Friday, March 21, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
The Right Decision?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!!?
As they used to say, back in my day, "Fuck you, pal."
"The Right Decision" my ass.
Going to war without Congressional approval is never the right decision.
Going to war based on faulty evidence of WMD that even you, Mr. President, didn't entirely trust is never the right decision.
Having, at best, a mediocre plan for invasion of a country is never the right decision.
Having no plan as to how to occupy a country you've invaded is never the right decision.
Having absolutely no plan as to what to do when and if things go wrong is never the right decision.
Staying the course when the course is wasting American lives is never the right decision.
Flying a jet onto an aircraft carrier and declaring "Mission Accomplished" when it very clearly isn't is never the right decision.
I could go on, but let's just say that in all the years of your administration, Mr. President, you have not once made the right decision.
Mr. President, you cannot possibly have a conscience. No man with a conscience could do what you have done and still live with himself.
"The Right Decision" my ass.
Going to war without Congressional approval is never the right decision.
Going to war based on faulty evidence of WMD that even you, Mr. President, didn't entirely trust is never the right decision.
Having, at best, a mediocre plan for invasion of a country is never the right decision.
Having no plan as to how to occupy a country you've invaded is never the right decision.
Having absolutely no plan as to what to do when and if things go wrong is never the right decision.
Staying the course when the course is wasting American lives is never the right decision.
Flying a jet onto an aircraft carrier and declaring "Mission Accomplished" when it very clearly isn't is never the right decision.
I could go on, but let's just say that in all the years of your administration, Mr. President, you have not once made the right decision.
Mr. President, you cannot possibly have a conscience. No man with a conscience could do what you have done and still live with himself.
Baseball is coming, Part 2
Joe Girardi, the new manager of the New York Yankees, has already thrown a temper tantrum and shown a tendency to overreact, as when he had his team retaliate against the Tampa Rays for a perceived hard slide. And this is only spring training. Between the anger mismanagement of Girardi and the fact that you know Hank Steinbrenner will interfere in a huge way with the Yanks on a daily basis (Hank is just as crazy as dear old dad George was back in the day), and you have to figure this is going to be an interesting season. They may not win the World Series but the Bronx will definitely be burning in 2008.
Baseball is coming, Part 1
Kerry Wood is injured again. Is there a reason, other than perhaps nostalgia, that the Cubs signed this guy for another season?
Erykah Badu - Honey ( Official Video)
I came late to the Erykah Badu party but I am now at the party and I am loving it. Aside from being a captivating creature, Badu can lay down an addictive beat accompanied by a melody no less. This video shows she's been paying attention to music for a long time, with album covers referencing everything from "Let It Be" to the Ohio Players to Alicia Keys (where in the world can she be?), and throwing in an updated version of the famous Rolling Stone magazine cover of John and Yoko. Is this all a subtle, yet respectful, parody of music culture? Uhhmmm, could be, but I think for the most part Badu is paying homage to what came before and after her giving birth to the New Soul. Badu knows the sounds of yesterday and today. She takes the sounds, mixes it 'em all up, stirs it real good, makes her own sound, and drenches it in "Honey".
I came late to the Erykah Badu party but I am now at the party and I am loving it. Aside from being a captivating creature, Badu can lay down an addictive beat accompanied by a melody no less. This video shows she's been paying attention to music for a long time, with album covers referencing everything from "Let It Be" to the Ohio Players to Alicia Keys (where in the world can she be?), and throwing in an updated version of the famous Rolling Stone magazine cover of John and Yoko. Is this all a subtle, yet respectful, parody of music culture? Uhhmmm, could be, but I think for the most part Badu is paying homage to what came before and after her giving birth to the New Soul. Badu knows the sounds of yesterday and today. She takes the sounds, mixes it 'em all up, stirs it real good, makes her own sound, and drenches it in "Honey".
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Guns and the American Culture of Death
Twenty students of the Chicago Public School system have been murdered this school year, eighteen of them shot to death. And the school year is not nearly over.
That's an awful lot of kids getting gunned down. But other than Mayor Daley and a few others, I'm not seeing much outrage.
Children get slaughtered in the street and there's not a lot of commotion? That seems odd to me. There seems to be a resignation on the part of many, a feeling that this is just the way life is.
The way of America is the way of the gun. That's just a fact, not a positive or negative judgment. Guns, from the Pilgrim musket to whatever the heck they're using in Iraq, have always and constantly played a role in the history of this nation. The matter of the Washington, DC gun ban now before the Supreme Court will most likely be resolved by striking down that particular ban. The US constitution pretty much guarantees the individual right to keep and bear arms, and even if the constitution doesn't spell that out clearly enough for some, there is precedent going back to the time of Plymouth Rock and Jamestown of individual gun ownership. That's a whole lot of precedent. Individual gun ownership will never go away in the US. It's never going to change. Americans will always and forever have the right to have a gun. Mayor Daley and other advocates of gun control need to accept that fact and change course.
Washington, DC has a gun ban. It has not stopped gun violence. The city of Chicago has a similar gun ban , and it has not worked either. Gun ban or no gun ban, unless guns are no longer manufactured anywhere in the world and all existing guns are melted down to make swing sets for playgrounds, criminals will find a way to get guns. And so will otherwise law abiding citizens.
