OMG, You Guys!

 
Did you hear? When Obama re-took the oath so the right-wing noise machine would shut up, he neglected to use a bible to do so!

All the right-wing bloggers are talking about it!

Apparently, using the Supreme Court to hijack the election eight years ago, that's kosher, but echoing a phrase wrong by one misplaced word or neglecting to use a religious prop in your pomp and circumstance, and your presidency is called into question.

Clearly, these people need to learn to unzip their pants and jerk (or stroke) it a while until the pressure subsides and there's a mess to clean up.

And The Next Senator from NY Is...

 
Hold your horses. New York governor David Paterson won't say yet. But it will surely be before Saturday, we are told. Apparently he made his decision on Monday afternoon, but he's taking a few more days to mull things over. Percentages are in favor of Caroline Kennedy-Schlossberg, but if Paterson is to display real fortitude in the testes he'll go with state attorney general (and possible gubernatorial rival in 2010) Andrew Cuomo.

Personally, I'm rooting for congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand. Yea, I've changed my allegiance, so what? I'm flexible like that.

Here's some fatty-fat on Gillibrand:

-Magna cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College
-Former lawyer with high powered Davis Polk firm
-Partner for David Boies’ law firm (argued Al Gore’s Supreme Court case in 2000)
-Public service: Worked as a lawyer for President Clinton
-Elected twice by voters in a heavily conservative area
-Champion for abused women

By contrast, Ms. Kennedy has never worked a day as a lawyer; in fact her law license has been expired for a number of years. And while Ms. Kennedy may have endorsed OBama, she hasn't bothered to vote in the majority of both New York City and New York State elections. Not really an old hand at public service is she?

All that being said, however, chances are Ms. Kennedy will waltz into the Capitol as a Senator in a few days---perhaps a product of nepotism courtesy of the still-influential, albeit fading Uncle Teddy. However, she'll have to campaign for her seat in 2010, and go mano-a-mano with serious contenders wielding serious resumés.

Breaking News: Caroline Kennedy has withdrawn from consideration for the vacant Senate seat in New York, according to the NY Times.

Late Wednesday she called Gov. David A. Paterson, and cited her concerns about Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s deteriorating health (he was hospitalized after suffering a seizure during President Obama’s inaugural lunch on Tuesday ), which prompted her decision to withdraw.

So my girl is still in the running!

Notes From The Couch

 
Something weird and rare happened yesterday down south here: it snowed. Big time. Well, at least for these parts (7 in.). Big, beautiful flakes and great, soft, dry accumulation. When it was all said and done in the late afternoon, the place looked like something similar to Innsbruck or Lausanne. I trekked into work early to catch the brouhaha online, but was promptly sent back home by my panicked boss, via email. Apparently the roads were going to get worse. And so back I went. And indeed they did (the roads, the roads!).

I poured a few fat fingers of cognac and settled into the couch (damn, gotta get those pillows re-stuffed) to watch the party. I was disgusted to see W march out to "Hail to the Chief" one last time, looking as clueless and moronic as ever; that smug, I-only-answer-to-one-father smile pasted on his face. And amused to see Cheney being pushed slowly in a wheelchair by some Nurse Ratched (hopefully) type---he donning a cane and looking like a washed-up pensioner being impounded into an assisted living facility. I can dream, no? H.W. aka Papa Bush was looking fragile. He wallowed down like a penguin; a weird, purple ascot tied around his turkey neck. Will these bastards ever die? Highlanders, the lot of 'em!

I wasn't digging the Yo-Yo Obama-Mama/Itzhak Perlman quartet playing some shitty, American neo-classic garbage composed or arranged by John Williams. I'm sorry, but couldn't we have just stuck to a healthy dose of Beethoven? Is he not genius enough? Or Mahler? Give me a break with John Williams. Everything he's ever composed has sounded like a jingle for that "Beef, it's what's for dinner" campaign the National Cattlemen's Beef Association hit us with a few years ago (okaaay, I know that was Aaron Copeland's "Rodeo" which also sucks, but dammit, all these guys sound the same: COMFORTABLY MEDIOCRE).

Pastor Rick Warren is a fatcat douche. That's all I have on that.

