9/11 Idiots : Para-Annoyed

Excuse me, maybe I never got the memo, but when did paranoid conspiracy theories about the government's role in 9/11 become some kind of conventional wisdom among leftists?

These people remind me of the enormous and credibility-destroying gap between rhetoric and action we see in the forces arrayed against abortion. They claim that abortion is the same as murder, but the vast majority of them sure don't act like it. Wouldn't most of us take the law into our own hands and overthrow the government if we and millions of others really thought millions of innocent people were being routinely and legally slaughtered? And what about the disgusting and intricate bathroom activities and absurdly frequent funerals that conferring full legal and moral human status on very early term miscarriages would require but which are never carried out by even the shrillest pro-lifer? Surely this is all the evidence we need to prove that all anti-choicers who stand anywhere on the Planned Parenthood side of Eric Robert Rudolph implicitly admit that there is quite a bit of gray area here?

Which brings me back to the 9/11 conspiracy believers. Anone who honestly thinks that our government planned or blessed 9/11 needs to put down their various narcotics ingestion paraphernalia, quit their jobs (those that have jobs), and spend their full energy acting to uncover the truth and punish those involved.

Anyone who can sit on their ratty couch in a filthy dorm-room believing the movie "Loose Change" and do nothing more than rant inefectually about 9/11 as if our government's culpability is a foregone conclusion deserves to suffer the kind of tyranny they ignorantly believe rules over them.

So which is it, conspiracy idiots?

Either you don't really believe the conspiracy, in which case please, please just shut the hell up and return quietly to your xboxes, or you do, in which case let's see the largest demonstration in history on the Mall in Washington demanding the truth!

Oh, and one more thing. Bush and His Evil Omnipotent Masterminds stopped by, they left a message for you. It was something like "thanks for either not voting in 2000 or voting for Nader, you morons!"

Traditional Definitions

Will we soon see George W. Bush, of all people, take over William Safire’s famous “On Language” column?

He seems, after all, to have a newfound passion for linguistic fidelity in the form of “traditional definitions.”

This past weekend the vocabulary-teacher-in-chief used his radio address to express his abiding fear that tolerating gay and lesbian matrimony will cause irreparable harm not to the institution of marriage, an easily refuted inanity, but to the traditional definition of marriage, a clumsy but indubitable tautology.

It is, of course, impossible to demonstrate how gay marriage in any way harms the institution of hetero marriage and easy to argue the opposite premise.

So Bush suddenly feels compelled to defend the honor of the traditional meaning of the word marriage.

It’s as if slave owners had called a constitutional alteration meant to ensure the survival of their peculiar institution the “defense of citizenship amendment” because freeing slaves would alter the traditional definition of “American Citizen.”

But, okay, I guess I can get on board with all of this protecting of traditional definitions. While we’re at it, I’d like to suggest a few more words whose traditional definitions seem in dire need of protection.

Take “war” for example. Can we agree that war on a tactic, i.e. terrorism or eye-poking, is nonsensical? And can we agree that war is something that needs some sort of achievable end goal?

Hey, protecting traditional definitions is fun! No wonder they like it so much they want a constitutional amendment.

Let’s try another one. How about…hmmm…let’s see…oh, I know! “Torture!” Maybe we can get an amendment protecting the definition I found in Webster’s, “anguish of body or mind”. That would take care of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo pretty quickly, and, if my reaction to them is considered, might actually end Bush's weekly radio addresses as well.

Boy, once you start thinking of these it’s hard to stop. “Patriot,” as in “USA Patriot Act,” springs to mind almost unbidden.

Then, of course, you have to wonder about the word “elected.” The last time I checked “something the Supreme Court does” didn’t appear in the OED under “elected.”

And, not to epistemologize, but what about “know”, as in “we know where the WMDs are?”

And then there’s “accomplished”, like “mission accomplished."

“Intelligence” has a number of traditional definitions, and this administration has managed to wrong each one.

