Bush Makes an Interesting Pick

Bush does so many stupid and awful things that every now and then I wonder if I could, in fact, be suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome - the made-up malady that some right-wingers use to dismiss those of us on the left who dare to criticize their "decider". When months go by and the only thing he does that doesn't ruin lives is cutting brush, you begin to wonder.

But today, I learned that his nominee for Treasury Secretary may actually be a thinking, rational person. He is a former Board President of the Nature Conservancy, supports the Kyoto Protocol on both environmental and economic grounds. He states:

The Kyoto Protocol is a key first step to help slow the onslaught of global warming and benefit conservation efforts…Until the United States passes its own limits on global warming emissions, innovative companies based here will lose out on opportunities to sell reduced emission credits to companies complying with the Kyoto Protocol overseas. Additionally, without enacting our own emission limits, U.S. companies will lose ground to their competitors in Europe, Canada, Japan, and other countries participating in the Protocol who are developing clean technologies.

If Bush is able to defend this nominee against the right-wing nutcases who will crawl out of the woodwork to attack him, I'll admit that Bush has done something right.

2 Good Reads - Crashing the Gate and A Man Without a Country

Over the past day, I've finished reading two strongly progressive books, vastly different in approach and optimism, but similar in outrage at what we have seen happen to America.

Kurt Vonnegut is the octogenarian author of A Man Without a Country, a curmudgeonly collection of essays that will have progressives nodding their heads and conservatives shaking theirs. Sprinkled with bits of wisdom like

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.

"Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

and

If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

Reading "A Man Without a Country" is like spending an evening with your favorite uncle.

Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, by Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, is like spending the evening with brilliant, ambitious progressive strategists. They do a fantastic job of outlining the criminally incompetent work of the Democratic Leadership Council and the over-paid class of consultants who have focused the Democratic party more and more on beltway politics and a few swing states. The netroots, with the ability to raise large numbers of small donations, it is argued, provide a way out of the wilderness for progressives who want to recapture the Democratic party. The authors make a strong case, and the book is a must-read for those who have hope that populist democracy is merely comatose, instead of completely dead.

Feel the EVOL - Nate Fors at the Dolphin

butterflies for brains (detail), 2006
enamel on insulating foam sealant, rubber, wood 48" x 44" x 5"

One of my favorite artists, Nate Fors, has a show opening at the Dolphin on First Friday - June 2. The show is called EVOLution, and even the title is filled with the themes and ambiguities that populate Nate's artistic world. What to make of the capitalized first four letters? They are "love" spelled backwards, in the beginning of a word layered with meaning.

Is love retrograde, evolving backwards and deteriorating? Is evolution, in all its controversies, bringing a reversal of love? Does the fact that "love" at the beginning of "EVOLution" is pronounced and spelled more like "evil" than "love" a message that evolution is a malignant form of progress - a moral entropy?

And look at the jpeg above. He's painting on insulating foam sealant, for crying out loud! Is it a sculpture or a painting? Should we focus on the surface, or the shape, or the negative space?

What would it be like to paint on that stuff? I imagine, with the thick liquid of the enamel and the curving, caressing shapes of the foam, it would be a sensuously delicious experience. Is that part of the EVOL?

I haven't seen the show yet, but I don't expect to get my questions answered. I'm confident, though, that the artist will have asked himself the same, similar and more questions, and that the work will challenge me and make me think. Fors is always an intelligent and exploring artist, so the observer always feels like the universe he creates, with its randomness and uncertainties, is - ironically enough - intelligently designed.

Come see EVOLution, June 2 - July 1, 2006, at the Dolphin, 1901 Baltimore. There'll be an opening reception on June 2 from 6 until 10 - I'm looking forward to it, and hope to see some blog-readers there.

Kris Kobach Sold His Soul for Right-Wing Street Cred

I've joyfully mocked Kris "K" Kobach on this site before, for his lack of basic legal skills. To make up for my cruelty, I gently turned away and didn't mock him for his ill-informed call for a 2000-mile border fence for the United States border, which would fail to protect us from those sneaky (though admirably white) Canadians. I also was polite enough to ignore the fact that he couldn't win the Republican primary in Kansas against a felon with an IQ below the drinking age.

Some people just keep making fools of themselves, though, and Kris Kobach is a prime example of somebody who just doesn't know when to slink off the stage of public attention. Yesterday, KK appeared in the New York Post, claiming that the Republican senate is full of "people who want to disarm the men and women on the front line of America's defenses in the War on Terror", and that they are "hostile to the idea of enforcing our immigration laws."

I'll admit that I think most Republicans are misguided souls who lack the courage to live in a post-9/11 world, but even I balk at the kind of abuse that KK is heaping on his fellow Republicans.

(Thanks, Jessica, for the tip and for the delicious Flea Market burger!)