I loves me some Aretha, but jaysus...that hat. I couldn't concentrate. For some perverse reason, all I could think of was Ms. Franklin standing there butt nekkid clad only in that Sunday sermon headgear. Shudder!

I liked the inaugural poem written by Elizabeth Alexander, who teaches at Yale University. But holy mother of all gods did she butcher it with her reading. People were seriously yawning during the recitation. Which sucks, because it is a nice, good, simple piece---a modern piece. The one thing I cannot fathom is why it took Ms. Alexander an entire month to craft the 161-word poem. I mean, I'm all for brevity, and I know a bit about it, but goddamn; that's an average of 5.3 words per day. When you have all day! And it's not like it was some sort of Shakespeare sonnet, come now. The one thing that modern poetry should reflect is urgency--like a punk song. Two minutes and out. I don't believe poems ought to be eternal, definitely not modern poems.

Biden came out and was sworn in on the most gigantic Bible I've ever seen. It looked like a Lilliputian prop out of "Gulliver's Travels." His wife somehow had the strength to hold it while he repeated the requisite pledge, but secretly I was hoping she'd chuck that baby at W. Of course, he's had practice and experience dodging flying objects so he'd probably have masterfully traversed that situation.

I don't believe Chief Justice John Roberts intentionally tried to trip up Wonderboy. But it made for a More Human (Than Human, you see what I did with that Rob Zombie reference here?) moment, and so I dug the hiccups from both men. Hey baby, they're on the spot before 200 + million. I'd be hemmana-hemmana-ing my way through that oath too. I can barely remember the Pledge of Allegiance as it is.

I didn't think Obama's speech was historical or on par with Lincoln's or FDR's or Kennedy's but who cares? I wasn't looking for that to begin with. And in a way it fit Obama's work ethic. No transcendent bullshit babies; there's work to be done. And so yes. No memorable lines. But no matter. By the by, the only thing we have to fear IS fear itself. And I ain't no longer asking what my country can do for me, 'cause I know it can't do shit. So...

That being said, I must admit to getting the shivers as Obama was sworn in. That has only happened to me one other time and for a different reason: I was listening to John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" album (remember albums?) and when "Resolution" kicked in, I got...well...verklempt. What can I say, I guess I'm a big softie after all. Yea, no.

I skipped the evening balling (stop snickering) and the usual nocturnal, awkward Prez and Veep dancefest with their wives, in favour of a home-made Mediterranean pizza and an installment of NOVA on PBS ("Green Economy and its Hurdles"), which thoroughly deflated and depressed me.

And so I was back to square-1 mentally speaking. But you wouldn't have it any other way. The first word I ever uttered as a baby was "curmudgeon." Seriously...

Miracle On The Hudson

Image: NY Times
 
Oh the humanity! What stinking cheese on this morning's news shows. Miracle on the Hudson? Are you kidding me? How about: "Big Bird KO-ed By Mother Goose!" It doesn't quite educe the "tugging at your heartstrings" cozy feeling the media was spoon-feeding us this early eh-em, does it? And god knows we need something at least semi-warm.

Oh and, if you haven't somehow noticed that the temperature in Alaska is the same as in the panhandle of Florida, The Media will be sure to point out several times an hour, all day to-day and next week: IT'S GODDAMN COLD OUTSIDE. That's it; that's the news. We don't need to re-visit that tidbit until spring, basically when little birdies start waking me up at 0500 with their incessant, perky chirping (the bastards). People, it's winter. It's usually cold in winter. People huddle and shiver and lose body heat from uncovered extremes. Innocent Canadian geese fly seamlessly into jet engines (looking for warmth, perhaps?). Excrement happens. And then it freezes.

This is the issue I have with the 24-hour news cycle. Beating a dead horse into mini-patties to be served repeatedly and with impunity with a side of cheesy fries. And to buttress up the ad nauseam information, we get cutesy stories on re-decorating the private quarters of the White House, using shite from Target, Pier One, and Restoration Hardware. I actually watched in disbelief as some queer-eye-for-the-straight-guy pundit type expounded on the hip and cool virtues of buying crappy plywood furniture from Walmart for the Obamas' living quarters. Yea. I want my three minutes and twenty-eight seconds back.

