did, they would understand that for the Fundamentalist Leadership, abortion is important only insofar as it can bring in the horse on whom they've placed their bets.
13.9.03
With all do respect to Arnold Garcia Jr., he wrote an absurd column in Sunday's Austin American-Statesman. Garcia asserts Democrats blocked the Estrada nomination because his conservative stance defied what Democrats expect from Hispanics. This is ludicrous.
Democrats filibustered Estrada not because of his race, but rather in spite of his race. Rather than viewing Estrada as a two-dimensional demographic, they treated him the same way they treated other staunchly conservative nominees.
Estrada wasn’t filibustered because he didn’t think like a Hispanic, but because he thought like a Bushite.
And I for one thank congress for their rare diligence. I am wary of all Bush’s nominees. After all, the man he picked to enforce the laws, Attorney General Ashcroft, can’t walk by a Renaissance nude without violating his conscience, and I’d rather not see similarly narrow minds interpreting the law.
Democrats filibustered Estrada not because of his race, but rather in spite of his race. Rather than viewing Estrada as a two-dimensional demographic, they treated him the same way they treated other staunchly conservative nominees.
Estrada wasn’t filibustered because he didn’t think like a Hispanic, but because he thought like a Bushite.
And I for one thank congress for their rare diligence. I am wary of all Bush’s nominees. After all, the man he picked to enforce the laws, Attorney General Ashcroft, can’t walk by a Renaissance nude without violating his conscience, and I’d rather not see similarly narrow minds interpreting the law.
4.5.03
The other day my family brought home some Church’s© chicken, and I tore into it before my mother had even put ice into the tea. The batter of the chicken looked very strange at the joints of the leg I was gnawing on. I gave it a glance and a shrug and continued to tear through the deep-fried bird. After the rest of the family had joined the table, my mother stops and says, “There are feathers on this chicken!”
Well, needless to say we decided to take the chicken back to the Den of Ineptitude.
I walked in there with that chicken feeling like some urban myth’s protagonist. I found the manager, the one with sweat dripping from her hands-free drive-thru headset, and told her in my most dramatic voice, “Excuse me, but my chicken is covered in feathers.”
I truly did expect some drama. I thought perhaps the local media would be called. Johnnie Cochran would fly in from the Black Hornet’s Nest and take this case before the proper court. I would get a coupon for free lifetime fried chicken which I’d use to leverage some poor Ugandan girl from her agrarian family and we would live happily ever after. This was my big moment. I had even put on a clean T-shirt.
Here’s the weird part: That manager didn’t skip a beat. She looked up, nodded her head, filled a coke, greeted the pickup window, grabbed my box of feathered chicken, chucked it in the garbage, grabbed a white box from the line, put it in a white bag, asked me what I wanted while she made change for a customer. She caught me off guard by her nonchalance.
“A bunch of chicken nuggets,” I said.
“We don’t have chicken nuggets, sir. We use real chicken strips.”
“I know”, I said. “I saw the feathers.”
She gave me a box large enough to hold one of those fancy Parisian hats they used to make until the Turks started wearing them. A huge box filled with strips.
Then she scurried away back to the mundane business of delivering fried chicken to unsuspecting customers.
How often must this happen? How many times does a dying chicken dance around the automatic feathering machine just before he falls into the limb-severing machine. The manager didn’t even look at the feathers before tossing them. The only explanation is that she has seen so many deep-fried feathers she is no longer ruffled.
Well, needless to say we decided to take the chicken back to the Den of Ineptitude.
I walked in there with that chicken feeling like some urban myth’s protagonist. I found the manager, the one with sweat dripping from her hands-free drive-thru headset, and told her in my most dramatic voice, “Excuse me, but my chicken is covered in feathers.”
I truly did expect some drama. I thought perhaps the local media would be called. Johnnie Cochran would fly in from the Black Hornet’s Nest and take this case before the proper court. I would get a coupon for free lifetime fried chicken which I’d use to leverage some poor Ugandan girl from her agrarian family and we would live happily ever after. This was my big moment. I had even put on a clean T-shirt.
Here’s the weird part: That manager didn’t skip a beat. She looked up, nodded her head, filled a coke, greeted the pickup window, grabbed my box of feathered chicken, chucked it in the garbage, grabbed a white box from the line, put it in a white bag, asked me what I wanted while she made change for a customer. She caught me off guard by her nonchalance.
“A bunch of chicken nuggets,” I said.
“We don’t have chicken nuggets, sir. We use real chicken strips.”
“I know”, I said. “I saw the feathers.”
She gave me a box large enough to hold one of those fancy Parisian hats they used to make until the Turks started wearing them. A huge box filled with strips.
Then she scurried away back to the mundane business of delivering fried chicken to unsuspecting customers.
How often must this happen? How many times does a dying chicken dance around the automatic feathering machine just before he falls into the limb-severing machine. The manager didn’t even look at the feathers before tossing them. The only explanation is that she has seen so many deep-fried feathers she is no longer ruffled.
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