Cinco De My Ass

A sure sign that a large segment of the Hispanic population of the United States, if not the majority of them, are more Pro-Latino Nationalist than they and a good many of their supporters would like you to believe, is their obsession with the relatively recent, to America, phenomenon of the celelbration of the Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo. The political impications are obvious to me, given the current national mood and controversial nature of the illegal immigrant issue.

This is more than just a Mexican version of the Irish Saint Patricks Day, which has become as much an all around American tradition, in this country, as it is an Irish one. Cinco de Mayo reeks of Mexican nationalism, in fact that is what it openly celebrates. Ordinarily, I would not begrudge them this, as they certainly have a right to the holiday and the celebration of it, however way you slice it. I just can’t help but feel that an Anglo whose loyalties are unknown would be looked upon with suspicion by the masses of Latino celebrants, should he find himself in the middle of one.

Actually, I wonder just what the hell it is they are celebrating. Are they perhaps actually looking toward the future in a more symbolic way than they would care to admit? I know that question may itself reek of a sense of paranoia, but the situation being what it now is, I can’t help but wonder. Maybe I am reading too much into it. After all, probably most of the Latino population celebrates the holiday in an appropriately festive way, with no underlying feelings of anarchistic or rebellious attitudes. All perfectly innocent. But there is that undercurrent. Okay, call me a worry wart. Maybe it is all perfectly innocent, and maybe I should just lighten up.

On the other hand, what the hell are they celebrating? Unless I am mistaken, Cinco de Mayo is supposed to be a celebration of the Mexican rebellion against and overthrow of the French, who attempted to impose themselves on the people of Mexico, which they desired as a colony. I guess this relates to the capture and execution of Maximillian, a puppet king of Mexico, and descendant, I think, of Napoleon, who was installed by the French-or was it the Austrian Hapsburghs? Or was it both? Does it really matter? The Mexicans won that one, God bless ‘em. While they are celebrating that victory, maybe they might want to look anew at the way things turned out in the aftermath. Not too well, I tend to assume.

In fact, Mexico from that point on didn’t so much begin a long downhill slide, it had already spent a good many years in that precarious predicament. But from this point on, it was a sudden drop straight down to the depths. You are looking here at a nation that has spent almost the entirety of it’s independent history as a feudal fiefdom divided pretty much among a relative handful of wealthy families who pretty much control the nations wealth and infrastructure, and civil services, and agriculture, and what industry there is to speak of, and have continued to do so with the grip of an iron hand. Thank God for tequilla and mezcal, I guess, if you’re going to celebrate, you need something to help you forget you really don’t have a damn thing to party about.

It just don’t make any fucking sense. Not to me, anyway. A generalized celebration of Mexican culture, now that would be something I could certainly understand, no mystery there. But Cinco de Mayo? That makes about as much fucking sense as celebrating the overthrow of the Alamo.

Blue Jacket

It would probably take a historian who is a specialist of the Ohio valley region to be familiar with the story of Blue Jacket, the Shawnee Chief who sided with the British against the colonial era settlers during the Revolutionary War, and who was a brutal and bloodthirsty enemy of the white settlers afterwards. But this same Blue Jacket has been the subjectof a yearly Pioneer Playhous type historical drama for some years to come. Unfortunately, this might soon become a thing of the past. Due to lack of funding, the current season might well be cancelled, unless the organizers of the yearly outdoor drama can mount a succesful drive for the solicitation of funds amounting to an estimated fifteen thousand dollars or more. It might be due to economic consdierations. These are not the best of times to engage in frivolous travel activities, is my guess. Or, it could be simply that the drama has just gotten old and might seem a little too tame by the standards of modern entertainment. Remember, this is a family drama. Or, it could simply have run it’s course, at long, long last. Hell, even Hello, Dolly, Oklahoma, and Showboat closed eventually. Nothing lasts forever.

From what I have learned thus far, it seems to have nothing to do with protests from politically correct Native American Rights activists and their allies. So, I have, alas, nothing there to bitch about. But I will be fucking damned if I will let that stop me.

Blue Jacket was, from all accounts, a bloodthirsty monster who stands among the top of the heap as being a main reason for the disintegration of relations between colonial white Americans and American Indians. Colonial white settlers were brutal and barbaric, as well, of that I have no doubt, and they bear their share of the burden (please note-they, not we, bore their share of the burden), but Blue Jacket, and others, were equally savage, possibly more so.

They sided with the French in the French and Indian War. Then, they sided with the British in the Revolutionary War. Then, they sided with the British yet again, in the War of 1812. On all these occassions, and times in between, they exhibited a predilection and a lust fo rbutchery that was remarkable in it’s bloodthirstiness. This period of time, in fact, from roughly 1753 until the closing of the War of 1812, would be the period that would mark and forever color the relations between American and Indian.

This is not meant to excuse the brutality and the excesses of the Americans in the following decades, but to explain it. Just the other side of the coin you are hardly if ever presented with. Unfortunately, if the outdoor drama Blue Jacket can not somehow be salvaged, it will be further clouded in mist. If for no other reason than this one alone, I hope the play continues.