Meanwhile, the war rages in Gaza with Israel "mistakenly" dropping bombs on a U.N. site; Zimbabwe's government (i.e. Mugabe) is kidnapping vocal opponents and torturing them; the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute enters its tenth day (you think YOU'RE cold? Try living in East Europe without heat right about now); Somalia is literally exploding from clashes between Islamic insurgents and Ethiopian troops; Latvia is unraveling from riots over its weak economy...yea, you get it.

And so I propose we draft a (perhaps) rudimentary, albeit frustrated open letter to The Media Powers That Be. Please feel free to add or subtract from it as you see fit. It could go something like this:

Dear Mr. American News Media Mogul or Corporation:

Please steal a page from the BBC/CBC playbooks and report on more diverse issues, particularly outside our borders. Even if most of your captive audience is not initially interested, you can actually use your outlet to educate it. For example, it would be helpful to include regional maps when covering events around the world. We Americans are not so strong in geography, you see. Due to that deficiency, sales of portable GPS tracking devices have quadrupled in the last year, but I digress. I sincerely hope you give the matter some grave thought.

Thanks much for your brief consideration. I await your response with held breath,
Joe Twelvepack

Dissent and Unity in Gaza

Photo: www.monde-magouilles.com
 
There are ripples of Palestinian allegiance beginning to arrive throughout the OpEd and mainstream journalistic world, like the passive, receiving shoreline absorbing a Doppler effect. A quick scan of the carnage stats yesterday yielded 940 Palestinian dead (mostly civilians) and 13 Israeli casualties. Last week, Red Cross workers were denied access to scores of dead and wounded Gazans, and a civilian crowd near a United Nations school was hit, with at least 40 people killed.

To Israel’s critics abroad, the picture cannot be more lucid: Israel’s war in Gaza is an obtusely disproportionate response to the rockets of Hamas, causing horrendous human suffering. The bombing of an already isolated and impoverished population into the Age of Hunting and Gathering must be stopped. This surprisingly united anti-Israeli front among increasing numbers of writers and journalists has in turn rallied together Israelis who have circled the wagons and closed shop.

Voices of dissent in Israel have been rare. And while tens of thousands have spilled into the streets of world capitals demonstrating against the Israeli military operation, antiwar rallies in Israel have struggled to draw participants. The Peace Now organization has received many messages from supporters telling it to stay out of the streets on this one.

In an article yesterday, The New York Times writes that Israel, which is sometimes a fractured, bickering society, has turned in the past two weeks into a paradigm of unity and mutual support. Flags are flying high. Celebrities are visiting schoolchildren in at-risk areas. Soldiers are praising the equipment and camaraderie of their army units, and neighbors are worried about families whose members are on reserve duty. Ask people anywhere how they feel about the army’s barring journalists from entering Gaza and the response is: let the army do its job.

As the editorial page of The Jerusalem Post put it on Monday, the world must be wondering, do Israelis really believe that everybody is wrong and they alone are right? The answer is yes.

Sounds like the familiar, pompous mantra of a certain western superpower during the years 2000-2008, doesn't it. It's quite amazing the bravado one displays if one has the weapons to bump his enemies into the Stone Age.

But the situation is complicated. It always has been. Hamas leaders encourage its fighters to hide among civilians. Their rockets are launched from within the decimated Palestinian community, giving Israel no choice but to counter-attack particular dwellings. And for all the support the Arab world seems to extend to its embattled brothers, it falls short on action. Egyptian president Mubarak has refused to open up his borders and take in Palestinian refugees.

Talking to an Arab friend, I was taken aback by the candor and language with which he explained: "Just as the Irish consider themselves the n*$%ers of the British Isles, so are the Palestinians thought of by their Muslim brothers throughout the world."

Eye-opening, to say the least.

Hold Your Horses

 
I never set myself up in November to be gravely affected by the little ripples of disappointment I knew would slowly be trickling in from the incoming Obama administration, although I will admit to being swept up by the Change Movement, and believed in it wholeheartedly. I still do, but hold much less of an emotional ethos and much more of an utilitarian if not pseudo-cynical position on it.

Obama is ultimately a politician and he will do all that is necessary to survive and thrive inside the Beltway (not at the least neglecting his legacy), coupled with incremental alterations to national policy that will historically satisfy the mantra of his campaign: Change.

