Glen D has a post on being a bad American. Some of the thoughts in there make a lot of sense, and some don't. I've never been in the military, like Glen D, and wouldn't have chosen to risk having my nuts blown off in any of the American wars except the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War and WWII. The rest were not so much in the national interest as I see it. To risk your nuts is to make you a bit defensive about what you're risking them for. I can understand and respect that even if I don't much agree with that viewpoint.
Both my parents give me the anti-American tag from time to time because our government, especially the disastrous current version, is so disappointing and I can't shrug that off as easily as some others. When things are so horrible, it is almost pointless to criticize. When something is essentially good and could be even better, that draws out more criticism. I'm hard on the CNMI government because this place could be so much better than it is, and it's still pretty good in spite of the piss poor leadership. The same could be said of the states.
As for the states, I don't like George W. Bush, that's for God damn sure. You'd really have to suspend critical thinking and just be one of those root for the home team types to still be with Captain Dipshit. I'm a big fan of the American ideals the founders drew up 200 plus years ago. I'm not so big on the debt ridden, fear pumping, fast food eating, anti-intellectual monstrosity it has become.
I'm a fan of traditional American culture like blues, jazz and rock, NFL and MLB, as well as stand up comedy, but I'm not such a fan of reality television, Britney Spears and that ilk, people who think the jury is out on evolution and busybodies who spend their time worrying what other people do in the privacy of their own home sexually.
I'm not such a fan of the health care system. Yes, it has the most upside if you're very rich, but it shuts you down pretty good if you're not. People look to throw out that scary word socialism. We have a socialist government, but instead of providing socialist services to the people, we pump the money to friendly corporations and put it all on the national credit card. How gutless. It's a good scam if you can pull it off.
To be critical of these things is hardly anti-American. America is big and powerful enough to handle criticism.
Showing posts with label National Affairs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National Affairs. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Advice for Boni on telling Dems from Republicans and other musings
Our fair Boni Gomez is kicking it in the nation's capitol, Washington, D.C. She gave out this dispatch:
If they've got a kick me sign on the back of their jacket, or they're hunched over for lack of a backbone, it's a Democrat. Other signs, Birkenstocks, driving a Toyota Prius or if you hear someone yelling, "Thank you sir may I have another."
***
Is this new NMC President Carmen Fernandez a control freak, dicatatorial whack job or what. She fired Howard Cole, the 2004 NMC instructor of the year, for telling the truth, that she's trying to close NMC's academic programs in Rota and Tinian. He has worked there for ten years. When precious NMC money is lost for the inevitable lawsuit, I hope it comes out of this witch's pocket. I've never met her or Cole, but memo to Miss NMC, you're not George Steinbrenner in the 70s. Get real and I hope they fire her before she pisses more money away with lawsuit inviting tactics like that.
***
I went diving with Axe Murderer Tours President Harry Blalock a few weeks back. I had a brain fart and stirred up some sand and killed Harry's nudibranch photo efforts. Brad Derksen was on the scene and took video, drawn by the image of the two white guys with no hair. Last night Cynthia is checking out blogs with our son, and clicks on Brad's underwater video. Seeing the two bald, white heads underwater, my perplexed son asks, "Why are there two daddies?"
Aargh!
Today I sat with the "suits". They are a curious demographic, constantly pacingI feel I must help, so I offer the following advice. If there is a black helmet, a red light saber and heavy breathing it's a Republican. Sometimes a cape and pitchfork can be found as well. Other signs: Being extremely well fed, driving the environmental catastrophe that is the Hummer or tapping their foot to Tony in the men's restroom.
and on their cell phones. They live mainly on Starbucks. I still cannot tell the
democrats from the republicans off the bat, but I am observing them carefully.
If anyone knows a quick litmus test for this, please let me know.
If they've got a kick me sign on the back of their jacket, or they're hunched over for lack of a backbone, it's a Democrat. Other signs, Birkenstocks, driving a Toyota Prius or if you hear someone yelling, "Thank you sir may I have another."
***
Is this new NMC President Carmen Fernandez a control freak, dicatatorial whack job or what. She fired Howard Cole, the 2004 NMC instructor of the year, for telling the truth, that she's trying to close NMC's academic programs in Rota and Tinian. He has worked there for ten years. When precious NMC money is lost for the inevitable lawsuit, I hope it comes out of this witch's pocket. I've never met her or Cole, but memo to Miss NMC, you're not George Steinbrenner in the 70s. Get real and I hope they fire her before she pisses more money away with lawsuit inviting tactics like that.
***
I went diving with Axe Murderer Tours President Harry Blalock a few weeks back. I had a brain fart and stirred up some sand and killed Harry's nudibranch photo efforts. Brad Derksen was on the scene and took video, drawn by the image of the two white guys with no hair. Last night Cynthia is checking out blogs with our son, and clicks on Brad's underwater video. Seeing the two bald, white heads underwater, my perplexed son asks, "Why are there two daddies?"
Aargh!
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Musings on Guam Airport revised and revisited
I sent this to a few of the edgier journals out there, and a tamer version to a few others. I was greeted mostly with silence. I don't have national media contacts, and certainly don't have the patience or slavish demeanor to beg them to run something I know is better than 2/3 of the safe, dull, middle of the road stuff they print. I also don't have the published writer's requisite skill of dealing with rejection or indifference very well. If you can link to this from some type of webzine with an audience that likes edgy, humorous stuff with a political bent, please link to this, as I feel it deserves a wider audience. Jeff
Out in Micronesia, just a small radar blip in the Pacific, sits Guam International Airport. Like many airports, it is a vast, packaged, neon vestibule of unhealthy, overpriced fast food, the mind boggling curiosity of duty free shops, and a more common currency: aggravated Asian travelers. One notable difference is that Guam is an America much closer to Hong Kong and Tokyo than New York or Los Angeles .
Guam is a full blown U.S. territory like Puerto Rico and a common transfer hub for Asian travelers to Hawaii, Australia and other locales. Guam has two well known monikers. Fiscal conservatives noting the federal dole that Guam, and other Pacific Islands survive on, say Guam stands for Give Us American Money, while retired military expats familiar with the more lascivious, neighboring locations of Thailand and the Philippines say Guam stands for Give Up And Masturbate.
A traveler doesn’t have to visit Guam, a popular beach vacation site for Japanese honeymooners, to feel the hysteria post 9/11. A mere transfer will suffice for this dog to bite as America continues to expand global alienation on a more personal front: airport security. I speak from recent personal experience.
I get off the plane in Guam after getting a quite thorough screening at Palau International Airport. Palau is one of the most renowned scuba diving locations on the planet, its main tourist draw and the one that brought me there, and is in Free Compact of Association with the United States, which basically means Palauans can enter the United States without visa issue, and the U.S. provides them with economic aid. The U.S. in return gets a claim on a place that is famously part of the “Coalition of the Willing” from Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11.
The first thing I have to do in Guam right off the plane from Palau at 4 am: Welcome to the United States. “Take your shoes off sir, belt, all metals, and are your nuts still attached, if not, please place them in this basket for inspection.” I might need them, so they are staying connected, sorry, use the wand, and tickle a little bit since it's 4 am, I'm on the redeye from hell, I'm stuck in your shithole airport and I need a cheap thrill. I just got off an airplane, I didn't go anywhere near an unchecked civilian, so this begs the obvious question of why do I have to go through the shoe routine again, not to mention another x-ray, take off your belt, shave your pubes routine in case you're hiding some well placed plutonium in your sac region? Why again!!!! Is Guam security so much more thorough than the last TSA manned airport? One idiot tried something with his shoes years ago and people the planet over have to go through these shoe theatrics without end in sight. Please. I've had times when there have been three shoe checks for one trip. The only real threat my shoes offer is the one they hold to pleasant smells. I saw one Transportation and Security Administration (TSA) officer examine my flip flops with the wrapt attention of Howard Carter opening King Tut's tomb.
Leaving Palau, the existence of shaving cream in my checked, not carry on, luggage caused a literal ten minute investigation. I might be the only one with a toothbrush coming from Palau, but I can't be the only one who shaves. Throughout Micronesia locals suffer massive dental issues from their love of a tree fruit called betel nut, which is generally stuffed with cigarette pieces, mixed with powdered lime to break it down for easier chewing, and wrapped in a pepper leaf to provide a nice buzz. There are probably more cigarettes chewed than smoked in Micronesia. Betelnut is a common addiction in Micronesia and has similar health, dental and aesthetic issues as chewing tobacco.
The war on terror, I mean hygiene continues, though. I had deodorant in my carry on, which is legal, but that still entailed a Nuremberg type deliberation since somehow Old Spice equals Al Qaeda. At some point someone needs to snap and say, “Use some sense, you soulless automaton!” I’m convinced they must electroshock all vestiges of independent thought and common sense out of these people at TSA Academy.