The Great American Smoke Out

Some fucking idiotic genius in Vermont has decided that the prison system of the state, probably filled to the brim and possibly overflowing with cocksuckers and other assorted rapists, theives, murderers, and similarly oriented lowlifes- that shall we say are by their natures not wrapped the tightest, either mentally or emotionally- should be smoke free. Bad for their health you see, especially those who are non-smokers, those whom modern scientists have declared in it’s infinite wisdom to be at greater risk of smoking related diseases due to second hand smoke. Oh, you know who they are, they are called targets.

Vermont, in other words, has accomplished the impossible. They will have, in short order, created a breed of prisoner that will soon rank lower in the social prison order than child molesters-the non-smoker. One prisoner has already been assaulted, in the middle of a card game. It can only get worse from here. And despite what you might think, it will not get better with time, despite the offering of smoking cessation classes, and the opportunity for pisoners to “taper off gradually”.

Maybe the new pill that has recently been announced as an anti-smoking aid will help. Supposedly, it targets the area of the brain that is affcted by smoke, and decreases the degree of satisfaction to be gained from cigarrettes. So, you now have to smoke three or four cigarrettes to get the satisfaction normally afforded by one. Sweet.

If the Democratic Party wins the coming election, look for this program to be expanded in other facilities throughout the country. Oh, yes, that’s right,.prisons were not the first. And, no, they will not be the last.

Robespierre, the bastille awaits.

Bill Clinton Feels Our Pangs

I’m starting to wonder if maybe Bill Clinton is as depraved as his detractors say he is. I mean, what the hell is he thinking? Here is a man who has devoted enormous sums of time and energy, while recovering from triple bypass heart surgery (and don’t forget the followup surgery to relieve post operative fluid buildup) globetrotted the world, championing various causes. He has been a proponent of business development in India, a tireless advocate for AIDS research in Africa and China, he has travelled alongside the former President Gorge H. W. Bush in order to amass funds for relief efforts ranging from the Indonesian tsunami disaster to the US Gulf Huricane Katrina and Rita tragedies.

Then, just when you think he must have finally decided to relax somehwere with a nice cigar and blow job, up he pops with an announcement that he has brokered a deal whereby American schools will no longer carry soft drinks. That is to say, no carbonated beverages, though the schools in the affected areas will still carry diet soft drinks, but only the high schools. There is still yet some question about the safety of artifical sweteners, enough so to exclude even this option from elementary and middle schools.

Instead, the schools will offer bottled water and fruit juices, which, incidentally, carry as many or more calories typically than your average carbonated cola beverage. I point this out because the main point of this so-called breakthrough in childrens health is that it is meant to combat the scourge of childhood obesity.

Okay, I don’t really mean to undermine it, childhood obesity and all it’s attendant illnesses is indeed a serious problem, and seems to be getting worse every year. The increase of juvenile diabetes is especially troubling, but the long range effects are consdierable as well, not the least of which is the potential for heart disease. So yes, it’s a problem, and yes, it is worthy of the efforts of a former President.

But shit now, talk about treating a bullet wound with a band aid, but this is some really piddling shit here. To be fair, there is also an emphass on recommendations for exercise, but why this even greater emphasis on carbonated cola drinks? I mean, is this leading up to something?

It would seem to me that, in addition to the need for exercise, the main emphasis over and above everything else would be, or should be, insuring healthy, well balanced meals. One that would include water and fruit juices as a required cafeteria serving with a healthy but not overfilling portion of lean meat (preferably baked or broiled) or fish, along with a serving of two vegetables (preferably steamed or served fresh) and one of fresh fruit, and a slice or two of good whole wheat bread. Hell, add a slice of pie and cake for dessert, at least once a week, what the fuck. Remember, balance and exercise, that’s the key.

But this? No, something just isn’t right here. I see a lead up to yet another series of class action lawsuits, to be frank, and I don’t like the smell of it.

Curse Of The Hillary Beast

Evidently, somebody forgot to tell the people of Lexington Kentucky that the Repubican Party is on it’s way out, because even if this much is true, it would appear that at least in the Bluegrass, Republican politics is alive and well-strong, in fact. All you have to do to realize this is to watch the local Lexington tv stations on which, at any given time of the day, you are likely to see a television ad on behalf of Lexington mayoral candidate Bill Farmer, a self styled conservative. Yet, more than talking about his own self, and ideas, Farmers ads seem to be more centrally focused on attacks on one of his primary opponnents, Jim Newburrey.

Newburey is, accorrding to the Famer ads, a liberal after the manner of Hillary Clinton-whose smiling face is prominently featured in some of the ads. Farmer accusses Newburey of wanting to implement a Hillary style medical program which, Farmer warns, might well threaten to run doctors out of the Bluegrass State. No explanantion as of yet as to how a mere, lowly mayor of Lexington would accomplish such a milestone achievement, which makes the ad all the more remarkable. Farmers campaign staff evidently has good reason to believe these negative ads are effective. And, so it would seem they are. Newburrey has called on Farmer to remove the ads-a sure sign they have caused him some degree of alarm.