One significant example of backpedaling from the Obama administration is the signalled reluctance to look into Bush policies. In an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC's “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” Obama said he was unlikely to authorize a broad inquiry into Bush administration programs like domestic eavesdropping or the treatment of terrorism suspects. However, he was quick to add that prosecutions would move forward if the Justice Department found evidence that laws had been broken.

For those of us with longer short-term memories, Candidate Obama broadly condemned some counter-terrorism tactics of the Bush administration and its claim that the measures were justified under executive powers.

The Bush administration has authorized interrogation tactics like waterboarding that critics say tap danced outside federal laws and international treaties, and domestic wiretapping without warrants. But the details of those programs have never been made public, and White House officials have steadfastly held that their actions were legal under a president’s wartime powers.

There was no immediate reaction on Obama's decision from Capitol Hill. In resisting pressure for a wider inquiry, he risks the anger of influential Democratic lawmakers on Congressional judiciary and intelligence committees, and core constituencies who hoped his election would cast a spotlight on President Bush’s antiterror efforts.

On other terrorism issues, Obama suggested that his approach will continue to be more measured. He said the closing of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which once seemed to be an early top objective, was not likely to happen during the first 100 days of his administration.

These are the little ripples of disappointment washing ashore. However, I refuse to be altogether turned into the political curmudgeon that I had become on the heels of the stolen election in 2000. I believe in change, and I believe in government's ability to help us--despite the significant atrocities of the last eight years.

In the 1980s Reagan was successful in brainwashing us into thinking we can be left to our own devices and fend for ourselves. "Government is not the solution to our problem," he said. "Government IS the problem." It was the Sink or Swim attitude of Republicans toward the populace that falsely empowered Americans with the empty label of Rugged Individualism. I do not believe in that. I believe that government has the ability...in fact the DUTY to help us solve problems. I believe Change is coming, it's just arriving in little spurts instead of the fantastical Revolution we've been promised. Which is fine; America is still a God-fearing, conservative if not Puritan nation. For all the talk about being flexible and self-sufficient in any and every situation, we must be gently exposed and introduced to change---much like acclimating to a hot bath. Kid gloves are always necessary. Those and a leak-proof body suit.

Americans Are Too Depressed To Have Sex

 


So says the porn industry whose tongue-in...(averted gaze)-cheek request for a $5 billion bailout from the federal government is making waves all over the Internets and "old media" this morning.

Puh-leeaze, I've been saying this since last autumn. What with all the Ponzi schemes, CEO suicides, and the general collapse of capitalism, the lustre is gone! My daily visits to various fetish and Ukrainian midget domination sites have decreased from about 40-45, to no more than 5 or 6. All on work PCs, of course; I wouldn't want to infect my home machine with any kind of adware or spyware, I mean really. What am I, some schmuck on wheels?

According to porn magnate Larry Flynt and "Girls Gone Wild" king Joe Francis, the porn industry is not recession proof. TMZ website reports that the Dynamic Duo of porn will be heading to Washington to ask for a $5 billion porn bailout.

"With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind," Flynt says. "It's time for Congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America."

Francis sees his industry like the big three automakers, only BIGGER: "Congress seems willing to help shore up our nation's most important businesses; we feel we deserve the same consideration."

And why not? According to an article in the Atlantic, video sales have been falling by 15 percent a year since 2005, and online content doesn't deliver the returns it used to, now that Web sites such as RedTube and PornHub basically give it away. Struggling companies need investors to help buttress their operations, and those that are thriving in a brutal market need funding for growth.

But don't despair, Nation's Pornographers: enter AdultVest, a hedge fund run by Francis Koenig that invests in porn-related assets. He sees the porn downturn as temporary and believes that technological improvements will trigger a turnaround.

One example: iPorn, a start-up in AdultVest's portfolio that is developing an application to deliver porn to the Apple iPod. Personally, I'm holding my breath until it's feasible to actually have intercourse with our iPods. I mean, why not? They do pretty much everything else.

"The industry's not going anywhere," Koenig says. "You've got 6 billion people on the planet," he laughs, "and they're all horny."

True that. Now let me get back to...work. I feel a slight tingle in my loins already. Things are looking up, my friends. Pun intended.