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August 20th, 2009
12:51 am - Communism is not socialism is not fascism: A primer for the American Right
I figured out a while back why the American Right is so afraid of socialists. They don't know the difference between Communism with a capital C, the kind that led to the Iron Curtain and the Cuban Missile Crisis, etc., and socialism the construct, which in itself isn't a political system (as Communism is, where one party must rule, for instance) so much as an egalitarian concept of private/government partnership in guiding an economy. Marx and Engels used the word "socialist" and "communist" interchangeably, much like today's GOP does, but later, Lenin, who did more for Communism than anyone else to this point, arguably, defined socialism as a "step" between capitalism and Communism; a transitional phase, if you will.
So that confusion, while annoying, is at least understandable. What I haven't been able to figure out until presently is why people (and I use that term loosely) keep conflating health care reform -- or their fevered visions of a government administered, 100 percent socialist health care system -- and the Nazi party of Adolf Hitler, the former Chancellor of Germany who made fascism a twisted and methodical art form all its own. Hitler mustaches on pictures of Obama, cries of "Nazi plan" at town hall meetings ... what to make of this terrible ideological confusion? Sure there's some racial baiting going on here, the idea that if Obama wants reform, it must be some secret code for "reparations" for black people (of course, where they get the idea that all politics is coded in cyphers is beyond me ... oh wait a minute, that's all Bush did for eight years), but that can't account for it all, can it?
And then it hit me. It's rather simple really. A member of the Nazi party was formally known (in Germany, anyway) as a National Socialist. National Socialist becomes Socialist becomes Communist becomes terrible threat to all of man kind. The fact that the word "socialist" in those two applications (Goebbels vs. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for example) has two completely different meanings is probably lost on a lot of the same people who don't understand that socialist policies (like Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, etc.) are completely different from Communist ideals (lack of class stratification, assigned duties to people based on abilities, 100 percent centralized commerce, etc.).
So here we are. Fascism is confused with its polar opposite, Communism, and we wind up with people yelling about insurance companies' "right" to profit like we're back to baking Jews in ovens. Not that some of them would necessarily care about that though either, as evidenced by the classy lady in Las Vegas barking "Heil Hitler" at an old Jewish man who was talking about the care he received in Israel at a community forum. Fascism, though, is the authoritarian ideology that the strong shall inherit the earth, and not tomorrow either, like, TODAY, through military force, and that this is the only way humans can function as a society at our utmost potential. Fascists hate the idea of class divisions and they hate capitalists and Communists for basically the same reason: Both of them exploit class divisions for their own personal gain. Fascists just want one class: The best of the best. Which is, of course, why Hitler somehow came up with the Holocaust based on some readings on Hindu culture (fun fact, the swastika is actually a symbol of luck and prosperity in Hindu culture, and was for several thousand years before Hitler and his assholes co-opted it).
Now when I look at these poor, mistaken, brainwashed fools waving signs about socialist takeovers in one hand and swastikas with Obama's face on the other, I'll know: they just need to read a little more about political philosophies. Oh yeah, and stop being racist bastards too.
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March 11th, 2009
02:30 pm - This is my hometown
The unemployment rate for February in Elkhart was 19 percent. It may get a little higher yet, but there aren't many RV manufacturers or other factories left that haven't already cut down to skeleton crews or folded entirely, so perhaps we're "forming a bottom" as the analysts like to say.
When I used to think of unemployment rates this high, I always thought of Flint, Mich., or any large city in the Great Depression, with people killing rabbits to eat from their own back yards or putting on their fedora and going down to get in line for some day-old bread at the baker. I used to let the desolation play out across my mind, imagining whole cities crumbling, every head of household a beggar.
But now I know better. Elkhart isn't a hellscape. Things have changed, but the people here are still the same people who were here about 15 months ago, when the jobless rate was around 4 percent. Now one in five of my fellow residents are jobless, and lines do form -- at the WorkOne office, at the FSSA, at the Social Security building -- with more and more hard-working, prideful people completely out of options.
I've been privileged in a sense -- many senses really, given that I still have a job -- to be in the middle of this, to see how humanity reacts in times of hardship that don't come with labels like "disaster" or "terrorist attack." This was a relatively sudden economic collapse, but it still happened over the course of 12 months (thus far), which is a hell of a lot slower-paced than a hurricane, for example. The change has been gradual and the people's reaction has been heartening.
Food pantries, churches and other community organizations are getting more help than ever, which of course is a good thing since they're giving more help than ever. People are rallying around friends and family members who lose their livelihood and showing that universal truth that we're all connected, that whatever happens to my neighbor also happens to some degree to me.