After the foiled UK plot a few months back, the liquid and hygiene situation is the latest overreaction. The silliness over water continues unabated. If you can drink it, and demonstrate that it isn't some Mission Impossible liquid bomb, let it go. It's water, like 80 percent of the human body. Chill out Nurse Ratched. We don't examine most any cargo coming into the states, but three shoe checks and no water, so we’re supposed to think we're safe. What a bunch of babies we’ve become, not to mention that this American airport in Asia is as welcoming as a punch to the stomach.Then Guam security sets up this rope to subdivide the airport and actually block you from your gate. This is designed so they can give the new arrivals the stare for the Battan style march to the slaughter at the pointless Guam immigration check in counter, and if you, the already harassed, step on the wrong side at the wrong time, they threaten you with a fresh round of shoe checks, X rays and quite possibly a trip to Guantanamo Bay. Even an American traveler like me feels cowed from asking the obvious question of why do I have to clear immigration in Guam when I am not staying there, or not be able to head to my gate yet because others need to go through this ridiculous routine? Doesn’t my name go down on the easily identifiable “previously manhandled” list?
With all this security you’d think Guam International Airport would be a hub for all travelers, but nope, they won't let Filipinos, and others from less prosperous countries, transfer through without a full blown U.S. Visa.
It is still the middle of the night, I've got a long layover in Hades, and there is hardly anyone in the place, so sleep seems in order. I'm not expecting the Ritz Carlton, just to sack out in peace on their mangy carpet. Naturally, sleep is hard to come by with a blaring announcement over the loudspeaker every fifteen minutes not to leave your bags unattended and to report any suspicious activity to the Guam Gestapo.
These security pros clearly find travelers annoying, so they briefly held me hostage on my initial layover. I couldn't exit without a Continental representative to walk me through immigration like it was my first day of kindergarten. I ate at the lousy food court, so I wasn’t exiting completely within the allotted time. Since this was inconvenient to security, I had this bozo airport cop on a power trip interrogating me on whether my green tea in a cup was beer. What am I twelve, what if it was? His invented regulation: “You can't take green tea out onto the streets of Guam sir.” I'm sure the teeming masses of Guam appreciate that kind of protection. I was going to mention that I saw one guy with an apple, and if he could stop him, he might get a Homeland Security appointment in the Bush administration, but I really wasn’t in any mood to undergo extraordinary rendition and be re-routed for less comfortable questioning in Syria, so I merely smiled and sheepishly surrendered my $3.00 beverage before heading out of the Taliban’s new headquarters.
Guam Airport is the United States government in microcosm: reactionary, bullying, lacking common sense and self-important. The terrorists have already won since we are a bunch of drunk on fear ninnies, alienating both Americans and citizens of the world’s fastest growing economies with our bullshit.
Out in Micronesia, just a small radar blip in the Pacific, sits Guam International Airport. Like many airports, it is a vast, packaged, neon vestibule of unhealthy, overpriced fast food, the mind boggling curiosity of duty free shops, and a more common currency: aggravated Asian travelers. One notable difference is that Guam is an America much closer to Hong Kong and Tokyo than New York or Los Angeles .
Guam is a full blown U.S. territory like Puerto Rico and a common transfer hub for Asian travelers to Hawaii, Australia and other locales. Guam has two well known monikers. Fiscal conservatives noting the federal dole that Guam, and other Pacific Islands survive on, say Guam stands for Give Us American Money, while retired military expats familiar with the more lascivious, neighboring locations of Thailand and the Philippines say Guam stands for Give Up And Masturbate.
A traveler doesn’t have to visit Guam, a popular beach vacation site for Japanese honeymooners, to feel the hysteria post 9/11. A mere transfer will suffice for this dog to bite as America continues to expand global alienation on a more personal front: airport security. I speak from recent personal experience.
I get off the plane in Guam after getting a quite thorough screening at Palau International Airport. Palau is one of the most renowned scuba diving locations on the planet, its main tourist draw and the one that brought me there, and is in Free Compact of Association with the United States, which basically means Palauans can enter the United States without visa issue, and the U.S. provides them with economic aid. The U.S. in return gets a claim on a place that is famously part of the “Coalition of the Willing” from Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11.
The first thing I have to do in Guam right off the plane from Palau at 4 am: Welcome to the United States. “Take your shoes off sir, belt, all metals, and are your nuts still attached, if not, please place them in this basket for inspection.” I might need them, so they are staying connected, sorry, use the wand, and tickle a little bit since it's 4 am, I'm on the redeye from hell, I'm stuck in your shithole airport and I need a cheap thrill. I just got off an airplane, I didn't go anywhere near an unchecked civilian, so this begs the obvious question of why do I have to go through the shoe routine again, not to mention another x-ray, take off your belt, shave your pubes routine in case you're hiding some well placed plutonium in your sac region? Why again!!!! Is Guam security so much more thorough than the last TSA manned airport? One idiot tried something with his shoes years ago and people the planet over have to go through these shoe theatrics without end in sight. Please. I've had times when there have been three shoe checks for one trip. The only real threat my shoes offer is the one they hold to pleasant smells. I saw one Transportation and Security Administration (TSA) officer examine my flip flops with the wrapt attention of Howard Carter opening King Tut's tomb.
Leaving Palau, the existence of shaving cream in my checked, not carry on, luggage caused a literal ten minute investigation. I might be the only one with a toothbrush coming from Palau, but I can't be the only one who shaves. Throughout Micronesia locals suffer massive dental issues from their love of a tree fruit called betel nut, which is generally stuffed with cigarette pieces, mixed with powdered lime to break it down for easier chewing, and wrapped in a pepper leaf to provide a nice buzz. There are probably more cigarettes chewed than smoked in Micronesia. Betelnut is a common addiction in Micronesia and has similar health, dental and aesthetic issues as chewing tobacco.
The war on terror, I mean hygiene continues, though. I had deodorant in my carry on, which is legal, but that still entailed a Nuremberg type deliberation since somehow Old Spice equals Al Qaeda. At some point someone needs to snap and say, “Use some sense, you soulless automaton!” I’m convinced they must electroshock all vestiges of independent thought and common sense out of these people at TSA Academy.
After the foiled UK plot a few months back, the liquid and hygiene situation is the latest overreaction. The silliness over water continues unabated. If you can drink it, and demonstrate that it isn't some Mission Impossible liquid bomb, let it go. It's water, like 80 percent of the human body. Chill out Nurse Ratched. We don't examine most any cargo coming into the states, but three shoe checks and no water, so we’re supposed to think we're safe. What a bunch of babies we’ve become, not to mention that this American airport in Asia is as welcoming as a punch to the stomach.Then Guam security sets up this rope to subdivide the airport and actually block you from your gate. This is designed so they can give the new arrivals the stare for the Battan style march to the slaughter at the pointless Guam immigration check in counter, and if you, the already harassed, step on the wrong side at the wrong time, they threaten you with a fresh round of shoe checks, X rays and quite possibly a trip to Guantanamo Bay. Even an American traveler like me feels cowed from asking the obvious question of why do I have to clear immigration in Guam when I am not staying there, or not be able to head to my gate yet because others need to go through this ridiculous routine? Doesn’t my name go down on the easily identifiable “previously manhandled” list?
With all this security you’d think Guam International Airport would be a hub for all travelers, but nope, they won't let Filipinos, and others from less prosperous countries, transfer through without a full blown U.S. Visa.
It is still the middle of the night, I've got a long layover in Hades, and there is hardly anyone in the place, so sleep seems in order. I'm not expecting the Ritz Carlton, just to sack out in peace on their mangy carpet. Naturally, sleep is hard to come by with a blaring announcement over the loudspeaker every fifteen minutes not to leave your bags unattended and to report any suspicious activity to the Guam Gestapo.
These security pros clearly find travelers annoying, so they briefly held me hostage on my initial layover. I couldn't exit without a Continental representative to walk me through immigration like it was my first day of kindergarten. I ate at the lousy food court, so I wasn’t exiting completely within the allotted time. Since this was inconvenient to security, I had this bozo airport cop on a power trip interrogating me on whether my green tea in a cup was beer. What am I twelve, what if it was? His invented regulation: “You can't take green tea out onto the streets of Guam sir.” I'm sure the teeming masses of Guam appreciate that kind of protection. I was going to mention that I saw one guy with an apple, and if he could stop him, he might get a Homeland Security appointment in the Bush administration, but I really wasn’t in any mood to undergo extraordinary rendition and be re-routed for less comfortable questioning in Syria, so I merely smiled and sheepishly surrendered my $3.00 beverage before heading out of the Taliban’s new headquarters.
Guam Airport is the United States government in microcosm: reactionary, bullying, lacking common sense and self-important. The terrorists have already won since we are a bunch of drunk on fear ninnies, alienating both Americans and citizens of the world’s fastest growing economies with our bullshit.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
New York New York
Anyone who knows me, reads my blog, or has seen my gut, knows I love to cook and eat good food. They also know I find a lot of what American culture has become is embarrassing, and the political culture and leadership is beyond embarrassing -- more to the point of reprehensible and abysmal beyond mere partisan differences or varying opinions. The dark side is openly subverting what it means to be an American and what makes this country different, unique and better. No, I'm not offering another full blown anti-Bush rant today, I'm merely setting a premise fo my amazing day yesterday, where we are, and where we could be.