Who do I support for Mayor of Lexington? Anybody but Theresa Issaacs.

Uncle Ernie Fiddles About

Governor Ernie Fletcher has been indicted, just today in fact, for violating state laws regarding state hiring. According to the indictment of the Grand Jury, he went about setting up a special panel to get around these laws, managing to base his hiring of state employees based on not merit, but political patronage. Governor Fletcher might be in some deep shit. Of course, he could reneg on his earlier promise not to pardon himself if indicted, as he did indeed pardon all the others who were faced with that eventuality, ahead of the charges.

Maybe he thought that vow would not be seen as politcal grandstanding, but would provide him with cover from what he asserts is mere politcal grandstanding by State Attorney General Stumbo, a likely gubernatorial candidate for the Democratic Party in 2007. He still, yet today, made that assertion. Speaking in Ashland in response to news of the charges, the Governor insisted the entire investigation was a politcal sham.

Well, sorry Governor, but the people of Kentucky aren’t buying it. According to the latest state wide polls, 57% think the Governor shoud resign from office. A mere 38% think he should remain. 5% are uncertain. Not good news, either for Fletcher himself, or for the recently much bloodied and batterred Repulican Party. The culture of corruption, it seems, like all politics, is local as well.

But this should really come as no surprise anyway, as Kentucky has always been a corrupt state. What the hell else can you assume anyway from a state that passes a law that gives a governor the power to pardon himself? What is eally shameful is that, when it passed, no one noticed, or objected, or, if they did, it was quickly forgotten.

My Avataress

Yes, it is finally time to reveal my new Avatar, and for this one you can thank Rufus, over at GradStudentMadness, whose blog I definitely encourage you to check out, and for which I have supplied a link in the title of this post pending my eventual establishment of a Blogroll. Yes, I am a procrastinator par excellance, and can always find reasons. They are valid ones though.. I don’t want to have too many links on a blogroll, much preferable to have a few standouts. Here are the qualifications.

1. Regularly updated. This is a must. By regular updates, I mean at least once a week on average.
2. Originality. There will be a limited number of politically oriented blogs, and they will be of the highest quality. I do not have to be in agreement with your political philosophy, I just have to appreciate your blogging and wrting style. However, I emphasize, they will be limited. Therefore, know right off that rants against the Booooooooooooooosh Administration, and the “Repugnantcons”, or against the “Demoncraps”, are limiting your chances of being included.
3. Easy on the fucking pictures. They take forever to load, in most cases, when you have an abundance of them, which is why when I update my blog I usually have only one, if any. Today is an exception, one unlikely to be repeated.
4. Political correctness is out of the question. Unless, of course, you can convince me you are merely making fun of it. I can tell the difference. And that goes for conservative style political correctness as well as the more oftenly bashed liberal variety.
5. If you do not allow comments on your Blog, you will not be included. I do not give a rats ass if you are famous. If Craig Crawford can do it on his blog, which will be a likely inclusion, then so can you, Andrew Sullivan and Prussian Blue.
6. You have to join me in a night of group ritual sex.
7. As I stated that you do not have to agree with my points of view, understand as well that I do not have to agree with yours. I know that seems to be a distinction without a difference, but in some cases, depending on the subject matter and person, you would be surprised how often those differences raise their ugly heads.
8. If I have pissed you off in the past, and you have taken me off your blogroll because of it, or have acted like a bitch, don’t come crawling back now for forgiveness. I am not a Christian and I do not believe in it.
9. I am thinking of calling my Blogroll “Pantheon of Blogs”. If you are on it, then, that puts you on the level of a deity, and so you are permitted to act like one-crazy.
10. I was joking about number six.

Well, that’s it for now. Thanks again, Rufus, for the picture, which is evidently an ancient Minoan Goddess, possibly Potnoe Atenoi (Lady Athene), judging by the serpents she holds in her hands. Yes, it is the same goddess as the Hellenic Athene, though she underwent somwhat of a change under Hellenic influence. Though some might refer to perpetual virginity as more of a drastic change, I suppose. At any rate, whichever of the goddesses it is, she is indeed beautiful, and any of my regular readers owe Rufus a true debt of gratitude. I say that beause of what I was originally intending to put on my Blog as my avatar.

You haven’t seen her yet. Oh, but you will-you will.

And They're Off!

I used to know an Anastasia Noonchester who would now be the same age as the lady in the picture on the left. She was just a baby then, but-what the hell, Anastasia, if you Google your name and you come across this post, and if that is indeed you (or even if it is not) send me an e-mail.

And, again, for the lady in the picture, if you are the same person-or even if you are not-good luck on Derby Day. According to hte report in the Lexington Herald Leader, a pretty young stripper/dancer with the right moves might pull in as much as two or three thousand dollars on a single night, and, again acording to the report, dancers and strippers look forward to Derby Day the same way most of us look forward to tax refund day.