And working at a newspaper, I get to listen as these events sound a steady drumbeat of loss and grief and help and compassion. The president visited last month, which was the third time in the last 8 months he'd been in our county. We've been described by the New York Times as "the white-hot center of the national recession," and we've been featured on national news more times than I can count since the beginning of the year (including several networks just last night).
MSNBC.com approached my newspaper with a project: They'd move some reporters and producers to Elkhart for a few months. They'd buy a foreclosed home to live in, they'd shoot video and attend city council meetings and go talk to people on the unemployment line and just generally experience what I've experienced -- what we Elkhartans have experienced -- for the last several months. They'd turn our town into the ultimate reality show: the reality of what happens when the legs come out from underneath a city's economy. And it'd all be shown on MSNBC.com, and our reporters and photographers would have a hand in the telling of the story. As it was last night here: Food caravan stops in hard-hit county
My managing editor wisely said yes. Ours is a cautionary tale but it's also an inspiring one. We're positioning ourselves to be as strong as possible when the companies start calling to build or inhabit factories here again. We're not perfect, but we seem to understand what needs to be done in order to survive situations like this. And I think people around the country, if not the world, should see that you can survive; that it's difficult but not impossible and certainly not crushing. The devastating poverty of the Third World is much more profound, but for many of us it's also much harder to relate to. We can't imagine what it must be like to live in an utterly deprived village in Uganda, but we might be able to fathom what it's like to lose a job and not be able to find another.
The truth is we aren't any different, we privileged few, than our brothers and sisters starving a world away. Our circumstances are different but we're all the same people. If people can start by recognizing the universality of Elkhart's suffering, of Flint's suffering, of individuals trying to make the best of a bad situation beyond their control, perhaps our story can be a stepping stone to recognizing ourselves in the most desperate and impoverished among us.
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November 6th, 2008
02:26 am - The high plain of dignity and discipline (not really)
Here's the thing, folks: Racism ain't dead. The Bush Doctrine ain't dead. Bible thumpers; bigots; Rush Limbaugh; "trickle-down" economic believers; selfish trust fund babies who worry exclusively about the capital gains and inheritance taxes; hypercapitalists; people who talk about the poor as though they're our nation's worst enemy and greatest shame; people who think we can just shoot our way out of our drug problems, our gang problems, our foreign policy disagreements; people who use words like "towelhead" and "sand nigger" unironically; people who use religion as a cudgel to beat people who think differently from them into submission, they're all still here, and they'll be here as long as humans walk the earth. President Barack Obama doesn't end any of this, let alone our economic woes, our very real debts, our deadly reliance on foreign petroleum, our pair of failed "wars," anything.
And I could go on about how a black president (and not just a rumored black president like Harding) is a symbol of freedom, of the American Dream, of our ability to truly pursue happiness, but you've likely already heard it all since Obama gave his keynote address at the 2004 DNC, since King and Ali and Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan and Elijah Muhammad and Mandela and Fred Shuttlesworth, since M. Gandhi and JFK and RFK and Frederick Douglass and Abe Fucking Lincoln. AND JESUS CHRIST. EQUALITY, LIBERTY, IT'S ON OUR FUCKING MONEY, PEOPLE.
You've heard all that. And the reality is, this election doesn't make anybody any more or less free. It doesn't put money in anyone's pocket or gas in anyone's car. It didn't give out a few million jobs and rehabilitate a few thousand criminals. It didn't stop -- or even really ease -- suffering here or anywhere else in the world. The president is one slice of our government, a government almost unimaginably huge and complex and weighed down with decades of expansion and contraction (and then yet more expansion) depending on who got what into which omnibus spending bill before midnight any given March or April or October in the District of Columbia, in well-furnished rooms on K Street with the blinds drawn, in plain daylight with the cameras of C-SPAN recording it all. Even if Barack Obama stepped down tomorrow to appoint JESUS CHRIST, SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN HIS PLACE, laws would still be written by Congressmen and Senators, votes for cloture and pieces of "pork" and reading things into the Congressional record and yielding time to the gentleman from Ohio would still rule the day. Nothing is fixed. Nothing is any more broken.
And everything in the paragraph preceding this one would hold true if it were president-elect John S. McCain and his lovely vice president-elect Sarah Palin. The world wouldn't end, nor would anything be fixed simply by the fact that they'd won an election, a popularity contest, a pageant.