I can't believe we now live in a country that allows this moron's goons to spy on Americans without a warrrant, torture people or ship them off to countries that torture, shove religion down our throats and hire high ranking justice department officials from Pat Robertson's diploma mill law school, hold suspects without charges or access to a lawyer, spend billions to invade a non-threatening country on false pretenses, run up a $9 trillion debt yet cut taxes for rich people while starting that same war, take four days to get water to disaster victims in the Superdome, manage to leave 46 million without health insurance, stonewall Congress, which never investigated or provided oversight on anything for years anyway since the majority was in the same party as the executive branch, fire prosecutors for not trumping up charges against political adversaries, allows the AG to essentially perjure himself by obviously feigning memory loss, allows Dick Cheney to claim he's not even in the Executive branch to avoid Congressional oversight, and allows this administration to do all this without even really getting elected in the first place.
On the general culture front, celebrity gossip culture runs rampant and sickening fast food is about every ten feet -- making us fat and unhealthy. The mad dog consumer culture is equally ubiquitous with Ipods now in vending machines. Being well educated is a liablilty because you're an "elite." Most television programming is incredibly dumb with people eating disgusting things for my entertainment or quiz shows at the fifth grade level. No one really reads anymore, and if they do, it tends to be more celebrity bullshit or whatever Oprah likes. Movies are remakes, sequels or ninety minutes of mindless explosions and violence. Music scarcely requires an instrument and popular songs are also remakes. I feel so disappointed in what we've become that it wears on me. I'm not all that proud to be an American anymore. Yes, I enjoy and appreciate the advantages being an American offers, but I have higher standards for us, and we don't live up to them anymore.
I spent the day yesterday in Manhattan. I'm not from New York, I'm from New Jersey. People from New York tend to look down on New Jersey -- and most everyone. They radiate a "we're better than you" attitude that is unbecoming. With that said, they are kind of right. Manhattan in better. However, New Yorkers should be gracious enough not to act that way. However, New Yorkers aren't unfriendly people. I've always thought that was a misconception. I asked for help on directions and struck up conversations a handful of times and it was always fruitful.
I've been to a lot of big cities: Paris, Rome, Seoul, Osaka, Tokyo, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, Bangkok, Manila, Beijing to name some. Manhattan isn't the best city on Earth, as they often claim. I would grant that title to San Francisco, which has everything Manhattan has, and is significantly more beautiful, but Manhattan is an amazing place. I was walking around the city yesterday, and it just offers so much as to be overwhelming. I took a stroll through Central Park, and it is an enormous natural oasis in a sea of concrete and skyscrapers. It is a welcome respite that is civilizing and reminds you that people actually live here, not just work or come in for the day like us Jersey folks.
I roamed the Metropolitan Museum and gazed at amazing Impressionistic paintings, Ancient Greek pottery and armor, the Egyptian Book of the Dead in original papyrus scroll strung across one long corridor, as well as numerous Egyptian sarcophagi. I saw Ancient Roman coins, busts of Caesar Augustus and others, and quite a bit of impressive American art.
I want to a comedy club and heard relative novices spin out witty and wry observations. I ate at a Cuban Restaurant called Sophies that kicked so much ass I can hardly contain my enthusiasm. Simple rice and beans dressed up with their jalapeno sauce staggered beyond belief into a gourmet feast. The Cuban Sandwich I ate with this exploded with exotic peasant flavors, notably because of the flat crusted Cuban bread. After walking around some more, I had a Masala Tea in an Indian take out place, which had a great looking French Restaurant and a Thai Restaurant next door. The food options stagger. The food is great because most everyone is an immigrant here. They bring their global influences to bear.
In Manhattan, I'm not the oddball I am in Saipan and most places. I'm not even the most blunt guy anymore. It has been a long time since that happened. Most everyone there is cynical, edgy, smart, liberal, political, ethnic, comedic, artistic, competitive, ambitious, interested in culture, food and general quality and competence. I love this about New York. They aren't drunk on fear ninnies who never go anywhere, don't know anything and have nothing to say. I hate to say this, but the vast majority of people are boring. They feel little obligation to bring something to the social table beyond common courtesies and trivial small talk. This New York spirit is what is lacking in other places if you ask me. Yesterday, for the first time in a long ass while, I felt like I was surrounded by people like me, kindred spirits galore.
Manhattan restores my faith in America. New York was the principal target of "the terrorists," yet very few people believed in George Bush's bullshit very long, not that many people do anymore, but they were early to that party. John Lennon sang that great line about people being kept doped on religion and sex and tv. New York isn't doped on religion and tv that's for sure, sex probably. New York is different there, too. People stay out late to party, eat, talk, hear jazz, see live theater, go to comedy clubs, shop, have kinky sex, catch a baseball game, whatever. The women that roam the city are gorgeous, stylish and sophisticated. This is not the case in the Jersey suburbs or even most places.
You can walk the streets and everyone is from somewhere else. You can hear French, Italian, German, Arabic and most any language being spoken. I didn't look, but I bet I could find a Chamorro restaurant -- probably the only place in America a person could do that, and no one cares if you are gay, straight, transgendered, existentialist or running dog revisionist. It is a live and let live place, yet it is also blunt and aggressive.
New York is what the Democratic Party should be, but isn't. Smart, edgy, live and let live, yet blunt, direct and bold. Liberals can do this, they just don't, and that is why they lose and the dark side has run amok with Caligulan abandon. It was a good day and one that made me feel better about this country.
I can't believe we now live in a country that allows this moron's goons to spy on Americans without a warrrant, torture people or ship them off to countries that torture, shove religion down our throats and hire high ranking justice department officials from Pat Robertson's diploma mill law school, hold suspects without charges or access to a lawyer, spend billions to invade a non-threatening country on false pretenses, run up a $9 trillion debt yet cut taxes for rich people while starting that same war, take four days to get water to disaster victims in the Superdome, manage to leave 46 million without health insurance, stonewall Congress, which never investigated or provided oversight on anything for years anyway since the majority was in the same party as the executive branch, fire prosecutors for not trumping up charges against political adversaries, allows the AG to essentially perjure himself by obviously feigning memory loss, allows Dick Cheney to claim he's not even in the Executive branch to avoid Congressional oversight, and allows this administration to do all this without even really getting elected in the first place.
On the general culture front, celebrity gossip culture runs rampant and sickening fast food is about every ten feet -- making us fat and unhealthy. The mad dog consumer culture is equally ubiquitous with Ipods now in vending machines. Being well educated is a liablilty because you're an "elite." Most television programming is incredibly dumb with people eating disgusting things for my entertainment or quiz shows at the fifth grade level. No one really reads anymore, and if they do, it tends to be more celebrity bullshit or whatever Oprah likes. Movies are remakes, sequels or ninety minutes of mindless explosions and violence. Music scarcely requires an instrument and popular songs are also remakes. I feel so disappointed in what we've become that it wears on me. I'm not all that proud to be an American anymore. Yes, I enjoy and appreciate the advantages being an American offers, but I have higher standards for us, and we don't live up to them anymore.
I spent the day yesterday in Manhattan. I'm not from New York, I'm from New Jersey. People from New York tend to look down on New Jersey -- and most everyone. They radiate a "we're better than you" attitude that is unbecoming. With that said, they are kind of right. Manhattan in better. However, New Yorkers should be gracious enough not to act that way. However, New Yorkers aren't unfriendly people. I've always thought that was a misconception. I asked for help on directions and struck up conversations a handful of times and it was always fruitful.
I've been to a lot of big cities: Paris, Rome, Seoul, Osaka, Tokyo, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, Bangkok, Manila, Beijing to name some. Manhattan isn't the best city on Earth, as they often claim. I would grant that title to San Francisco, which has everything Manhattan has, and is significantly more beautiful, but Manhattan is an amazing place. I was walking around the city yesterday, and it just offers so much as to be overwhelming. I took a stroll through Central Park, and it is an enormous natural oasis in a sea of concrete and skyscrapers. It is a welcome respite that is civilizing and reminds you that people actually live here, not just work or come in for the day like us Jersey folks.
I roamed the Metropolitan Museum and gazed at amazing Impressionistic paintings, Ancient Greek pottery and armor, the Egyptian Book of the Dead in original papyrus scroll strung across one long corridor, as well as numerous Egyptian sarcophagi. I saw Ancient Roman coins, busts of Caesar Augustus and others, and quite a bit of impressive American art.
I want to a comedy club and heard relative novices spin out witty and wry observations. I ate at a Cuban Restaurant called Sophies that kicked so much ass I can hardly contain my enthusiasm. Simple rice and beans dressed up with their jalapeno sauce staggered beyond belief into a gourmet feast. The Cuban Sandwich I ate with this exploded with exotic peasant flavors, notably because of the flat crusted Cuban bread. After walking around some more, I had a Masala Tea in an Indian take out place, which had a great looking French Restaurant and a Thai Restaurant next door. The food options stagger. The food is great because most everyone is an immigrant here. They bring their global influences to bear.
In Manhattan, I'm not the oddball I am in Saipan and most places. I'm not even the most blunt guy anymore. It has been a long time since that happened. Most everyone there is cynical, edgy, smart, liberal, political, ethnic, comedic, artistic, competitive, ambitious, interested in culture, food and general quality and competence. I love this about New York. They aren't drunk on fear ninnies who never go anywhere, don't know anything and have nothing to say. I hate to say this, but the vast majority of people are boring. They feel little obligation to bring something to the social table beyond common courtesies and trivial small talk. This New York spirit is what is lacking in other places if you ask me. Yesterday, for the first time in a long ass while, I felt like I was surrounded by people like me, kindred spirits galore.
