If you're wondering why I haven't posted all day, it's because I've been playing this. These friggin' penguin games are dangerously addictive.
I should really stop doing these, but...I won't. I found this one at A Small Victory:
1. Grab the nearest CD.
2. Put it in your CD-Player (or start your mp3-player, I-tunes, etc.).
3. Skip to Song 3 (or load the 3rd song in your 3rd playlist)
4. Post the first verse in your journal along with these instructions. Don’t name the band, nor the album-title.
That's easy enough. Here's mine:
To take not give your only way
You used up all I have each day
Whispers of where your head has laid
It's hard to ignore all the things that they say
I think you're supposed to try and guess the song and the band. No Googling!
Crap! That last entry was number 666! I have to post something else to offset it!
(/taking my religious beliefs way too far)
Go to the comments of this Bad Money post to see the coolest thing ever. Over 100 comments in under an hour.
Be sure to read some of them too. They got pretty funny near the end.
MuNu will conquer ALL!!!!!
UPDATE
The comments appear to be gone now. Strange.
UPDATE #2
Now they're back again. I don't know what to think.
I want Howard Dean back. Seriously. He was so much easier to make fun of than Kerry. The screaming nut provided a huge amount of bloggable material (like this). Kerry doesn't even come close.
I guess you can't have everything...
Well, I got done with my Spanish final, and to celebrate, I think I'll fisk the latest Maureen Dowd column. These are always fun.
Guns and Peanut Butter By MAUREEN DOWDSo let's see. What's our swell choice here?
A guy who mimed being a fighter pilot on a carrier versus a guy who mimed throwing his medals over a fence?
She almost makes it too easy. That statement was completely false. President Bush really was a fighter pilot, and John Kerry really did throw medals over a fence. And they might have been his, too. At least that's his story this week. I love how Dubya apparently isn't a real pilot just because he never went to war.
An incumbent who sticks with the wrong decisions based on the wrong facts...
As opposed to a columnist who thinks that her opinions are facts?
...versus a challenger who seems unable to stick to one side of any decision, right or wrong?
I'll take the guy who actually does what he says he's going to do, thank you very much.
A Republican who's a world-class optimist, despite making the world more dangerous and virulently anti-American...
Oh no! Some people don't like us! WE'RE DOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!!!! Why do you think we have the world's most powerful armed forces?
...versus a Democrat who looks like a world-weary loner...
That must be Dowdspeak for "botoxed Frenchman."
...even as he pledges to make the world safer and more pro-American?
YOU! FREAKING! IDIOT!!! SOME PEOPLE ONLY LIKE AMERICANS WHEN THEY'RE DEAD!!!!! WHY DON'T YOU REALIZE THAT?!!
A president who can't go anywhere without his vice president to give him the answers...
I guess that doesn't include press conferences. New Dowdspeak word: Anywhere= The 9/11 commission!
...versus a candidate who can't go anywhere without his campaign butler/buddy to give him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?
Did Kerry actually say that? I haven't been following that story.
Incidentally, I trust a president who has made some of the toughest decisions of the last decade more than a candidate who can't even make his own snacks.
Bush campaign strategists don't seem worried that every positive development the administration predicted would happen if we invaded Iraq has soured into the opposite.
We said we would depose Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein is now in U.S. custody, and his psychotic sons are roasting in hell. I'm glad we could clear this up.
As an article on Monday in The Times noted about the growing ranks of angry Muslims: "The call to jihad is rising in the streets of Europe, and is being answered."
Too bad that's been happening for years. They're just finding out now that they can get away with their little jihad games because so many people are afraid of being "Islamophobic."
Communing with the Higher Father and the Almighty, President Bush has either stumbled into a Holy War or swaggered into one.
Does Dowd have to meet a certain "statements that make no sense to sane people" quota in these columns? I think that was it.
In their new book, "The Bushes," Peter and Rochelle Schweizer, who interviewed many Bushes, including the president's father and his brother Jeb, quote one unnamed relative as saying that W. sees the war on terror "as a religious war":
Considering the fact that we were attacked by terrorists who thought they were pleasing Allah, I'd say that's fairly accurate.
"He doesn't have a P.C. view of this war.
Good. There's one more reason it isn't like Vietnam.
His view of this is that they are trying to kill the Christians.
They're actually trying to kill "infidels," but that's pretty close.
And we the Christians will strike back with more force and more ferocity than they will ever know."
Is that supposed to be a bad thing?
Bush strategists seem to believe that the worse Mr. Bush makes things, the better off he is, because nervous Americans will cling to the obstinate president they know over the vacillating challenger they don't know.
Something tells me this woman wouldn't last very long as a mind-reader.
Senator Kerry's talent for turning a winning proposition into a losing one is disturbingly reminiscent of Al Gore, who somehow managed to lose an election he won.
"Electoral college? What's that? Is that the university Bush's daddy got him a free ride through?"
So is Mr. Kerry's sometimes supercilious manner, and his habit of exacerbating a small thing with an answer that is not quite straight.
What an understatement. That's like saying that the sun is "not quite cold."
When the senator was asked last week whether he owned a gas-scarfing Chevy Suburban S.U.V., he replied, "I don't own an S.U.V.," only to have to admit, when pressed further by reporters, that his wife owns the S.U.V. "The family has it," he said lamely. "I don't have it."
I was going to make a humorous comment here, but I can't top Kerry's actual words.
The White House pounds Mr. Kerry for not playing straight on small-bore stuff, even as they don't play straight on huge-bore stuff.
"BUSH LIED! BUSH LIED! HALLIBURTONWARFOROILDIEBOLDCHIMPHITLER!!!!!"
The House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, pronounced the administration "in denial" yesterday, after hearing Condi Rice's briefing for House Democratic lawmakers.
"They lie so much, they don't even know they're lying!"
"This is an administration that told us that our troops would be welcomed with roses," Representative Pelosi said.
I really don't remember them ever saying that, but I'm pretty sure the footage of celebrating Iraqis wasn't a figment of my imagination.
"Instead, it's rocket-propelled grenades.
Did you think we wouldn't have to kill anybody before we freed the rest of the country? It's not war without an enemy.
This is an administration that told us that the Iraqi government would be able to pay for its own reconstruction, and soon. And now it's costing nearly $200 billion to the American people."
What happened to the $87 billion that you were complaining about? That didn't belong to the Iraqi government.
She added: "And it was expressed by the national security adviser now that yes, there was disappointment — disappointment? — about the Iraqi security forces not being able to secure the region that they were assigned to.
"We can call them liars, but they're not allowed to admit shortcomings! That way, they always look worse than us!"
And this is the judgment that the American people have placed their confidence in?"
According to polls, they trust him more than John "Unnamed Foreign Leaders" Kerry.
Mr. Kerry errs on the side of giving the answer he thinks people want to hear, even as Mr. Bush errs on the side of giving the answer he expects people to accept as true.
Kerry gives the answer people want to hear because he thinks people are too dumb to think for themselves. Bush gives the answer he expects people to accept as true because he actually backs up his statements and sticks to them. If he doesn't accept it as true, he probably doesn't say it.
When the president was asked yesterday by a reporter whether it would take an all-out military offensive to put down the violence in Falluja, and whether this would impede the transfer of power on June 30, he was reassuring, despite news of the aerial bombardment of Falluja by U.S. gunships and the 70-ton battle tanks being rushed in to aid marines in the escalating fight.
It almost sounds like she feels sorry for the "insurgents," doesn't it?
"Most of Falluja is returning to normal," the president said, presumably defining normal as flattened.
I'll admit that he shouldn't have said that, but still, as soon as we kill the friggin' terrorists, maybe it can return to normal. But that might make them hate us! OH NO! WE'RE SO MEAN!!!
Anyway, is that 10 minutes to normal, as Karen Hughes would say? Or 10 years to normal? And what on earth is normal, when you're talking about Iraq chaos theory?
Normal=all enemies dead. That sounds pretty simple.
I need a new columnist to fisk. Any suggestions?
You find some interesting stuff when you're up studying Spanish until 3 AM. Look at this DU post:
HEY BUSH!! I AM AN INSURGENT!!! Who Else Will SIGN THIS?? Edited on Wed Apr-28-04 09:11 PM by matcomSIGN UP HERE!!!
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=insurgent
in·sur·gent
adj.Rising in revolt against established authority, especially a
government.Rebelling against the leadership of a political party.
Oh. So, they're just having fun with words, right? RIGHT?
I am an insurgent.If I were an Iraqi, I sure as shit would be doing my bit.
Oooooo....kay.... I guess it's not just fun with words.
I hate to do this to you, but you'll have to go over there to see the rest. I don't have time to pick out the cream of the crap right now.
Sick people. Sick.
I couldn't let something this hilarious go. A post on Daily ("screw them!") Kos talks about various events that some Republican press secretary thinks are important in the next month. One of these events is "Loyalty Day," which is described as "...simply a day for all of us to show our loyalty to the nation." In response to this, a commenter named "AnarchistFag" writes:
I may vomitLoyalty Day? On Mayday? ON FRICKIN' MAYDAY!
How dare you desecrate the greatest secular holiday of the year (better then Arbor day? you bet!) with your sickening reflexive flag waving. You low down, red-baiting bastards. Is'nt Presidents Day, memorial day, flag day, and the fourth of july enough for you to prove your chickenhawk "loyalty"? Or must you also co-op the one day of solidarity for the working class across all nations, poisoning the well with your nationalistic fever?
Whoever came up with that idea for that day is first up against the wall when MY revolution comes.
Sorry, I had to get that off my chest. Solidarity Forever, Power To The Peacefull, No War But The Class War, and all tha jazz. Im going to go lie down now.
I still have to study Spanish, so I'll let you add your thoughts in the comments. This is too good for me to keep to myself anyway.
Whatever you do, remember not to question his patriotism!
Here's a good one: If President Bush had fought in Vietnam, would the left be questioning his service?
I think we all know the answer to that.
Exciting news, SIT readers! Syracuse Live is finally available in a watchable format (I'm able to play it with Windows Media Player for Mac)! To download any episode, go here.
If you care, I'm in the opening sketch of sulive022904.wmv, and the "Rock Paper Scissors" sketch of syracuselive041204.wmv. Those aren't links, by the way. I'm just telling you what to click when you get there.
I don't expect many of you to actually watch these, but they're finally available if you want 'em. I have to study Spanish all day, so this is probably going to be my only post.
UPDATE
I took some screenshots of the sketches I was in. Yes, this is just a way for me to procrastinate. Oh well. These are really low quality, by the way:
Lounge Pirate (I still can't believe I agreed to do this)
I have a strange life.
I don't care what your position is on abortion. You have to read this. Here's an excerpt:
One woman, maybe about 30ish, started screaming at me, at the top of her lungs, “I CHOSE!! AND I’M PROUD!” over and over and over again. The others around her took up the chant, some verbatim, some saying instead, “I CHOOSE!! AND I’M PROUD!!” The veins were popping out on her forehead and neck, her face was beet red, and she was hunched over at the waist as she shrieked out the words at high volume, glowering at me, for at least five minutes straight. If there is a definition of “frothing at the mouth,” that was this woman at that time.
Read the whole thing. You won't regret it.
Emperor Misha has a few trolls that need to be dealt with. Feel free to go over there and help out. I have to get back to studying psychology.
In case I haven't mentioned it, I have 6 tests in the next 8 days, so I won't be blogging much. Just letting you know.
Here's something for you to check out. I just created a blog to visually illustrate the effects of abortion. The page contains approximately 1,260,000 asterisks. Each asterisk represents one abortion performed in America. Go here to see. Remember, this just represents a single year.
You may want to clear your browser cache before you go. It is a BlogSpot site. And give it time to load.
By the way, the actual numbers for yearly abortions are higher, according to this site, and lower according to this one, but I tried to keep it somewhat accurate.
UPDATE
Here's something you can try: Go to that link, reduce your browser text to the smallest possible size, and just look at it.
I'll let you draw your own conclusions from there.
Okay, I'm doing an abortion post. Do you know what that means? It means that:
#1: I believe that abortion involves the killing of an innocent human being, and will therefore be arguing based on that position.
#2: If you're going to debate me in the comments, you'd better bring the best pro-abortion argument you've got, because I will destroy you (metaphorically) if you let up for even a second. See the October archives if you don't believe me.
#3: GODWIN'S LAW IS IN EFFECT. Just because abortion is similar in some ways to the Holocaust, it does not mean that being pro-choice makes someone a Nazi. Got it? Good. Let's see the article:
Hundreds of Thousands Protest Bush Abortion PolicyHundreds of thousands of protesters rallied on the National Mall on Sunday to show support for abortion rights and opposition to Bush administration policies on women's reproductive health issues.
I wonder if they've stopped to think about the irony in the fact that if their mothers had exercised their "right to choose" and had abortions, none of them would've been there supporting abortion. You've gotta love these idiots.
Hefting signs reading "Fight the Radical Right..."
This is the world we're living in, ladies and gentlemen. If you oppose the killing of unwanted children, you are the radical.
"Keep Abortion Legal" and "U.S. Out Of My Uterus," pink- and purple-shirted demonstrators flooded downtown Washington for a daylong March for Women's Lives.
Unless, of course, those women are still unborn girls, in which case, they must die.
The abortion issue was the centerpiece of the march's broad protest against the policies of President Bush, including his stance on funding international family planning. No U.S. funds may currently be used for any family planning agency that mentions abortion to patients.
Let them use their own money if they're so set on killing friggin' kids.
"Vote That Smirk Out of Office," was a characteristically political placard targeting Bush...
What's f**king political about calling him a "smirk?"
...but Dorothy Smith, 76, of Eldridge, Missouri, carried an emblem she made herself -- a wire coat hanger draped with a sign reading "Never Again."
I'm sure the government forces people to have abortions with coat hangers.
"Free will? Wasn't that a movie about a whale?"
"I can remember when abortion was just as common as it is now, but it killed a lot of women," Smith said.
I love the old "if you outlaw abortion, people will have them anyway" argument. This is going to sound heartless, and it may make some of you hate me, but I don't f**king care how "safe" abortion is. If you're going to murder your child, you should put your own life at risk. If it takes a coat hanger to carry out your stupid f**king plan, then so be it. I. DON'T. CARE. It's all about "choice," right?
Major sponsors included stalwarts of the abortion rights movement -- NARAL Pro-choice America, Feminist Majority, National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood Federation of America -- as well as the American Civil Liberties Union...
Well, maybe they'll still protect liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
...the Black Women's Health Imperative and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health.