But here's the thing: It feels different. Elkhart has a pretty sizeable minority population. As strange and reverse-racist and saccharine as this sounds, whenever I saw a black person or hell, even an Hispanic person today, I remembered we'd just elected a black president. And not because he's black, or even despite it, really. He's just another president, except for the fact that we've never had a president with skin any darker than ruddy pink or Georgia peach or Crawford-sun-baked brown. And when I thought about that, I got a little happier.
I know he's not perfect. I plan to hawk his every move just as I have the outgoing president (by the way, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel? Not exactly an olive branch there, Barry) and hold him to the same high standards of the office that every president has faced. But when you're talking about blacks and Mexicans and Chinese and any other minority group, any other cultural swatch in this quiltlike republic, and when, in the back of your mind, you're cognizent of the fact that a minority, the son of an African dude, a guy who grew up in Hawaii and went to school in Indonesia or some crap and somehow still became the president of the Harvard Law Review is now the president of the United States, well it's not overstating it to say that in one very intangible, very intrinsic way, EVERYTHING has changed.
I don't care if that sounds hokey. I don't care if that sounds bright-eyed or naive or bleeding-heart or anything else. I have a half-black sister. I have Mexican friends, black friends. I know what these people face on a daily, hourly, constant basis. It's not overt, they're not being beaten with chains or lynched or burned or arrested for being in the wrong part of town or anything. But they see women clutch their purses or roll their windows up as they approach. They see people's eyes dart. They see people whispering or talking softly and wonder "are they talking about me?" and it's not a particularly far-fetched or paranoid proposition because more often than not, they have found people talking about them in hushed tones around corners or behind doors. To even comprehend for a moment what this is like is to know the horrible truth of being a minority, whether it's a black man in Manhattan or a white man in New Delhi. It's no wonder black men have hypertension and angina and all these other stress-related health issues in greater abundance than whites. It's no wonder the life expectancy of Hispanics in America is a few years shy of whites'. We talk about post-traumatic stress disorder in soldiers returning from war or from people who were abused as children, but what about current-trauma stress disorder? What about constant-paranoia due to the VERY COLOR OF YOUR SKIN stress disorder? This is why I tend not to make light of Michael Jackson's never-ending plastic surgeries. It's really not funny, even if you're the biggest musical talent in the world.
But now a skinny black guy from the South Side of Chicago, a guy with sticky-outy ears and a funny, vaguely menacing name, a guy whose favorite sport is basketball and is a nerd and knows Constitutional law inside and out, who's an academic and a philanthropist and a GODDAMN COMMUNITY ORGANIZER and not really all that much of a Socialist, even when you compare his platform to the way the GOP's vice-presidential nominee runs her state, but really, why is Socialism a bad word in the first place, a guy who seems to genuinely care about helping people and won't take away your goddamn guns or your goddamn wealth or your goddamn Bibles despite all the slings and arrows he's endured from the same people who would do all those things to "MUSLIM TERRORISTS" and "TOWELHEADS IN PAKISTAN" if given the chance, the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas is the president elect of these United States. My country.
And so when I look at a black man now, and I get a little giddy because I imagine a country where women don't clutch their bags a little tighter when that same black man just happens to be on the same sidewalk as them, and when I imagine that my sister, at 13, truly doesn't have a ceiling anymore for what she can do with her life, you'll just have to excuse me. I guess I'm just a wild-eyed, naive, bleeding-heart optimist. And I couldn't be much more happy to be one.
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September 16th, 2008
02:19 pm - On the economy, John McCain is (basically) right
For all the things I disagree with him on, John McCain's statement that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" is essentially correct. Politically tone deaf yes, but essentially correct.
And I think the Fed's decision (the correct decision) today to hold interest rates unchanged vindicates him a bit. The problems with Lehman, Merrill, AIG, etc. aren't so much a bellwether of a weak economy but a symptom of the long-running credit/mortgage crises. When you invest in bad loans or unsound markets during a strong cycle, you create a bubble in the market (think about the dotcom bubble at the turn of the century, only, you know, people live in houses). This is what countless investment firms have been doing over the last few years, unscrupulously inflating the market for mortgages and homes themselves. So when the natural market (minus the inflammatory speculation and market manipulation via the banks and investment firms) deflates, there's no value there to hold the bubble up. So then all these people who default on their loans are left in the cold and the banks and investors who hold those loans are left holding a worthless piece of paper. Companies always find the loophole to exploit and if there's talk on Wall Street of a "bubble" in ANY sector of the economy, that's a good indication that some sort of false capital creation is going on. THAT'S KIND OF WHY WE NEED REGULATION.