So have at it girls, I wish I could be there. Second only to the winnig horses and their owners, trainrs, and jockeys, this is your day and night to shine. What with this and all the other events going on in Louisville during Derby weekend, how can you go wrong? This in addition to all the other races, including the vaunted Oaks, leading up to the most exciting two minutes in sports, the Kentucky Derby itself. I can just see it. Hear it. Fell it. Taste it.

And they’re off. There’s Brother Derek out the starting gate. Side by side with Ron and Paul. Steppenwolfer is edging up by a nose but look out here comes AP Warrior-in front now by a length. Rounding the curve is Lawyer Ron, but up the backstretch comes Sinister Minister. Here comes the final stretch and it’- it’s

POINT DETERMINED!!!!

Prison Break

If I were writing a Mad Magazine parody of the hit Fox Network TV series Prison Break, I know just how it would end. By the time it was over, every single prisoner of Fox River Penitentiary would be in on the break out, with main character Michael bringing up the rear, when, looking behind him, he would see the main guard Bellick and all the other guards right on his tail.

“Are you guards trying to catch us?”, he would ask in typical cornball Mad magazine satire dialogue.

“Catch you?”, Bellick would reply. “Hell no, we’re trying to escape too, from this crazy, unrealistic, non-sensical plotline.”

And there is plenty about the show that requires suspension of belief. The inmates of Fox River penitentiary, for example, have access to phones in the prison yard, and can evidently call out anytime, to any number they wish to call-free of monitoring.

But at last we know now that at least some of the assembled gang that now numbers nine, will escape, at the end of this season, and as the series has been renewed for next season, they will spend the entirety of said next season avoiding capture, while Lincoln and Michael try to prove that Lincoln was framed for the murder of the female Vice-Presidents brother-who actually was not murdered, but faked his death, all in an effort to draw Lincolns father out of hiding. Don’t ask.

I will tell, though, my predictions for the up-and-coming series.

John the Mafia boss will turn out to be involved not only in a betrayal of Lincoln and Michael involving Lincolns former girlfriend in an effort to find the snitch Fibbonacci (whose tetimony put him in prison for life) but will end up having connections to the Vice-Presidents brother as well.

AJ, Lincolns son, will be sent to prison for the murder of his mother and step-father, and will be befriended by Haywire, who will eventually help him to escape, as they will form a bond based on the similarity of the reasons for their incarcerations-patricide. (this is assumming of course that Haywire does not end up joining in on the escape at the end of this season).

As the Vice-President has concerns over strains in her recent alliances, she will have the current President killed, whereby she will assume the office for which she will then run with the power of incumbency, in addition to the warchest that was stolen from her brothers company.

Philly also will end up at Fox River, and will form an alliance with Bellick, who will be his link to the outside in an effort to extract revenge on both Michael and John.

Bellick will also become the new warden of Fox River, after “The Pope” is done away with.

T-Bag will stumble upon the mass murder scene of a family against whom he had wanted revenge, and will be blamed for this murder, which will have been perpetrated by one of Johns Mafia stooges. He will barely avoid capture. Later, he will ass rape the punk ass Secret Service agent.

C-Note, one of those whom John originally planned on killing upon their escape, along with all the others except for two (probably Michael and Lincoln), will become Johns new muscle on the outside when the heat proves too much for him to re-establish contact.

John will find and kill Fibbonnacci.

Sucre’ will murder his cousin over the same woman for whom he stupidly caused himself to be sent to prison in the first place, a cunt I would find the ugly ass Vice-President preferable to.

No, I don’ treally believe most of this will happen, but that’s the good thing about this show, you find yourself trying to figure out just what is going to happen-the hallmark of a great show. And, despite all it’s flaws and shortcomings, it is truly that, an edge of your seat thriller that, once you get hooked, will keep you tuning in, week after week.

Neil Young Declares War

Here is a link for you that is probably getting more hits than a high class hooker on the backstreets of Peoria. Neil Young. Need I say more?

Neil Young is the kind of recording artist who has done it all, and no matter what he does he makes it unique. A true genius that once went slumming in a neighborhood far beneath him when he joined a trite little band called Crosby, Stills, and Nash, outclassing the second class Stills, and the third rate at best Crosby and Nash.

When Graham Nash, along with David Crosby, who laughingly refers to himself as a minstrel, sing protest songs, it can inspire at worst nausea, at best a feeling of either nostalgia or revulsion at the memory of the sixties, but most of the time just chuckles at their irrelevance. The same goes for most of the other 1960’s icons of their day, such as Joan Baez, to whom the current national mood is their one last chance to make the big time, in a way that speaks of more than just good luck and timing.

In fact, I have a theory that David Crosby’s most significant contribution to rock music was the beatles song “And Your Bird Can Sing”. Yeah, I know that was a Beatles song, a Lennon and MacCartney number. Lennon wrote it after he fucked Crosby’s wife.

Be that as it may, Young is a true artistic genius, and when an artist of his calibe devotes an entire album to a protest of the Iraqi War and the Bush MisAdministration, the Christian Far Right and the Neo-Cons have reason to be concerned. They can be excused if they see no occasion to chuckle in derision.