It's not healthy reproduction if the fetus dies, you know.
Some 1,400 groups attended the event, including an international contingent with marchers from 57 countries. There were medical students who carried signs saying they planned to be the next generation of abortion providers, and there was a Texas group marching behind a banner that read, "Old Broads for Choice."
So much for the "we don't like abortion, but it should be legal anyway" crowd. Future abortion providers. You people make me sick. How about trying to stop unwanted pregnancies before they begin? Would that be too f**kin' hard for you?
COUNTER-DEMONSTRATIONSMaggie Bartles of Bradenton, Florida, and Cami Campbell of San Diego, both 11, were at the front of the pre-march crowd. Both wore pink "Student Stand Up for Choice" T-shirts.
"It should be your choice what you do with your body," Campbell said.
True. So you should choose not to have sex until you're ready to deal with the possible consequences. After that, it's about choosing what to do with someone else's body.
"I think we should get Bush out of here," Bartles added.
I'm surprised they don't want to assassinate abort him.
As the march wound from the Mall toward the White House and then turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue and moved toward Capitol Hill, abortion rights groups encountered anti-abortion protesters.These protesters carried posters showing photographs of fetuses at eight weeks gestation and signs reading "Abortion Kills Babies."
"They're telling the truth! Get them out of here!"
March organizers hoped for a bigger turnout than a 1992 abortion rights march, which drew 500,000, according to the National Park Police, which no longer gives official crowd counts.
Maybe the rest were aborted.
The biggest demonstration was an anti-Vietnam War rally in 1969, which drew 600,000.
Fun fact: 40 million children have been killed by abortion since 1973. I wonder if they would've been there...
Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood, said the numbers on the Mall may exceed 1992."There is a time to march and this is the time," Feldt said. "Women's right to self-determination is on the brink."
STOP F**KING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO GET PREGNANT, YOU IMBECILES!!!!!! THAT'S WHEN YOU MAKE YOUR CHOICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Though the march was billed as nonpartisan and included a contingent called Republicans for Choice, much of the day's rhetoric was plainly against Bush, a Republican who opposes abortion in most cases.
Did they even need to tell us that?
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry vowed on Friday to champion abortion rights if elected. He received the endorsement of Planned Parenthood's Action Fund, the organization's political fund-raising arm.
As if we needed another reason not to vote for John "F**k Up" Kerry.
Neither Bush nor Kerry were expected to attend the march, but U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a New York Democrat and former first lady, drew roars of approval when she exhorted the crowd to register to vote, which could be done with volunteers.
If you need any more proof that abortion is evil, there it is.
Bush addressed an anti-abortion march in January, saying the effort to overturn the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which recognized a right to abortion, was "a noble cause."
I like how they just assume that abortion is a right, but they make sure to point out that only Bush called the fight to end abortion "a noble cause."
Have I mentioned that I have no faith in humanity? I don't think I've mentioned that in a while.
I found another great blog-related time wasting activity at Hold the Mayo. This is a list of books. The ones in bold are the ones I've read. I'm putting it in the extended entry for the good of humanity:
Beowulf
Achebe, Chinua - Things Fall Apart
Agee, James - A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice
Baldwin, James - Go Tell It on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel - Waiting for Godot
Bellow, Saul - The Adventures of Augie March
Brontë, Charlotte - Jane Eyre
Brontë, Emily - Wuthering Heights
Camus, Albert - The Stranger
Cather, Willa - Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales
Chekhov, Anton - The Cherry Orchard
Chopin, Kate - The Awakening
Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness
Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans
Crane, Stephen - The Red Badge of Courage
Dante - Inferno
de Cervantes, Miguel - Don Quixote
Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment
Douglass, Frederick - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Dreiser, Theodore - An American Tragedy
Dumas, Alexandre - The Three Musketeers
Eliot, George - The Mill on the Floss
Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Selected Essays
Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry - Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary
Ford, Ford Madox - The Good Soldier
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von - Faust
Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter
Heller, Joseph - Catch 22
Hemingway, Ernest - A Farewell to Arms
Homer - The Iliad
Homer - The Odyssey
Hugo, Victor - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hurston, Zora Neale - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik - A Doll's House
James, Henry - The Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry - The Turn of the Screw
Joyce, James - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz - The Metamorphosis
Kingston, Maxine Hong - The Woman Warrior
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
Lewis, Sinclair - Babbitt
London, Jack - The Call of the Wild
Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain
Marquez, Gabriel García - One Hundred Years of Solitude
Melville, Herman - Bartleby the Scrivener
Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
Miller, Arthur - The Crucible
Morrison, Toni - Beloved
O'Connor, Flannery - A Good Man is Hard to Find
O'Neill, Eugene - Long Day's Journey into Night
Orwell, George - Animal Farm
Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago
Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar
Poe, Edgar Allan - Selected Tales
Proust, Marcel - Swann's Way
Pynchon, Thomas - The Crying of Lot 49
Remarque, Erich Maria - All Quiet on the Western Front
Rostand, Edmond - Cyrano de Bergerac
Roth, Henry - Call It Sleep
Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye
Shakespeare, William - Hamlet
Shakespeare, William - Macbeth
Shakespeare, William - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Shakespeare, William - Romeo and Juliet
Shaw, George Bernard - Pygmalion
Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
Silko, Leslie Marmon - Ceremony
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles - Antigone
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath
Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island
Stowe, Harriet Beecher - Uncle Tom's Cabin
Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver's Travels
Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David - Walden
Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan - Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Voltaire - Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. - Slaughterhouse-Five
Walker, Alice - The Color Purple
Wharton, Edith - The House of Mirth
Welty, Eudora - Collected Stories
Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass
Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray
Williams, Tennessee - The Glass Menagerie
Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard - Native Son
Since Pixy is currently doing something with the MuNu database, you're seeing this a few hours after it was written, but that shouldn't really change much. Anyway, it's time for a long-overdue fisking of Maureen Dowd. I know I said I wasn't going to write political posts until after finals, but...I'm pulling a Kerry on this one. Let's get started:
The Orwellian Olsens By MAUREEN DOWD
First of all, I still can't believe Maureen Dowd hasn't lost her job yet. Why can't the people who fired Ted Rall follow up on their moment of intelligence? Anyway...
It's their reality. We just live and die in it.In Bushworld, our troops go to war and get killed, but you never see the bodies coming home.
Brilliant. Let's do something that will decrease morale just to make a political point. I'm sure that will help the casualties to go down.
In Bushworld, flag-draped remains of the fallen are important to revere and show the nation, but only in political ads hawking the president's leadership against terror.
Actually, the 9/11 images were used to show how the country pulled together after the worst attack in its history. In contrast, the left wants to use images of Iraq war casualties to prove that President Bush is a failure. Bit of a difference there, MoDo.
In Bushworld, we can create an exciting Iraqi democracy as long as it doesn't control its own military, pass any laws or have any power.
We've been there a year. The freaking U.S. didn't even have democracy in a year, and we didn't have suicide bombers and "insurgents" to deal with. But I guess Bush can just magically go from being an inept monkey to a genius with a "Make Iraq a Democracy" button. Keep dreaming.
In Bushworld, we can win over Falluja by bulldozing it.
As soon as someone mentions "bulldozing" Falluja, I might take that seriously.
In Bushworld, it was worth going to war so Iraqis can express their feelings ("Down With America!") without having their tongues cut out, although we cannot yet allow them to express intemperate feelings in newspapers ("Down With America!") without shutting them down.
Is she f**king serious? Is Michael "the Insurgents Are Iraq's Minutemen" Moore ghostwriting Dowd's columns now? Let me explain something to you, idiot: When "newspapers" are the cause of attacks on the U.S. armed forces, it is in the interest of the U.S. armed forces to shut them down. I can't remember where I saw this, but free speech ends where action begins. Are you going to say "screw them" next? I'm curious.
In Bushworld, it's fine to take $700 million that Congress provided for the war in Afghanistan and 9/11 recovery and divert it to the war in Iraq that you're insisting you're not planning.
This is the first I've heard of that one. I'm not sure exactly what point it's supposed to make. Wasn't the money for the War on Terror as a whole? Oh, right, "No connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda!"
In Bushworld, you don't consult your father, the expert in being president during a war with Iraq, but you do talk to your Higher Father, who can't talk back to warn you to get an exit strategy or chide you for using Him for political purposes.
I find it interesting that Dowd said that, even though she wrote another column claiming that Bush went to war to rebel against his father in some adolescent quest for greatness. I won't even get into the God comment. That's just plain wrong on many levels.
In Bushworld, it's O.K. to run for re-election as the avenger of 9/11, even as you make secret deals with the Arab kingdom where most of the 9/11 hijackers came from.
Those tinfoil hats must really be in style this season.
In Bushworld, you get to strut around like a tough military guy and paint your rival as a chicken hawk, even though he's the one who won medals in combat and was praised by his superior officers for fulfilling all his obligations.
Bush has not called Kerry a "chicken hawk." Neither has anyone else in his administration. And he "strutted around" once, after demonstrating that he does actually possess the ability to pilot an aircraft. I really get irritated by Dowd's "testosterone is the root of all evil" attitude toward Dubya. "We need a metrosexual president!"
In Bushworld, it makes sense to press for transparency in Mr. and Mrs. Rival while cultivating your own opacity.
Bush was asked to reveal all his records. Bush revealed his records. Kerry was asked to reveal all his records. Kerry said he would, then changed his mind and refused. I'm glad we could clear this up.
In Bushworld, you can reign as the antiterror president even after hearing an intelligence report about Al Qaeda's plans to attack America and then stepping outside to clear brush.
We knew about Al Qaeda's plans years before that, you blithering idiot. I didn't realize learning that terrorists want to terrorize people should cause us to prepare for armageddon. Thanks for enlightening me once again with your unbelievable brilliance in all matters of national defense.
In Bushworld, those who dissemble about the troops and money it will take to get Iraq on its feet are patriots, while those who are honest are patronizingly marginalized.
I think she just blended 2 points together on that one, because I have no idea what it means.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq, even as they increasingly merge the two in America.
"If I say it, it must be true! The 'religious right' wants to oppress us all!!!!!!!!"
In Bushworld, you can claim to be the environmental president on Earth Day while being the industry president every other day.
Well, I'm convinced. I'm going to sell all my evil, planet-raping possessions and go live in the woods so I can be an "environmental" American. How can people who claim to be "progressive" be against progress?
In Bushworld, you brag about how well Afghanistan is going, even though soldiers like Pat Tillman are still dying and the Taliban are running freely around the border areas, hiding Osama and delaying elections.
Pat Tillman died on a mission to kill the Taliban forces, didn't he? War kills people. I'm sorry you weren't aware of that.
In Bushworld, imperfect intelligence is good enough to knock over Iraq. But even better evidence that North Korea is building the weapons that Saddam could only dream about is hidden away.
If it was being hidden away, you wouldn't know about it. And by your definition, our evidence against North Korea isn't good enough. No intelligence is perfect, so we can't logically act on it if your premise is correct. Wow.
In Bushworld, the C.I.A. says it can't find out whether there are W.M.D. in Iraq unless we invade on the grounds that there are W.M.D.
Among the MANY REASONS we invaded was the fact that Hussein never proved that he didn't have WMD. We even involved the U.N., that brilliant, unbiased defender of international law. What more could you ask for?
In Bushworld, there's no irony that so many who did so much to avoid the Vietnam draft have now strained the military so much that lawmakers are talking about bringing back the draft.
If you would actually try to comprehend the verbal diarrhea leaking out of their mouths, you'd realize that they're just trying to scare people. The military has more people than it needs. I guess that in Dowdworld, that means we should have a draft. That makes my head hurt.
In Bushworld, we're making progress in the war on terror by fighting a war that creates terrorists.
They were already terrorists. We're just giving them a quick and easy way to die, instead of letting them recruit more terrorists to kill innocent people. If the WoT creates terrorists, then fishing creates fish.
In Bushworld, you don't need to bother asking your vice president and top Defense Department officials whether you should go to war in Iraq, because they've already maneuvered you into going to war.
Kerrytastic! So, it's not Bush's fault it all! It was just his eeeeeeevil advisors! I really wish they'd pick either the "dumb chimp" or "evil genius" meme and stick with it. It would make life so much simpler.
In Bushworld, it's perfectly natural for the president and vice president to appear before the 9/11 commission like the Olsen twins.
What a horrible analogy. Wow.
In Bushworld, you expound on remaking the Middle East and spreading pro-American sentiments even as you expand anti-American sentiments by ineptly occupying Iraq and unstintingly backing Ariel Sharon on West Bank settlements.
I'm so glad you've decided that Iraq is a failure and Israel is evil. How do you argue with these people?
In Bushworld, we went to war to give Iraq a democratic process, yet we disdain the democratic process that causes allies to pull out troops.
Nobody's stopping them from pulling out their troops. They're just saying that it's a bad idea. That's the essence of democracy. I guess this is another Dowdworld fact: "If everybody doesn't agree, it's not a democracy! YOU DEBATING FASCISTS!!!!"
In Bushworld, you pride yourself on the fact that your administration does not leak to the press, while you flood the best-known journalist in Washington with inside information.
I really have no idea what that's alluding to. Anybody? Bueller?
In Bushworld, you list Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack" as recommended reading on your campaign Web site, even though it makes you seem divorced from reality. That is, unless you live in Bushworld.
And in the real world, you actually back up statements like that with some kind of facts, instead of believing that everyone on Earth shares your opinion. But this isn't the real world. This is...DOWDWORLD.
And now, back to procrastinating.
Here's something fun to think about:
If a certain area of a city turns into a high-crime zone, and a large number of police officers are killed in the line of duty, should the police pull all their patrols out of that section and hope the crime wave doesn't spread to the rest of the city, or should they do something about it?
I don't think I need to explain what I'm alluding to here.
I thought I should mention that my roommate's girlfriend, who thinks that "the electoral college is a piece of sh*t" and "[presidential candidates] should all form their own political parties," is visiting this weekend. This could provide some fun quotes.
Incidentally, she also helped inspire that "I'm sick of living in a dorm" comment in the celebration post. That should give you an idea of what I think of her.
I just realized that some of the people who were offended when President Bush used 9/11 in a campaign ad are the same people who are demanding to see pictures of dead U.S. soldiers on the nightly news.
Hooray for consistency. Hooray.
10,000 VISITORS! YEEEEAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!!!!
[/Howard Dean]
I think that's enough celebration.