Why don't we have a contest? You, my nearly nonexistent readers, can suggest some of your own. Some more suggestions: "compassionate", "conservative", "uniter."

In the meantime, can we please take advantage of Bush’s nascent respect for the power and sanctity of language to get a constitutional amendment protecting some traditional pronunciations in addition to traditional definitions?

I’m particularly partial to an amendment protecting the traditional pronunciation of the word “nuclear.”

Shot-in-freund

The press has been missing the big story in the Vice President's "peppering" of his friend. It's not the delay in reporting possibly allowing time for any alcohol bloodstream evidence to dissipate. It's not the prima facie negligent breach of hunting protocol. It's not Whittington's heart attack caused by a vice-presidential pellet. It's not the permanently, and taxpayer-expensively, proximate medical roustabouts that trail after the VP like punished guardian angels (who knew?). It's not even the garish obviousness of the itchy trigger-finger metaphor made flesh.

It is simply this:

Dick Cheney...has a friend.

Could anyone have guessed that the ultimate mad dad, this cantankerous uber-grinch of American policy both foreign and domestic, this epiphany-immune Scrooge , this man who, though compulsively draft-dodging, is a dead ringer for some Pat Conroy novel-inspiring brute of a military academy commandant, this unapologetic and presumably first-ever-in-the-senate-halls "go fuck yourself" sayer, this grunting millionaire, this proud swinger of the revolving door between the governmental and the military-industrial, this fear-mongering stone gargoyle of a party chief who’d look terrifyingly at home in an old black-and-white Kremlin photo, clad in heavy dark overcoat and fur hat, gazing sternly out over a sea of goose-stepping troops and world-ending ballistic missiles, this mirthless, shipless Ahab so sour and without pity that his own heart attacks him on a weekly basis...has a friend.

Could there be some scrap of human love in him? Not Agape, of course, and certainly not Eros, but at least a smidgen of Philia?

Might he have a chance at redemption? Maybe so…

Go ahead, God, it's finally time. I sense an opening. Send in the ghosts of carefully chosen Christmases! Send in that "Tuesdays With Morrie" guy and team him up with Barbara Walters and let's just see what happens! Yes, it’s just crazy enough to succeed! Maybe things really will work out for the best…Iraq will settle down, Katrina victims will be able to return to a safe New Orleans, global warming will finally be addressed! We might just be okay, because Dick Cheney has a friend!!!

But then Dick Cheney went and shot his friend,

in the face,

with a shotgun,

while ostensibly endeavoring to extinguish the blameless life of an almost weightless, defenseless creature with the temerity to defy gravity within 20 yards of the Vice President of the United States.

------

Why’d you shoot your friend, Dick?

Did you share some feeling or idea earlier in the day with Whittington, a like-minded and congenial compatriot? Did your heart warm, just a little, and did that scare you?

Were you attempting an auto-amputation of this friend to stem what might otherwise have become a life-changing transfusion of milk of human kindness?

I think we’ll never know, and maybe, tragically, Dick won't either.

Maskism

So my intravenous NPR feed instructed me today, via excessive intonations of comfort-words like "moms" and "kids", that being cold does not lead to getting a cold.

Moms have no good reason anymore to wrestle their kids into big, bulletproof wool balls. Evidently all this bundling up in down simply satisfies the natural parental urge to protect, and meets cultural expectations for appropriate parental behavior. (As NPR noted, an apparently inadequately swaddled child will automatically prompt nearby "seasoned" ladies to admonish the responsible parent.)

Here's the irony, which NPR completely missed: what does work to slow the spread of viruses is skipping work/class when you're ill, and, if you must attend, then wearing a surgical mask. Yet American culture abhors both practices in the extreme. Calvinism rather neatly explains why employers and coworkers resent any sick days you might take.

But what could possibly explain the horror at surgical masks? After all, Asians wear them all the time.