This is definitely worth a listen, if you can find the time. Send the link far and wide. Smoke a doobie while you’re at it. Remember, it’s better to burn out than to fade away.

Napster

Napster may have just earned a permanent home on my Links section. Cehck it out. Five songs, for free. No, no, you can’t download them. You can however listen to them. Okay, clarification. There are more than two million songs in Napsters archives. Each one of those songs-yes, each and every one of them-you can listen to, for free, a total of five times each.

Yes, five times each. After that, if you want to listen to it again, yes, you have to pay, and I guess you pay even more for downloading. So what? If you like a song so much that you just have to listen to it more tan five times,. isn’t it worth it to dowmload it?

If not, hell, listen to it five times, then listen to something else five times. Shit, there are, like I said, two million plus of them, and more and more will doubtless be added in time.

Plus, there’s a forums section. I guess that’s been there for awhile, I don’t know. What I do know is, Napster seems to have hit on a winning formula and has pulled out of it’s legal troubles in a way which is compatile to it’s own interests, evidently, as well as to the interests of the recording artists.

I for one intend to check out some of the newest offerrings from Pink, who is these days attracting notice as something of a socially conscous performer and critic of the Bush Administration inher own right. I am of the hopes that she is better than your average troubadour, I know for a fact she is cuter.

You Can't Hide Balls The Size of Colberts

Okay, I know I don’t usually jump on bandwagons, but desptie the fact that you hav already heard about the performance of Steven Colbert at the Washington Correspondents Dinner a zillionth time, I feel compelled to make it a zillionth and one. Colbert accomplsihed something few true journalists, even of the reputation of Bob Woodward, have the balls to do, which is to criticize George Buish to his face, and in the presence of his wife at that.

More than that, he criticized the mainstream press for not really doing it’s job, for the most part. While you can point to individual examples of exceptions, such as Helen Thomas and David Gregory, in addition to NBC’s Brian Williams first rate coverage of the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita disasters, most of the press seems to have been cowed. Even Chris mattews, once ferocous as any bulldog in his coverage on Hardball of the Scooter Libby/Joseph Wilson/Valerie Plame/Patrick Fitzgerald, et al., controversy, now seems to have been strangely neutered.

One of the most telling moments of the evening came when Colbert advised the press to go home, spend some time with their families, write that book they’ve always wanted to write, about that fearless reporter standing up to the powerful and corrupt politicans. “You know-,” he said in mock encouragment, “fiction”.

Very few people laughed that evening, including Bush and Laura-or most members of the press. Nor should they have.

I have provided a link in the title, courtesy of “Pissed Off Patricia” of the blog “Morning Martini” (a good politically oriented blog, by the way), in which you can write a word of thanks to Mr. Colbert. My note is, if I remember correctly, number 17,006. I have don’t yet know how many other notes have been written since mine, but by all means, please add to the number.

What We The People Need

It looks like Mexico President Vincente’ Fox has decided to nullify any law passed that would legalize possession within his country of small amounts of marijuana, which, had it come to fruition, would have been an obvious ploy designed to pay off campaign debts to drug lords and at the same time increase Mexican tourism, at a time when it is desperately needed. As someone who would like to see marijuana legalized-and regulated-here in this country, I personally had no problem with the proposed law. Yet, it was quickly squashed, and I have no doubt that objections from the Bush Administration, and especially the Justice Deparments and State Departments, played more than a minor role, and in fact may have been the crucial factor in Fox’s change of heart.

This is very telling, and what it tells me is American diplomacy, if capable of overruling the significant and powerful interests of drug lords and tourist resort operators, can accomplish much more. So, if this is the case, why can’t they induce more cooperation with Fox on the issue of illegal immigration? They might try to suggest that the imigration situation is precisely why the U.S. has this influence over Fox, but I ain’t buying it. Instead, it seems to me that the US and it’s politicians, of both parties, are determined to deny the wishes of the American people to bring the chaotic immigration situation under control, to put an end to illegal immigration, to secure the borders, and not reward those who flout our laws by coming here illegally by letting them profit by becoming American citizens ahead of, and at the expense of, those who come here legally.

The wishes of the majority of Americans are clear on the matter, but we are being denied our voice. Oh, we are being heard, believe that. But we are being defied, and will continue to be defied. We are every day inching closer to becoming a full fledged capitalistic feudal society with pretensions of democracy in the form of bread and circuses, a mere colony of a corporatist elitist commecial empire. The peoples wishes are adhered to only so long as this furthers the agendas of the politicians and their corporatist elites and a handful of political actions committees, many of whom are ostensibly the opponents of the elite, but in reality are merely a diverse variety of dog and pony shows that seek no more than enough contributions to justify the obscenely high salaries of their chairpersons, and influence over the workings of the opposition party.

The majority of American people themselves would like to see marijuana legalized and regulated, or at least the largest plurality do, while a signficant pecrentage of the others do not care, but for the most part even they can not justify the excessive amount of tax dollars wasted on the drug war, at least not so far as marijuana goes. Certianly the majority are in favor of medical marijuana, but this too is a wish denied the people by those leaders who are their elected representatives.