Manhattan restores my faith in America. New York was the principal target of "the terrorists," yet very few people believed in George Bush's bullshit very long, not that many people do anymore, but they were early to that party. John Lennon sang that great line about people being kept doped on religion and sex and tv. New York isn't doped on religion and tv that's for sure, sex probably. New York is different there, too. People stay out late to party, eat, talk, hear jazz, see live theater, go to comedy clubs, shop, have kinky sex, catch a baseball game, whatever. The women that roam the city are gorgeous, stylish and sophisticated. This is not the case in the Jersey suburbs or even most places.
You can walk the streets and everyone is from somewhere else. You can hear French, Italian, German, Arabic and most any language being spoken. I didn't look, but I bet I could find a Chamorro restaurant -- probably the only place in America a person could do that, and no one cares if you are gay, straight, transgendered, existentialist or running dog revisionist. It is a live and let live place, yet it is also blunt and aggressive.
New York is what the Democratic Party should be, but isn't. Smart, edgy, live and let live, yet blunt, direct and bold. Liberals can do this, they just don't, and that is why they lose and the dark side has run amok with Caligulan abandon. It was a good day and one that made me feel better about this country.
Monday, June 18, 2007
More good news and short takes
I applied for, and received today at last, a teacher's license in the state of Virginia. I'm fully certified to teach language arts and social studies there, as I am here. There is a significant chance I'll be a social studies teacher at SSHS instead of language arts next school year. I'm up for a change, and my passions are more in social studies. My language arts class is kind of a language arts/social studies hybrid, and as a dedicated social studies teacher I expect to do the same.
I'm pretty happy with my current position here, even the salary, but I want to be prepared for nuclear economic meltdown. In theory in the states a person can get a teacher license alternate route, but that is very hard to do and leaves few real job options. Getting a teacher's license has been a long process that led me through three Praxis tests and an MA in Education, as well as four years teaching here, plus two in Korea. Cynthia's green card is moving along, which is the third and now final leg of my bureaucratic three headed monster of adoption, teacher's license and spousal immigration.
***
I wrote a piece for the new version of In Transit that will be performed in the Fall, and may be my acting debut if I can pull that off. It will be a series of monologues on life intertwining. Mine is about life not turning out as you planned. I've had one friend love the piece, my dad not as strong an endorsement, but I think it is pretty good. I'll have to see what Galvin and Barbara have to say.
I wrote another piece based on my Guam Airport blog that I want to get published in a large publication like Rolling Stone or the Village Voice. That piece was also in the Variety. I think it is about time I did that. My father thinks if I toned it down a bit it would actually be suitable for the Wall Street Journal. Perhaps the best part of blogging, and I thank other Saipan bloggers for jump starting this in me, is that it has got me writing a lot now, a skill I had actually left long dormant despite my semi-frequent rants in the local papers over the past few years. My $40,000 newspaper journalism school education is getting some exercise at last.
***
I loved the dichotomy in Friday's Variety. On one hand there is a request for $155 million from Congress, which "isn't a handout" and then a typical racist rant from Danny Aquino in both papers. Danny wants the CNMI to secede from the Union because workers are getting a little bit of a break at last via minimum wage and immigration. He is also upset the CNMI is not represented in Congress, which I actually agree with him about. Of course, the vast majority of people aren't represented here in reality, so I don't know how much it matters. I blasted Aquino on his white bashing a while ago, which led to the Eric Atalig dustup, which several people told me Danny actually wrote and submitted under Eric's name. Eric got blasted by many people. My kid was in Danny's Day Care center, Little Darlings. Frankly, if I knew in the beginning it was his place, he wouldn't be in there, but I didn't want to disturb my son over his ravings. My kid won't be returning since a racist whose public opinions are insulting to his Filipino workers has an influence on the morale of people with the extremely challenging job of guiding small children, which is completely unacceptable. There is a close battle between Danny and garment mouthpiece Richard Pierce on who is the most vile person on this island. Flip a coin on that one.
***
A bill was introduced to revise CNMI immigration. As they did on the minimum wage, the government want a "study" done. Did they do a study before they paid millions to Jailbird Jack Abramoff to rig the game?
***
The loser prosecutor who bent over justice in an attempt to get re-elected got disbarred. This is something that restores my faith in America, which seldom happens under the rule of George W. Bush. Actually the court did the right thing and said we still have to follow the Constitution and actually charge and try Americans and not just hold them indefinitely in our own Gulag as enemy combatants, so there are two encouraging things. If they executed this prosecutor I don't think it would be unreasonable. For a prosecutor to use state power to ruin people's lives on a fact ignoring witch hunt to get re-elected is so beyond appalling. I hope Mike Nifong has a locker one day in hell next to Ken Lay of Enron infamy.
**
I have two confirmed yesses on the Thursday afternoon dive on Bruce Bateman's boat. Let me know y'all.
I'm pretty happy with my current position here, even the salary, but I want to be prepared for nuclear economic meltdown. In theory in the states a person can get a teacher license alternate route, but that is very hard to do and leaves few real job options. Getting a teacher's license has been a long process that led me through three Praxis tests and an MA in Education, as well as four years teaching here, plus two in Korea. Cynthia's green card is moving along, which is the third and now final leg of my bureaucratic three headed monster of adoption, teacher's license and spousal immigration.
***
I wrote a piece for the new version of In Transit that will be performed in the Fall, and may be my acting debut if I can pull that off. It will be a series of monologues on life intertwining. Mine is about life not turning out as you planned. I've had one friend love the piece, my dad not as strong an endorsement, but I think it is pretty good. I'll have to see what Galvin and Barbara have to say.
I wrote another piece based on my Guam Airport blog that I want to get published in a large publication like Rolling Stone or the Village Voice. That piece was also in the Variety. I think it is about time I did that. My father thinks if I toned it down a bit it would actually be suitable for the Wall Street Journal. Perhaps the best part of blogging, and I thank other Saipan bloggers for jump starting this in me, is that it has got me writing a lot now, a skill I had actually left long dormant despite my semi-frequent rants in the local papers over the past few years. My $40,000 newspaper journalism school education is getting some exercise at last.
***
I loved the dichotomy in Friday's Variety. On one hand there is a request for $155 million from Congress, which "isn't a handout" and then a typical racist rant from Danny Aquino in both papers. Danny wants the CNMI to secede from the Union because workers are getting a little bit of a break at last via minimum wage and immigration. He is also upset the CNMI is not represented in Congress, which I actually agree with him about. Of course, the vast majority of people aren't represented here in reality, so I don't know how much it matters. I blasted Aquino on his white bashing a while ago, which led to the Eric Atalig dustup, which several people told me Danny actually wrote and submitted under Eric's name. Eric got blasted by many people. My kid was in Danny's Day Care center, Little Darlings. Frankly, if I knew in the beginning it was his place, he wouldn't be in there, but I didn't want to disturb my son over his ravings. My kid won't be returning since a racist whose public opinions are insulting to his Filipino workers has an influence on the morale of people with the extremely challenging job of guiding small children, which is completely unacceptable. There is a close battle between Danny and garment mouthpiece Richard Pierce on who is the most vile person on this island. Flip a coin on that one.
***
A bill was introduced to revise CNMI immigration. As they did on the minimum wage, the government want a "study" done. Did they do a study before they paid millions to Jailbird Jack Abramoff to rig the game?
“That is a significant development,” said press secretary Charles P. Reyes
Jr. “It's troublesome because we've repeatedly asked that a study be done for
any action is taken. We hoped Congress would consider our economic vulnerability
and give this piece of legislation some thoughtful analysis. Unfortunately, our
calls were not given much credence.”
***
The loser prosecutor who bent over justice in an attempt to get re-elected got disbarred. This is something that restores my faith in America, which seldom happens under the rule of George W. Bush. Actually the court did the right thing and said we still have to follow the Constitution and actually charge and try Americans and not just hold them indefinitely in our own Gulag as enemy combatants, so there are two encouraging things. If they executed this prosecutor I don't think it would be unreasonable. For a prosecutor to use state power to ruin people's lives on a fact ignoring witch hunt to get re-elected is so beyond appalling. I hope Mike Nifong has a locker one day in hell next to Ken Lay of Enron infamy.
**
I have two confirmed yesses on the Thursday afternoon dive on Bruce Bateman's boat. Let me know y'all.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
What if they had a funeral and no one cried?
When someone dies, and people still can't bring themselves to speak well of them, you know they were pretty awful. The most classic example was H.L. Mencken's eulogy, To Expose a Fool, of William Jennings Bryan, who died shortly after the Scopes Trial ended. Mencken's acid pen uttered:
Well, Jerry Falwell passed last week and he engendered a similar lack of good will. I didn't burst into applause or anything on this news, but I was not the least bit bothered and didn't feel any skinner box, society inflicted, knee jerk remorse at the passing of this divisive blowhard. The most extensive denunciation of Falwell was by the Butcher of Broadway himself, Frank Rich, who penned a piece called The Reverend Falwell's Heavenly Timing in the Sunday Times. Bill Maher offered a funnier homage on his show Friday night in a New Rule called "Death isn't always sad."