A "friend" provides a perfect example of just how extreme the unacknowledged anti-surgical mask feeling is. This "friend" is currently pursuing a masters degree in public health. The academic requirements involve small classes sitting facing each other around tables in ideal cough and sneeze range. Due to their low frequency, these sessions really can't be skipped even if a student is terribly ill and contagious. Amusingly, the subject of these classes is inevitably how to improve public health and minimize its expense with preventive techniques.

Here's a suggestion, WHY NOT HAVE YOUR STUDENTS WEAR SURGICAL MASKS WHEN THEY HAVE HORRIBLE RESPIRATORY VIRUSES?!? Half the students are doctors, for God's sake! If this group won't wear them, no one in this country ever will. (Except, maybe, in the event of Bird Flu, or confirmation of the recent study suggesting obesity may be virally spread.)

A few possible explanations for this situation:

1. Vanity. This can perhaps be fixed if Nike and Adidas start marketing expensive masks with prominent logos.


2. Coolness, a sub-category of vanity. What's more nerdy than wearing a shapeless, celibacy-inducing down coat in the winter-time? A surgical mask reminiscent of a Japanese salaryman, obviously.

3. Fear of death. Americans don't like intimations of mortality, or even intimations of cold and flu season, in their midst.

4. Cussedness. After all, I've already got the cold. The virus spreading to you is filed under "your problem". America is all about flinty independence. If you're worried about catching my cold then maybe you need to GET OFF MY PROPERTY!

What's the word for a culture which values pointless, silly aesthetics over health and comfort?

The Terminader

I received no complaints about my reference to 2000 Nader voters as “idiots” in my last post. Given the total number of readers of this blog, zero turns out to be a significant minority, so I felt an obligation to address this issue in more detail.

Nader voters represent a big problem in our particular form of democratic republic: idealists who are willing to split the vote on their side of the political divide in close elections, willingly ensuring victory for the other side. Bush's 2000 win is their greatest folly, but they continue to spoil elections all over the country, especially in Vermont, where they put an ultra-conservative in as Lt. Governor and are threatening to tip Bernie Sanders' house seat into Republican territory later this year.

These self-satisfied would-be rebels put forth a few flimsy arguments and naive assumptions that I would like to demolish once and for all.

“Democrat and Republican front-runners are pretty much indistinguishable anyway, so why not cast a protest vote?”

I think that the recent selection of Supreme Court appointees chosen directly from the right-wing's a la carte menu throws into high relief the real, undeniable differences between, for example, Gore and Bush, and the profound long term consequences of those differences. There are a few other policy variations I could list, such as a little thing called THE WAR IN IRAQ, but I think the Supreme Court alone is enough to lay this one to rest.

"You should vote your conscience over political expediency."

Really? Let's leave aside the fact that causing a Bush victory and all of its nightmarish sequelae shouldn't exactly work as a salve to the progressive conscience. Instead, let us imagine that all of these progressives really do want to simply vote for the person they can feel best about rather than for someone with any chance of actually being elected. If this is true, then surely individual progressives can think of someone more heartwarming to them personally than Ralph Nader and write them in on the ballot.

William Sloane Coffin, perhaps. Or, now that I think about it, why restrict yourself to the living? How about Harriett Beecher Stowe? And don't forget favorite fictional characters, like maybe that psychiatrist played by Barbra Streisand in Prince of Tides or Aslan from Narnia!

Ultimately maybe they'll feel the most comfortable just writing in their own names. Why leave anything to chance, and you never know...

"It's not Nader's fault, it's Gore's fault for not running a better campaign"

Oh, so mean ole' Mr. Gore forced your hand in that ballot box, did he? Anyone with an ounce of common sense realizes that Nader ran an outsider campaign to make a point and should have dropped out and endorsed Gore before the election. It is proof of his pathological ego that he did not. The responsibility lies more squarely on the Nader voters' shoulders than those of Nader himself, however.