Now, even if Wall Street crumbled into a sinkhole under Manhattan tomorrow, the United States economy would still be the strongest and most versatile in the world. We have so much variety in our production, from metals to agriculture to banking, from textiles and automobiles to aircraft and guns, from medical care to tobacco and alcohol. We ain't exactly Turkmenistan, folks. A crumple in one sector of our economy will echo out across the markets (especially when it's something as key as real estate that crumples), but generally a dip in one sector heralds a rise in another. For example, now that these big investment banks with huge holdings in bad mortgages are failing, money is flooding into ... regular old banks. Regional banks from the Northeast to the Midwest -- Wells Fargo, S & T Bancorp, Key Bank, even Bank of America -- are seeing a rush of new investment because their bottom lines are solid. They provide a shelter in this storm of defaults, bankruptcies and foreclosures.
So, John McCain talks about how the fundamentals of the economy are strong, and he's right. But even though I agree with him on that point, that's not the issue right now. The issue is to stop financial institutions from continuing this predatory practice of investing in false markets, and because the free market necessarily dictates that companies do whatever they can to produce wealth for their stockholders, the answer is overhauled regulation. The Federal Reserve is signaling that the issue is the LIQUIDITY of certain markets, not the fundamentals. Set guidelines to keep us from repeating the Great Depression/Savings & Loan scandal/current mortgage crisis.
The fact that Wall Street brokers actively booed the Fed's decision not to lower key rates today shows me something: the central bank is acting in the best interest of the economy at large, the strength of the dollar, rather than catering to a specific group of flailing banks asking for bailouts.
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September 4th, 2008
11:11 pm - A summary of the McCain speech (chronologically)
1. Respect
2. Honor
3. Humbleness
4. Hope
5. Strawman
6. Strawman
7. More strawmen, shameless attacks on "respected" opponent
8. Promises without explanation
9. More promises without explanation (use our community colleges? teach bad teachers another trade? O RLY? Didn't he just slam Obama for "wishing" for more jobs?)
10. "Big project" the same as Obama's "big project" only slower and with more drilling (NOW)
11. Shamelessly exploiting POW years (the 100th time this convention!)
12. Maverick
13. Help me help you, help me help you
Oh yeah, and somewhere in there a Code Pink lady or two stood up, an Iraq Vet against the War stood up, and in response, the crowd mindlessly chanted USA! for about three minutes per instance, stopping the speech cold in its tracks each time. I thought our vets WERE USA! USA! It's not like they're Iron Sheik or something.
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September 2nd, 2008
04:36 pm - Touchy much?
1. Last night, CNN's Campbell Brown TRIED to get McCain flack Tucker Bounds to name ONE thing Sarah Palin did as commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard, ONE order she handed down to those troops there that could illustrate any kind of judgment on her part one way or another. A relief effort, a clean-up, an emergency construction project, ANYTHING. Despite being asked three times in a row, he couldn't produce a single example.
2. Today the McCain campaign announces that, due to the fact that Campbell Brown's interview "crossed the line," McCain himself won't show up for his scheduled interview with Larry King.
3. The lulz I experience from this bit of drama-diva behavior nearly buries me in an avalanche of ROFL.
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August 27th, 2008
12:29 am - When an endorsement is not
If I said I thought John McCain should be president; if I promised to vote for him and campaign for him and give speeches about how great he is and how important this time in history is and how necessary it is to have a great leader and how that great leader is John McCain, wouldn't it necessarily follow that I DON'T think he's an angry, misogynistic, confused, demented, corrupt, adulterous, immature, insane, old coot? I'd be dead wrong if I said that, but if I did support him, would I actually have to say those words to make it so, or would you just infer that from the work I was doing for him?
That's what I don't understand about the Republican strategy right now: They're trying to say Hillary and Joe Biden and various other Democratic leaders don't think Obama is ready to be president, or that he's not qualified, etc., largely based on things those people said during the primary season when THEY THEMSELVES were trying to become president. Hillary could have run off to Ibiza and danced the rest of the calendar year away and not lifted a finger to help Obama. Joe, if he really still felt like he said he did exactly 12 months ago in a debate (that Obama isn't qualified), could pull what Nancy Reagan did to McCain this go-round: tepidly endorse the party's pick because he's the party's pick and then retreat into his home for the rest of the election cycle.
So in response to people like Kay Bailey Hutchison and other GOP flacks who keep saying stuff like "Hillary has made good speeches but she's never really said she thinks he's ready to be president," I say this: By virtue of these people's saying and acting like they want Barack Obama to be president, it's implied that they also think he's ready to be the goddamn president. Why would Joe Biden want to add "running mate on losing 2008 ticket" to his resume if he really felt like Obama wasn't the guy to do this thing?