On another note, I'm tired of living in a dorm. Give me my friggin' privacy, peace, and quiet back, you idiots.
BEST. FARK. PHOTOSHOP. CONTEST. EVER.
I could write about something political right now, but I've decided to stay away from that stuff until school is over. After that, it's back to rants and fisking.
Until then, I'll follow up on what I've been saying and post my script. Remember, I'm studying to be a writer/director. This kind of thing is what I want to spend most of my life doing, so I'm taking it pretty seriously. You can go to this post from yesterday for some background info (read the essay I linked; it'll help you understand the plot of my story), and I'll fill in the rest here with a quick introduction:
This script is meant to be used for a short film, approximately 10 minutes in length (and it is only a script; I'm not taking production classes yet). It takes place 5 years after the events in "The Stucco House" by Ellen Gilchrist, and is based largely on that story. Because of this, all the characterization and allusions may not make sense to you, but I want to see if the story works on its own as well. In any case, here's some character info:
-Eric: Middle-aged photographer who married Rhoda after she divorced the father of her children. He has trouble dealing with her drinking problems and artistic failures, but has stayed with her because of Teddy.
-Rhoda: Middle-aged poet/painter. She is very talented, but can't get any of her work published. She had 3 children with another husband before marrying Eric, and she is a borderline alcoholic. She doesn't think she has ever really loved Eric, but they've tried to keep their marriage intact.
-Teddy: 7 years old in the original story, 12 years old in the script. He and Eric used to be very close, and their relationship was all that held the family together, but he's recently entered the adolescent "question all authority" phase, and it's causing serious problems.
The film takes place in present day New Orleans. I think that's about all you need to know for it to make sense. Finally, here's a key to reading the script:
CAPITALIZED WORDS= Extended actor directions/visual descriptions
(words in parentheses)= Directions within a line of dialogue
CAPITALIZED NAME
With normal words beneath it= Character name and his/her dialogue.
I think that's enough insulting your intelligence for right now. On to the script! My professor (who still looks like John Kerry) said that you can get some of your best suggestions from friends reading your script and telling you how they, as potential audience members, feel about it. I consider you all to be my friends, so feel free to offer any criticism, suggestions, or other pieces of information. In particular, I'm looking for ways to improve the dialogue in the last scene and the story right before the ending.
Or you could ignore it. Your decision.
Anyway...Readers of SIT, I now present the first ever full-length script by CD...
(click extended entry now)
THE DARKROOM
Scene #1
EXT. THE STUCCO HOUSE. EARLY MORNING. THE SUN RISES BEHIND THE HOUSE.
ERIC
Teddy! Teddy?! (sound of Eric knocking on the door)
CLOSE ON AN UPSTAIRS WINDOW.
ERIC
Teddy! Are you up yet?
INT. TEDDY’S BEDROOM. TEDDY, AGE 12, IS LYING IN BED COVERING HIS HEAD WITH A PILLOW.
ERIC
Teddy! (knocks again) Come on, pal, it’s almost 7:30. You’re gonna be late for school!
NO RESPONSE. ERIC WAITS SEVERAL SECONDS, THEN OPENS THE DOOR AND WALKS OVER TO TEDDY’S BED.
ERIC
Teddy! (tries to shake him awake) Are you getting up or not?
TEDDY
(removes the pillow) Go away! (puts the pillow back)
ERIC
Come on, don’t do this again. You’ll have to get out of bed eventually.
TEDDY
(removes the pillow again) Fine. Just give me 5 minutes. (starts to get out of bed)
ERIC
All right, but don’t blame me if you miss your first class. (walks out of the room)
INT. THE UPSTAIRS HALLWAY. ERIC STANDS OUTSIDE TEDDY’S DOOR.
ERIC
(looks at his watch) Are you ready in there? It’s been more than 5 minutes.
TEDDY OPENS THE DOOR, WALKS PAST ERIC, AND STARTS DOWN THE STAIRS. ERIC FOLLOWS CLOSELY.
ERIC
Now, before you leave, are you sure you have everything? (waits for a response) Answer me, Teddy.
THEY REACH THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS. TEDDY SUDDENLY TURNS AND WALKS TOWARD THE DARKROOM AT THE END OF THE HALL.
ERIC
Hey! The door’s over here! What are you doing?
TEDDY CONTINUES, ENTERS THE DARKROOM, SLAMS THE DOOR, AND LOCKS IT. ERIC RUNS TO THE DOOR.
ERIC
Teddy! (tries the knob) Don’t do this! You have to go to school!
TEDDY
(from the darkroom) Leave me alone!
ERIC
Teddy!!! (pounds on the door, waits a few seconds) Okay, suit yourself. It’s your education. I have to go talk to your mother.
TEDDY
I don’t care!
ERIC WALKS AWAY. CLOSE ON THE DARKROOM DOOR.
Scene #2
EXT. A MOTEL NEXT TO A HIGHWAY. MORNING. A CAR PULLS INTO THE PARKING LOT, AND ERIC GETS OUT. HE WALKS TOWARD THE BUILDING. CLOSE ON A SINGLE DOOR AS ERIC APPROACHES.
ERIC
(knocking) Rhoda? (knocks again) Are you in there? (knocks once more)
ERIC TRIES THE DOOR. IT’S UNLOCKED. HE OPENS IT SLOWLY AND TAKES A QUICK LOOK IN THE ROOM. RHODA IS INSIDE LYING ON A BED. SHE IS AWAKE, BUT DROWSY.
ERIC
Why wasn’t the door locked?
RHODA
I forgot. Now close it. You’re letting in too much light.
ERIC CLOSES THE DOOR, WALKS IN, AND SITS DOWN ON THE OTHER BED
ERIC
Rhoda, you’ve been here for almost a week. Are you ready to talk to me yet?
RHODA
What’s there to talk about, Eric? I can’t handle this marriage anymore. I haven’t been able to handle it for five years. You know that, don’t you?
ERIC
But I need to know what you want to do. You can’t just walk out on me. And on Teddy. Are you going to spend the rest of your life in this motel? Give me some answers.
RHODA
I told you, I can’t handle it. I don’t know what else to say. (covers her face with her hands, lies back down) Do you have any aspirin?
ERIC
Wait, have you been drinking again? (looks on the table, sees two empty bottles) You have. I see. Maybe this isn’t the best time to talk. Do you want me to come back later?
RHODA
I don’t know. I don’t even know if I want to see you again. Just go.
ERIC
We have to make a decision sometime, Rhoda. I’ll see you later.
ERIC GETS UP, OPENS THE DOOR, AND STEPS OUTSIDE. END ON INT. SHOT OF THE DOOR CLOSING.
Scene #3
BACKYARD OF THE STUCCO HOUSE. AFTERNOON. BRIGHT SUNLIGHT FILLS THE SCENE. TEDDY IS WALKING THROUGH THE YARD WITH A CAMERA. EVERY FEW SECONDS, HE STOPS TO TAKE A PHOTOGRAPH. AFTER DOING THIS A FEW TIMES, HE LOWERS THE CAMERA AND STARES OFF INTO SPACE, FACING AWAY FROM THE HOUSE. THIS IS FOLLOWED BY THE SOUND OF A CAR ENTERING THE DRIVEWAY.
EXT. SHOT OF THE HOUSE AS ERIC’S CAR PULLS IN. HE GETS OUT AND LOOKS AROUND.
SHOT OF TEDDY STILL STANDING IN THE YARD. SOUND OF CAR DOOR SLAMMING. TEDDY SEES ERIC IN THE DRIVEWAY AND RUNS BACK TOWARD THE HOUSE.
ERIC
Teddy, wait a second! I have to talk to you! (runs after him)
INT. THE DOWNSTAIRS HALLWAY. THE BACK DOOR OPENS, AND TEDDY RUNS INSIDE, FOLLOWED BY ERIC. TEDDY REACHES THE DARKROOM AND LOCKS HIMSELF INSIDE.
ERIC
Why are you doing this again? (pounds on the door) We really need to talk!
NO ANSWER. ERIC SLOWLY WALKS AWAY.
Scene #4
INT. THE KITCHEN OF THE STUCCO HOUSE. EARLY EVENING. ERIC SITS AT THE TABLE LOOKING THROUGH A PILE OF PHOTOGRAPHS. CLOSE ON THE CURRENT PHOTO, DEPICTING A YOUNGER TEDDY PADDLING A CANOE. ANOTHER PHOTO SHOWS TEDDY SKIING, AND ANOTHER SHOWS HIM WASHING A DOG. ONE MORE PHOTO SHOWS TEDDY AT AGE 7, READING “THE BIG GREEN BOOK.” ERIC LOOKS AT THIS ONE FOR SEVERAL SECONDS BEFORE PUTTING IT ON THE TABLE.
BEHIND ERIC, THE DOOR TO THE DARKROOM OPENS, AND TEDDY TRIES TO SNEAK OUT. ERIC TURNS TO FACE HIM.
ERIC
Wait a second, Teddy. Can we talk now?
TEDDY STARES AT THE FLOOR, THEN STARTS TO WALK AWAY.
ERIC
Where are you going? Come on, this is important. It’ll only take a couple minutes.
TEDDY STARTS WALKING TOWARD THE KITCHEN.
TEDDY
Fine. Can I get a Coke first?
ERIC
May I get a Coke.
TEDDY
(sighs) May I get a Coke?
ERIC
Yes, you may. Just don’t run off again.
TEDDY WALKS TO THE REFRIGERATOR AND TAKES OUT A BOTTLE OF COKE. HE OPENS IT AND STARTS TO DRINK.
ERIC
Are you going to sit down?
TEDDY SLOWLY MOVES OVER TO THE TABLE AND SITS DOWN ACROSS FROM ERIC. HE KEEPS DRINKING THE COKE WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING.
ERIC
Now, Teddy...
TEDDY
I’m 12 years old. You can stop calling me Teddy.
ERIC
Okay...Ted...why didn’t you go to school today? Are you having problems? You told me you would study every night.
TEDDY
Yeah...I did...but I changed my mind. I don’t need to study.
ERIC
Yes, you do. Remember when you were in 2nd grade, and the tutor taught you to read? You loved reading. You were learning. Why is it so much different now?
TEDDY
It’s just...not important. It doesn’t matter.
ERIC
Teddy...Ted...it does matter. I know you love to read. That can’t be the problem. Is there something else I should know?
TEDDY
Well...the other guys at school make fun of me. Because I’m so small. They do it every day. I hate going there.
ERIC
Don’t listen to them. You know you’re better than that. Anyway, look at your brothers. You’ll end up big and strong like them someday. Is that really what’s been bothering you?
TEDDY LOOKS DOWN AT THE FLOOR, SHIFTS IN HIS CHAIR.
ERIC
What else is on your mind? You can talk to me. We’re friends, remember?
TEDDY
(stops moving, looks up at Eric) I remember. But now...(silence)
ERIC
Is this about your mother and I? Is that what’s been bothering you?
TEDDY LOOKS BACK DOWN.
ERIC
Look...your mom just needed some time to herself. You know how hard she works on her paintings. I bet she’ll be fine in a couple more days.
TEDDY
(still looking down) You talked to her today. And she didn’t come back.
ERIC
I told you, she...well, no. You’re right. She didn’t come back. And I don’t know when she is coming back...but we can work this out. You have to trust us. Can you do that, Ted?
TEDDY
I don’t know. Are you going to...will you...(looks up)
ERIC
I think I understand what you’re asking. And yes, there is a chance that...you know.
TEDDY CONTINUES LOOKING AT ERIC
ERIC
Would you be okay if...there was...(softer)...a divorce?
WHEN ERIC SAYS “DIVORCE,” TEDDY’S EYES OPEN WIDE, AND HE STANDS UP.
ERIC
Teddy? Are you all right?
TEDDY SLOWLY BACKS AWAY FROM THE TABLE AND CONTINUES WALKING BACKWARDS UNTIL HE REACHES THE DARKROOM. HE LOCKS HIMSELF INSIDE AGAIN. A FEW SECONDS LATER, ERIC PICKS UP THE PHONE AND DIALS A NUMBER.
ERIC
Hi. How do you feel? (pause) Yes, right now. (pause) Okay, I’ll see you in a few minutes.
HE HANGS UP THE PHONE.
Scene #5
EXT. THE FRONT OF THE STUCCO HOUSE. NIGHT. A CAR PULLS INTO THE DRIVEWAY. RHODA GETS OUT AND WALKS TOWARD THE FRONT DOOR.
INT. THE KITCHEN. RHODA OPENS THE DOOR AND ENTERS TO FIND ERIC SITTING AT THE TABLE.
ERIC
Glad you made it. Sit down. We need to work this out right now.
RHODA SITS DOWN ACROSS FROM ERIC.
RHODA
What do you want to do? We’ve tried everything. I keep telling you, I can’t handle the marriage anymore.
ERIC
Well, you can’t keep living in that motel, either. Why were you hung over this morning?
RHODA
Eric...the gallery didn’t want my paintings. They turned them down last week. All of them. So I’ve been drinking. It’s all I can do.
ERIC
What? I thought they already paid you. Is that why you left the house?
RHODA
No...that’s not why. I knew they wouldn’t want my paintings. Nobody wanted my poems either. I’m used to failing.
ERIC
Then why did you leave? You still haven’t told me. I’ve got my hands full with Teddy, and I don’t even know what to say to him.
RHODA
That’s just it...remember 5 years ago, when you brought Teddy back from Mandeville, and we told him that we were going to stay together?
ERIC
I remember. He was so happy when he heard that.
INT. THE DARKROOM. TEDDY CRACKS THE DOOR OPEN AND WATCHES THE CONVERSATION IN THE KITCHEN. NEXT LINES ARE FROM HIS POINT OF VIEW.
RHODA
He was happy because he didn’t want you to leave. He always looked up to you. That’s why I agreed not to divorce you, Eric. I knew that I would have to take care of Teddy even if he wanted to stay with you. But I can’t pretend anymore.
ERIC
You have to try. If not for me, then for Teddy. I’m having my own problems with him right now. I need you here, Rhoda.
TEDDY IS SHOWN WRITING SOMETHING, BUT ONLY THE PENCIL IS VISIBLE. CAMERA RETURNS TO THE KITCHEN.
RHODA
What else can I do? I need to move on. I’ve kept up this act for five years, and I’m ready for a change.
ERIC
(long pause) Well...I guess there’s nothing else I can say. Can you take care of Teddy?
RHODA
I don’t think so. I can’t raise another son. But I can’t stay here, either.
