Not so Subtle

I’m not fond of resolutions. But this year I will finish my novel.

What a wonderful season this is. Holiday cheer. Glee. Christmas songs well into February. Happiness is gluttony and exaggeration. ALCOHOL. brownies, the non psychadelic variety. House cleaning: the most futile gesture imaginable.

My real goal for the new year is to unlearn self control:

Case in point: The guy waiting for the Damen bus who hit on me, went so far as to peck me on the cheek and stroke my beard. Things certainly would not have gotten as far as that if I could understand a single word he said. LEARN ENGLISH you degenerate fuckers.

Reaction: A polite no thank you and a step away.

Next time, I might do something different entirely. see: kneejerk.

See also: circle jerk of life.

Cheers, to escapism.

On second thought, learn Chinese, our new “market socialism” masters.

I’m far more pleasant in person than in print, I promise.

P.S: Fuck the Patriots and the very notion of perfection.

You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but now would not be a bad time.

Over my Christmas holiday I did not read the news for a single second. I ate cookies, watched the Lord of the Rings, and sat by a fireplace, free from the madness of the outside world.

So come to my surprise, when yesterday my friend called and asked if I had seen the news today. I said I did not, and he informed me that Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated.

For those of you who don’t fret over international politics every week, Bhutto is a former prime minister of Pakistan who has been challenging the “president” over his rule. Elections were set to begin in 2 weeks. General Musharraf was likely to lose his official power and Bhutto was the most likely candidate to take over.

Al Quaeda has proclaimed responsibility for the attack. I’m not sure if I believe that. It seems that any group of young angry Muslims who succeed in a suicide attack claim to be a part of Al Quaeda. It’s like the equivalent of telling people that you’re related to Sigourney Weaver. Of course it’s bullshit, but it gets your attention, and there’s no real way people have of disproving you immediately.

The most likely assassins were government agents who were seeking to repress the democratic process.

What does this mean?

Alarmists will tell you that this greatly destabilizes the country and the region and they’re right. The problem we have is that we get violent news from the middle east so often that it’s hard to discern what really constitutes a threat anymore. A suicide bombing in Jerusalem may claim dozens of lives and is of course a tragedy, but it’s not really a threat to regional “stability” or national security.

This however, is one of those incidents that really warrants worry. Yes, Pakistan has always been full of turmoil, but the unrest has now reached a boiling point. There are now hundreds of thousands of very upset citizens marching in the streets. They have every right to be angry, and have every right to overthrow Musharraf by force, in my opinion, if he continues to undermine the election process.

The problem is not the fiasco itself, the problem will come when it’s resolved. More than likely, the General will supress any opposition and maintain his control of power through murder and coercion. The scary part is, that’s probably the best case scenario right now. If the mobs of powerless citizens (probably Islamic fundamentalists) manage to wrestle power from him, they will be in possession of a rather large nuclear arsenal.

Who should be worried, besides the obvious answer of everyone?

First and foremost, India.

Secondly, Israel.

Lastly, the United States.

The general has maintained his power because of political, financial, and military backing of George Bush. He is an “indespensible ally in the war on terror,” and has received a great deal of aid during his time in power from us. He has used that power to violate the constitutional freedoms, civil rights, and human rights of his people, and those people know it.

What do the candidates who speak their minds freely have to say? 

Joe Biden:

“What is the greatest threat to the United States of America: 2.6 kilograms of highly enriched uranium in Tehran or an out-of-control Pakistan?”

Scary indeed, when Biden’s wild tongue becomes the voice of reason.

Colbert and Stewart will return to their regular programs without writers…

“Hosts Stewart and Stephen Colbert also released a joint statement: ”We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence.”

Pay those writers!

…

 My sister is getting married this weekend and then I’m off to Iowa for Christmas.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080107/melberDisturbing these things are.

I went and looked at my default privacy settings and was surprised to see how many people I didn’t want having access to my info had it.

You can go and change your settings. Do it now. Stop the man from finding those pictures of you hitting that bong last year.

In this age, privacy may be an illusion, but it’s an important illusion to maintain for the sake of all of us. They already know what we buy and what kind of kinky porn we’re into, but we need to draw the line somewhere.

Write your representatives and tell them to pass a comprehensive online privacy act. That way they can laugh at you and forward it along with your social security number and credit history to all of their friends.

May you live in interesting times.

I am not one of those people who have advocated that there is a cultural war going on in America today. I have never claimed that Christianity is under attack. The reason that Christians get such a consistent ribbing in our culture is because it is the most influential religious movement in the country. If we were a Buddhist nation, then you would have Buddhist extremists claiming that their beliefs are being mocked. Another reason that so many Christians perceive that they are under attack is because they are not examining their own behavior. If we were really doing what we are supposed to be doing, then we could not be hit on moral or intellectual grounds as much.

Case in point: This guy. http://www.thenewamerican.com/node/6606 He is a Baptist minister who loves America. (See the adorable picture of the dove flying in front of the American flag.) This guy is the image that most Americans have of Christians; he’s southern, fundamentalist, ignorant, and completely twisting history and faith into his own ideology.