"Bryan lived too long, and descended too deeply into the mud, to be taken seriously hereafter by fully literate men, even of the kind who write school-books. There was a scattering of sweet words in his funeral notices, but it was not more than a response to conventional sentimentality. The best verdict the most romantic editorial writer could dredge up, save in the eloquent South, wasn't the general effect that his imbecilities were excused by his earnestness--that under his clowning, as under that of the juggler of Notre Dame, there was the zeal of a steadfast soul. But this was apology, not praise.
This talk of sincerity, I confess, fatigues me. If the fellow was sincere, then so was P.T. Barnum. The word is disgraced and degraded by such uses. He was, in fact, a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany without any shame or dignity. What animated him from end to end of his grotesque career was simply ambition--the ambition of a common man to get his hand upon the collar of his superiors, or, failing that, to get his thumb into their eyes. He was born with a roaring voice, and it had the trick of inflaming half-wits against their betters, that he himself might shine. His last battle will be grossly misunderstood if it is thought of as a mere exercise in fanaticism--that is, if Bryan the Fundamentalist Pope is mistaken for one of the bucolic Fundamentalists. There was much more in it than that, as everyone knows who saw him on the field. What moved him, at bottom, was simply hatred of city men who had laughed at him so long, and brought him at last to so tatterdemalion an estate. He lusted for revenge upon them. He yearned to lead the anthropoid rabble against them, to set Homo neandertalensis upon them, to punish them for the execution they had done upon him by attacking the very vitals of their civilization. He went far beyond the bounds of any merely religious frenzy, however inordinate. When he began denouncing the notion that man is a mammal even some of the hinds at Dayton were agape. And when, brought upon Darrow’s cruel hook, he writhed and tossed in a very fury of malignancy, bawling against the baldest elements of sense and decency like a man frantic--when he came to the tragic climax there were snickers among the hinds as well as hosannas. "
Well, Jerry Falwell passed last week and he engendered a similar lack of good will. I didn't burst into applause or anything on this news, but I was not the least bit bothered and didn't feel any skinner box, society inflicted, knee jerk remorse at the passing of this divisive blowhard. The most extensive denunciation of Falwell was by the Butcher of Broadway himself, Frank Rich, who penned a piece called The Reverend Falwell's Heavenly Timing in the Sunday Times. Bill Maher offered a funnier homage on his show Friday night in a New Rule called "Death isn't always sad."
“Millions of Americans (upon hearing the news) asked, why, why God, why
couldn't you take Pat Robertson with him? Now I know you’re not supposed to
speak ill of the dead, but I think we can make an exception, because speaking
ill of the dead was kind of Jerry Falwell’s hobby. He was the guy who said aids
was God's punishment for homosexuality and 9/11 was brought on by gays,
feminists, pagans and the ACLU, or as I like to call them, my studio
audience. ”
Zing, bop!
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Religious extremists aren't worth American lives
Editor's note: This post is occasionally profane.
In living and traveling overseas I've gotten to know a lot of military guys. I happen to like them for their general aversion to BS, and the fact that they've been places and done things. They also tend to have something to say, which is a plus in a world full of too many boring people. One thing that is common is that they all tend to be anti-Democrat, which I can understand in some ways as Democrats tend to be pussies, but at the same time Republicans tend to send them places to make massive sacrifices unworthy of the national interest, such as Iraq now. Yet soldiers tend to be the one and only demographic, other than Bush himself, who still want America in Iraq.
I'm a liberal, but not an easily offended, watch what you say liberal, more of a stop shoveling religion and corporate bullshit at me anti-Republican liberal. I'm very sympathetic to the poor, but I believe in personal responsibility and that merit should be rewarded. If categorized, I'm really kind of a Green, progressive with a libertarian streak.
When this whole Iraq thing started, I thought the goal was to remove Hussein and get out, and I thought that part wouldn't be too hard, which it wasn't. I agreed with that idea. I never bought the nonsense about WMD's, and I wasn't stupid enough to confuse Iraq with 9/11, which Republicans were successful in doing.
Long ago I had it with Iraq, and I wish this albatross around America's neck would end. A war should have everyone sacrificing something. No non-military families are contributing to this thing. If there is any winner in this war it is Exxon and Haliburton. The sacrifice is disproportionately on the troops' shoulders. Already the Republicans are doing a good job at the spin game in calling for a "surrender date" regarding the Democrats feeble attempt to set a date to start removing troops as a condition for war funding. Democrats never do enough fighting back. Just once I'd like one of them to say, "How could we be surrendering if it was "Mission Accomplished" three years ago, jackass." Democrats are still merely the much lesser of two evils, with Bush and his ilk wearing horns and torturing souls -- and "enemy combatants."
From day one I loathed Bush with every fiber in my being. He was always a connected, mediocre, frat boy being overly rewarded because he was stupid enough to be easily controlled by monied interests. I'm offended by his lack of intellectual curiousity. I have been only slightly comforted that the world now gets that he is worthless. It should have been crystal during the last election, yet he won. I stood in amazement for the first couple years when people supported this idiot, who probably never even got legitimately elected. I am astonished that issue was swept under the rug as easily as it was. The fact that the Supreme Court installed this guy into office is a national disgrace. That decision damages America's prestige more than an Iraqi pullout would.
But all those things happend, and we're in Iraq and the debate is out there on how to solve this problem in "politically acceptable" way. All problems in Washington are political problems. To appeal to the bellicose instincts of Americans, and to the general American antipathy to ingrates, I feel the Democratic response should be something along the lines of "Screw Iraq, they're not worth American lives, and it's not the troops' fault." Bill Maher, just about the person I most admire on the planet right now, says as much on his great show Real Time on Friday nights. This is one smart and funny show -- much edgier than Jon Stewart, who I also like. I think that would be about all they would need to say for a palatable withdrawal. Some are going to talk about "America's prestige" or their "credibility" and other nonsense, but did the loss in Vietnam really matter looking back now? Did we not have the roaring 80s, win the Cold War, the Internet boom and four Yankee world series wins in five years even with the pull out in Vietnam? Is there anyone who watched Iraq and Afghanistan fall in a week and think the American military is overrated? Cmon. Nation building we're not so good, but we have the nation destroying thing down pretty well.
When I think about all the sacrifices soldiers are asked to make, the goal has to be very worthwhile. The goal in Iraq shifts regularly. For any war, there should be a clear threat to the homeland or an attack against you, such as Pearl Harbor. I think what the Taliban did qualifies. I don't think I'd want myself, my friends or my kids involved in most all American wars in history other than the Revolution, the Civil War, WWII and Afghanistan now. I'm not sure there was a war we fought otherwise that was worth casualties on the battlefield. Certainly none that involved a direct threat to the United States.
All the other stuff, I would have probably thought, you people weren't worth me dying over. Why would a soldier support the idea, for instance, that they should go to Vietnam to stop people you don't know, poor peasant farmers, who are no threat to you, from being Communist? I know they went with the whole cold war, Russia could be a threat leap, but it seems like a big leap for a lot of people to die in Vietnam. Vietnam went communist and it didn't matter. If we leave Iraq, one of the slightly different views on Allah will win out, and our not having stayed there to take all the errant bombs won't matter.
I'm hardly a pacifist. I just can't imagine wanting to see any fellow American stay without end in the middle of that hole in Iraq and possibly die because those idiots have a different view on Allah. Iraq isn't a threat now or ever, and I'm at the point where I don't care much if they all just kill each other, though I hate to see kids over there suffer from all that religious intolerance. I'm sick of suicide bombers killing innocent people to support a theocracy. I think most of those people want a theocracy, which is what all the middle east is for a long time.
So, that is my take. I've had it with those people. Why are we wasting our men, money and focus on some place that is no threat to us in a place with a tradition of religious hatred and theocratic government. How many people have to die in the future because 3,300 died in the past?
In living and traveling overseas I've gotten to know a lot of military guys. I happen to like them for their general aversion to BS, and the fact that they've been places and done things. They also tend to have something to say, which is a plus in a world full of too many boring people. One thing that is common is that they all tend to be anti-Democrat, which I can understand in some ways as Democrats tend to be pussies, but at the same time Republicans tend to send them places to make massive sacrifices unworthy of the national interest, such as Iraq now. Yet soldiers tend to be the one and only demographic, other than Bush himself, who still want America in Iraq.
I'm a liberal, but not an easily offended, watch what you say liberal, more of a stop shoveling religion and corporate bullshit at me anti-Republican liberal. I'm very sympathetic to the poor, but I believe in personal responsibility and that merit should be rewarded. If categorized, I'm really kind of a Green, progressive with a libertarian streak.
When this whole Iraq thing started, I thought the goal was to remove Hussein and get out, and I thought that part wouldn't be too hard, which it wasn't. I agreed with that idea. I never bought the nonsense about WMD's, and I wasn't stupid enough to confuse Iraq with 9/11, which Republicans were successful in doing.