This isn't rocket science, people: If you don't think Obama has the experience to be president, fine! That's your opinion! (I just hope you didn't vote for George W. Bush in 2000 then because, wow, hypocrisy) But don't try to pretend like people who are spending their time and money to get Barack Obama elected are just foolin', just having a laugh. I know a lot of Americans are stupid and I'm sure you're counting on that to get your guy elected, but it's dishonest and it cheapens your message.
By the way, nobody has really come out and said that John McCain ISN'T an angry, misogynistic, confused, demented, corrupt, adulterous, immature, insane old coot. I guess until I hear otherwise, I'll go ahead and assume everyone thinks he is.
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July 11th, 2008
01:38 am - Bush = Nero
I can't believe I missed this:
The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."
He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.
*golfclap*
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May 23rd, 2008
06:22 pm - Hillary is EVIL
Hillary Clinton said today that the reason she shouldn't drop out of the race is because anything can happen ... for instance, her husband didn't win the nomination until June of 1992. Oh, and Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June of 1968 and it's only May, guys! ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN.
I'm sick to my stomach. She's "apologized" for her "misspeak" to the Kennedys ... but NOT to the Obamas. Unbelievable.
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May 7th, 2008
02:25 pm - Weather Channel Sex Scandal!
My FAVORITE weatherlady of all time, Hillary Andrews, has been noticeably absent from The Weather Channel's West-Coast PM spot for more than a year. I thought maybe she was promoted to an early-morning show or something, so I didn't give it much consideration.
BUT THEN today on the Drudge Report of all places, I see a link to a Smoking Gun article with court filings by one Hillary Andrews alleging sexual harassment against one of her former co-anchors, Bob Stokes! She won arbitration against The Weather Channel and the following day, the network fired him! Crazy stuff! I miss Hillary!
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January 30th, 2008
01:45 pm - The Final Four
I wouldn't have thought we'd have the presidential field fully winnowed to a tidy two on each party BEFORE Super Duper Pooper Tuesday, but here we are. Dapper Carolinian John Edwards has announced he'll drop out in what I can only imagine is a signal that he's been given a Deal. Why else drop out before SDPT, when he could have built up some delegate chips to advance parts of his agenda in the ongoing candidate? I've been hearing rumblings that Barack will offer him the attorney general spot in the utopia--I mean next administration, which I would think is a good idea.
And of course Rudy Giuliani drops out after failing to capture even the one chip he thought he had a good shot at, Florida. It doesn't help his cause that he didn't get more delegates than Duncan Hunter and that he's flat broke.
As much as I'd like to see John McCain vs. Barack Obama in about the closest thing to an even-keeled and clean general campaign as we've seen in a generation (maybe more?), methinks it'll be Moneybags Mitt vs. Barack (please please please) in what could be a fairly muddy fight. If it's Billary vs. anyone, I'm taking my vote to a third party. Any third party.
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January 25th, 2008
03:03 pm - Peggy Noonan's declarations
Political pundit Peggy Noonan is not one of my favorite columnists, not someone I keep an eye out for new material from, but she has a smart, concise and precise piece up right now that tidily summarizes this moment in American politics. To wit:
1. The deconstruction of Bill Clinton
2. The quiet calm of Barack Obama
3. The re-invention of John McCain
4. The refocusing of Mitt Romney
5. The destruction of the Republican party by one George Walker Bush and his cabal
It's a quick read if you need catching up on what's going on, though a basic knowledge of what's been happening lately (Bill Clinton quickly losing his mind in public, for instance) will help.
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January 17th, 2008
04:52 pm - Bin Laden for peace
Evidently, the Associated Press is moving an interview tonight with Omar Osama bin Laden, the Egyptian son of, well, Osama bin Laden. The 26-year-old Muslim doesn't renounce his dad but he says he thinks there's a better way to defend Islam: Peace. In fact he sees himself as a possible ambassador between the Muslim world and the West, working to foster understanding and compassion. What a guy!
But what's probably the most amazing part to me, besides how much he looks like his dad (only more healthy looking), is that he has a 52-year-old wife. Yep, he doubled up. And she's pretty hot!
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September 12th, 2007
04:08 am - I'm such a hypochondriac
Tonight I read in our paper a story about a horse in Elkhart County being diagnosed with Eastern Equine Encephalitis. This is a mosquito-borne disease that is almost always fatal in horses and can do some pretty good damage to humans as well, causing brain damage and sometimes even death. The story said as many as a third of people who contract the disease die. And then, of course, the local health officials say to please protect yourselves from mosquitoes when you go outside.