Skeet Skeet Skeet Skeet

Yesterday evening, I exercised my right to bear arms at the Powder Creek Shooting Park in Johnson County. For a few hours, Alex, Rachel, Woody, Sam (my son) and I shot trap and skeet. I think I enjoyed it almost as much as Alex enjoyed watching a liberal getting kicked by a 12 gauge.

I enjoyed the experience. I caught on a lot quicker than I thought I would, and shot well enough that I think I could have catered a banquet of all the democrats in Johnson County, if only clay pigeons were edible. Skeet (where the clay pigeons fly across your field of vision from launchers on either side) is a lot more fun than trap shooting (where they launch away from you on an angle from a bunker in front of you). Doubles (where both skeet launchers fire at the same time, and you take two quick shots) are great fun.

To summarize, I burned a few gallons of petrochemicals to go into deep Kansas suburbia so I could be around white people, shoot weapons and act like I was killing things wihout remorse. It was fun to be a Republican for an evening.

How Did Bruce Giles Get His Gun?

Lisa Slaughter was murdered yesterday morning. An ex-boyfriend chased her down, threw her to the ground, and used a handgun to shoot her to death.

Bruce Giles, her murderer, committed suicide around an hour later. He had already done prison time for Assault in the second degree and Armed Criminal Action, for injuring his brother and sister-in-law.

I knew Lisa back in the early 90s, before she had the daughter that the paper says was the center of her life. We were co-workers, not close friends, but it is horrible to read that her last moments were spent helpless on the ground, looking up at a gun in the hands of a violent man, knowing she would not be there anymore to help her daughter grow up.

I wonder if anybody will track down how this gun wound up in the hands of this man. A convicted felon, he should not have been able to get one legally, but he managed to get one anyhow. Did he steal it? Did he get one under the table at some gun show? Did a friend lend it to him? Does anybody care? Will anybody bother to look into it?

No More Bear Meat In Glory Hole

Really, that's the headline.

Talent's Version of "Getting it"

“It will show people that Washington gets it,” Jim Talent crowed when he was eagerly claiming to be the "brains" behind the Republican plan to issue $100 checks to all taxpayers to help buy gas. Even though its one of the only things he's tried to accomplish since he went to Washington, he has deleted all references to the misguided effort from his website. His fellow Republicans have called this "brainstorm" insulting, stupid and silly.

Good idea trying to hide this enormous misunderstanding of the common man, Jim. Here's another piece of advice - hide the pictures, too. They make you look like a puffy-lipped sissy.

Lincoln Prep & Band Uniforms

While in New Orleans, Ali met a young woman from Shawnee Mission East High School, and conversation turned to barbecue back in Kansas City. The young woman said that she missed the food at Arthur Bryant's, and Ali mentioned that she went to junior high a few blocks from there. "No, it must have been another location," the young woman replied, unable to comprehend that anyone articulate, well-dressed and white could have been educated in that vicinity.

This is an article about Lincoln Prep's outstanding music program and the shabby state of its uniforms. For a decade now, Lincoln's band has earned perfect scores at the Missouri State Large Group Band Competition, and has held an average of three chairs in the All State Band. That's a huge amount of success for a relatively small school in a place where SME kids can't believe there's a school. Ron Martz, the band director, is one of the heroes of Kansas City.

Tonight, there'll be a fundraiser at the Gem Theatre to help replace band uniforms that, in David Ashcraft's phrase, "have seen one too many sweaty tuba player on long marching competitions." Tickets are only $25, and can be bought by calling 816-283-8322. It's a good cause. I hope to see you there.

Columbia Blog & the New Yorker

The "BWOG" is the blog arm of Columbia University's Blue and White Magazine. It's exactly the sort of thing I would have done in college, if only I had been smart, funny, hip, and in a prestigious University in New York City. Oh, and also if only the internet had been invented, and if data entry on a computer hadn't required punch-cards. Instead, I wrote occasional features for the Concordiensis, including one which ended with the how-did-I-write-this phrase "olfactory orgasm".

But I was going to say when Truth broke in with all her matter-of-fact (literary reference alert - this reminiscing is bringing back my English major self), that the Bwog is lots of fun. From the insightful profiles of graduating seniors (Would you rather permanently give up oral sex or cheese? Cheese. I'm mildly lactose intolerant anyway.) to updates on what's going on in New York, it's worth a bookmark.

From a recent posting, though, comes this spirit-crushing anecdote of a cruel world

Our source sez:

The New Yorker poetry department receives over 1,000 submissions every week. Each of these is destined to be lovingly rejected by an intern, usually a Columbia grad student, with a carefully handwritten note. It's understandable then that sometimes things get backed up. Really backed up. According to one of the interns, there has been a box of unanswered submissions that have been languishing in the office since 2003. Like a girlfriend who's worn out her welcome, it just sits there, increasingly hard to ignore, but even harder to get rid of.