ERIC
Well, he’s still your son. He can’t live with me. What do you want to do?
RHODA
I don’t know. Maybe he could go live with my parents.
ERIC
You know he hates it there. Are you sure you want a divorce? Don’t leave unless you’re sure.
IN THE BACKGROUND, TEDDY OPENS THE DOOR OF THE DARKROOM AND QUIETLY WALKS AWAY. ERIC GLANCES TOWARD THE OPEN DOOR.
ERIC
He spent the whole day in that darkroom instead of going to school. He’s barely spoken to me since you left. Do you understand now? He needs both of us.
ERIC GETS UP AND WALKS TOWARD THE DARKROOM. RHODA FOLLOWS HIM.
INT. THE DARKROOM. ERIC WALKS IN TO FIND DOZENS OF PHOTOS SCATTERED THROUGHOUT THE ROOM. SOME ARE PICTURES OF HE AND TEDDY DOING THINGS TOGETHER, OTHERS WERE TAKEN IN THE BACKYARD THAT AFTERNOON. A FEW ARE FACE-DOWN, AND HANDWRITING IS CLEARLY VISIBLE ON THEM.
RHODA
What happened in here? Did you tell him to do this?
ERIC
No. I haven’t been in here all day. (picks up a few pictures) I recognize these. They’re from our skiing trip.
RHODA
(picks up one photo) Do you recognize this handwriting?
ERIC
Yeah. It’s Teddy’s. (looks it over) It looks like he’s been writing stories on the pictures. (reading) “A long time ago, two kingdoms went to war...” (looks up) Sounds like an adventure story. He always loved adventures. (reading) “There was a village between the kingdoms, and they fought over it every day...the villagers were always afraid...” (reads more silently, then looks up) He really describes the battles well. I told him all that reading would pay off. Hmmm... (reading) “One day, a villager found a book of magic spells...” (looks up) This sounds familiar. (reading) “He tried using his magic to stop the war, but the kingdoms kept fighting...so he cast one more spell that took the entire village to a brand new kingdom...In this kingdom, there was no more fighting. You just had to go on and do what they told you, and pretty soon, life got better.”
ERIC LOOKS UP AT RHODA. THEY STARE AT EACH OTHER FOR A FEW SECONDS. ERIC PUTS THE PICTURE DOWN, AND THEY BOTH LOOK DOWN AT IT WITHOUT SPEAKING. CLOSE ON THE WRITING AND THE PHRASE “LIFE GOT BETTER.” FADE OUT.
END
Just thought I'd point out that if traffic stays about the same, I'll be hitting the 10,000 visitor mark by Saturday. Who will it be? WHO WILL BE #10,000???
...I just hope I don't sleep through it like I did with 5,000.
Random news: 4 out of 10 pages of my TRF script are now complete. I guess that's a good thing, since the rough draft is due at 2:30 on Thursday. Hooray.
Like I said before, I'll be posting the script when it's completed and edited (probably about a week from now), so I'll give you a little background info to get you started.
Basically, it's the sequel to a short story by Ellen Gilchrist called "The Stucco House." Unfortunately, I don't think you can read that story online, but there's an essay about it on this page. My film is called "The Darkroom," and it takes place 5 years after the first story. It involves divorce, photography, and alcohol, among other things.
...Are you excited yet? I bet you are.
UPDATE
The first draft of the script (which, by the way, is exactly 10 pages long) is officially complete! I'll be taking it into class for constructive criticism, and I may post it here instead of waiting until the final draft is finished. We'll see about that.
I hope you're not expecting a lot of political stuff until sometime next month. College is still hard.
However, here's something I just thought of: You know that picture that a lot of lefties (like the Miserable Failure) are posting right now that uses photos of all the soldiers killed in Iraq to form a larger image of President Bush?
Someone should make a picture of Saddam Hussein using smaller pictures of all the people he killed. Of course, that would probably be so big that it wouldn't fit on computer screens.
...Which would just reinforce the message, I suppose. Someone get to work on this!
Wow. I just spent the entire night writing a 4 page (read: 3 pages and 2 lines) paper in Spanish. I figure that a document I put that much work into shouldn't go to waste, so I'm putting it on the blog for no particular reason...in the extended entry, of course. I just thought you might want to know what kind of work I'm up against this week that's keeping me from blogging.
So, with that said, in the extended entry, you can read a report about Tito Puente, written entirely in Spanish. For any of you who are bored enough to try and translate it, don't try to make sense of it. Babelfish doesn't know the difference between the Spanish words for "touch" and "play," so it makes the report sound really weird.
...By the way, I will be posting my script when I get it written, so maybe that'll be interesting. Until then, here's a complete waste of bandwidth:
Tito Puente y la Música Latina en los Estados Unidos
Tito Puente fue uno de los músicos más famosas del siglo XX. En su vida, él trabajaba con muchas personas famosas, y en los estados unidos, ayudó introducir formas de música como jazz Latín, mambo, salsa, y cha-cha-cha, e instrumentos como el timbal y el vibraphone a música Afro-Cubano. Por estos y más, Tito Puente es “el rey de la música latina.”
En su niñez, Tito Puente se llamaba Ernest Anthony Puente, Jr. Él nació en el 20 de Abril, 1923, en la sección de la ciudad de Nueva York conocido como “harlem español,” en un parte conocido como “El Barrio.” Sus padres eran de Puerto Rico. Cuando Puente tenía 7 años, él empezó tocar lecciones de piano. Le gustan bailar y jugar el béisbol también, pero fue en un accidente de bicicleta y no pudo continuar con estos.
Cuando tenía 10 años, Puente empezó estudíar percusión. El quería tocar los tambores como Gene Krupa, una baterista de jazz. Cuando tenía 15 años, él empezó tocar con bandas latinoaméricanas en Miami, y después, tocaba tambores con Noro Morales y José Curbelo en Nueva York. Él tocaba tambores con el militar durante la Segunda Guerra Mundíal, y servía en la marina por 3 años.
Después de la Segunda Guerra Mundíal, Puente alistó en la escuela de música Julliard, y él estudíaba composición y conduciendo. Él continuaba trabajar con bandas latinas también, y él aprendió más sobre la música afro-cubano, mambo, y jazz latina. Durante este tiempo, Puente aprendió como arreglar muy bien, y ganó una reputación en la comunidad de música latina. Él grabó música también, y formó una banda se llamaban los “Picadilly Boys.”
Puente y su banda grabaron canciones muy populares, y muchas personas le gusta bailar a estos. En el año 1956, Puente ganó el título “El Rey de la Música Latina.” Unos años después, muchas personas en los estados unidos empezaron bailar el Mambo, a menudo a la música de Tito Puente. Puente ayudó introducir el cha-cha-cha también, y participó en celebraciones de música cubano porque era muy famosa por su música afro-cubano. Todo el tiempo, él continuaba tocar los tambores.
En el año 1970, Carlos Santana convirtió una canción de Tito Puente a la música roca, usando la guitarra y otros instrumentos modernos. Santana y Puente toquen juntos en un concierto en el año 1977 con una orquesta de 15 personas. Puente trabajaba con muchas otras personas famosas durante este tiempo. Por ejemplo, él y Celia Cruz trabajaban juntos. Puente pensaba que Celia Cruz era la persona más importante de música latina en el mundo. Puente trabajaba también con La Lupe, una cantadora de canciones latinas.
En el año 1979, Puente ganó un Grammy, y después, él empezó ayudar músicos jóvenes con una beca de percusión latina a Julliard. Él tocó a universidades en los estados durante este tiempo también. Durante la administración de Jimmy Carter, Puente ganó el nombre “el embajador de voluntad bueno de la música latinoaméricana.” Después, el tocó en programas de televisión con David Letterman y Bill Cosby, y actuaba en películas como “Los Reyes de Mambo” y “Días de Radio.”
Puente recibió grados honorarios de muchos universidades en el década 90, y en el año 2000, ganó un Grammy latín. Eventualmente, él ganó los títulos “El Rey del Mambo” y “El Rey de Timbal,” y él guardó el título “El Rey de la Música Latina,” o solamente “El Rey.” Puente continuaba tocar música hasta su muerte en el 31 de Mayo en el año 2000. Cuando murió, él tenía 77 años.
El tipo de música más asociado con Tito Puente es el mambo. El mambo es una combinación de influencias caribeñas, europeos, y americanos. El ritmo es importante al mambo, y es excelente para bailar. Puente es más famosa para tocando los timbales durante los mambos. Los timbales están tambores latinas de Cuba, y están utilizado en muchos tipos de música, como mambo y salsa. Normalmente, los timbales consisten en dos tambores de ruidos diferentes, y una baterista puede tocar los timbales con palillos o con sus manos. A menudo, los timbales incluyen otros instrumentos de percusión, como címbalos, cencerros, y un bloque de madera.
En los días viejos, la baterista se sentó cuando él tocó los timbales o otros tambores, pero Tito Puente se levantó al frente de la banda y se movió mucho. Tenía mucho energía, y ganó una reputación por eso. Además, Puente tocaba las congas, los claves, el piano, el clarinete, y el saxofón.
Durante su vida, Tito Puente cambiaba música latina en los estados unidos, y sus ideas personales sobre la música eran un parte de estos cambios. Por ejemplo, Puente ayudó definir “jazz latina.” Su definición de jazz latina es música jazz y ritmos latinos. En el aspecto latino, la percusión es muy importante, y el refleja la cultura de latinoamérica. El aspecto de jazz refleja la cultura de los estados unidos. Combinado, forman un tipo de música original y único.
Puente no le gustaba el término “salsa” para música latina, porque él pensó que salsa era un tipo de comida. Él dijo que “salsa” era una término comercial. Salsa incluye el mambo, la cha-cha-cha, la merengue, y música caribeña, y la palabra no refiere a un ritmo. Puente dijo que el ritmo es muy importante en la definición de un tipo de música latina.
Puente dijo sobre otros aspectos de música latina también. En una entrevista, él describió la importancia de jazz latina para bailes. Él dijo que bailando es la especialidad de música latina, y música popular necesita un baile. Cuando músicos tocan música familiar y ritmos latinas, la audiencia reconozca la música y baila a los ritmos nuevos. Puente dijo que la lengua no es muy importante en música latina, porque el percusión, los ritmos, y los bailes están divertidos sin los líricos. Muchas personas en todo el mundo les gusta la música latina.
Tito Puente es responsable para mucho de la renombre de música latina hoy. Él cambió muchos aspectos de esta forma, y influenció muchos músicos. Durante su carrera, él grabó más de 100 álbumes de música, escribió más de 400 composiciones, arregló música para sus bandas, y ganó el Grammy 5 veces. Él murió, pero es “El Rey de la Música Latina” por siempre.
So...I just got my housing assignment for next year. There's good news and not so good news.
Good news: I'm moving to a different building that isn't at the top of Mount Olympus. No more climbing 100 stairs 3 times a day just to get home.
Not so good news: It's a slightly smaller room, but that's a minor detail. More importantly, the building I'm living in next year is right next to the LGBT Resource Center and Daily Orange headquarters. These are 2 groups I've blogged about quite a lot, and I'm going to be living next to them.
Crap. Maybe I should do more to protect my identity now.
I've done a bit more thinking about what I said in that "Burning Out" post, and I've decided to take a partial hiatus this week. That means there won't be anything huge, but I will update occasionally.
I may need your help though. If I post anything substantial before Thursday night, it means I'm procrastinating, so leave a comment telling me to get back to work if it seems like I'm blogging too much.
I'm serious, by the way. Don't let me get carried away. I'll make it up to you next month.
I'm not going to bother linking to the place I found this, because it's on about 90% of all blogs now, but here goes:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
We don't have to establish his "character."
The book is On Directing Film by David Mamet, if you were wondering.
You know...I just realized that it's been a week since I posted anything interesting. That can't be a good sign. I may be due for a hiatus pretty soon. That doesn't mean you shouldn't check back, but I'm looking at some serious work over the next couple weeks, and I'd kind of like to pass all my classes.
...I guarantee that I'll be back to normal by May 10 or so. Until then, I really don't know.
Okay, I've mentioned before that my TRF professor looks like John Kerry, but the resemblance between that photo and one of Kerry in this story is amazing. I even did a little editing to prove it:
Seriously. That's scary. I'm going to have to see if he starts flip-flopping his lesson plans.
You have not truly lived until you've seen Caption City. It's a collection of dozens of those "make this sign say anything you want" photos. Here are a few of my creations so far:
Who likes cliches? I know I do!
I can't believe how pathetic this blog has become. Really.
I didn't think I'd ever find myself saying/typing/thinking this sentence, but...
I have work to do this weekend.
...That was almost painful. Anyway, since I still won't be blogging a lot (which will be the trend until finals end in about 3 weeks), I'll link to another fun waste of time that somehow involves me. Because I know you all care about my life outside of blogging (/sarcasm).
The SU Drumline website now has a few photo galleries posted, so you can check those out if there's actually a reason you would want to. For those of you who head over there, here's a fun game you can play: Go to the Band Camp gallery and try to guess which bass drummer is me. You'll never figure it out!!!
...You won't understand why that's funny unless you look at the gallery, by the way.
Yeah. I think I should go to sleep now.
The new episode of Syracuse Live is online! If you want to watch it, you can follow that link and click on the various 4-12-2004 options.
As long as I'm posting though, I'll direct you toward Rock Paper Scissors. I haven't seen this episode (technical difficulties at the studio...don't ask), but I should be in that sketch. However, I can't watch it to find out (stupid Mac...), and I forgot to ask someone, so I may need your help.
If anyone watches the RPS sketch, could you please let me know if my segment got in there? I'm the guy with the club. You'll know it when you see it (listen for "Nütsac").
Or, you could just ignore this brilliant show entirely. It's only the best episode of Syracuse Live that's ever been produced. Or so I've heard.
Look! Look! There are no white people with Hillary and Kerry in this photo! It must have been a cheap photo-op to make us think they care about minorities! Those horrible racists! When are these people going to call the NAACP and report this horrible offense?
Idiots.
Wow. After all that worrying, I managed to get all the classes I wanted. Granted, thanks to the 9 AP credits I came in with, I only have to take 4 classes next semester, but I thought they were all going to be full. I guess this is an instance where being wrong is good.
I'm sure you're all dying to know what exciting classes I'll be taking next fall (/sarcasm), so here's the lineup I have right now:
1. Computational Science 196: Intro to Computer Programming: C
I only picked this class because I can use it to fulfill my "additional skills" requirement without having to take another math class. Oh, well. If C is as easy as HTML, it should be fine.
