No, Thanks . . .

They say that love is blind. Commerce is apparently not seeing with much acuity, either . . .

Rockin in the Free World

After seeing "Fahrenheit 9-11", I wrote about how Neil Young's amazingly prescient "Rockin' in the Free World" at the close of Fahrenheit 9-11 was, for me, the most powerful part of the movie. Today, via the so-much-more-than-a-fan-blog Thrasher's Wheat, I saw the new video of "Rockin in the Free World", with footage from Fahrenheit 9-11, as well as concert footage.

Great stuff. Neil Young mainlines adrenaline and passion, while provoking thought. The only problem with the video is that it deletes some crucial language - the most important, in my mind, to the problem of living in a post 9-11 world:

But there's a warnin' sign on the road ahead
There's a lot of people sayin' we'd be better off dead
Don't feel like Satan, but I am to them
So I try to forget it, any way I can.

Bush Robs the Future to Pay Wall Street Today

When you're in a hole, stop digging. Pretty basic advice, but somehow the Republicans missed out on it. Bush has taken our nation from record surpluses into staggering deficits, and today's newspaper reveals that he is going to borrow trillions of dollars to finance his plan to make Wall Street brokers even filthier rich.

Amazingly, all of this money that Bush plans to borrow will not even solve the fundamental problems with the Social Security program. In 2018, benefits paid under the plan will still exceed revenues paid in, and the trust fund will still run dry in 2042.

This economic boondoggle comes from the same president who promised to cut the deficit in half while making permanent his tax giveaway to the Country Club Republicans.

I don't know how to be polite about this. I feel compelled to point out that if you voted for Bush, you made possible this massive theft from future generations, and hastened the economic decline of a great nation. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Sharon Olds

I had never heard of Sharon Olds before I received an email from Knopf Poetry earlier this week, with the following two poems listed.

Topography
(from THE GOLD CELL, 1987)

After we flew across the country we
got in bed, laid our bodies
intricately together, like maps laid
face to face, East to West, my
San Francisco against your New York, your
Fire Island against my Sonoma, my
New Orleans deep in your Texas, your Idaho
bright on my Great Lakes, my Kansas
burning against your Kansas your Kansas
burning against my Kansas, your Eastern
Standard Time pressing into my
Pacific Time, my Mountain Time
beating against your Central Time, your
sun rising swiftly from the right my
sun rising swiftly from the left your
moon rising slowly from the left my
moon rising slowly from the right until
all four bodies of the sky
burn above us, sealing us together,
all our cities twin cities,
all our states united, one
nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.


First Thanksgiving
(from BLOOD, TIN, STRAW, 1999)

When she comes back, from college, I will see
the skin of her upper arms, cool,
matte, glossy. She will hug me, my old
soupy chest against her breasts,
I will smell her hair! She will sleep in this apartment,
her sleep like an untamed, good object, like a
soul in a body. She came into my life the
second great arrival, fresh
from the other world — which lay, from within him,
within me. Those nights, I fed her to sleep,
week after week, the moon rising,
and setting, and waxing — whirling, over the months,
in a steady blur, around our planet.
Now she doesn’t need love like that, she has
had it. She will walk in glowing, we will talk,
and then, when she’s fast asleep, I’ll exult
to have her in that room again,
behind that door! As a child, I caught
bees, by the wings, and held them, some seconds,
looked into their wild faces,
listened to them sing, then tossed them back
into the air — I remember the moment the
arc of my toss swerved, and they entered
the corrected curve of their departure.

***************************************

From STRIKE SPARKS: SELECTED POEMS, 1980-2002 by Sharon Olds © 2004. Excerpted by permission of Alfed A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

***************************************

Related links:

About Sharon Olds:
http://info.randomhouse.com/cgi-bin21/DM/y/hhmJ0GP8Mp0Wa0UFd0A8

Order a copy of STRIKE SPARKS online:
http://info.randomhouse.com/cgi-bin21/DM/y/hhmJ0GP8Mp0Wa0bHy0Aj

Download a FREE broadside of another Olds poem:
http://www.aaknopf.com/poetry/broadsides/unswept.pdf

I hope you think they are as cool as I do.