Well last weekend, I went disc golfing with some of my chums, as is our custom, and the mosquitoes were particularly bad. All summer we've had no mosquitoes, but since we've had a rainy August, now they've come out to play. I wore shorts, a T-shirt and high athletic socks. The mosquitoes found a way to bite me through my socks and got me once on my arm, totaling about seven bites in all. At first I was just annoyed about this development.
Now there's a decent part of my brain that's alarmed as all hell. Let's break it down pro (I have this deadly virus within me and I'll certainly die) and con (I'm a stupid, worry-wart idiot who needs to calm the hell down and go to bed):
- The park we play at is in St. Joseph County, not Elkhart County (con)
- It's been about four days since I was feasted upon, and I honestly do feel a little weak, achy and sickly, as though I am starting to feel the onset of symptoms (pro)
- But part of that could just be that I'm all worried and it's like 4:30 in the morning (possible con)
- And even if I am starting to feel these symptoms, CDC reports point out that most people only get some flu-like symptoms and then the virus goes away ... in fact the true infection rate (the rate at which the virus infects the brain and gets all nasty) is only 33 percent. (definite con)
- The virus manifests itself in swampy, woodsy land, and the mosquito that makes the virus has to actually pass it on to any number of other species of mosquito (called vectors in these scientific papers I was reading), which can then infect horses and birds and humans. The park is nowhere near swampy land. (con)
- Though it is quite woodsy. (pro?)
- The CDC reports that since 1964, there have only been about 200-some confirmed human cases in all the states east of the Mississippi (hence the name Eastern Equine Encephalitis; there is a west version as well), and that includes small outbreaks of 20-some in Massachusetts and another dozen or so in North Carolina. It averages out to fewer than five cases in a year. (con)
- As such, the infection rate is something like 1 in 200,000 people. (big con)
- Also, the most at-risk individuals for full-blown, brain-attack infection are younger than 15 and over 50. (also con)
- I was bitten like seven or eight goddamn times (one of the possible bite marks doesn't really look like the others, so it could be just a little rashy spot)! (pro only if the virus was even present in that area)
I'm writing all this out basically to see if my brain can be won over by hard, black-and-white, rational evidence against my possible impending death by mosquito spit. I already read a fistful of medical and scientific papers that should have put me at ease, but there was just enough talk about comas and brain damage that those infinitesimally tiny odds were pushed to the backburner of my brain. But also, let's look at a small sampling of diseases and disorders I've Googled and thought "oh god, do I have that?"
- Kidney stones
- Bladder stones
- Lyme disease
- Aortic aneurysm
- Mitral valve prolapse
- Various other heart murmurs
- Acute myocardial infarction (remember the fainting spell?)
- Stomach ulcer
So yeah, I'm basically a hypochondriac. It's not so bad that I'm constantly in fear, but when something like this happens -- I read an article and I feel some "symptoms" -- my brain runs wild to the point where I lose a night of sleep. It's almost never more than a night, as usually by the next day, whatever I was thinking was a sign of my doom is gone.
But it still sucks, you know?
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September 7th, 2007
04:54 pm - Yes, we are so safe
I just saw one of those "Freedom's Sound" commercials paid for by some Right-Wing chickenhawk nuts out in Arizona somewhere (they're so formidable I can't even find their Web site). This one had pictures of some woman and her kid and she was saying "you know, I'm glad we're fighting terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, because if we weren't, THERE'D BE MORE ATTACKS HERE." And then the words "more attacks" flash across the screen near her face. And then she tells you to call your congressman and ... well, I don't know exactly what you'd say. "Gee Mr. Congressman, that commercial sure was scary! Make sure the bad men in turbans don't come to kill me, K THX!"
And I keep thinking about all those nutty commentaries I've been hearing about lately that say something to the effect of "all we'd need is another attack on U.S. soil, THEN all those chickenshit Libtards would see the light of Bush's gospel!"
HOW? How would another attack on the United States NOT discredit Bush's strategy? Wouldn't another attack show EXACTLY how Bush's line of "we're fighting them there so they don't fight us here" is completely wrong? Has anyone else ever noticed that we've never stopped a plot against the U.S. originating in Iraq? All the random Arabs driving around the South with a trunk full of cell phones, all the extremists signing up for flight classes in Florida, all the wacky kids doing jihad bootcamp in abandoned warehouses (also in Florida, oddly, perhaps we should be at war with Florida), that all happens here anyway! And it's not the war in Iraq that allowed us to find them before they did anything nefarious, it's POLICE AND SO-CALLED HOMELAND SECURITY! What a crazy concept: Protect the HOMELAND and maybe people won't be able to attack it!