2. Political Science 121: American National Government & Politics
You know I'm going to have fun in this class. Heh.
3. Psychology 274: Social Psychology
I'm actually considering a minor in psych right now. Fascinating subject.
4. Television, Radio & Film 255: Intro to Writing and Producing
If this isn't the best class I've ever taken, I'm going to be disappointed. Have I mentioned that I want to be a writer/director? I don't think I've mentioned that in a while.
So, that's how the schedule's looking at the moment. I don't know how good it's going to be, but it can't be worse than the Spanish/math/science quagmire I'm caught in this semester.
...See? There are other uses for the word "quagmire."
Ugh. Class registration is an evil creation. EVIL, I TELL YOU! EEEEEEEEVIL!!!!! I'm gonna have to sign up for some friggin' waitlists. And my scheduling time doesn't even start until 2:30 PM today. What fun.
Anyway, I still won't have time to blog until 6 PM, at the very earliest, but as long as I'm not going to have any new content for a few hours, here's something I've been thinking about:
Over the next 2 weeks, I'll be writing a 10 page script for my TRF class (yeah, the one with the professor who looks like John Kerry). It's based on a short story called "The Stucco House," and it follows a day in the life of a family dealing with an impending divorce. It's going to be good. No, seriously. I'm not joking. Stop laughing! It's really going to be good!
...Yeah. Here's what I was thinking: Even though it really has nothing to do with the usual topics on the blog, how would you feel about me posting the script (assuming that I actually like it)? I do want to be a screenwriter, and I figure that this could be a good way to get some extra criticism, if you feel like checking out my work.
So, what do you think? Posting off-topic scripts: Good idea or not?
While you think about that, I'll be here plotting the untimely demise of the person(s) who assigned the registration lottery numbers.
...Pretend you didn't read that last sentence.
Dang it, there's so much I want to write about, and I'm sitting here doing friggin' statistics problems at 12:45 in the morning!
I probably won't be blogging again until Friday. And Larry's not coming back, if you were wondering.
See ya.
Question: Frank J. is a genius. True or false?
Answer: Tralse.
If you haven't seen the tralse, you're missing the best invention EVER.
I know I said I wasn't going to blog today, but I need to vent for a second.
Class registration is crap! I'm not even allowed to start scheduling until Thursday at 2:30, and half the classes I wanted are filled already. WTF?!
I am not happy right now. You're all really lucky you're just reading this, because you wouldn't enjoy being in the same room as me at the moment.
Dang it.
I don't like repeating myself this much, but...
I'M REALLY FREAKIN' BUSY!!!!
The recent explosion in posting was mostly to make up for the light blogging I'm anticipating for the rest of the week. I've got way too much schoolwork to do.
...That's all.
UPDATE
Upon further review of the overwhelming workload towering over me at the moment, I have concluded that I probably won't be posting at all today.
Thank you.
I wasn't going to post this originally, but since it looks like I won't be able to blog for the rest of the day, I'll use it.
Last week, Move Along, There's Nothing to See Here linked to this post from Atrios. That post links to a photo gallery called "Compassion" on President Bush's website.
Apparently, that gallery disturbs Atrios and his readers, because it contains lots of pictures of President Bush with black people, and they assume that compassion=interacting with minorities. I guess they didn't notice that:
#1: The introduction to the gallery says "Check out the latest compassion related photos," meaning that most of them are from a related series of events.
#2: Some of them were taken IN AFRICA!!!! Who knew there were black people in Africa? I didn't know that!
The comments to the Atrios post are very entertaining. I'd almost say they're better than DU, but you can judge for yourself with the selection I'll provide here (don't bother going over there unless you want to get really angry at idiots). Oh, and my commentary is mostly there to separate individual comments, so don't think I'm taking them seriously or anything. It's just fun to watch them twist reality to fit their Bush hatred:
I was once photographed with a black person too! I'm compassionate!
Sure you are.
Yas, massuh. Yas, massuh. No, no suh, massuh. Yes suh, massuh suh.
Yeah, you're hilarious, dude.
My God, there are more "colored" folk in those photos than in the entire Republican Party!
Are you noticing a trend yet?
George W. Bush - not afraid to be seen with black people!
I love how they think he would be.
...I think it would be a productive idea if everyone were to contact their local NAACP about this.
There you have it. Helping black people=racist. You gotta love these guys!
HEY!!!Where's the pics of George with gay people?????? I thought he had compassion for us poor folks too??
How exactly do you tell if someone's gay from a photograph?
So Bush is actually black??? And all blacks are on welfare, have AIDS, just came from africa, eat at soupkitchens and need white people to teach their kids in school. And adore Bush.
Do you hear that? It's the sound of groupthink!
Did it ever occur to the fucking bastards that if their policies were so discrimminatory against minorities and the poor then they would have to be compassionate towards them.
Go back to class, kid.
last time there were that many black folks up on stage with Republicans they were being auctioned off
I hope this person isn't old enough to vote.
The racism in those pages really is remarkable--I hope someone is passing this on to black leaders.
"He's a Republican, and he's appearing with black people! He must hate them!"
Just another RNC coon show.
Wait a minute, you guys are the non-racist group, right? I'm confused.
...we kew W was an asshole, and suspected he was a racist, so what's the surprise here? I expect this kind of shit from the Bush campaign. Actually, it's kind of funny, in a disgusting sort of way, as several here have pointed out, and made use of. Save your outrage; you're gonna need it.
I still fail to see the racism here. Maybe a couple more comments can enlighten me:
What's dissonant here is that 'compassion' appears to be a euphemism for 'Bush meets minorities'. The White House site has its own ghetto, and its name is 'compassionate'.
So, if he ignored them, you'd have no problem, right?
I honestly thought it was a spoof site ... galling ... sickening. Can anyone say "bring me the niggra props"?
I can now safely say that this is the most racism I've ever seen in one comments section. This is really sad.
I am not going to invoke Godwin's Law. I am not going to invoke Godwin's Law. I am not going to invoke Godwin's Law......but so help me, if I see one more picture of the Shrub doing that salute, or looking like Leni Riefenstahl set up his photo-ops, I'm going to go into full-blown pogrom paranoia.
I think that was more disturbing to me than all the happy little pickaninnies in the pix.
Yeah. Bush is a Nazi, but you have no problem using racial slurs. Brilliant.
Incredible, the bush "compassion" pictures remind me of the south-american dictators of decades past. This is really sad.
I just learned about South American dictators, and I didn't hear anything about helping charitable organizations and such. When has Bush "disappeared" people like they did in SA?
...Okay, just one more, I promise:
Ya know - there are conservatives in my own family, and this is something I've noticed - to them, compassion means being friendly to minorities. You can send jobs oversees, block Planned Parenthood doors, refer black people by the N-word in private, but as long as you are ladling soup to some homeless minorities once a year on some Christian holiday, you're good to go - you're compassionate.I really want to believe that being conservative doesn't _have_ to mean being racist, but the evidence seems to suggest otherwise. Heck, Condi hates her own race, so how the heck is anyone else supposed to be enlightened?
I think that one sums it up nicely. "I believe that Planned Parenthood is mainly for blacks, all the jobs that get sent overseas are done by blacks, and helping Republicans makes you a race traitor, BUT...Bush is the bigot!"
I'll add this to my list of reasons why I have no faith in humanity.
I probably won't be posting a lot today. I wasted most of my weekend playing flash games, so I have a lot of work to do in the next few days.
However, I do have a poll for you. I'm trying to decide whether or not to bring Larry back, and I thought that you, the readers, could help me out, so participate if you want:
I can't guarantee any more posts today, but we'll see what happens.
I'm not done with the New York Times yet. I want to look at a couple letters they published today. They're about abortion, so you know they're going to be entertaining.
Letter Number One:
To the Editor:To say, as you do, that the administration's defense of its "partial birth" abortion ban and the new "unborn victims" law have a common theme — profound disrespect for women (editorial, April 5) — is to understate the seriousness of the issue.
I love the scare quotes. Really. I "love" them. They're "brilliant" and "original." Not to mention "necessary."
The Bush administration is determined to overturn Roe v. Wade, in whatever ways it can, and foist its religious beliefs on the country at large.
I'm about ready to explode after reading that statement. You don't have to be religious in order to realize that MURDERING CHILDREN IS EVIL. Selfish freaks.
It is using Congress and the law to do it.
*GASP!* How American of them!
It has many very capable allies, like the American Center for Law and Justice.
Because we all know how horrible law and justice are.
Those of us who cherish our freedoms and appreciate the value of separation of church and state would do well not to underestimate this administration or its followers.
How can they publish this crap? How deluded must you be to think that abortion is a religious issue? I can understand people making that mistake with things like same-sex marriage, but abortion? Do they not realize what they're arguing for?
Disgusting. Let's move on to Letter Number Two:
To the Editor:I hope that your April 5 editorial "Reproductive Rights Assaulted" puts the Bush administration on notice that its cynical tactics of shock and fearmongering to pillory women and intimidate doctors will not be tolerated.
I wonder what they're referring to. Is it a bad thing that people should be afraid of murdering innocent children? That's news to me.
The new "unborn victims" law in fact victimizes women and cripples the medical community responsible for ensuring their health.
How is it victimizing women by making it a more serious crime to deny them the chance to do what only women are capable of doing (as argued in another letter on the linked page)?
The agenda to control women's bodies has a long and sorry history...
Yeah. It's all their fault. After all, they're just randomly sticking babies into the wombs of poor, defenseless women. Personal responsibility can go f**k itself, right?
...and, sadly, still makes de facto slaves of women in many parts of the world.
Interesting. I always thought abortion was more analogous to slavery. The pro-death people are the ones who are always trying to dehumanize babies.
But surely in this country we will not stand to have women's rights to make decisions about their health and well-being eroded by right-wing politicians who appear to hold them in contempt.
What a horrific distortion of the issue. What about all the little girls who will never even get to breathe their own air because they were aborted? What about all the women who were forced to have abortions after they changed their minds, sometimes resulting in permanent damage to their reproductive systems? What about the message that people need to make a choice about pregnancy before they have sex?
But no, it's all because the right hates women.
You people make me want to vomit.
Okay, holiday's over. Back to blogging as a way to avoid homework (is it any wonder my grades aren't very good this semester?)!
Let's start the week by looking at an editorial in the New York Times. It's anonymous, but that doesn't mean I can't fisk it. Here we go:
The Silent PresidentPresident Bush was asked, during a very brief session with reporters yesterday, about the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, memo he received on domestic terrorism. He responded with the familiar White House complaint about lack of specificity in the C.I.A.'s warnings — although the memo mentioned a plot, possibly involving hijacked planes and New York City.
Wow. That tells us so much. I guess that by knowing terrorists might hijack a plane and attack the largest city in America, Bush should've magically known how they would get the plane, when they would do it, and what part of the city they'd target. Is he dumb or psychic? MAKE UP YOUR MINDS!
The most striking thing about the president's comment, however, was his bottom line: that he did everything he could.
If he'd done more, you'd probably call him an imperialist.
Over the last few weeks we have heard lawmakers and officials from two administrations talk about their feelings of responsibility, about how they compulsively re-examine the events leading up to 9/ll, asking themselves whether they could have done anything to avert the terrible disaster that day. It is beginning to seem that the only person free of that kind of self-examination is the man who was chief executive when the attacks occurred.
You won't be happy until he somehow manages to impeach himself, will you?
No reasonable American blames Mr. Bush for the terrorist attacks, but that's a long way from thinking there was no other conceivable action he could have taken to prevent them. He could, for instance, have left his vacation in Texas...
What do you think he was doing, playing cowboy all month? He is the president, you know. There's this thing called "technology" that allows him to leave the White House and still do his job.
...after receiving that briefing memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S..."
Yeah, because nobody knew that already.
...and rushed back to the White House, assembled all his top advisers and demanded to know what, in particular, was being done to screen airline passengers to make sure people who fit the airlines' threat profiles were being prevented from boarding American planes.
To get an idea of how that would've turned out, see "liberal reactions to the PATRIOT Act." Seriously. In case you didn't notice, all the hijackers were Arab, so Bush would've been accused of racial profiling. It would've lasted a week, if that.
Even that sort of prescient response would probably have been too little to head off the disaster. But those what-if questions should haunt the president as they haunt the nation. In all probability, they do and it is only the demands of his re-election campaign that are guiding Mr. Bush's public stance of utter, uncomplicated self-righteousness.
Would you be happy if he replaced his next few speeches with self-flagellation sessions? He could even scream "It's all my fault! It's all my fault!"
The terrorists would love that.
It is time for the president to drop his political posture and reassure the country that his first and foremost concern is not his re-election but the safety of Americans at home and abroad.
Have you not noticed the freaking WAR? And by the way, when has he made his re-election an issue? Are campaign ads wrong now?
Instead of passively noting that it is the job of the 9/11 commission to figure out whether anything could or should have been done differently, he must demonstrate that he is asking those questions of himself.
Great idea. "National defense, or pointless retrospection...hmmm...."
Instead of preparing — as the administration seems to be preparing — to blame the C.I.A. and F.B.I. for everything that went wrong, he needs to ask whether the structure of the Bush White House itself is part of the problem.
"It doesn't matter if it wasn't his fault, because I'll be happier if he takes the blame!"
Perhaps no other administration would have responded differently to the skimpy document Mr. Bush received in August 2001.
Pardon me for pointing this out, but YOU JUST REFUTED THE ENTIRE FIRST HALF OF YOUR OWN ARGUMENT, YOU IMBECILE!
But most other presidents did not limit critical briefing papers to little more than a page, give political advisers such a prominent place in the White House and so dramatically restrict the number of policy makers who had access to the Oval Office. All of Mr. Bush's recent predecessors had at least one of those flaws, but no one else had them all.
Ah, yes, let's use the "secretive administration" meme. That'll convince everyone.
The "fact sheet" the White House released over the weekend along with the August 2001 briefing memo hardly shows any rethinking of the way Mr. Bush operates his government. It is instead an extraordinary exercise in bureaucratic excuse making and misdirection. It says that the notion that Osama bin Laden wanted to mount an attack on the United States was familiar information and "publicly well known."
Since, as I've previously stated, my junior high geography teacher knew that in 1999, I'd say that's an accurate statement.
It said the presence of Qaeda agents in the United States was equally old news to the F.B.I. and the intelligence agencies. It makes it sound as if everyone knew about Osama bin Laden's danger to America except the inattentive president.
How do you get the notion of an "inattentive president" from that?
Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, gave a bureaucrat's hedged responses in her appearance before the 9/11 commission.
"Sticking to the White House script," right?
The public needs to hear a leader's candid answers from President Bush, who so far has agreed to appear before the commission only in private and in the company of the vice president.
Based on your unthinking response to Rice's testimony, I'm guessing you'd just dismiss Bush as being "evasive" or something. Until he flat out says "9/11 was my fault," you people won't be happy.
This is not a time for more secrecy and presidential isolation. Mr. Bush is asking Americans to simply take his word for the need to stick to an increasingly bloody and chaotic mission in Iraq that he won't even define clearly.
Do you not watch SOTU speeches?
(When asked by NBC's Tim Russert yesterday what Iraqi leaders the coalition planned to hand over the government to on the target date of June 30, the American proconsul Paul Bremer III chillingly began his answer with "That's a good question.")
Why is that a chilling question? Maybe you'd feel better if he responded with "That's the dumbest f**king question I've ever heard, you f**king moron!"
Mr. Bush needs to speak out fully in public, both about 9/11 and about Iraq.
HE'S BEEN SPEAKING ABOUT IRAQ FOR OVER A YEAR NOW!!!!!!!
He is chief executive of a country that once trusted him to lead in perilous times.
You're implying that nobody trusts him anymore. Brilliant.
The public supported his decision to go to war in the Middle East because most Americans believed his judgment was sound.
If you ask them now, they'll deny it.
...Wait, I was thinking of John Kerry. Never mind.
That kind of faith is not just what he needs to win an election in November. It is what he needs to run the country, and he is in grave danger of losing it. Neither administration officials nor political advisers nor the White House spin team...
I can't believe professional writers are making statements like that.
...can hold on to the country's ebbing confidence. The president must do this himself, and quickly.
What do they want? This is driving me nuts. Every time Bush tries to appease their ridiculous demands, they move the goalposts. Remember the AWOL thing?
"Release your records, and we'll believe you were there!"
"Okay, here's all my records."
"F**K THE RECORDS! Nobody saw you, so you couldn't have been there!"
"Well, here's a few people who saw me."
"This guy never saw you, so he must be telling the truth! LIAR!!!!"
Hopeless. Utterly hopeless.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.
--John 3:16-17
Yeah. I know you're not all Christians (come to think of it, I don't know if any of you are. Hmmm...), but this holiday is about more than bunnies and eggs, so I figured that would be appropriate. I'll probably be taking today off, so...Happy Easter.
This is fun. I'll probably have a better one later.
(Hat tips: Wizbang and A Small Victory)
Make your own here. Hurry, before they start crushing our dissent!
UPDATE
Okay, I changed it to a better one. The Nigerian thing is funnier. Oh, and it had line breaks when I submitted it. I don't know what happened to 'em.
UPDATE #2
All right, in case they decide to shut this thing down, here's a screen capture of mine.
Just in case any of you take me seriously, that wasn't an exact quote, but it's pretty close to the sentiments expressed in Rall's latest column. Before you continue to the fisking, I want you to look at this cartoon. See what I mean? Good. Now, on to the column:
CUT AND RUN NOWOnly Lunatics Keep Fighting an Unwinnable War
NEW YORK--We shouldn't still be having this conversation.
Who are you talking to, first of all?
To anyone possessing a milligram of common sense, it has been obvious from the start--before the start--that invading Iraq would be disastrous.
"QUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE!!!!!!!!"
Any American capable of reading between the lines...
"Don't trust those pesky facts!"
...sensed trouble when the Bush Administration's giddy predictions of flower-throwing Iraqis never materialized to greet our advancing columns.
"Hi, I'm Ted Rall, and I attack straw men for fun and profit!"
"Giddy predictions." Yeah, okay.
Even the silliest Pollyanna must have shuddered a little when it came to light that the war's singular Kodak moment, the toppling of Saddam's statue in Fardus Square, turned out to have been just as phony as the "evidence" recited at Colin Powell's UN speech.
I guess those weren't "real" Iraqis.
A year later, 630 U.S. soldiers lie dead, young lives sacrificed on the altar of the vainglorious ambitions of an insane cabal of neocon morons hell-bent on transforming the Middle East into an American Raj.
If you still consider Rall to be just another critic after reading that sentence, please bash your own skull in with a large rock and raise the collective IQ of the gene pool. Thank you.
Thousands more, some of them so misled by their unelected president that they thought they were avenging September 11...
Wow, 2 lies in one. Impressive.
...lost their limbs and eyes to bullets and bombs fired by people they expected to be their new best friends.
Uh, Teddy, were you under the impression that we had all those guns and tanks just so we could intimidate innocent people? They call it "combat" for a reason.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been murdered by the professional liars illegally occupying the White House in a search for weapons the experts damn well knew Iraq no longer possessed.
"...I also don't differentiate between civilians and enemy combatants, because anything that makes Bushchimpler look bad must be good! I AM TED RALL, AND I AM INVINCIBLE!"
...Whoops. Got a bit carried away there.
The delusional leaders of our occupation army are fond of pointing to signs of progress.
"They're not allowed to acknowledge good things! They've evil!"
Occupation viceroy Paul Bremer likes to rattle off statistics:
"Facts bad! Facts make brain hurt! Rooorgh!"
2,500 renovated schools, three million vaccinated children, 18,000 reconstruction projects underway, healthcare spending up 30 times, a 29 percent increase in the value of the Iraqi dinar.
"It must be a trick! Evil people CAN'T be good!"
Hey, it's the least we can do--after all, Iraq wouldn't need new schools or hospitals if we hadn't bombed their old ones.
If you can show proof that we destroyed everything useful in Iraq, I'd like to see it.
But, in the end, infrastructure doesn't much matter.
So...why did you just spend so much time talking about it?
There are three categories of civilians in an occupied country: patriots, collaborators and opportunists.
I can't wait to see how he figured that out.
In the calculus of hearts and minds, anything short of 100 percent popularity qualifies as total failure.
By those standards, no country in the history of the world has been a success.
It's an impossible standard, which is why no nation has ever successfully invaded and occupied another in the 20th century.
*cough* GERMANY *cough cough*
By the way, it's the 21st century now.
Even if a majority like living under foreign control...
It can't be worse than living under a murdering lunatic and his rapist sons, but please, continue to explain why we suck.
...a dubious assumption at best, an occupation is nonetheless doomed. As long as one percent of the population spends its evenings blowing up enemy convoys, fence sitters will be scared to collaborate. In Iraq, that one percent--or five, or whatever--shows no sign of letting up.
That's why we're killing them, you f**king idiot.
Read and understand: They hate us simply because we're there. Leave, and the hatred goes away.
Only one problem: The hatred is then transferred back into power, and you wind up with someone else like Saddam. Funny how that works, ain't it? Extremism is like that.
If you doubt that, visit Hanoi as a tourist.
I'm sure they wouldn't have a problem with you, Rall.
Exacerbating an impossible situation is the fact that we're playing right into the hands of the insurgency. Last week residents of Fallujah hung the carbonized corpses of ambushed American mercenaries (not, as widely reported, civilians)...
Let's see...they aren't part of the U.S. armed forces...which would make them CIVILIANS.
...from a bridge.
I wouldn't be surprised if Rall joined in the rousing chorus of "screw them!"
This week a U.S. army of retribution has surrounded the city to carry out Peggy Noonan's Wall Street Journal cry for vengeance:
That's an odd person to blame this on.
"It would be good not only for elemental justice but for Iraq and its future if a large force of coalition troops led by U.S. Marines would go into Fallujah, find the young men, arrest them or kill them, and, to make sure the point isn't lost on them, blow up the bridge."
Except for that "blow up the bridge" thing, I'd agree.
The Associated Press reported that a U.S. Apache helicopter gunship, mimicking Israeli tactics on the occupied West Bank, fired missiles into residential neighborhoods.
I'm sure they were aiming at civilians too. The U.S. loves killin' them got-dang A-rabs, right?
The Iraqi resistance wants us to retaliate;
That proves how astronomically dumb they are.
...provoking us into lashing out is why they attack us in the first place. Each act of retaliation kills and injures innocents, proving to the opportunists that we're the monsters the patriots say we are.
WHOA! Wait a minute there, buddy. The "patriots" are the ones calling America monsters? And you agree with them?
... ... ... Sometimes I wish Bush really would crush some dissent. Not all the time, but just at times like this.
We're radicalizing the previously moderate segment of the population.
"It's our fault that they're evil! Blame the Divided Hates of AmeriKKKa!!!!"
Were there some possible future, even 20 or 30 years from now, wherein enough stability had been achieved to allow us to hand off power to a democratic government that truly represented the interests of all Iraqis, I'd argue that we should tough it out no matter the cost. The chance of that, however, is zero.
I like how he just says that as if it's painfully obvious.
"The message to Iraqi citizens," says Bush, "is that they don't have to fear that Americans will cut and run." The Iraqis don't fear our departure; they crave it. Moreover, they count on it.
"Reinstate Saddam! ULULULULULULULULULULULU!!!!!!!!!"
"We can't leave," Newsweek quotes an officer with a major security firm in Iraq (hmm). "If it takes a million f---ing American lives, we have to stay."
I bet you would love that, wouldn't you Ted? A million dead Americans? Sounds like a success for the "moderate Iraqis!"
The hell we do. Sooner or later, one way or another, we're leaving--as defeated and bankrupt and demoralized as we were when we fled Saigon.
Couldn't get through without a Vietnam comparison, could you? I'm disappointed.
The only question now is: how many more people are we going to kill before we cut and run?
I think the real question is: How many more would be killed if we left without eradicating the "insurgents" first?
Oh, wait, they're not Americans, so they don't matter. Silly me.
WARNING: Due to lack of economic knowledge on the part of the blogger, this post will not be the most intelligent thing you've seen today. Thank you.
John F**kin' Kerry is at it again. Let's take a look:
Kerry Tries to Shift Focus Back to JobsCHICAGO — Touring a struggling job-training site, Democrat John Kerry on Friday sought to refocus the presidential race on pocketbook issues, warning of "almost criminal" cuts in bedrock training and education programs.
I didn't realize that there were laws against not throwing money at people.
"I'm tired of talking about valuing families and not valuing families," Kerry said.
"I actually did talk about valuing families before I talked about not valuing families."
...Sorry. That's what I thought of when I read that sentence.
"There are unbelievable, unacceptable, staggering numbers of young lives that are being abandoned in our country."
What are we doing, airlifting them out to the desert?
Kerry held a town hall meeting at a job-training site where officials said their budget and the number of students they can train have been slashed because of cuts."This is pretty simple. The workplace of the United States of America is as stressed as I don't think I've seen it stressed at any time," Kerry said.
"As stressed as I don't think I've seen it stressed..." What? He's starting to sound like Al Sharpton.
"That's almost criminal. It's not criminal, but I want to underscore how unbelievable it is."
"It can be criminal though, depending on what the next poll shows!"
Kerry accused Bush of slashing $1 billion from job-training programs. "You shouldn't be abandoned and struggling the way you are today," he said.After a week of turmoil and mounting deaths in Iraq, Kerry was focusing on jobs and the economy in a Midwest battleground state where 142,000 industrial jobs have been lost in the last three years.
"This campaign is about change," he said. "It's about putting Americans back to work and putting America back on the right track."
"Except for those eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil rich people...like me and my wife....uh-oh."
Joined at the town hall meeting by Democratic Senate nominee Barack Obama, Kerry said far more attention needs to be paid to struggling school systems like Chicago's, where more than 30 percent of students don't finish high school and the number is even higher for minorities."It's time for us to put real mainstream values back front and center," Kerry said.
He wouldn't be able to identify the "mainstream" if he fell into it.
He accused Bush of "a long history of misleading America" about Kerry's plans for the economy.
"He's telling the truth! You won't like me if you know the truth!"
"Under my economic plan we protect the middle class," said Kerry, rejecting Bush's charge that he would raise taxes as president. "Under my economic plan, we can put Americans back to work."
Did we imagine those 300,000 jobs?
Kerry denied he was a tax-and-spend liberal. "I'm not confiscatorial," he said of his tax plan, which he argued would simply end tax cuts for the wealthiest.
Yeah, because that won't have any effect on the rest of the economy. Those nasty rich people just sit in their mansions all day eating caviar and oppressing the poor, right? They couldn't possibly be spending their money.
Bush, Kerry contended, has largely ignored domestic issues like jobs and the economy.
"Tax cuts? I don't remember any tax cuts!"
"He thinks more about photo opportunities than he does about job opportunities," Kerry said.
"Plastic turkey! Flight suit!"
Illinois is a state that has trended Democratic in recent elections and is one Kerry likely must win in the fall. Obama said there's a solid chance Kerry can lock up the state even before the fall campaign."We hope to take Illinois out of play sometime in the summer," Obama said.
Kerry opened his day with a fund-raising breakfast where he brought in another $100,000 for his campaign. He couldn't entirely escape the tumult in Iraq, facing questions from big givers about how he would change course.
This should be good.
"This administration has been gridlocked by its own ideology, it's own arrogance," he said.
The left really needs some new material. Now Kerry's just echoing the moonbat fringe:
"Tax cuts for the rich! Photo-ops! Arrogance! Lies!" What's next, "war for oil?"
"The job of the president of the United States is to minimize the risk to our troops, minimize the cost to the American people and to maximize the prospects for success."
Translation: "Don't send troops into combat, don't spend money on it if you do, and expect to win nonetheless...unless winning makes your opponent look competent."
Kerry said Bush has failed on all those counts.
*GASP* Really? I never expected him to say that!
"This administration has stubbornly refused to involve other countries in the real decision making," he said.
If he says "poodles and lackeys," I'm going to break something.
"I think this has been a failure of diplomacy, a failure of foreign policy."
"I know, because certain foreign leaders, who I can't name at the moment, have told me!"
That drew a quick response from the Bush campaign. "Today, John Kerry had an opportunity to send a clear message that the United States will not be intimidated by a small group of thugs and cut and run from Iraq," Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said. "Instead, he chose to play politics and again refused to offer any details about what he would propose to differently."
Thank you! This is what I've been saying. The left seems to think that "Bush is bad" automatically means "Kerry would be better." Give us some details without the childish name-calling, and maybe we'll take you seriously.
Maybe.
Sony Buys Movie Rights to Clarke's Book
Former counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke's best-selling book may soon be a movie.
Nope, no liberal media here...