So it should come as no surprise that, as long as business owners can reap huge profits by employing illegal aliens at low wages for nasty and in some cases back breaking and dangerous work, and as long as politicians are influenced by these corportists and by dizzy dreams of hundreds of thousands, in some cases, of new and grateful voters, they don’t care what you or I think or say. They are going to do what is best for them. If the country goes to hell, they don’t care. Remember, they probably have the money to go anywhere and live quite well.

With each passign day, I am becoming more and more a fan of Robespierre.

We're All Sick And Fucking Tired

Bay Buchanan, conservative talk show guest and pundit, and sister of former conservative Preisdential aspirant Patrick Buchanan, has an interesting take on the Gulf Coast disasters of last year. We are all sick of hearing about it.

I agree with Ms. Buchananan. I am sick of hearing how the federal government failed to appropriate the money needed to shore up the levee system, and how what money was appropriated to New Orleans in paritcular was wasted to such a large degree by the stae of Louisiana and city of New Orleans, that the end result was not only the failure of the levees, but the simultaneous failue of the pumps that could have otherwise pumped the water out of the New Orleans flooded areas reatively quickly.

I am sick of hearing about how Bush and his Administration denied the scope of the disaster in public, while every day the mainstream media conveyed images of the horror and disasters.

I’m sick of hearing Republican apologists constantly defend the incompetence of the Bush Administration. I am sick of hearing so many people engage in blaming the victims for not getting out of the area, even though many of them had no place to go, and no way to leave if they had a place. I am sick of hearing them being accussed of purposely staying behind for purposes of looting, or out of hopes of filing lawsuits. I am sick with the knowledge, that, in reality, most of them had no way out.

I’m sick of heaing how Federal bureaucratic red tape held up rescue efforts resulting in needless deaths and countless numbers of homelessness and suffering among the people of new Orleans, as well as Mississippi and Alabama. I am sick of how this bureacratic bungling resulting in drowning, starvation, dehydration, and myriads of other disasters visited on the poverty stricken, the elderly, the infirm, the children, the animals.

I’m sick of hearing of how Bush and other politicians have promised New Orleans will be rebuildt, yet the reality seems to be no money is being made availiable for this effort, and how still yet the homeless former residents of New Orleans are denied so much as a temporary trailor in which to live, while in the meantime they are constantly threatened with eviction by the same Federal agencies that should have prevented or at the least greatly alleviated this sufferring to begin with, yet failed to do so.

I’m sick of thinking about how evidently this is just another excuse to justify yet more no-bid contracts to companies that hire nonunion workers, and illegal immigrants, while the city of New Orleans seems to be earmarked for development at the expense of it’s former residents, the heart and soul of the city.

I am sick of hearing that it is just another two months or slightly less now before the onset of the next hurricane season. I am sick of hearing about how, in all probability, neither New Orleans or theGulf Coast is ready yet to handle another storm of the scope and magnitude of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

I am sick of so much it is hard to keep track of all of it. But the thing I am most sick of, Bay Buchanan, is people like yourself.

Smoking In The Boys Room

The May 16^th primary is soon approaching, and I have one thing to say to the voters of Lexington Kentucky. That is, if you vote for Theresa Isaacs, or are planning to do so, I have one thing to say to you. If you all had one neck, I would hack it. No, that is not original, that is a quote from the histories of the Roman historian Tacitus, which he attributed to Gaius “Caligula” Caesar.

The last time the former Lexington City Council member ran for mayor, I defended her against charges that she was unfit, based on the fact that she had lost her children and was behind on her child support payments. It was said that this was a sign of a deceptive person, a person of bad character.

In her case, at least, the charges were correct. As soo as Issaacs won the election for mayor, for which she is now running as incumbent, she lost no time in pushing through a law that would ban cigarrette smoking in all bars and restaurants and all other public buildings. Not even a small smokers section was allowed. Funny, I don’t recall her campaigning on this issue. But so it goes. This is a perfect example of the philosophy of the American politician. Sometimes you have to make a clear cut decision, one way or another. Sometimes you either have to uphold the wishes of the majority, or you have to defend the rights of the minority. In many cases, there is no middle ground, suppossedly anyway. So, what to do in these cases?

The wishes of the majority-uphold them if it furthers your agenda

The rightsof the minoriy-defend them if it furthers your agenda.

Get the picture? I do, I think it’s called the old bait and switch. Whichever position is most convenient for you at an given time, you have a ready made excuse to fall back on. And so it goes in this case. Only here, the issue is, well, shrouded in smoke, as it is incresingly unclear who is the majority and who is the minority.

Oh well, who cares? Restaurant and bar owners, perhaps? Sure, they will make it, I guess, the better financed and established ones will anyway, the ones who can afford to adapt, the ones who can cut corners to make up loss profits. The higher class restaurants for the most part, of course, will still do fine. Perhaps more will come to take up the slack, I don’t know. Lexington does have some first class places, but there is always room for more. Perhaps a nice French restaurant. Humm, what should we call it?