And how is it that videos of Osama bin Laden somehow always give Bush a bump in the polls? This latest one may or may not, but doesn't his presence just remind everyone that Bush and his Cabinet of Death HAS FAILED MISERABLY IN ITS ONLY CLEARLY STATED MISSION? "Dead or alive?" What happened to that? Hell, even Osama knows we know this war is bullshit, and our president is bullshit (he says so in his latest video, released today), but he also knows Democrats are too goddamn weak-kneed to hold anyone accountable in any real way. OSAMA IS MORE IN TOUCH WITH OUR CITIZENS THAN OUR PRESIDENT AND MOST OF OUR CONGRESS. And he lives in a CAVE in the PAKISTAN area, for fuck's sake!
John Edwards seems to be the only mainstream candidate to completely rebuke the Bush Administration's "War on Terrah" (yes, Mike Gravel, Ron Paul and Denny Kucinich are there too, but they ain't doin' nothin' unless one of them gets a spot in somebody's Cabinet in 2009), so he's the one who's got my completely meaningless vote for the Democratic nomination (and, really, let's be real: The Presidency of these United States). He's also the only one who doesn't sound like he's been taking crazy pills. NO I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M TALKING ABOUT JOHN EDWARDS EITHER, I'M JUST VENTING.
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July 20th, 2007
02:39 pm - The game upside-down
An NBA referee is being investigated by federal authorities on suspicion of betting thousands of dollars on NBA games over the last two years, including games he officiated. He's also suspected of having ties to organized crime, though the name of the accused has not been released yet.
This is utter insanity, especially considering how bad a handful of referees have been the last two years (thinking of Joey Crawford in particular). To think that some of these mind-blowingly bad calls, these befuddling technicals, these ticky-tack fouls (Dwyane Wade's parade to the free-throw line in the 2006 NBA Finals comes to mind) were influenced by money ... it's staggering.
And of course, there's a decent chance that if these allegations are proven true, there will be other people involved. Things like this tend to happen in the context of a gambling "ring," meaning several people at different levels of an organization, and several more outside the organization. Of course, Pete Rose bet on games while he was playing and managing, but he maintains he never bet on or against his own team, and it appears he really was just a lone gambler. Betting on games you have an actual degree of influence over, however, seems to imply something deeper, a conspiracy of sorts.
I know I'm probably a minority on this, but I'm glad to hear this investigation is happening, and it gives me confidence that the game will pull through. A lot of my more closed-minded fellow citizens might just see this as some sort of confirmation that the NBA is a league of thugs and hooligans (I won't even begin to go into the racial implications of this attitude), but I don't see why this investigation won't bring about a new push by the league, its owners and its players to secure the integrity of the game and, I hope, increase its standards for officiating.
EDIT: The official being investigated is Tim Donaghy. To be fair, I'm not really familiar with his work, which in most cases is a good thing. If I know an official's name, it's because he's a goofball (Dick Bavetta) a muscle-bound freak of nature (NFL ref Ed Hochuli) or he does a terrible job (Joey Crawford).
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June 26th, 2007
07:13 pm - What lies beneath
By now, I'm sure even non-wrestling fans have heard about the death of WWE performer Chris Benoit, his wife and his son. And I'm sure you've heard it was a double homicide/suicide, with Benoit methodically asphixiating the other two, placing Bibles near their bodies and then hanging himself from a weight machine in his workout room.
By any measure, this is one of the most horrific things to ever happen in the worlds of sports or entertainment. Even if Chris wasn't famous, this kind of sudden and terrible event would be national news. Even if Chris wasn't one of the most skilled and respected wrestlers in history, this tragedy would bring tears to my eyes.
By all accounts, this was the last man you'd expect to do something like this. He was a warm, emotional and family-driven guy; a man who helped people out, who was a supportive and rocksteady friend to those who knew him best. But privately, there was trouble. In 2003, his wife had filed for divorce, citing intimidation and cruel treatment, but later dropped the complaint and a restraining order she had placed against him. So clearly, there was a history of violence here.
And that's what hits me the hardest. How can a man, so committed to his work, so outwardly supportive and blessed in so many ways, have such a murderous rage bubbling just under his surface? You might say, "well he pretended to beat people up for a living, and he was probably on steroids or something." And I'd say yes, those are good points, but it's not like this has ever happened before, and wrestlers have been taking steroids and pretending to beat people up for quite some time now. We all have a degree of darkness within us, but what is it that allowed darkness to overwhelm this man, this family? And beyond the view of the people who knew him and worked with him on a daily basis? These are the questions that haunt me.