Gonzo View of the Election

I am rereading Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 for my men's book club. It is a great read - outrageous, drug-saturated political insight set during an election that inspired Watergate and put a criminal in the White House.

I just found Hunter Thompson's article from the Rolling Stone this year, a week before the election. When he wrote it, he obviously saw a Kerry victory coming, but his genius for writing excuses this mad hope for sanity:

Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all. The tide turned early, in Coral Gables, when Bush went belly up less than halfway through his first bout with Kerry, who hammered poor George into jelly. It was pitiful. . . . I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him "Mister President," and then I felt ashamed.

. . .

Every GOP administration since 1952 has let the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the nation into debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency. Richard Nixon comes quickly to mind, along with Ronald Reagan and his ridiculous "trickle-down" theory of U.S. economic policy. If the Rich get Richer, the theory goes, before long their pots will overflow and somehow "trickle down" to the poor, who would rather eat scraps off the Bush family plates than eat nothing at all. Republicans have never approved of democracy, and they never will. It goes back to preindustrial America, when only white male property owners could vote.

Things haven't changed all that much where George W. Bush comes from. Houston is a cruel and crazy town on a filthy river in East Texas with no zoning laws and a culture of sex, money and violence. It's a shabby sprawling metropolis ruled by brazen women, crooked cops and super-rich pansexual cowboys who live by the code of the West -- which can mean just about anything you need it to mean, in a pinch.

. . .

The genetically vicious nature of presidential campaigns in America is too obvious to argue with, but some people call it fun, and I am one of them. Election Day -- especially a presidential election -- is always a wild and terrifying time for politics junkies, and I am one of those, too. We look forward to major election days like sex addicts look forward to orgies. We are slaves to it.

. . .

We still love War.

George Bush certainly does. In four short years he has turned our country from a prosperous nation at peace into a desperately indebted nation at war. But so what? He is the President of the United States, and you're not. Love it or leave it.

. . .

Bush is a natural-born loser with a filthy-rich daddy who pimped his son out to rich oil-mongers. He hates music, football and sex, in no particular order, and he is no fun at all.

. . .

Back in June, when John Kerry was beginning to feel like a winner, I had a quick little rendezvous with him on a rain-soaked runway in Aspen, Colorado, where he was scheduled to meet with a harem of wealthy campaign contributors. As we rode to the event, I told him that Bush's vicious goons in the White House are perfectly capable of assassinating Nader and blaming it on him. His staff laughed, but the Secret Service men didn't. Kerry quickly suggested that I might make a good running mate, and we reminisced about trying to end the Vietnam War in 1972.

That was the year I first met him, at a riot on that elegant little street in front of the White House. He was yelling into a bullhorn and I was trying to throw a dead, bleeding rat over a black-spike fence and onto the president's lawn.

We were angry and righteous in those days, and there were millions of us. We kicked two chief executives out of the White House because they were stupid warmongers. We conquered Lyndon Johnson and we stomped on Richard Nixon -- which wise people said was impossible, but so what? It was fun. We were warriors then, and our tribe was strong like a river.

That river is still running. All we have to do is get out and vote, while it's still legal, and we will wash those crooked warmongers out of the White House.

Sorry we let you down, Hunter.

Blunt Watch

One of the more humiliating aspects of the 11-2 debacle is that Missouri got stuck with Matt Blunt as governor. Blunt is a little like W at the beginning of his career, in that he has no reason to attract anyone's attention other than the fact that he has a politician for a father. Only in a topsy-turvy world could someone this mediocre and inexperienced be elected as governor.

Fortunately, Blunt Watch is stepping up to the plate and keeping an eye on our boy governor's shenanigans.
(URL updated)

Why do They Hate Hillary Clinton so Much?

For some reason, right-wingers has hot flashes when they think of Hillary Clinton. Hitlery, Hilldabeast, and so forth, are examples of the white-hot hatred that she provokes from the right. I don't understand.