Hey, I know- Robespierres.

Blush, War Geek Ogre

Here’s a bit of fun you can have if you are bored, and actually this can be quite addicting. Take a phrase or any persons name, and see how many annagrams you can find. Ahh, but now comes the tricky part. You have to find an anagram that is descriptive of the person or phrase, as much as is possible.

For example, the phrase, “Blush, War Geek Ogre” is itself, as you mght guessed by now, an anagram-for George Walker Bush.

For William Jefferson Clinton you have “Jilts nice women. In for fall.”

For Ronald Wilson Reagan you get “No darling, no ERA law”

Richard Milhouse Nixon? What better than “His climax-ruined honor”

Not everything you get of course will be so descriptive, but a good lot of it will be eerily so. You can play around with them a bit as well. For example the phrase “President Clinton of the USA” will yield, in anagram form, the phrase “To copulate he finds interns”.

All this makes me wonder if you might be able to predict the future of a person by way of anagrams. Might there be some subconscous effect that certain letters in combination will have that is inherent in their overall structure, regardless of how they are arranged, which will manifest itself in a persons life. For the hell of it, I elected to do a prediction on the girls in the Aryan music band Prussian Blue. Their mother April, as well, who seems to be like an eagle, protective of her daughters, and aggressive in her desire to promote them, and through them herself, as a leader in the Aryan movement.

As for the girls themselves- Lamb will eventually come to have growing doubts about the Aryan movement, maybe even some regrets. Lynx, it seems, will eventually marry a man, possibly the former husband of a friend, who will turn out to be gay.

Of course, you can do all this the lazy way, as I did, and prefer to do everything, by clicking on the link in the post title. Many words contain thousands of anagrams, of course, but the site here will only give you one anagram per person or phrase. More than that, you have to pay for an account. But it is still hours of potential fun, and who knows, you might gain some insights into a persons nature. Some things just can’t be explained away as coincidence.

Under The Persian Rug

I think there might be more than meets the eye to the current Iranian crisis, but I am aving a hard time figuring out just what it is. They insist they want nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, yt everybody else it seems is up i arms about it. The UN, as impotent as ever, has treatened sanctios against them, but the Iraians are adamant, they will proceed with the project. They recently announced they had succeeded in enricing uranium.

They could obviously not hope to produce a nuclear device in any significant amounts in the near future, and large scale productionof nuclear weapons is unlikely even inte long trm, if they did produce some it would doubltess be more useful as a deterrent for invasion thananything else. Even this I believe is a secondary rationale, the main one being simply a patriotic drive to unite the country in asserting its national soveignty over it’s own internal affairs.

Of course, I do not want the Iranians to have the bomb-not even one. On the other hand, I find their possession of a handful of nukes no more troubling than those possessed by the highly unstable nation of Pakistan. Add to tis the possession of nukes by pakistans taditional enemy, India, and yo ave a recipe for eventually disaster, I am very muc afraid. All it takes is for the wrong people to ascend to power in Pakistan. Yet, this is seldom mentioned, probably for good reason.

The Iranians make a far better boogey man, and diversion. What if it were to turn out that they do indeed want nuclear energy, just for the purposes of producing electricity? If so, this could be nothing but good. This would be good for the environment, in at least a small way, as nuclear enegy,in additon to being cheap and efficient, is clean, so long as the facilities are safe. In addition, this would free up more, much more, crude oil to go onto the world market, which by all rights should help to decrease the price of home heating fuel and gasoline. It might additionally force other nations to follow suit, including the U.S.

Unfotunately, everyone has become aware of late of the influence of the multi-national oil compnaies on the global economy, and on the governments of the ever growing industrialized world. Is that really the true unwritten story behind all the international hand wringing?

Sacred Symbols

The current Pope, Benedict, has just recently passed the one year mark of his papacy,and so far the most controversial issue he has faced may well be a poster on a Roman cathedral which is an advertisement for the up and coming release of the movie “The DaVince Code”. Due to many protests voiced by several priests and bishops in Italy, it was decided the poster had to be removed.

I am not a big fan of the Roman Catholic Church’s history. They have, despite their propoganda to the contrary, been ever at the forefront of denying progress, in science as well as the arts, and even in the area or human rights of self-determination. There is little in Church history that is admirabe in these regards, though they have made some significant stides in recent decades to try to atone for this.

On the other hand, during the last few decades they have also demonstrated that,when it comes to equal rights for women and gays, they are still the same old ideologically extremist hirarcical organization. On the illegal imigration in America issue, they come down semingly on the other ideological extreme, self-servingly encouraging as many ilegal immigrants as possible, doubtless out of a hope for greater political and social power over the nation through these traditionally Catholic, to the point of superstition, followers.

They are still yet, after all these centuries,no friend to science, advocating the unfortunate position they do regarding the utilization of stem cell rsearch. Now, they are proving themselves the unobjective critic of popular culture as well, by their objections to the contents of Dan Browns novel.