Long ago I had it with Iraq, and I wish this albatross around America's neck would end. A war should have everyone sacrificing something. No non-military families are contributing to this thing. If there is any winner in this war it is Exxon and Haliburton. The sacrifice is disproportionately on the troops' shoulders. Already the Republicans are doing a good job at the spin game in calling for a "surrender date" regarding the Democrats feeble attempt to set a date to start removing troops as a condition for war funding. Democrats never do enough fighting back. Just once I'd like one of them to say, "How could we be surrendering if it was "Mission Accomplished" three years ago, jackass." Democrats are still merely the much lesser of two evils, with Bush and his ilk wearing horns and torturing souls -- and "enemy combatants."
From day one I loathed Bush with every fiber in my being. He was always a connected, mediocre, frat boy being overly rewarded because he was stupid enough to be easily controlled by monied interests. I'm offended by his lack of intellectual curiousity. I have been only slightly comforted that the world now gets that he is worthless. It should have been crystal during the last election, yet he won. I stood in amazement for the first couple years when people supported this idiot, who probably never even got legitimately elected. I am astonished that issue was swept under the rug as easily as it was. The fact that the Supreme Court installed this guy into office is a national disgrace. That decision damages America's prestige more than an Iraqi pullout would.
But all those things happend, and we're in Iraq and the debate is out there on how to solve this problem in "politically acceptable" way. All problems in Washington are political problems. To appeal to the bellicose instincts of Americans, and to the general American antipathy to ingrates, I feel the Democratic response should be something along the lines of "Screw Iraq, they're not worth American lives, and it's not the troops' fault." Bill Maher, just about the person I most admire on the planet right now, says as much on his great show Real Time on Friday nights. This is one smart and funny show -- much edgier than Jon Stewart, who I also like. I think that would be about all they would need to say for a palatable withdrawal. Some are going to talk about "America's prestige" or their "credibility" and other nonsense, but did the loss in Vietnam really matter looking back now? Did we not have the roaring 80s, win the Cold War, the Internet boom and four Yankee world series wins in five years even with the pull out in Vietnam? Is there anyone who watched Iraq and Afghanistan fall in a week and think the American military is overrated? Cmon. Nation building we're not so good, but we have the nation destroying thing down pretty well.
When I think about all the sacrifices soldiers are asked to make, the goal has to be very worthwhile. The goal in Iraq shifts regularly. For any war, there should be a clear threat to the homeland or an attack against you, such as Pearl Harbor. I think what the Taliban did qualifies. I don't think I'd want myself, my friends or my kids involved in most all American wars in history other than the Revolution, the Civil War, WWII and Afghanistan now. I'm not sure there was a war we fought otherwise that was worth casualties on the battlefield. Certainly none that involved a direct threat to the United States.
All the other stuff, I would have probably thought, you people weren't worth me dying over. Why would a soldier support the idea, for instance, that they should go to Vietnam to stop people you don't know, poor peasant farmers, who are no threat to you, from being Communist? I know they went with the whole cold war, Russia could be a threat leap, but it seems like a big leap for a lot of people to die in Vietnam. Vietnam went communist and it didn't matter. If we leave Iraq, one of the slightly different views on Allah will win out, and our not having stayed there to take all the errant bombs won't matter.
I'm hardly a pacifist. I just can't imagine wanting to see any fellow American stay without end in the middle of that hole in Iraq and possibly die because those idiots have a different view on Allah. Iraq isn't a threat now or ever, and I'm at the point where I don't care much if they all just kill each other, though I hate to see kids over there suffer from all that religious intolerance. I'm sick of suicide bombers killing innocent people to support a theocracy. I think most of those people want a theocracy, which is what all the middle east is for a long time.
So, that is my take. I've had it with those people. Why are we wasting our men, money and focus on some place that is no threat to us in a place with a tradition of religious hatred and theocratic government. How many people have to die in the future because 3,300 died in the past?
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
A disgrace to the word "educator"
If there is one thing I hope my students leave my class with, it is the ability to question everything and have a richly enhanced BS detector. I encourage them to think for themselves, question authority (including me) and speak out. In fact, this aspect is laid out clearly in my highly detailed class syllabus under goals. I would hope everyone in the education field does the same. They don't.
I was furious today reading about an incident that happened "outside" an Alaska high school, and is now an important First Amendment case in the hands of the Supreme Court. There was a time with Earl Warren and William O. Douglas where free speech would be protected, but I have zero faith in the cabal that installed Bush into power and are likely to F*** Up this case as well.
A student named Joseph Frederick was suspended by his principal, doing her best Stalin impersonation, because he held a banner that said "Bong Hits for Jesus" to get on tv as the Olympic Torch passed by. This led to a ten day suspension for the student.
To quote from the Washington Post story:
"The most important student free-speech conflict to reach the Supreme Court since the height of the Vietnam War hinges on a somewhat absurd, vaguely offensive, mostly nonsensical message of protest. Bong Hits 4 Jesus. That’s the slogan that a defiant high school student named Joseph Frederick fashioned with a 14-foot piece of paper and a $3 roll of duct tape. His goal was partly to get on TV as the Olympic torch passed through his town of Juneau, Alaska, and mostly to get under the skin of his disciplinarian principal, Deborah Morse, with whom he had a running feud. It worked, at least the irritating-the-principal part. Morse crossed Glacier Avenue to Frederick's position across from the school and confiscated the banner. She later suspended him for 10 days. Frederick, a high school rebel who at the time was fond of quoting Thoreau and Voltaire, said Morse tacked on the last five days when he paraphrased Thomas Jefferson's admonition that speech limited is speech lost."
There is a saying that you should judge yourself by your enemies. By this standard, young Mr. Frederick is a raging success, as both the Bush administration and get this, Mr. Law and Order for Cigars, one of the world's great witch hunt organizers, Ken Starr, is representing the draconian principal pro bono.
"Morse's brief, written by Starr and a team of pro bono lawyers at the firm of Kirkland and Ellis, said ratification of Frederick's victory in the appellate court would make all the more daunting "the vital task of teachers, administrators and volunteer school board members in attending holistically to the needs of millions of students entrusted every school day to their charge."
Hello, the goal of a teacher is encouraging students to speak their mind and question authority. Please leave me out of your brief Mr. Starr and the rest of your platoon.
"Frederick was one of them, five years ago, though he was not a particularly happy student at Juneau-Douglas High School. One day, he refused a vice principal's order to leave a student commons area where he was reading Albert Camus, and the police were called. The next day, he remained in his seat while others stood for the Pledge of Allegiance and was sent to the principal's office. He described it all in a mini-treatise -- "This is a story of a high school senior who refused to bow down in submission before an authority . . . ." -- he posted on the Internet."
Congratulations Mr. Frederick. I'd practically donate my left nut to science fiction (Steven Wright paraphrase) to have a student like you just once. At the same time, I hope the principal gets her tongue endlessly stuck to some frozen pole in Alaska, ala Christmas Story, for her attempt to neuter a raging educational success story -- the kind if we had more of the U.S. would do better than ranking 24th of 38 in mathematics, 9th of 38 in science, 7th of 38 in reading, and 20th of 38 in problem solving.
I was furious today reading about an incident that happened "outside" an Alaska high school, and is now an important First Amendment case in the hands of the Supreme Court. There was a time with Earl Warren and William O. Douglas where free speech would be protected, but I have zero faith in the cabal that installed Bush into power and are likely to F*** Up this case as well.
A student named Joseph Frederick was suspended by his principal, doing her best Stalin impersonation, because he held a banner that said "Bong Hits for Jesus" to get on tv as the Olympic Torch passed by. This led to a ten day suspension for the student.
To quote from the Washington Post story:
"The most important student free-speech conflict to reach the Supreme Court since the height of the Vietnam War hinges on a somewhat absurd, vaguely offensive, mostly nonsensical message of protest. Bong Hits 4 Jesus. That’s the slogan that a defiant high school student named Joseph Frederick fashioned with a 14-foot piece of paper and a $3 roll of duct tape. His goal was partly to get on TV as the Olympic torch passed through his town of Juneau, Alaska, and mostly to get under the skin of his disciplinarian principal, Deborah Morse, with whom he had a running feud. It worked, at least the irritating-the-principal part. Morse crossed Glacier Avenue to Frederick's position across from the school and confiscated the banner. She later suspended him for 10 days. Frederick, a high school rebel who at the time was fond of quoting Thoreau and Voltaire, said Morse tacked on the last five days when he paraphrased Thomas Jefferson's admonition that speech limited is speech lost."
There is a saying that you should judge yourself by your enemies. By this standard, young Mr. Frederick is a raging success, as both the Bush administration and get this, Mr. Law and Order for Cigars, one of the world's great witch hunt organizers, Ken Starr, is representing the draconian principal pro bono.
"Morse's brief, written by Starr and a team of pro bono lawyers at the firm of Kirkland and Ellis, said ratification of Frederick's victory in the appellate court would make all the more daunting "the vital task of teachers, administrators and volunteer school board members in attending holistically to the needs of millions of students entrusted every school day to their charge."
Hello, the goal of a teacher is encouraging students to speak their mind and question authority. Please leave me out of your brief Mr. Starr and the rest of your platoon.
"Frederick was one of them, five years ago, though he was not a particularly happy student at Juneau-Douglas High School. One day, he refused a vice principal's order to leave a student commons area where he was reading Albert Camus, and the police were called. The next day, he remained in his seat while others stood for the Pledge of Allegiance and was sent to the principal's office. He described it all in a mini-treatise -- "This is a story of a high school senior who refused to bow down in submission before an authority . . . ." -- he posted on the Internet."