She attracts more hate than other liberals, such as Ted Kennedy. She attracts more hate than other women in politics. For some reason, she's just a flash point for the hard right.

I even asked LJ at Look Both Ways why she attracts so much vitriol, and his response was

"Liberals are picking up on this Hillary talk and trying to create an anti-hillary sentiment like the anti-bush crowd was blasted for. It won't work. We are anti-hillary but it's mostly for the reasons listed below.

She is hated mostly because she personifies liberalism. Yes it's her policies. It's her name. It's her stupid smirks and her pride. Her carpetbagger ways and her socialist tendencies. Oh and also her husband. It's the families insistence that they are always right, even when they are wrong. (reminds me of a quote from Scarface,"I always tell the truth, even when I lie.")
Too bad for democrats they elected the wrong clinton to the white house because I don't think this country can take two of them."

In other words, "we hate her because we hate her, but don't say that we hate her."

Sometimes the right wing is simply odd. I think their hatred of Senator Clinton is bizarre and over the top.

"Sideways" - Very Good Movie

Went and saw Sideways at the Tivoli in Westport this weekend. It was humane, funny, mature, literate, funny, wine-soaked, well-acted, and funny.

Two Fun Rants

This rant and this one are unfair and outrageous. But they're also funny as all get-out.

Death's Mistake

Death dispatched his messenger when Cheney went to the hospital. In a communications snafu, the messenger returned with the soul of Ol' Dirty Bastard. While the mistake is totally understandable, Death should have been more clear about his messenger's mission.

Snowbirds Have Returned

I just spotted my first snowbird of the season. Also known as junkos, they are one of Missouri's winter birds. I can't claim to look forward to winter, but these elegant little birds are welcome at my feeder anytime.

Housekeeping

I did a little long-overdue work on the template. I added several of my favorite postings to the "Some of my Favorite Posts" section, and I added several good ones to the "Links" section.

Here's an introduction to the new links:
The Agonist is an up-to-the-minute compilation of news dispatches from all over the world. Indispensable and thought-provoking.
Blog St. Louis has been in the links section for a while, but it was mislabeled as the similarly urled Archpundit, which makes its first appearance today. Both are good sources of news and views from the other side of the state.
I am Always Right is almost always wrong, but it is the blog of a good-natured and often thoughtful Christian conservative.
Kansas City Soil is the work of a passionate debate coach and writer living in Kansas City's Northeast.
Dangerblog is run by Eric, an occasional commentator on this blog. He does a great job with his own site, hitting a great balance of news, views and humor. Great stuff.

If you have suggestions of other links, please let me know.

One Democrat's Feelings Today

A lawyer in St. Louis by the name of Jim Daher posted this to a listserve we both belong to, and I thought it reflected a fair amount of what I'm feeling today:

So I went to bed last night feeling hopeful. Blunt and McCaskill were tied. Kerry was down in the electoral votes, but none of the heavy hitters had weighed in yet. I still had faith in the American people -- surely the majority saw reason and voted accordingly.

I woke up this morning, feeling like the Omega Man. Blunt not only won, but the news was playing a small clip of him saying that this is "a wonderful opportunity to effect real change in tort law." Not only did Blunt win, but the Republicans won the house, both in Missouri and nationally. Bush is going to win Ohio, and that means more ultra-conservative judges on the Supreme Court. Of the 11 states with gay marriage on the ballot, all 11 lost. The only reasonable decision I heard this morning was that California passed stem cell research. The entire country slid into the toilet overnight.

To add to the problems, because Bush ran such a divisive campaign, based on his self-perceived moral superiority and Christ complex, he will be not only unable, but completely unwilling, to heal the massive sociopolitical rift he has caused in the country. Contrary to his statements from the 2000 election that he "is a uniter, not a divider", he is actually the biggest "divider" this country has seen in my lifetime. Based on his behavior over the past 4 years, it's plain that Bush is planning on ignoring the 49.98% of the country that hates his guts and disagrees with everything he stands for, and the country will be even MORE divided over the next 4 years.