Sony Pictures Entertainment has purchased the film rights to "Against All Enemies," Sony vice chairwoman Amy Pascal told The New York Times for its Saturday editions.In the best-selling book, Clarke, a counterterrorism adviser to the past three presidents, charges that the Bush administration prioritized Iraq above threats from Al Qaeda before and after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
There's more of the story, but I don't have a lot of commentary, so I'll stop there.
Here's my prediction: The movie will make Bush look like an idiot while portraying Clarke as a heroic whistle-blower who stood up to the Republican Attack Machine. When people complain that the film is full of factual errors, the left will cry "censorship" for days on end, and then they'll ask why anyone would question Sony's patriotism.
We'll see if I'm right in a few months, I guess.
Apparently, some transgenders don't like me.
How horrible!
UPDATE
Oh, and by the way, since you have to register to comment on that blog, let me point out here:
That "Evil male name" comment was a variation of "The Evil White Patriarchy." If you think that I was calling "Rob" an evil name, you need to turn up your satire detector.
It's still funny, in any case.
UPDATE #2
This is hilarious. Now I'm "just so outrageously bigoted it's amazing."
I consider it a good sign when people call me a bigot, because that means they have no actual arguments against anything I say. Thanks for the encouragement.
This message is currently coming up on my Site Meter page:
Active Server Pages error 'ASP 0113'Script timed out
/default.asp
The maximum amount of time for a script to execute was exceeded. You can change this limit by specifying a new value for the property Server.ScriptTimeout or by changing the value in the IIS administration tools.
Anybody know what that means?
UPDATE
Apparently, it's their server. That can't be good.
Luckily, I have a backup OneStat counter.
I've been meaning to post this for a really long time, but for some reason, I never got around to it.
With the whole 9/11 commission thing going on, there's a lot of talk about which administration is to blame for the attack. The left wants to blame Bush because it happened while he was in office, and the right wants to blame Clinton because he had 8 years to do something about it, while Dubya had 8 months.
However, a lot of liberals won't accept that Clinton knew about bin Laden, and they act like the "warning" Bush received was the first sign that Osama wanted to attack the U.S. So, should Bush be blamed because he supposedly knew there was a threat a whole month in advance?
Well, I want to answer that with a story: In 1999, I was in 8th grade. In my geography class, the teacher started talking about terrorism for some reason. He eventually mentioned this one terrorist who he said, if I'm remembering correctly, was "the most dangerous one in the world right now." Unfortunately, I couldn't remember the terrorist's name.
Then 9/11 happened, and when I heard the name "Osama bin Laden," I immediately remebered my geography teacher's lesson, because he had been talking about the same person.
So, in 1999, we already knew that bin Laden was dangerous. What did Clinton do?
Not much of anything.
I don't know if that proves much, but I thought I'd share it.
So...as I was clicking "save" on that last post, the fire alarm went off. A couple minutes later, I was standing outside my dorm watching not one, not two, but THREE fire trucks drive up. We were out there for a good 15 minutes while they took care of business.
So, what caused the fire that required 3 trucks to put out?
A Pop-Tart.
That's right. IT WAS A FRIGGIN' POP-TART!!!! Some girl at the other end of the hall on my floor burned a Pop-Tart in the microwave, and for some reason, they sent 3 fire trucks.
I actually got to see the evil pastry a couple minutes ago. It's all black and crumbled. The entire floor smells like smoke now.
I love college.
I saw this written on someone's dry-erase board earlier, and it pretty much sums up what it's like going to school in Syracuse:
"If April showers bring May flowers, what does April snow bring?"
It's funny because it's a good question.
Nader Calls for Bush to Be Impeached
Wow. Nobody's thought of that before. Let's see if he can at least come up with some new and wacky justification for it. Cue the jester!
Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader called Tuesday for President Bush to be impeached for "deceiving the American people night after night after night" about U.S. involvement in Iraq.
Just nights? Is he a vampire?
Insert leftist here: "Bush sucks........BLOOD!"
"When you plunge our country into war on a platform of fabrications and deceptions, and you bring back thousands of American soldiers who are sick, injured or dead, and that war is unconstitutionally authorized to begin with, Mr. Bush's behavior qualifies for the high crimes and misdemeanor impeachment clause of the Constitution," the 2000 Green Party presidential nominee said to applause from about 200 students at Columbia College Chicago.
Unconstitutionally authorized? How do you explain Senator Kerry's voting/not voting for the war then?
Nader said President Clinton was impeached for "far less of an offense."
Well, you see, Ralph, Clinton ACTUALLY. BROKE. THE LAW. There's a difference between perjury and "Mommy, Mommy, Georgie the liar is hurting brown people! Send him to his room in Crawford!!!"
"Lying under oath is not a trivial offense...
Depends on what your definition of "is" is.
...but it cannot compare with deceiving the American people night after night after night on national television, staging untruths and rejecting the advice of his advisers," he said.
I didn't realize his advisors were all against it. Other than some Dick named Clarke.
Merrill Smith, a spokeswoman for Bush's re-election campaign, declined to comment.
Why do they even mention that?
"Look at this deceptive, secretive administration! They don't answer every single smear we throw at them! EEEEEEEEEEEVIL!!!!!!!!"
Nader previously called for Bush's impeachment during an anti-war rally March 20 in the president's hometown of Crawford, Texas, to mark the first anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
You know...it just occurred to me that impeaching Bush would kind of defeat the purpose of campaigning against him. What a platform:
"I can win the election, but only if you get rid of the guy who's in office now!"
Nader, a longtime consumer advocate...
What does that even mean?
...was in Illinois to gather the 25,000 signatures he needs before June 21 to qualify for the state ballot. He failed Monday to qualify for Oregon's ballot, but said he would try again under another option there.
You'd think he would realize that he probably doesn't have a chance in the election if he can't even get enough signatures to be on the ballot.
Many Democrats blame Nader for Democrat Al Gore's loss to Republican George W. Bush in 2000, and have urged him not to run this time. They cite the vote Nader captured in close contests in New Hampshire and Florida and argue that Gore would have won if either state had gone to the then-vice president.
I like how they just assume that everyone who voted for Nader would've voted for Gore otherwise. "Those Republican sheeple would never vote against their fascist party!"
But Nader says Gore is to blame for his misfortune, and he rejected the idea that he could draw support away from Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
I love the "presumptive" thing. Go Kucinich!
In Portland, Ore., on Monday, former Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean...
YEEEAAAGH!!!!
...warned that "a vote for Ralph Nader is the same as a vote for George Bush."
Brilliant. They're so caught up in Bush hatred that their only real criticism of Nader is "he'll make Bush win."
An audience member in Chicago was booed for suggesting something similar.
Does that mean the boo-ers were questioning his patriotism? I bet it does.
...I don't know where that came from.
Nader responded: "What we have to tell the two parties in unmistakable terms is that this country does not belong to two parties."
Uh...if you have to tell two parties, I'm guessing most of the country does belong to them. I could be wrong though...
Nothing new here. Move along. Go back to your homes. Don't make me release the poison monkeys. You don't want that.
For those of you who didn't know: College is hard.
Thank you for your time.
(/too many assignments at once)
UPDATE
Initiate Rant Mode™:
Okay, it's REALLY hard to write an analysis of a short film when there are about 5 people standing outside your door talking and laughing, and your roommate is on the phone with his girlfriend, talking in his pathetic "I'm completely whipped" voice:
"Babe...babe, what's wrong? I...I didn't say...I'm not mad at you...I'm sorry, all right, babe?"
Crap, this is annoying.
Wow. Mozilla Firefox is AWESOME.
Just thought you might like to know that.
I'm not sure exactly what inspired this, but I'll post it anyway:
When conservatives complain about liberal bias in the media, liberals tend to react in one of two ways. They either deny the accusation, claiming that the media is neutral, or try to convince us that there's actually a right-wing bias in the media.
However, when we complain about liberal bias in academia, how does the left react? I don't think I've heard anyone complain about conservative professors or unjust right-wing indoctrination in elementary and secondary schools. The most common reaction seems to be something like "Yeah, there are more liberals. Deal with it."
Why are there different reactions to accusations of bias, and why haven't there been many Altermanesque arguments trying to prove that education is dominated by the right?
I think it's an interesting question.
An article and an editorial in today's Daily Orange call attention to the lack of kosher options at SU's dining halls.
This is interesting stuff. I'm not Jewish, but still...I can't help thinking how strange it is that they provide special vegan foods every single day, but they're not really making an effort to provide kosher food for one week.
Think about it. Vegans choose to avoid certain foods. Jews have religious requirements to follow. Who gets the most options? Yep: Vegans.
Odd.
You know...with all the stuff going on in Iraq right now, it's really hard to be concerned with the kinds of topics I usually post about. I'm not sure what to do here.
...Yeah, that's the entire post. Deal with it.
Some of you may be disappointed about this, but it looks like I won't be able to go and see Al Sharpton next Monday. We're "broadcasting" the next episode of Syracuse Live that night, and I have to be in the studio from 9 to 11.
Maybe next time.
Thanks to Harvey's comments to this post, I've done a little photo editing. Click the extended entry to check it out:
This is a Gorgon. Apparently, it's from Star Trek.
Now, look at this:
Can you see the difference? I can't see the difference.
...I'm still supposed to be writing a psychology paper...
Okay, there's a really weird editorial in the Daily Orange today. I can't tell for sure whether it's supposed to be satirical or sarcastically persuasive, but let's take a look anyway:
Bush: the real Hollywood president
Osama bin Laden lives in a split double in Lawrinson Residence Hall.
If you believe this theory is plausible, then you might also believe the lanky Muslim lives in the White House where he shoots hoops with the president and shares cooking tips with the first lady. Improbable? Yes.
See, it seems to be off to a good start, as it makes fun of dumb conspiracy theories. But the next part...well, take a look:
Maybe bin Laden is being held in captivity at Guantanamo Bay with the other al Qaeda conspirators. Or in a more believable scenario, he is surrounded by military forces in his native region waiting to be discovered.Regardless of bin Laden's whereabouts, the Bush administration will likely produce the bearded one just in time for a grateful American public to re-elect George W. for a second term.
This is where I'm confused. Is he actually suggesting that we have bin Laden already ("only DU believes that!"), or is this column supposed to be a joke? It seems like it might be serious, based on the next section:
Oh, how storybook.
Yeah, as in "fictional stories." Are they actually using this argument amongst the general public now?
First President Bush handles Sept. 11 with patriotic poise, vowing swift revenge on the perpetrators.
Is that a bad thing?
He then wages a war on terror that includes a tangential invasion of Iraq, captures Public Enemy No. 2 Saddam Hussein and in an act of bad-action-movie heroism, corrals Osama just in time to renew his Mad magazine subscription to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
So...the War on Terror is nothing but a political move? I didn't think it was possible to be that cynical.
It's an epic drama that has played out for most of Bush's presidency - and in most of the Die Hard movies - and will come full circle with the announcement of bin Laden's apprehension.
Did I miss the part where we decided that Bush definitely knows where bin Laden is, because it seems like he's treating it as a fact.
This act will epitomize President Bush and the Bush family's American reign by proving that through all of George Jr.'s muddling, diplomatic shortcomings and vehement conservatism...
Conservatism? Where? I want a conservative president! Where is he?
...he is still the best man for the job. Centrists everywhere, terrified like the rest of us by terrorism's reality, will swing in favor of a Bush candidacy that allocates funds for advanced battlefield-motorcycles instead of public schools. Now we can finally sleep at night.
Point I've made before: Public schools are useless if they get blown up by Islamofascists. I'm glad we could clear up that confusion.
We remain comfortable, even in the face of allegations from former Bush counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke saying that the administration could have better defended against terrorism before Sept. 11 and possibly prevented it.
Here we go with the "Bush let it happen" crap. Don't you idiots have anything new to throw at us?
Bush's war on Iraq, which ties directly to his business interest in Iraqi oil...
He's using "war for oil" too? Come on.
...is justified when a groveling Saddam Hussein is removed from his dirt hole and paraded to the public as a man beaten. Who knows what the President and his empire...
Let's check the scorecard: We've got "Bush knew," "Bush has Osama," "Money for school, not war," "War for oil," "American imperialism..." Wow, this guy really has the talking points down.
...stand to gain from this calculated move...
"How dare they try to convince us that they did something good! Republicans are evil, so capturing an evil dictator must be a calculated plot!"
...but, in the end, Bush appears a poster child for the American dream.
It's the American dream to be forced to fight evil or face annihilation? Man, that sucks.
Capitalism dictates that only the strong - or at least those who can mutilate Ricky Martin songs with a tone-deaf Chinese accent...
Was that an American Idol reference?
...will survive. Mr. President is definitely the strongest, and his flair for the dramatic will work most effectively when King Kong bin Laden is brought onstage in shackles for the whole world to see.
I hope it doesn't happen that way. I'd prefer to just see his severed head on a plate of pork chops.
Here Bush will have single-handedly dismantled the terrorists Bruce Willis-style while screaming yippee-ki-yay in his Texas drawl.
"The president is a retarded cowboy! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I made a funny!!!!"
Can't wait for the sequel, even though they always suck.
I'm still a bit confused. Was this a genuine argument against Bush, because it almost seems like something Frnak would write to make fun of the anti-war crowd. It's got the oil thing, the political gain thing, the cowboy thing, the dumb thing...
What do you think? Joke, or idiot liberal?
I'm going with "all of the above," since most idiot liberals are a joke.
So...UConn won the championship. Great.
Of course, since Syracuse didn't even make it to the championship, I knew this was coming, but still...we're not #1 anymore.
...I don't really have anything else to say. It was just cool being able to say that my school's team was the best...but so much for that.
...If we still had Carmelo, this wouldn't have happened. Dang it.
Holy crap. This story contains one of the most disturbing pictures of Ted "Swimmer" Kennedy I've ever seen.
Of course, since Yahoo! stories magically disappear after a week or so, you might not be able to see the picture when you read this post, so I took the liberty of screenshotifying it. Check it out:
People who are squeamish or have a heart condition shouldn't click this link
Is that not the scariest thing you've ever seen? It looks like a turtle and a werewolf had an alcoholic baby!
...I'm supposed to be writing a psychology paper right now.
Look at this shot from an animated ad that's coming up on my Site Meter page.
Them polyps is evil.
I grabbed a copy of today's Daily Orange, and I happened to notice this headline:
Rev. Al Sharpton to speak at SU
Al Sharpton. Is coming. To Syracuse. Next week.
...I'm speechless. This is the best the frickin' College Democrats could do? Paul Begala and Al Sharpton?