Congratulations Mr. Frederick. I'd practically donate my left nut to science fiction (Steven Wright paraphrase) to have a student like you just once. At the same time, I hope the principal gets her tongue endlessly stuck to some frozen pole in Alaska, ala Christmas Story, for her attempt to neuter a raging educational success story -- the kind if we had more of the U.S. would do better than ranking 24th of 38 in mathematics, 9th of 38 in science, 7th of 38 in reading, and 20th of 38 in problem solving.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
The island biopoly (new word I think)
I don’t know if anyone really noticed this, but during this latest round of gas price increases, there were some strange happenings. Mobil first went up 10 cents: $3.06 to $3.16. This isn’t the weird part. Normally, if Mobil goes up, Shell follows and vice versa. There is almost never a price difference at all, which is, of course, fishy. I expected to see Shell's price go up the next day, but they didn’t budge, and they didn't budge the next day, either -- to my great surprise. So, Mobil goes back down 10 cents from 3.16 back to 3.06 matching Shell. The next day (three days after the initial Mobil hike), Shell goes up eight cents to 3.14, and Mobil does the same: $3.06 to $3.14. This is where we are now on the price.
I have a friend who used to work here in antitrust and I discussed this issue once, and apparently our upstanding service station proprietors are allowed to look at the prices of their competitors, but as long as there is no collusion, the fact that the two and only two gas stations almost never have any price difference at all is perfectly ok.
You just have to love big oil. They get tax breaks from the savage Washington Republicans. They use the American military as their own personal commando unit (nice to have a big oil CEO as vice president). They kill the electric car – a great documentary by the same name, and create enough confusion on the issue of destroying the Earth so some idiots aren't sure if it is really happening. Correct that. Big oil is really just destroying human ability to live on the Earth. After the Earth purges humans, it will recover for a couple million years like some wino a day after an epic Bacardi 151 bender, and the process of human evolution can start again. I have to cut this post short as there might be something new and important on Britney's hair or Anna Nicole Smith's corpse in the news.
I have a friend who used to work here in antitrust and I discussed this issue once, and apparently our upstanding service station proprietors are allowed to look at the prices of their competitors, but as long as there is no collusion, the fact that the two and only two gas stations almost never have any price difference at all is perfectly ok.
You just have to love big oil. They get tax breaks from the savage Washington Republicans. They use the American military as their own personal commando unit (nice to have a big oil CEO as vice president). They kill the electric car – a great documentary by the same name, and create enough confusion on the issue of destroying the Earth so some idiots aren't sure if it is really happening. Correct that. Big oil is really just destroying human ability to live on the Earth. After the Earth purges humans, it will recover for a couple million years like some wino a day after an epic Bacardi 151 bender, and the process of human evolution can start again. I have to cut this post short as there might be something new and important on Britney's hair or Anna Nicole Smith's corpse in the news.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
There are still people with George Bush
In my normal day to day conversations with people in bars, cafes, work, etc., I'm finding, to my great surprise, that there are some people still "with" George Bush. I've had at least three of these conversations in the last two weeks. More surprising is that these are not people I would dismiss as idiots. They are all quite bright, which makes it more disturbing. I thought those that make up the yeas in the mere 29 percent approval rating for our illustrious leader were all residing in Utah and the deep South. They're not.
I could sort of understand years ago, back before there was this enormous record of such staggering failure, giving the guy the benefit of the doubt. It was clear to me from day one he was a frat boy, lacking in intellectual curiosity, the privileged son of power being elevated to unconscionable power to service the interests of power. Reagan played that role well, the kind grandfather, the pitchman with the soft touch, but he had far less evil people surrounding him, and he was far less corrupt than this bunch. He ran against a smart and experienced, but wooden and cautious man in Gore, got fewer votes, but was installed into power by the Supreme Court. The Democrats ran another smart, yet wooden and uber-cautious candidate in Kerry, and Bush squeaked by and might have had more votes this time. The nightmare continues, there is a clear record of failure now, and still there are people "with" George W. Bush.
Think about this for one second: After the ongoing Iraq fiasco including Abu Gharib, the misdirection of focus on Iraq from Afghanistan that let Bin Laden escape in Tora Bora, the lies about nuclear weapons, the Haliburton profiteering, the Abramoff scandal, the thinning of military resources to deal with real global threats, the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina, the blowing off of the Kyoto Protocol and general head in the sand on Global Warming, the Patriot Act and all the related eroding of civil liberties from arrests and jail time without charges, trials or access to lawyers, the use of torture and shipping people off to countries that torture through "extraordinary rendition," the spying on email, postal mail and listening to phone calls sans warrants, continuing to read "My Pet Goat" after the country was attacked, the intrusion of the religious right on all kinds of personal issues such as abortion, prescription medicines and the right to die, the general gay bashing and the now $9 trillion deficit as a product of war, tax cuts for the rich and uncontrolled giveaways to corporate interests, there are still people who support this man. This fact is flabbergasting to me. What else does this guy, and these people have to F*** Up in order to acknowledge the obvious? The mind boggles that anyone can think the country is going in the right direction or that democracy and traditional principles that make America unique aren't under direct assault because of these shameful people.
How can anyone sit by and watch lobbyists for the pharmaceutical companies write the prescription drug laws, the banking industry/credit card companies re-write the bankruptcy laws, the oil industry get massive tax breaks and get sickeningly rich from this war, and still be a Republican? Far, far, far more money is transferred to the sickeningly rich corporate influential than any welfare mother could ever dream of, yet the welfare mother is the demon and the corporate CEO is the paradigm. People still hold to this long ago fiction that Republicans are "fiscally conservative." Newt and the boys found out thirteen years ago that the Religious Right was a better demographic to pander to, and a combination of irresponsible tax cuts and endless borrowing the way to go.
For some people, loyalty to one's party is similar to loyalty to one's favorite sport's team. They are with them thick and thin, and I find this to be more common amongst Republicans than Democrats. A quick read of The New Republic versus the National Review would demonstrate this point. It is no surprise to me that the Religious Right is so steadfastly Republican, as the very nature of "faith" is to believe and accept without evidence, to suspend critical thinking and obey authority -- a staple of being a modern Republican. Intellectually, I think that is a horrendous way to live, but electorally it has served them well. That whole flip flop thing gets trotted out every time against every Democrat, and it must have traction, or they wouldn't be doing it. The talking points and the ads actually make it out to sound like changing your mind is bad. If I followed that mindset, I'd still believe in Santa Clause, think a 64 ounce "Big Gulp" soda and Twinkies a perfect lunch, the Dukes of Hazzard to be quality entertainment and find McDonalds to be preferable to a place that serves actual food.
I also continue to hear that word "liberal" thrown around like an epithet by otherwise sensible people, and I really stand in awe of the powers of propaganda. They've really attached the negative assocations and stigmatized it, and they hurl it like a weapon. As if being open minded, being concerned with the poor, generally wanting change (liberal means progressive, wanting change, while conservative means averse to change) and power to be shared amongst a larger group is so bad, something to fear.
None of this is to indicate Democrats are great or their leadership skills so profound. I'm more of a Democrat out of the sheer evil of this current crop of Republicans and the necessary practical response. I can stomach the John McCains of the world, especially the version that ran against Bush, not this current strain. Reagan wasn't nearly as harmful as this current group, and mostly was beneficial. Practically speaking I'm much more inclined to the Green Party or Libertarianism, which is way over most people's head, sadly. The lack of practical choice politically is disturbing.
George Carlin makes this point well:
"Oh, and freedom of choice, this is the big one, the illusion of choice, we're led to feel free by the exercise of meaningless choices. There are, for instance, important things — not too many choices, unimportant things-ice cream flavors, what do you want, we've got 31, the flavor of the week, the flavor of the month, but political parties-we're down to two, jeez. Sources of information, media companies down to five, banks, insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, chemical companies, oil companies-used to be seven, down to three, pretty soon it's gonna be two. But if you’re lookin' for a bagel or a fuckin' donut, hey, what do you want-pineapple supreme, hazelnut; we've got everything you want. Cereals, I counted, personally in the store counted 192 different cereal choices, 192. 140 different cat foods, I counted, and that includes a tartar-control cat food for senior citizen cats, okay?"
Matt Taibbi did a great job explaining exactly how and why democracy is broken in this piece: "The Worst Congress Ever." After reading that report, you'd have to get on your knees and thank the heavens that these guys got neutered in November, and there are now more civilized people in control. Of course, the new budget is out, not that anyone would know it with Britney's implosion and Anna Nicole Smith death circus, and all kinds of nonsense about an irrelevant pissing match between David Geffen and Hillary Clinton. Taibbi does a great job indicting the media on their wildly off base fixations in this one as well. The traditional media across the board are a huge disappointment.
I am at a point where I would be infinitely happier to be a European and embrace those values (a heightened appreciation for food, art, travel, the ability for most anyone to see a doctor, less derision for the educated) than the American ethos of a bigger house(massive mortgage debt), a bigger car (Hummer anyone) and a bigger stomach (supersize me).