I expect the following results from all of this: A woman's right to choose will be a thing of the past. Corporate accountability nationally, and pretty much the entire field of personal injury law in Missouri, will be a thing of the past. The socioeconomic rift in this country will grow much deeper. The US will continue to become more isolated from the rest of the world. Within the next four years, there will be another major terrorist attack within the continential United States, but this time, instead of evoking world sympathy, most of the world will shrug and say, "well, what did they expect, carrying on like that." The Patriot Act II will tighten Big Brother's (Ashcroft's) squeeze on our fast-fading civil liberties. Historically, every democracy on this planet has lasted an average of 200 years. They have each, without exception, been replaced by a dictatorship. Check your watch and notice the Prince who's sitting on the throne.

Meanwhile, the 25 nations of Europe will continue to band together and strengthen their international power. Working as a whole, they have a larger population than the US, and more money than we do. They're a bigger market, and have more sway in international matters. They don't have as much military, but they don't want it or need it. They spend their money on crazy stuff like health care, instead. They will
collectively emerge as the next world superpower, and history will remember this moment as the turning point -- when the US started its backward, xenophobic slide into religious zealotry, unwilling to acknowledge the irony of becoming that which they profess to hate.

My disgust is beyond mere words. If you want a visual of my emotional response to these election outcomes, picture the guy at the end of the original Planet of the Apes, kneeling in the sand on the beach, looking up at the broken Statue of Liberty, screaming "You blew it up! You damned fools! You blew it all up!"

I'm not quite as pessimistic as Jim, but I know how he's feeling . . .

Election Day

At 5:30 in the morning, I was at the offices of Shook Hardy & Bacon, serving as a volunteer lawyer for Election Protection 2004, advising people of either party on their voting rights. It seemed slightly odd to be in the plush conference room of an international tobacco and pharmaceutical defense law firm doing something so populist as helping average people cast their votes, but a lot of the lawyers from Shook do a lot of good works, and it was great of them to donate the facilities.

It was a fascinating way to spend my morning. Most of the callers had routine questions about where they were supposed to vote, or whether they would be allowed to vote even though they had moved and failed to notify the election board of their new addresses (quite a few were of the opinion that if they filed a change of address form with the Post Office, they had taken care of their voter registration).

My most interesting call was from someone who voted at a Catholic Church in St. Louis, where a poster hanging in the polling place had the "pro-life" positions of the candidates handwritten onto it. Another interesting intersection of church and state was one person who called me because she objected to having to vote at a church, "because I'm voting Democratic." I know, I know, my right wing buddies will get a kick out of the fact that she sensed a conflict there. It was neither the time nor the place to get into a heavy WWJD discussion and point out that George Bush opposes Jesus.

After that, I cast my own vote, ran a few errands, and made a few calls for America Coming Together. Now, I look at the polls, and it appears that Bush is going to be the second member of his family to crash and burn in a presidential election after having stratospheric approval ratings and an adventure in Iraq.

Early in this blog's history, I often referred to Bush as OTB2. It stood for One Term Bush the Second, and was a play off of the juvenile republicans in Jefferson City calling Bob Holden "One Term Bob". I gave it up when I decided that I had no desire to lower myself to the level of the general assembly republicans, but it's funny that now both tags are coming true.

I can't wait to Saturday Night Live tackle the Bush family Thanksgiving Dinner . . .

The Right Makes Me Smile

A right-wing friend of mine posted the following to a listserve. Can you believe how bizarre the right wing is becoming?

I wonder if there are some profound truths lying behind the ludicrous analogies, though. Perhaps people become Republicans because they were emotionally abused as children?

The other day, my nine-year-old son wanted to know why we were at war.

My husband looked at our son and then looked at me. My husband and I
were in the Army during the Gulf War and we would be honored to serve and
defend our Country again today. I knew that my husband would give him a
good explanation.

My husband thought for a few minutes and then told my son to go stand in
our front living room window. He said, "Son, stand there and tell me
what you see?"

"I see trees and cars and our neighbors' houses," he replied.