“Christian thought and ideology formed and framed the philosophy and actions of Colonial America. “

In theory, yes. In practice, no. I challenge you to find a passage that says thou shalt own slaves, murder ten million Native Americans, and take their land. Colonial America in thought was a Christian nation, if it was not yet technically a nation; but the reality was quite a different story.

“Furthermore, it was largely the dedication and determination of Christian patriots that purchased America’s freedom. “

America’s freedom was not purchased; it was wrestled forcefully from a handful of groups, some less noble than others. The English monarchs (who have since come to reclaim control of this country) would not allow pilgrims to worship and govern as they pleased, so we declared war on them. The Native Americans (who are almost entirely gone today) did not want to give up all of their land and possessions to the colonists, so we declared war on them. And since we didn’t want to work our own land like certain deities would have dictated, we enslaved another race to do our work for us. If you look closely, these are not very Christian actions.

“Christians are not exempt from their civic obligations simply because they are Christians. In fact, for those of us privileged to live in these United States of America, our civic responsibility demands a deliberate and indefatigable willingness to fight for liberty and independence.’

We are privileged to live in America, yes. But I don’t see what fighting for “liberty” has to do with Christian duties of living. The dear pastor quotes Jesus in saying give unto Ceasar what is his, and says this is a dictum to fight for your country. It’s another classic way of using the savior’s words in a way he never intended. When the Romans (Ceasar’s people) came to lead him away to be killed for crimes that he did not commit, one of the disciples decided to fight for his lord. He cut off a centurion’s ear, and then tossed his sword to Jesus, who slashed and cut his way through the Romans and made a daring escape into the mountains, then planted an Israeli flag at the top.

Oh wait, that’s not what happened. Actually, Christ chided the disciple for his violence, and went willingly. He did not resist, peacefully or otherwise. What supposed “Christian” bigots will have you believe is that God wants America to flourish forever and that we are right to defend ourselves against any real or perceived threat. They have forgotten that we have been told to turn the other cheek when we are struck.

“Even some misguided Christians have bought into this erroneous belief. They have accepted the secularist “separation of church and state” mantra to the point that they do not even recognize their own heritage. Fortunately, America’s Founding Fathers suffered from no such malady.”

He is right here, but he is wrong. The founding fathers may or may not have been true, believing Christians. It’s impossible for us in this timeframe to know that. What is certain is that they were devoted to the separation of church and state for a number of reasons. Perhaps the most important of which was the truth that not only can the church have a negative influence on the state and its policies, but that the opposite is also very possible, and when it happens, the results are disastrous.

See: God told me to invade Iraq.

This country is not the promised land. It was not given to us by divine right for all eternity; and it was not made for right wing Christians to run as they saw fit. If you really want to know why our faith is under “attack” in our culture, you need to look at our own behavior a little more closely.

These people will have you believe that this war was inevitable, and that may be true. But don’t let them convince you for a second that they have God’s, or Israel’s, or even America’s best interests in mind when they rattle their sabres for more war in the middle east. History will show that these people are about the farthest thing from true Christians that have ever existed.

For the past few days I’ve been trying to collect my thoughts on this steroid scandal. In case you haven’t seen the news since Friday or don’t know what channel ESPN is on your tv, allow me to inform.

After Barry “Black Devil” Bonds testified before a grand jury a few years ago that he had never used steroids or other performance enhancing substances, a collective sigh of indignation let out in the sports world as well as the legal one. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig hired a prosecutor to find out more, and the Mitchell investigation began. For two years, the former politico gathered facts about players who are using or abusing drugs in major league baseball. Last week, his findings were released to the public.

And we discovered, shockingly, that Roger Clemens had used steroids.

In retrospect it’s obvious that the Rocket was roiding.

His numbers in 1996 with the Red Sox: 10 wins, 13 losses. 98 earned runs, 106 walks. ERA: 3.63

not bad, but not Rocket.

The next season with the Blue Jays: 21 wins, 7 losses. 9 complete games. 60 earned runs. 68 walks, 292 strikeouts and a 2.05 ERA.

Now that’s more like it. A little too much perhaps. While Clemens is certainly the exception to most sports rules, there’s something amiss here. In his 14th season in the league, you could argue that the move to Toronto got his competitive juices flowing again. You could also argue that after pitching a decade and a half, 99 percent of the pitchers who have played this game’s numbers inevitably go down. But not Rocket. Clemens posts career bests in many categories. He proves the doubters wrong.

Now he’s going to have to do it in a whole new way and I don’t think it’s going to happen this time around.

I pick on Roger Clemens because he’s the biggest name in the report, and because personally, I just don’t like Roger Clemens.

He is not alone, of course. There were dozens of other names, and I’m sure many dozens more who never made the list who are guilty of the same things. (Where would we be without honest, decent men of character like Jose Conseco to tell us these things?)