I read the novel, and personally, I was unimpressed, though I am hopeful that Director Ron Howard will actually turn the movie into a work that will match the hype which the book, for me, did not live up to. Whether it does this or not, the Catholic Churc should grow up. It’s been around for going on two thousand years, so it’s about time, I would say. Their objections betray a fear of loosing power and influence, which is understandable seeing as how their power and influence is based on smoke and mirrors to begin with. Why else worry about something as trivial as a second rate (at best) novel? I mean, the book is a work of fiction, right? It’s not a true story.

Or is it? Remember, Dan Brown recently won a lawsuit by the authors of a book which was a non-fiction work called “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”, said authors having acussed Bown of plagiarsing their work. It is based on the proposition that Chrisitanity was originaly a duolithic religion, and that Mary Magdalene was Christs partner, lover, and soul mate. They were, according to this theory, married. And that is not all. They had a child, a girl, whom Mary, following Christs crucifixion and eventual resurrection and ascension ito heaven, took with her to Gaul, now of course knwn as France. This girl eventually married and her descendants formed the Merovingian Dynasty of rulers, who were eventually all executed by the Church as heretics. From that point on, the remaining surviving descendants of Crist and Mary Magdalene have been forced to go into hiding, protected by a small cabal of followers that included, among other notables, Leonardo DaVinci. The Church, according to this theory, will stop at nothing to eliminate every last one of them as a means of protecting their hold on power.

Of course, I do not believe this, yet I find myself in a curious psition in that, if it were true, I would find myself for once on the side of the Roman Cathoic Church. As horrendous and at times as hideous as their excesses have been, I wonder what it would be like if it were suddenly revealed that Christ (whom I do not believe actually existed as a living person) did indeed have descendants living today.

Human natue being what it is, I have no doubt that this descendant, or descendants, would quickly amass a following, and a huge one. I have no doubt that the descendants of Jesus Christ would be themselves viewed as veritable gods in the flesh, whose every utterance would be treated as infallible, as a divine ordinance, to be adhered to without question, on pain of death.

Yeah, I would have to side with the Church on this one. The world has enough trouble as it is.

May Day! May Day!

So it looks like the May 1^st immigrant boycott is on, and has drawn support from a widely diverse sector of the American public. Not just from Latinos of both documented and undocumented status, but from others as well, notably from Islamic, Jewish, and Christian sources, in addition to some pundits and various sections of the legal community, specifically civil rights advocates.

As the old saying goes, two could play that game, unfortunately they probably won’t. The American public,including the conservatives, have been living in an unreal fantasy land for decades now. Very few Americas are willing to make hard sacrifices, which is one reason things have deteriorated to the level they have.

Yet, ironically, it wouldn’t really be that hard. What would happen, for example, if Americans were to boycott all employers who made it a practice to hire illegal aliens? I feel pretty confident this issue would soon pale into relative insignificance. How hard could it be to boycott products produced by these people? Okay, so you might have to cut back on some purchases, man of which are unnecessary to start out with, if not outright luxuries.

Even purcases of fruits and vegetables might be reduced, say cut in half. Of course, chances are you would have to maintain that level once prices rose, but on the other hand, maybe this would be a temporary result. If farm subsidies were given to farmrs who actually produce, based on their rate of production, and farmers were given sufficient tax credits, there might be no need for any price increases, but that is another story.

The point is, it is disingenous for immigration advocates to suggest that people like the Minutemen- and others who are oppossed to the swarms of undocumented Mexican workers who now number an estimated twelve million- are xenophobic bigots. While that might be true in individual cases, this is not always the case. In most instances, Anglos simply want immigration to be limited to reasonable levels, immigration laws enforced and respected, and the rights of American workers, including legal immigrants, to be upheld, which would include the payment of a fair wage and benefits.

And so I would suggest that, until this transpires, an effective counter measure to the currently proposed boycott by immigrant workers would be a similar boycott by American citizens against any and all products produced by companies that insist on hiring illegal immigrants. Sure, it would cause some pain, some discomfort, but nothing worthwhile is easy.

Vacation Withdrawal

Since I am on the subject of boycotts, how about a driving boycott? How hard could it be for American drivers to have a boycott on summr vacation driving. Do you really have to drive to DisneyWorld? The Smokey Mountains? Grand Canyon? Yellowstone? Why?

It has been my experience that vacations are more often than not more stressful than relaxing. And people that drive hundreds of miles to their destinations might well find that a good one fourth of their vacation is spent on the time it takes to get there and back, along with the inevitable navigation though traffic once you arrive at your destination. After you finally settle in and you have had a days rest, you are probably counting the hours you have left before you have to return.

What do you get for it all? A few pictures, and a handful of memories that almost never match your initial hopes. And you’ve probably blown at least a months worth of wages, all for the opportuity to get to wonder whether Tigger was feeling up your little girl.

The truth is, if you have to drive somehwere, you can probably find a place right in your own state where you can enjoy yourself at least as much for a fifth of the cost and a tenth of the stress.

The best thing about it is, if enough people actually did it, it would be by far the best way to really stick it to the oil companies.