So it was with much fanfare that the interns were told that they were finally going to throw out the box. But first wouldn't they be so careful as to go through the submissions and remove all the self-addressed stamped envelopes? Why? To save the stamps, of course. Yes, the poetry editor of the New Yorker had her interns cut out each and every 37 cent stamp they could find, even though these stamps on their own were useless without a two cent supplement to compensate for the 2006 cost of postage.

Midway through their task she stopped them. Touched by the hand of reason? Of common human decency? "I just wanted to make sure...neither of you has a blog, right?"

Sam and Friends on the Fringe

The KC Fringe Festival, a 4 day arts event with live theatre, performance art, etc., will be staged July 27 - 30th, mostly in the Midtown/Crossroads area. My son Sam, along with a talented pack of kids from NYU, will be staging a play, so mark your calendars.

If you're an out-of-town reader, or it you have the urge to follow the show, it will also be staged at the Minneasota Fringe Festival, August 4 - 14th, and also at the New York Fringe Festival, sometime during August 9 - 25th.

Yeah, I'm pretty proud and happy about it. It would be pretty cool to see a play written by my son performed in New York City.

Saved by Beer

According to people who keep track of such things, a pound of body weight is equivalent to around 3500 calories. Also according to people who keep track of such things, a bottle of good beer, like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, is around 200 calories.

Now, assume for the sake of argument that I have averaged 2 beers a day for the past many years. That takes into account the days that I've been stuck with tea and water, and the days where I've started with a post-golf beer at lunch, and continued on for 12 or so hours of beer-soaked camaraderie. So, don't go getting all judgmental on me, but let's just say I've been sucking down an average of 400 calories worth of good beer a day.

By my calculations, if I had spent the last five or so years drinking water or diet coke instead of beer, I would have avoided so many calories that I would no longer exist.

Think about it. I drink beer, therefore I am.

NSA

Before you tell me that the NSA domestic spying scandal is not a big deal, please answer this hypothetical. Would you support the Bush Administration if we learned that it has engaged in warrantless searches of American citizens' homes, if it did so in an attempt to capture terrorists, even if the people searched were not involved with terrorism?

Republican House Parties

As previously mentioned, one of my more devious and funny friends signed me up for GOP propaganda emails. Usually, I just ignore them, but I got one yesterday with the subject line offering me my own website: Daniel.GOP.com. The body then encouraged me to host a "house party" on June 22. Here's the text:

Dear Daniel,

Recently, Chairman Ken Mehlman invited you to make history. On May 22, thousands of you will gather at GOP House Parties across America - and for the first time, you'll be able to see the difference your party made and where it ranks with others, live on GOP.com. The five most successful house parties with 10 or more donors will even earn a special thank you: a first-of-its-kind GOP-edition iPod with Video.*

Start your party - and move up the rankings - now at gop.com/party

May 22nd is about putting the tools to make history this November in your hands. The place that makes it all possible is MyGOP - your personalized home GOP.com, where you can build your team, share your photos, publicize your events, post blog comments, and more.

The address? It could be: Daniel.GOP.com. Here's a small guided tour:
Build Your Team: Once you have your site, use it to build and manage your team - think of it as your GOP Address Book on the Web. Whether you get your friends and family to visit your site and sign up or you add their contact information to the list, your team is your foundation.
Personalized Campaign HQ. You have the power to create and manage campaigns, to reach personalized goals and make a real difference in the next election. With MyGOP, you can recruit volunteers, register new voters, and fundraise for the Republican Party. The MyGOP leaderboard will highlight the most successful sites in America.
MyGOP Local. This is the place where online activism turns into volunteers, votes, and victory on the ground. Use our mapping feature to easily locate GOP events, or promote your own. Soon, you'll have the ability to locate other MyGOP users and supporters near you, forming volunteer teams in your community that you organize online.
Your Photos. Post your favorite photos. Each site comes with a photo gallery, which you can use to share photos of you and your friends taking action for the Republican Party!
Your Welcome Message. Each website has a customizable welcome message. Why do you support President Bush and the Republican Party? Tell your visitors why here!
Search. Through MyGOP's Search feature, you can easily find your friends and other supporters near you. You can also choose to make your site private, sharing it only with friends and family.

All of this comes together on May 22 as thousands of Americans use MyGOP to build new connections in their communities - and a select group receives a very special thank you.

Start your party. Get your site. And join us on May 22 as we change the face of online politics.

Sincerely,

Michael DuHaime
RNC Political Director

P.S. There's no one better to bring the Republican message into your community than you. Please join us on May 22.

http://www.GOP.com/Party/

* The Republican National Committee is not affiliated with Apple Computer, maker of the iPod Video.

GOP-edition iPod? Republican house parties in a competition? "Very special thank yous"? Daniel.GOP.com??