Roger Clemens is easy to pick out for a number of reasons, but the most obvious one is the most disappointing one. Like him or not, Clemens was quite arguably the best pitcher of our time. Now, he’ll be following the best hitter of our time into the dark halls of infamy and scandal. What’s sad is that Clemens, just like Barry Bonds, never needed steroids, HGH, or anything else to be great. These two players were already guarenteed first ballot hall of famers before they touched any questionable substance.

Forget about the systemic failure of baseball to address its drug issues; steroids is just a drop of water in a much murkier pond.

The truth is that we don’t want to know the truth about baseball. If we knew how many players were on amphetamines, got tanked before games, do blow before press conferences, or shoot up before batting practice, we would never watch the game again. As a baseball fan, I am not surprised, but I am disappointed.

Welcome back to 1994, and baseball has not made a single step forward to regaining the trust of the fans. We should have known better.

The good folks over at the National Review have interviewed an American muslism about the war on terrorism and gotten a supposed unique view on the struggle from an insider.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDRiYTk0ZjBiMTI0YzRjMmJhZTZmMzQzYjIwYTc2NTM=

Zuhdi Jasser makes some interesting and insightful points, but I have to point out some very obvious politicization that he claims to be fighting against. They ask him what he thinks about the term “islamofascism,” which I have already said enough about on this blog so I won’t  go there now, and he believes that it’s a good term. He goes on…

“As a moral human being and as an American, it is obvious that their actions are evil and barbaric and we should do everything we can to destroy them and defeat them wherever we find them. “

This sounds awfully familiar to me. What is supposedly interesting about it is that it’s coming from an American, intelligent, “moderate” Muslim. I’m not buying it. The National Review has not endorsed one new idea since at least September 10, 2001; they’re just trying to package their hateful, narrow views in a new way. Just because the interviewee is a Muslim doesn’t mean he’s not twisting his faith to agree with a political idea. In the very next sentence, he returns to being a devout:

“A moral, pluralistic, spiritual Islam is the only way to defeat Islamofascism.”

Again, I’m ignoring that term and I’ll take issue with the execution. I agree 100 percent with the idea- the way to defeat violent extremists in the faith is by fighting them ideologically with the very large majority of peaceful Muslims. What I take issue with is his ideas on HOW to defeat them.

“We can to destroy them and defeat them wherever we find them.”

Does this sound like MORAL Islam to you?

Me neither.

There was another man who espoused similar ideas about dealing with the extremist Islamic threat. He dealt with them and and kept them in check for a number of decades. What was his name? I think it rhymed with Saddam Hussein.

When we get some real conversations started with some real intelligent Muslims who haven’t been paid by the word by megalomaniacs, war-mongers, or compulsive liars, then we’ll start to get somewhere, and one day perhaps Islamoevilcomminazifascism can be defeated.

I heard about this the other day & just found it. (This is not a Huckabee endorsement.)

Too funny.

Mike Huckabee just took a big step up in my book. I would never vote for him under normal circumstances, but if I were a Republican, he would be much less objectionable now than before. I’ve taken a closer look at him and I personally believe he’s one of the best Red choices there are this time around. (For everybody involved.)

Huckabee exudes a sense of honesty that no other Reps besides Ron Paul seem to have. I don’t agree with his politics, but I don’t think he’s a crazy neocon and I’m starting to think he could do a better job than Clinton as president based on his pledges for helping lower income populations. I don’t hear any Democrats talking about that aside from John Edwards. Mark my words- whichever candidate can really lock into that disenfranchised, under-represented, minority vote will win the general election. I don’t see anyone really pursuing it as of right now.

Back to the ad. Huckabee decides to use humor in his ads. This is a very welcome change from the tone of bitter rhetoric thus far in the campaign on both sides. O’bama did a lot of talking about not getting involved in mudslinging, but now he’s taking potshots are HRC every single day. Nobody seems to be above this trend, including Huckabee. But kudos to him for taking another angle: Chuck Norris jokes are a staple of the younger generation. I sincerely doubt there are alot of Baby Boomers out there who get the connection. It’s nice to see a Republican actually paying attention to gens X and Y for a change.

The more humor we have in this race, the better it will be for the American people and for the political scene in general. Humor is something that unites people, which this country is in dire need of right now. I’m tired of the candidates stooping to sophomoric tricks:

The right in general has smeared O’bama for supposedly going to a private Muslim school when he was young.

John Mccain’s mom (really?) took a shot at Mormons for absolutely no reason at all.  Granted, she wasn’t speaking for her son, but it was embarassing for the entire process.

Everyone has been launching personal missiles at Hillary Clinton for the last 2 years it seems. My beef with Hillary is purely about her positions; I think it’s disgusting the amount of personal abuse she has been subjected to since she came into public life.

This Mike Huckabee ad is a very small thing-but there are 3 great things about it: it’s fun, it’s harmless, and it’s looking forward. If more candidates took those ideas in mind, we’d all be in better shape.