"OK, now I want you to pretend that our house and our yard is the United
States of America and you are President Bush."

Our son giggled and said, "OK."

"Now son, I want you to look out the window and pretend that every house
and yard on this block is a different country," my husband said.

"OK Dad, I'm pretending."

"Now I want you to stand there and look out the window and pretend you
see Saddam come out of his house with his wife, he has her by the hair
and is hitting her. You see her bleeding and crying. He hits her in the
face, he throws her on the ground, then he starts to kick her to death.

Their children run out and are afraid to stop him, they are screaming
and crying, they are watching this but do nothing because they are kids and
they are afraid of their father. You see all of this son....what do you
do?"

"Dad?"

"What would you do son?"

"I'd call the police, Dad."

"OK. Pretend that the police are the United Nations and they take your
call, listen to what you know and saw, but they refuse to help. What do
you do then son?"

"Dad...but the police are supposed to help!" My son starts to whine.

"They don't want to son, because they say that it is not their place or
your place to get involved and that we should all stay out of it," my
husband says.

"But Dad...he killed her!" my son exclaims.

"I know he did...but the police tell you to stay out of it. Now I want
you to look out that window and pretend you see our neighbor who you're
pretending is Saddam turn around and do the same thing to his own
children."

"Daddy...he kills them?"

"Yes son, he does. What do you do?"

"Well, if the police don't want to help, I will go and ask my next door
neighbor to help me stop him," our son says.

"Son, your next door neighbor sees what is happening, but he refuses to
get involved as well. He'll not help you," my husband says.

"But Dad, I NEED help! I can't stop him by myself!"

"WHAT DO YOU DO SON?" Our son starts to cry.

"OK, no one wants to help you, the man across the street saw you ask for
help and saw that no one would help you stop him. He stands taller and
puffs out his chest. Guess what he does next son?"

"What Daddy?"

"Watching you in the window, he walks over to the old lady's house,
breaks down her door and drags her out. He sets her house on fire and
then he...he kills her. He does this while he laughs at you and her.
WHAT DO YOU DO?"

"Daddy..."

"WHAT DO YOU DO?"

Our son is crying and he looks down and he whispers, "I'd close the
blinds, Daddy."

My husband looks at our son with tears in his eyes and asks him..."Why?"


"Because Daddy.....the police are supposed to help people who needs
them...and they won't help.... You always say that neighbors are
supposed to HELP neighbors, but they won't help either...they won't help me stop
him...I'm afraid....I can't do it by myself Daddy.....I can't look out
my window and just watch him do all these terrible things and... and.....
do nothing...so....I'm just going to close the blinds.... so I can't see
what he's doing........and I'm going to pretend that it is not
happening."

I start to cry. My husband looks at our nine year old son standing in
the window, looking pitiful and ashamed at his answers to my husband's
questions and he says..."Son."

"Yes, Daddy."

"Open the blinds, son, because that evil man.... now he's at our front
door..."WHAT WILL YOU DO NOW?"

My son looks at his father, anger and defiance in his eyes. He balls up
his tiny fists and looks his father square in the eyes, without
hesitation he says: "I'LL DEFEND MY FAMILY DAD! I'M NOT GONNA LET HIM
HURT MOMMY OR MY SISTER, DAD! I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM, DAD, I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM!"

I see a tear roll down my husband's cheek and he grabs our son to his
chest and hugs him tight, and says... "It's too late to fight him, he's
too strong and he's already at YOUR front door son.....you should have
stopped him BEFORE he killed his wife, and his children and the old lady
across the way. You have to do what's right, even if you have to do it
alone, before it's too late," my husband whispers.

THAT scenario I just gave you is WHY we are at war with Iraq and other
terrorists. When good men stand by and let evil happen son, THAT is the
greatest EVIL of all. Our President is doing what is right. We, as a
free nation, must understand that this war is a war of humanity. WE must
remove evil men from power so that we can continue to live in a free
world where we are not afraid to look out our window so that my nine
year old son won't grow up in a world where he feels that if he just "closes"
that blinds the atrocities in the world won't affect him.