Friends, in the face of so very much satirical opportunity, I am silenced.

Parks Board "Kohned" by Crappy Art

Herb Kohn (pronounced "con" - as in "I conned the Parks Board into doing something stupid") is a Big Time Big Shot. He's one of a select group of insiders who get stuff done in this town, because they can make or break politicians with a phone call. When I attended a Swope Health Services fundraiser/roast of Mr. Kohn last year, I saw politicians from the state, local and national levels all show up and praise him. The guy has serious sway.

Yesterday, for God-only-knows what reason, he decided to use his sway to help an artist/client use one of our prettiest parks as a personal gallery for kitschy, cloying, crappy figurine art. For the months of October and November, Kansas Citians will be subjected to six monstrosities littering the lawn of the charming Mill Creek Park, home of the dignified Nichols Fountain. A gallery will sell miniatures and paintings of these pieces to whomever has more money than taste, and the city will get 10 percent of the money to use for kid's art education, so, perhaps, Kansas City's future generations won't put up with crap like this.

I'm disgusted on several levels:

1. Why Mackenzie Thorpe? Why not somebody local, or, at a minimum, somebody capable of producing something less annoying?

2. Why Mill Creek Park - one of Kansas City's prettiest parks and one of the most-photographed sites in the city? Why ruin all those photos?

3. Why did the Parks Board buckle to such a misguided idea?

The answer to all three questions is the same, of course. "Because this is what Herb Kohn wants." Let's just be happy he didn't want Precious Moment figurines put up in Loose Park.

Bush vs. Nixon - Race to the Bottom

This Modern World has a fun chart comparing Bush's approval and disapproval numbers to his moral predecessor, Dick Nixon. Trend lines show that Bush will probably win the "most-hated' title, unless he does the right thing and resigns.

Of course, if we compare presidential accomplishments, the similarity fades. Nixon succeeded in engaging with China, while Bush caught a big fish. I'd give the nod to Nixon on that one. On the other hand, the Watergate Scandal rocking the Bush Administration has hookers, while the Nixon one only had burglars, so Bush wins that round.

Who will wind up winning the Most Hated President title? Only time will tell, but my money is riding on Bush.

Tony's KC on the Radio Tomorrow

I was pulling up to the Peanut around 5:30 tonight for the best chicken wings in town, and the KCUR announcer was telling me that the next guest was going to be Kansas City's most important blogger, Tony of Tony's Kansas City. I thought about hanging out and listening, but I know Tony wouldn't want me to delay a pitcher of Sierra Nevada and the spicy, crispy wings. Priorities are priorities, after all. Fortunately, it will be rebroadcast tomorrow night, and, even after that, it will be available on the archives of KC Currents.

Reconquista is Real?

Usually, the wisest course in reading Michelle Malkin is to avoid focusing. Why should you fill your beautiful mind with ill-informed hate?

But you've got to read this one, straight off the page of GOPUSA. In it, Ms. Malkin warns us all that Mexico is going to reclaim the American southwest as Mexican territory. No, I'm not kidding.

Just think about that. Hah. Hahahahahaha. Hahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Somebody on earth is worried about the big, bad Mexican government taking over parts of our country. Hah. Hahahahahaha. GOPUSA thinks it's worthwhile spreading this developing fear across the internets. Hahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Good God, please give the right wing a tiny bit of courage. They really need it. The poor little things are beset by imaginary threats wherever they look.

Reconquista. Hahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Michelle Malkin. Hahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Pomp and Circumstance

Some of you may have noticed my decreased blogging frequency for the past few weeks. Yesterday, I emailed my final paper to the professor who supervised my independent study. Saturday, I graduate, with a Master of Public Administration degree, emphasis in Nonprofit Management.

I started the program because I worked at UMKC, and thought it might be helpful to get the classroom perspective at the Bloch School. I had no idea how much fun I would have with my fellow students. Debbie, Jim, Jen, Dianna, Mandy, Alex, Tim, Brian, Megan, Katie, Ji-Lyn, and more. Sometimes, we behaved like undergrads, balancing the academic work with plenty of play.

Some of the professors were outstanding, too. Dan Wildcat kicked off my MPA experience with a two hour lecture on the history of Western political thought that blew me away. Others worked hard to fill his shoes - Drs. Renz, Singer, Stallings, Herman, Peroff, McCarther, Baker and Smith were superb.

I'm not claiming that I will necessarily miss having to go to class in the evenings, after a full day of work. I'm pretty sure I won't miss the stress of deadlines. I definitely will appreciate not having the feeling that I should be doing homework when I'm relaxing.

UMKC has warts, and my experiences working and studying there showed me most of the ugliest ones. But I learned a lot, made good friends, and had fun. Looking back at it all this morning, I'm thankful to be done, and thankful to those who made the experience what it was.