According to the article, he's going to be here next Monday at 8 PM. Now, here's the question: Do you think it would be worth my time to go, just to see if he's as entertaining in person as he is on TV, or would it be a waste of $3?
Al Sharpton...come on...
I still can't think of anything to write about, but as long as I have the chance, I figure I'll do my part to fight anti-Semitism:
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Explanation here.
Have I mentioned that I have a really boring life most of the time? I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I made a Campus Hook profile for no particular reason.
The fact that this is the only thing I can think of to write about at the moment should tell you a lot...
This is just too good to ignore. There's a thread at Democratic Underground called If you were an "insurgent" in Fallujah, what would you do? There aren't many responses, but a few are hilarious. Check out the original post:
If you were an "insurgent" in Fallujah, what would you do?Knowing that the Marines and US Army were coming thru with all their modern weapons of war and were going to search your home and person for any evidence of insurgency? Would you stand and fight against such an overwhelming force? Or would you have another strategy to fight another day?
It's probably very difficult to try and put ourselves into the shoes of an Iraqi insurgent, but if I were in that situation, I think I would hide or bury my weapons and move out of town for a while. I don't think this is the time that most will choose martyrdom. So I don't think American forces will find a lot of weapons or find a lot of people to arrest. Just my opinion.
See what I mean? This person is fantasizing about BEING THE ENEMY! Let's see how the others respond:
Roadside Bombs....With radio detonators. Just have little kids with radio detonators. Use old artillery shells, bury them in roads all over the place and just wait.
Little kids. With detonators. What a patriot. Moving on:
I would lay low and wait for the Americans to leaveThen I would go back to living a long and normal life. I would pray that the efforts to introduce democracy over fanatic rule succeeds.
Education is the problem in Iraq. Many of the people there have been brainwashed since birth to hate and hate is never good. I would work to stop the brainwashing of children.
Oh, good. They're not all crazy. Of course, one poster disagrees:
But how would you respond to the coming massacre?What if the US kills your innocent family?
How would you respond then?
What if the US fences you in and gives you the IDF treatment:
death by prison camp?Were I an Iraqi today, anywhere in Iraq, I would be
organizing and planning and laying down defenses.
The firestorm comes quickly.
Brilliant. Let's keep going:
agreed - I would be out finding a weapon today!no matter if I was involved in the earlier atrocities or not.
do you think the U.S. makes a differentiation? How many of those in Cuba are innocent? does anyone care?
(hmmm...perhaps I should buy a weapon in the U.S. now - since there's no telling what will happen - even here?)
Yep. They're not anti-war. They're just on the other side. How could this get any better, you ask? Well, here's one person who thinks that the Iraqis would be better off with Saddam:
Sounds like education is a problem for you, sir.We are not trying to introduce democracy in Iraq,
and the people there are not brainwashed to hate from
birth any more than you are, Saddam would not have allowed
that, he didn't like the rabble getting violent any more
than the people that brainwashed you. The children in Iraq
are not brainwashed, they are brutalized, and we are
continuing the process better than Saddam could have ever
hoped to.
You heard it here first. The Saddamster cares about The Children™ more than Bushchimperialist™ and his squad of Americanazis™. I can't stop now:
They are not "insurgents," they are freedom fighters They don't want Saddam, but they also don't want an American jackboot on top of their heads.
They. Support. The. Enemy. How wonderful.
The next poster gives the most concise answer to the original question:
Kill AmericansDuh!
Great. The next one employs a bit more strategery:
find a weapon and fire it months of sustained action eventually forced the occupying army to abandon its positions within the city. In their place, I would not allow them to be regained.
I'm going to stop now. I have to bang my head against the wall until I pass out. It's preferable to being awake in a world where people with opinions like this are still somehow intelligent enough to use computers. It just doesn't make sense.
*THWACK* *THWACK* *THWACK* *THUD*
....aaaahhhh...that's better......................
Not that you care, but the guy who took this picture lives across the hall from me.
I feel special now.
There's not much to post about on Saturdays, but I wanted to point out that it's been about a month since anyone signed the guestmap. Just sayin'...
The NYT letters to the editor are at it again (well, 2 of them are, at least). Check it out:
Re "Four Deaths in Falluja" (editorial, April 2):Continuing events in Iraq appear to demonstrate what many of us suspected when the war began — that occupying a country of 25 million people with several distinct cultures is bound to become a quagmire.
Strike one! You said "quagmire!" There should be some subset of Godwin's Law that prevents people from doing things like this. On another note, uh...WHAT COUNTRY DOESN'T HAVE "DISTINCT CULTURES?" These people have seen The Matrix too many times.
Your editorial's suggestion for a United Nations-administered Iraq seems to me the best hope, too.
What a great idea. Let's solve the problem of cultural conflict by sending people from even more countries that don't even want us to succeed. There's a great way to get the job done when you only have one stone to throw.
If only there were a pill that could neutralize the administration's pride until such a transition can take place.
Yeah, it's all about pride. President Cowboy doesn't want to admit that he was wrong. It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that the UN sucks at winning wars.
The psychology of the Bush administration now reminds me of that of the Johnson administration in Vietnam.
Strike two! You compared the war to Vietnam. These letters are priceless. By which I mean that I wouldn't pay one peso for them.
Because of pride alone, the United States war machine lacks a reverse gear.
Strike three! You think that we can magically make Iraq a Happy Place™ by leaving them with all the terrorists who are attacking our soldiers. Brilliant.
Letter number two:
Your April 2 editorial suggests that the United States should not withdraw from Iraq. That prescription is as wrong today as it was during the Vietnam War.
Wow, it's a really good day for really terrible arguments. I thought the "this generation's Vietnam" thing died out after we occupied Baghdad.
For starters, we will end up withdrawing from Iraq, as we did from Vietnam, so the sooner we do it, the more American lives we will save.
Yeah, it'll save a lot of American lives if we RUN AWAY. After all, look how much terrorism was prevented after Mogadishu. Oh, and do you not care about Iraqi lives? I'm pretty sure they'd be screwed if we left now. @sshat.
Nation-building is a myth fed by hubris.
There's the "pride" thing, just like in the first letter. I'm starting to think they just have a monkey in the basement throwing crap at a dartboard to decide what "the readers" think that day.
"It landed on 'hubris' and 'Vietnam!' Get to work, my letter-writing minions!"
No country's people want America to invade their land and do "nation-building."
So, would you be willing to talk to people in every country to verify this, or are you so blinded by your "everybody hates America" ideology that you can't see the benefits of FRIGGIN' DEMOCRACY?!
Try to imagine how Americans would react if we had been invaded by Arabs bent on nation-building.
How many times do I have to stress the need for high school classes on critical thinking and logic? Let's analyze the reasoning in this argument:
"As Americans, we would not like it if Arabs tried to impose their way of life on us. Therefore, Arabs do not want us to impose our way of life on them."
Sounds good if you don't look at any facts. He forgets the important point that Iraqis were living in a DICTATORSHIP, while America has a DEMOCRACY. If we were living in a dictatorship, and Arabs had a democracy, then yeah, I would want them to come in and do some "nation-building." Human nature knows no geographical bounds.
Even if nation-building were possible, it costs too many lives.
"I agree with the result, but the process would be too mean and costly, so let's not even try."
Gotta love that determination.
Why should a single American die for the cause of better government in a country that hates us?
I don't know. When we invade a country that hates us, as opposed to a country whose FRIGGIN' MURDEROUS RAPIST DICTATOR hates us, I'll try to look into that.
I thought we learned our lesson in Vietnam. I guess I was wrong.
No, the lessons from Vietnam are:
- If you go to war, take it seriously, and
-Don't just leave once you've started making progress, because a bunch of civilians are going to get slaughtered.
Oh, but they're not Americans, so we don't have to be concerned. After all, their "distinct culture" tells them to hate us, right, Letter Number One?
Morons.
[NOTE: CD would like to apologize for the disorganized and generally strange nature of this fisking. He has had a very long week, and his brain is not working properly. The fact that he is writing in the 3rd person should be proof of this. Thank you.]
Just so you know, there's a shouting match going on right outside my room at the moment, and there are about a dozen people I've never seen before standing around watching. I have no idea what it's about, but it's hilarious to listen to.
...Now they're laughing, and someone just said "Hell yeah, dude!"
People...
I don't know why I'm posting this now (I should've done it a lot earlier), but have I mentioned that my TV-Radio-Film professor looks like John Kerry?
Uncanny, ain't it?
All right, I'm finally back, and I've got some posting to do. I want to take a look at a few letters in the New York Times opinion section for today. I've never fisked letters to the editor of an actual newspaper before.
Anyone who doesn't think the NYT has a liberal bias should really think about how many letters they must receive, then look at the content of the ones they decide to put in the paper. Let's take a look:
First, we have The Images From Iraq, the Revulsion in America. These letters are about the effects the graphic pictures (which I haven't looked at yet) from Falluja have had on Americans. Letter number one:
The Bush administration, before the war, told us that Iraqis would welcome Americans as liberators.
But as your graphic reporting and grisly photographs depict, a year into this war nothing could be further from the truth.
Oh no! There's violence during a war! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!!!!
Administration officials are now quick to blame "foreign terrorists" and "remnants" of Saddam Hussein's regime for this kind of violence. But when a young Iraqi boy voices anti-American sentiments while mutilating the body of an American killed by a mob, is it not time for the Bush administration to admit the truth about the war in Iraq?
Uh, no. Maybe it's time to realize that children don't know what they're friggin' saying, and they're repeating what they've heard. Then, it's time to point out that many Iraqis were horrified by the incident. There's a reason some don't want the U.S. to succeed. It starts with S, ends with M, rhymes with Autumn...
Not only was the war a tragic mistake, but President Bush must also be held accountable for misleading the public about Iraq and for quickly dragging us into this generation's Vietnam.
Again, I can't believe that they picked this out of all the letters they must get. "This generation's Vietnam?" Interesting. Let's see here...according to this site, in one year of the Vietnam War (1968, in this case), we lost almost 15,000 troops. That's a bit more than 600, isn't it? I also don't think that we CONTROLLED MOST VIETNAMESE CITIES in that war, but I didn't exist when that was happening, so I could be wrong...
Letter number two (actually, just the second letter I feel like fisking):
The reports and photos of the brutal attack in Falluja filled me with a mix of emotions, primarily despair but also anger: anger toward the inexplicable inhumanity of the Iraqis who committed these crimes, and anger toward the administration that led us into a senseless war under false pretenses (front page, April 1).
The Blame America Squad™ strikes again! On another note, look for that "senseless war under false pretenses" thing to pop up several more times. Not very creative, if you ask me.
The depth of hatred against Americans and opposition to the United States occupation displayed in Falluja and elsewhere in Iraq could have and should have been anticipated.
It was anticipated, douchebag. It's called "the enemy."
Instead, hundreds of American lives and untold numbers of Iraqi lives have been lost.
Thanks for the news flash. You do realize that some of those Iraqis were responsible for torture, rape, and murder, right? Oh, yeah, it's just their "culture."
With Americans still being killed on a near-daily basis, the "relentlessly positive" attitude of L. Paul Bremer III and other occupation officials described by your correspondent ("Act of Hatred, Hints of Doubt," news analysis, front page, April 1) seems like a cruel hoax.
Have you heard of "morale?" Idiot.
Carta numero tres:
Whether to publish your April 1 front-page picture of Americans killed in Falluja must have been a difficult editorial decision.
I can imagine that discussion:
"Should we use the entire front page, or just 3/4?"
If your intent was to provoke revulsion, horror, shock, anger and heartache, then you succeeded.
Interestingly enough, all those emotions seem to be directed toward President Bush, not the friggin' murderous morons who actually killed the Americans. I wonder if that was intentional...........no I don't.
April 1 will go down in history as the date Americans say no to war in Iraq and rally to bring our people home.
We have a psychic in our midst! Tell us the future, o wise and learned scribe of brief anti-war rants!
President Bush's debacle — a war that was started to settle old scores...
*GASP* Incredible! You're a mind reader too? I fear the awesome powers of the prognosticating peace protestor!
...has already cost us tens of billions to rebuild a country we were told had billions in oil reserves...
I thought you didn't want Bushchimperialist™ to take the ooooiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil.
...resulted in countless loss of life and has alienated our allies to boot.
You mean the allies who are fighting with us right now? What universe are you living in?
Lest administration supporters think this is just the liberals' knee-jerk reaction to this latest horror, they would be wrong.
True. It would just be the liberals' knee-jerk reaction to everything: "You're wrong, you evil people!"
This is just one horror too many in a foolhardy war started under false pretenses.
There it is again! Are you also going to mention how Bush was "stonewalling the 9/11 investigation?"
It was wrongheaded to go in the first place, and it is criminal to subject our military and American and foreign workers to daily threats.
Sure. Let's subject 25 million Iraqis to 'em instead. Brilliant. Unless your powers include time travel, we don't have much of a choice at the moment.
Bring them all home. Now.
"Then we can call 'em baby killers, just like the '60s!!! Wait, did I say that out loud? Uh-oh."
I'm not done yet. There's one more exceptional letter in a section entitled Was That Photo Too Shocking to Be Printed? Check this out:
Observing the bounds of good taste and reporting the news honestly, accurately and responsibly have very little to do with each other.
Considering the media doesn't bother to do any of those things, I don't know why it's even relevant, but that's not the issue for today...
The media should not be asking, after the atrocities in Falluja, how to avoid offending viewers and readers ("To Portray the Horror, News Media Agonize," news article, April 1).We viewers and readers — we, the people of the United States — let ourselves be led into an unnecessary war...
"It's our fault! It's all our fault! Shame on us AmeriKKKans!"
...on false pretenses by an unelected president.
There it is AGAIN! "False pretenses." If he hadn't also thrown in the classic "unelected president" meme, I'd swear the same person was writing all these letters.
The stories that shock us today reflect the tragic and chaotic consequences of our failure to meet our responsibilities as citizens of a democracy.
I can almost see him hurting himself as he writes this, a la "The Scarlet Letter." Reverse projection, anyone?
It is our moral obligation to have our sensibilities offended.
In that case, I've fulfilled my moral obligation by reading through your asinine letter. I feel patriotic.
Once again, think about this for a second: The NYT probably receives hundreds and/or thousands of letters. Out of all those, it chooses to publish ones like these. I find it hard to believe that they couldn't find anything better.
...By the way, did you know that we were led into an unnecessary war under false pretenses? I haven't heard that in a while.