It would be good to have a nationwide discussion of gun violence. Or at least it would be if people didn't become so overheated on the topic, reducing their arguments to screaming irrationality.
More to the point than a discussion of gun violence, a discussion that would produce even more heat than the gun conversation, would be a discussion about the American culture of death. There is obviously a gun culture in the United States, but beyond that there is a death culture, or perhaps a sub-culture if you will. Many of these children shooting children on the streets of Chicago have no fear of their own death, much less incarceration in prison. Why is that?
That's what we need to talk about. Why is there a sub-culture of American society that thinks it is ok to kill? Further, why do the members of this sub-culture think that it's alright to die themselves? We in this country rightly accuse fundamentalist Islam of being a death culture, bent on bringing horrific death to as many as possible while the individual Islamist terrorist commits suicide. But we Americans need to turn the spotlight on ourselves. We need to ask why there are so many amongst us bent on killing.
Now that's going to be a tough discussion for this nation to have, so tough it may never happen. It is a discussion that will be bogged down by side issues of racial oppression, economic oppression and a whole host of other things. It would be a wrenching discussion, bringing age old animosities and fears to light, in a way that we can't even imagine.
I think, however, it's a discussion that needs be had. Children trying to get to or from school but instead being gunned down like rabid dogs in the street is an abomination. It is an horrific blemish on the soul of humanity. But taking away all guns won't change the minds of killers intent on killing, it would merely take away the easiest and most dispassionate dispenser of death. We need to find why killers, who are quite often no more than teen-agers or young adults, think it is acceptable to kill.
Bear in mind, I have no ready answers. I am barely smart enough to string together words to make sentences to clump together in paragraphs. I am, however, smart enough to know that something needs to change. If all Americans don't at least try to do something, than all Americans should consider themselves part of the death culture.
That's an awful lot of kids getting gunned down. But other than Mayor Daley and a few others, I'm not seeing much outrage.
Children get slaughtered in the street and there's not a lot of commotion? That seems odd to me. There seems to be a resignation on the part of many, a feeling that this is just the way life is.
The way of America is the way of the gun. That's just a fact, not a positive or negative judgment. Guns, from the Pilgrim musket to whatever the heck they're using in Iraq, have always and constantly played a role in the history of this nation. The matter of the Washington, DC gun ban now before the Supreme Court will most likely be resolved by striking down that particular ban. The US constitution pretty much guarantees the individual right to keep and bear arms, and even if the constitution doesn't spell that out clearly enough for some, there is precedent going back to the time of Plymouth Rock and Jamestown of individual gun ownership. That's a whole lot of precedent. Individual gun ownership will never go away in the US. It's never going to change. Americans will always and forever have the right to have a gun. Mayor Daley and other advocates of gun control need to accept that fact and change course.
Washington, DC has a gun ban. It has not stopped gun violence. The city of Chicago has a similar gun ban , and it has not worked either. Gun ban or no gun ban, unless guns are no longer manufactured anywhere in the world and all existing guns are melted down to make swing sets for playgrounds, criminals will find a way to get guns. And so will otherwise law abiding citizens.
It would be good to have a nationwide discussion of gun violence. Or at least it would be if people didn't become so overheated on the topic, reducing their arguments to screaming irrationality.
More to the point than a discussion of gun violence, a discussion that would produce even more heat than the gun conversation, would be a discussion about the American culture of death. There is obviously a gun culture in the United States, but beyond that there is a death culture, or perhaps a sub-culture if you will. Many of these children shooting children on the streets of Chicago have no fear of their own death, much less incarceration in prison. Why is that?
That's what we need to talk about. Why is there a sub-culture of American society that thinks it is ok to kill? Further, why do the members of this sub-culture think that it's alright to die themselves? We in this country rightly accuse fundamentalist Islam of being a death culture, bent on bringing horrific death to as many as possible while the individual Islamist terrorist commits suicide. But we Americans need to turn the spotlight on ourselves. We need to ask why there are so many amongst us bent on killing.
Now that's going to be a tough discussion for this nation to have, so tough it may never happen. It is a discussion that will be bogged down by side issues of racial oppression, economic oppression and a whole host of other things. It would be a wrenching discussion, bringing age old animosities and fears to light, in a way that we can't even imagine.
I think, however, it's a discussion that needs be had. Children trying to get to or from school but instead being gunned down like rabid dogs in the street is an abomination. It is an horrific blemish on the soul of humanity. But taking away all guns won't change the minds of killers intent on killing, it would merely take away the easiest and most dispassionate dispenser of death. We need to find why killers, who are quite often no more than teen-agers or young adults, think it is acceptable to kill.
Bear in mind, I have no ready answers. I am barely smart enough to string together words to make sentences to clump together in paragraphs. I am, however, smart enough to know that something needs to change. If all Americans don't at least try to do something, than all Americans should consider themselves part of the death culture.
Fleeing Thought: The Allure of Power
The newly sworn in governor of New York admitted to numerous marital infidelities, as did his wife. Is there anyone in New York politics who can keep his or her pants on? And just how is there time to get any work done there?
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