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June 7th, 2007
05:21 pm - Oh, Orlando + Finals prediction
Now that Billy Donovan tucked his tail between his legs and returned to the swamps from whence he came, my favorite basketball team has turned its search for a new head coach elsewhere. And its eyes alit upon a Ron Jeremy lookalike from Miami. All I really know about Stan Van Gundy is that he was coaching the Heat (with Shaq and Dwyane Wade) with some success until that zombified, Dapper-Dan-wearing cretin Pat Riley decided to kick him to the side and coach the team to an NBA title. Also, he looks like Ron Jeremy. But supposedly he's a really good coach, at the top of everyone's lists, etc. So yay.
Finally, I need, NEED the Cavs to win the NBA Finals in seven games. I need that for my soul. For how great the Spurs play, it's amazing how boring they are to watch and how much rage they inspire in my soul. If they win their fourth NBA title in the last decade, this insufferable stretch of summer until the NBA Draft and the start of football minicamps will be too dark to bear. I really need for Bruce Bowen to blow out his knee attempting to trip LeBron, I need for Manu Ginobili's bald spot to grow another few inches in circumference to give him a true Friar Tuck, I need Tim Duncan's eyes to pop totally out of his head when he makes that ridiculous face each time he's called for a foul, I need Greg Popovich to get a facelift and some plastic surgery to de-scar his face, I need Eva Longoria to come to one game sans makeup to show the world what a hideous she-beast she really is (think Rachael Ray minus the glee), I need Fabricio Oberto's hair grease to make the post area so slippery that Michael Finley can't resist stripping down to his skivvies and sliding through the key on his belly, just for fun (this way he can't go like 8-of-9 from the arc). I don't care how bad a coach Mike Brown is, I don't care how worthless Larry Hughes is, I just need someone OTHER THAN THE SPURS to win the NBA championship, PLEASE!
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June 1st, 2007
01:44 pm - Getting random: Immigration and the Orlando Magic
Two thoughts:
1. This is why you don't root for a political party like you would a sports team: Sooner or later, the driving corporate interests will betray yours. Loyal Bushies are finding this out now that the "illegal immigrant amnesty" bill they so hated and feared is coming to pass. Just as the military industrial complex is keeping us in Iraq ("beat those terrorists!" the Bush flag-wavers yell), big business is glad to see legislation coming that helps them enlist more cheap migrant labor while -- they hope -- taking some of the heat off themselves ("no, Mexicans will steal my children!" the Bushies hiss). I'm not sure how I feel about the new immigration bill, but I'll say this: It's something. It's better than looking the other way entirely while corporations profit off the exploitation of millions of illegal immigrants. Will illegals really come into the light and pay the thousands of dollars to get their "amnesty?" Hard to say. But in any event, I have some serious schadenfreude going on right now for all the war supporters/gay bashers/tax cutters/deficit spenders who suddenly feel so terribly betrayed by "their president." Tough titty, you know?
2. And speaking of rooting for sports teams, my Orlando Magic got beaten by the Memphis Grizzlies in the race to hire coach Marc Iavaroni (my favorite candidate and a guy who could have helped Dwight Howard a lot), so they hired University of Florida coach Billy Donovan instead. Yes, yes, two-time defending national champs, brilliant coach, brilliant motivator, but I can't help but smell Rick Pitino part deux coming. Brilliant collegiate coaches don't usually work in the pros. HOWEVA I will give Billy the benefit of the doubt precisely because he is so young and brilliant and because he's a Florida guy, so Orlando is a good move for him. I don't expect big things for the next couple years: The team is young and inexperienced and undermanned and they only have two second-round draft picks this year. They are fantastically flush with cap space, so perhaps a free-agent splash signing is in the cards, but even with that I don't especially expect playoff success any time soon. Hell, the fact that they made the playoffs at all this year was a surprise. So Billy, you have my support, all the way up here in Indiana.
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May 22nd, 2007
08:52 pm - Brain = asplode: NBA Draft Lottery edition
Holy crap, Memphis and Boston both draw as low as they can go, fourth and fifth, respectively. If this isn't an anti-tanking message to NBA coaches and GMs (from the basketball gods? From the people at Ernst & Young who rigged the lottery?), I don't know what is.
And just now Portland got the No. 1 overall pick, followed by Seattle at two (could this save basketball in Seattle?) and Atlanta at three, who SO doesn't deserve to hang onto its pick after trading a slightly protected pick for Joe Johnson. Man, fuck Atlanta, I wanted to see Phoenix with a top five or six pick.
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