I could sort of understand years ago, back before there was this enormous record of such staggering failure, giving the guy the benefit of the doubt. It was clear to me from day one he was a frat boy, lacking in intellectual curiosity, the privileged son of power being elevated to unconscionable power to service the interests of power. Reagan played that role well, the kind grandfather, the pitchman with the soft touch, but he had far less evil people surrounding him, and he was far less corrupt than this bunch. He ran against a smart and experienced, but wooden and cautious man in Gore, got fewer votes, but was installed into power by the Supreme Court. The Democrats ran another smart, yet wooden and uber-cautious candidate in Kerry, and Bush squeaked by and might have had more votes this time. The nightmare continues, there is a clear record of failure now, and still there are people "with" George W. Bush.
Think about this for one second: After the ongoing Iraq fiasco including Abu Gharib, the misdirection of focus on Iraq from Afghanistan that let Bin Laden escape in Tora Bora, the lies about nuclear weapons, the Haliburton profiteering, the Abramoff scandal, the thinning of military resources to deal with real global threats, the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina, the blowing off of the Kyoto Protocol and general head in the sand on Global Warming, the Patriot Act and all the related eroding of civil liberties from arrests and jail time without charges, trials or access to lawyers, the use of torture and shipping people off to countries that torture through "extraordinary rendition," the spying on email, postal mail and listening to phone calls sans warrants, continuing to read "My Pet Goat" after the country was attacked, the intrusion of the religious right on all kinds of personal issues such as abortion, prescription medicines and the right to die, the general gay bashing and the now $9 trillion deficit as a product of war, tax cuts for the rich and uncontrolled giveaways to corporate interests, there are still people who support this man. This fact is flabbergasting to me. What else does this guy, and these people have to F*** Up in order to acknowledge the obvious? The mind boggles that anyone can think the country is going in the right direction or that democracy and traditional principles that make America unique aren't under direct assault because of these shameful people.
How can anyone sit by and watch lobbyists for the pharmaceutical companies write the prescription drug laws, the banking industry/credit card companies re-write the bankruptcy laws, the oil industry get massive tax breaks and get sickeningly rich from this war, and still be a Republican? Far, far, far more money is transferred to the sickeningly rich corporate influential than any welfare mother could ever dream of, yet the welfare mother is the demon and the corporate CEO is the paradigm. People still hold to this long ago fiction that Republicans are "fiscally conservative." Newt and the boys found out thirteen years ago that the Religious Right was a better demographic to pander to, and a combination of irresponsible tax cuts and endless borrowing the way to go.
For some people, loyalty to one's party is similar to loyalty to one's favorite sport's team. They are with them thick and thin, and I find this to be more common amongst Republicans than Democrats. A quick read of The New Republic versus the National Review would demonstrate this point. It is no surprise to me that the Religious Right is so steadfastly Republican, as the very nature of "faith" is to believe and accept without evidence, to suspend critical thinking and obey authority -- a staple of being a modern Republican. Intellectually, I think that is a horrendous way to live, but electorally it has served them well. That whole flip flop thing gets trotted out every time against every Democrat, and it must have traction, or they wouldn't be doing it. The talking points and the ads actually make it out to sound like changing your mind is bad. If I followed that mindset, I'd still believe in Santa Clause, think a 64 ounce "Big Gulp" soda and Twinkies a perfect lunch, the Dukes of Hazzard to be quality entertainment and find McDonalds to be preferable to a place that serves actual food.
I also continue to hear that word "liberal" thrown around like an epithet by otherwise sensible people, and I really stand in awe of the powers of propaganda. They've really attached the negative assocations and stigmatized it, and they hurl it like a weapon. As if being open minded, being concerned with the poor, generally wanting change (liberal means progressive, wanting change, while conservative means averse to change) and power to be shared amongst a larger group is so bad, something to fear.
None of this is to indicate Democrats are great or their leadership skills so profound. I'm more of a Democrat out of the sheer evil of this current crop of Republicans and the necessary practical response. I can stomach the John McCains of the world, especially the version that ran against Bush, not this current strain. Reagan wasn't nearly as harmful as this current group, and mostly was beneficial. Practically speaking I'm much more inclined to the Green Party or Libertarianism, which is way over most people's head, sadly. The lack of practical choice politically is disturbing.
George Carlin makes this point well:
"Oh, and freedom of choice, this is the big one, the illusion of choice, we're led to feel free by the exercise of meaningless choices. There are, for instance, important things — not too many choices, unimportant things-ice cream flavors, what do you want, we've got 31, the flavor of the week, the flavor of the month, but political parties-we're down to two, jeez. Sources of information, media companies down to five, banks, insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, chemical companies, oil companies-used to be seven, down to three, pretty soon it's gonna be two. But if you’re lookin' for a bagel or a fuckin' donut, hey, what do you want-pineapple supreme, hazelnut; we've got everything you want. Cereals, I counted, personally in the store counted 192 different cereal choices, 192. 140 different cat foods, I counted, and that includes a tartar-control cat food for senior citizen cats, okay?"
Matt Taibbi did a great job explaining exactly how and why democracy is broken in this piece: "The Worst Congress Ever." After reading that report, you'd have to get on your knees and thank the heavens that these guys got neutered in November, and there are now more civilized people in control. Of course, the new budget is out, not that anyone would know it with Britney's implosion and Anna Nicole Smith death circus, and all kinds of nonsense about an irrelevant pissing match between David Geffen and Hillary Clinton. Taibbi does a great job indicting the media on their wildly off base fixations in this one as well. The traditional media across the board are a huge disappointment.
I am at a point where I would be infinitely happier to be a European and embrace those values (a heightened appreciation for food, art, travel, the ability for most anyone to see a doctor, less derision for the educated) than the American ethos of a bigger house(massive mortgage debt), a bigger car (Hummer anyone) and a bigger stomach (supersize me).
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
The protesting Chinese garment workers
It is good to see the garment workers demand, and actually get, reasonable treatment here in the CNMI. In viewing these protest events on television, it occurred to me that perhaps some good could actually come from these sloppy CNMI garment factories that could impact the world in a positive way. Perhaps someone from the crowds of Chinese workers demonstrating here will be emboldened to get out there and lead a protest of their own horrifying Chinese government when they go back home.
Numerous media reports cite China as the next great power, the up and comer on the world stage and so on. Intuitively that is real hard to buy into when we read and hear about the countless Chinese citizens borrowing thousands of dollars in unseemly recruitment fees from loan sharks to work for meager wages in the dying Saipan garment factories.
The Chinese government censors the internet and severely limits general freedom of speech. It denies free exercise of religion, imprisons people unjustly and generally has nothing close to a participatory democracy. By contrast, the American and CNMI governments are merely inept, incompetent and whore themselves to the rich, but they are not openly and intentionally evil against their own citizens. If someone from these CNMI protestors learns a thing or two and lights a spark that leads to an uprising against the shameful Chinese government, then something uplifting might come from these crumbling factories.
Numerous media reports cite China as the next great power, the up and comer on the world stage and so on. Intuitively that is real hard to buy into when we read and hear about the countless Chinese citizens borrowing thousands of dollars in unseemly recruitment fees from loan sharks to work for meager wages in the dying Saipan garment factories.
The Chinese government censors the internet and severely limits general freedom of speech. It denies free exercise of religion, imprisons people unjustly and generally has nothing close to a participatory democracy. By contrast, the American and CNMI governments are merely inept, incompetent and whore themselves to the rich, but they are not openly and intentionally evil against their own citizens. If someone from these CNMI protestors learns a thing or two and lights a spark that leads to an uprising against the shameful Chinese government, then something uplifting might come from these crumbling factories.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Spanking the Donkey
Matt Taibbi is about the best political writer to come along in a long while. He is funny, honest and most importantly, devoid of kneepads. No one captures the phoniness and spinelessness of the political media, and the politicians they cover, better than this guy. I've heard the Hunter Thompson comparisons, but I tend to think of Taibbi as more of a modern Mencken type without the snobbery, racism and ethnocentrism. Maybe the scariest part of what I see in these reviews here on Amazon, and society at large, is the fact that people feel obligated to label Taibbi a "liberal" -- as if that were some type of disease to be avoided at all costs. Liberal basically means free thinking, and looking to change things. Who wouldn’t want to think freely and change this sham system of ours? If liberal is so bad, then please stop reading and go buy another new Ipod, watch more TV, eat more McDonalds and go practice your cheerleading stunts before your brain accidentally shifts into second gear.
It is also amazing to me that so few people are unable to see through the charade of the media and the political process. Taibbi is part of the literate minority that seems to wonder, and try to understand, why so many people are so easily duped into ideological agreement, and vehement support of, a system that mostly serves a connected, corporate elite that rapes the average person’s pocket and exploits their patriotism. He shows how the media, far from being an honest broker, lets this happen in the cases of the shamefully dishonest reporting on the pre-Iraq invasion protests and the candidacy, and utter dismissal of, a sensible, serious guy like Dennis Kucinich. Taibbi's book cuts through all that nonsense, and even tries to understand the uncritical, sycophantic majority that make up my estranged fellow Americans. As long as these shifty candidates continue to get elected by offering enough platitudes on God, guns and gays, expect more of this Bush style parade and rule of the mediocre. I would urge the educated, bewildered, free-thinking minority to take a few hours of refuge in a book like Spanking the Donkey
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