But let's just say, for the sake of argument, that Al Gore had suddenly taken positions pleasing to these addle-pated Greens and Progressives. Do they really think he would have picked up more votes than he would have lost? And then his failure really would have been his fault. Or, even more ridiculously, let's imagine Gore had dropped out and endorsed Nader. Anyone not sure of what the outcome would have been in that case? Winona LaDuke a heartbeat from the presidency? Please.

Face it, this is, at heart, a very conservative country. There is no popular progressive revolt just about to emerge. The best you can hope for is to nibble around the edges, and that must be done within the current political duopoly. This is not Italy or Israel, whose coalition governments demonstrate the advantages and flaws of multi-party systems.

In almost all elections, local, state, and national, progressives must stop splitting the liberal vote.

Those who are willing to childishly generate more conservative victories are more directly responsible for the current scary state of our government, all three branches, than any neocon.

Schrodinger's Ass

"Ass" as in "Donkey".

"Donkey" as in "Democrat".

"Schrodinger" as in the pioneering quantum-mechanics theorist.

He created the following thought experiment, commonly referred to as "Schrodinger's Cat" (among people who commonly refer to such things), to illustrate an important idea known as a "superposition" :

A cat is placed in a windowless box along with a vial of poison gas. The vial will perhaps open, and thus kill the cat, based on some unpredictable random mechanism. (We can safely infer from this set-up that Schrodinger was more of a dog-person, and, more worrisomely, was German.)

Since, without looking, we have no way of knowing whether or not the random process opened the vial at any given time, the only way to determine the health of the cat is to open the box. Until we open the box, the cat is, for all practical purposes, both alive and dead. The cat is said to be in a "superposition" of states, both thriving and deceased at the same time. When we overcome our revulsion at Kitty's Edgar Allen Poe-like predicament and peek inside, the cat is said to "collapse" into one of the two states.

Which brings us to the Democrats.

Polls show that a generic, unidentified Democratic candidate will beat a Republican in a huge number of races around the country. The same was true of the last presidential election. Let's call this unidentified candidate "Schrodinger's Ass" since they are in a superposition of positions. All that's known about them is that they aren't Republican.

Are they for or against the war? Are they socially and economically liberal or conservative? Are they centrist or progressive? We can't know until we name a real, live candidate and they collapse into a specific set of policies.

Understandably many Democrats have tried mightily to retain the enviable qualities of superpositionality all the way through election day. A vague policy position allows individual voters to project their hopes and priorities onto a candidate, but a strong and clear position that delights one group will permanently alienate another. But this is no way to run a campaign or a country.

Leadership, a word whose modern usage I generally loathe for its meaningless, high-school athletic awards-dinner banality, but which is actually required in this context, demands specificity. This is the genius of turn-of-the-century Republicans. They have constructed a clear platform and demanded and received loyalty from their entire rank-and-file, no matter how at odds individual Republicans might be with specific parts of the platform.

Democrats, such as the terrifyingly unapologetic mindless progressives whose Nader votes handed Bush the 2000 election, may well be too ornery to engage in such herd behavior, but they have to try.

The only alternative is for the candidates to run for their various offices silently and with Unknown Comic-style paper bags over their heads. Maybe they can even change the election laws so they can list themselves on the ballot as "Generic Democrat". But that begs the question of what the hell they'll do if they actually manage to get elected, because superpositional cats can't chase mice or play with string, much less deal with a nuclear weapons wielding Iran.

Separated at birth, part 2

President Bush surveying Katrina damage, and Emily the stowaway cat.

Amazingly enough, they were both thinking exactly the same thing!

A Match Made In Heaven

Oil companies are profiting from high prices engendered by the synergy of demand and chronic worry about terrorism, both of which are increasing robustly.

Meanwhile bankrupt airlines are falling financially like autumn leaves in Vermont due to fear of terrorism and high fuel prices.

Obviously the oil companies need to buy the airlines and provide jet fuel at manufacturer cost.

The higher the fear and demand the less airlines make but the more oil companies make. It's perfect.

Separated at birth?

Live Aid

"Live" as in hand grenade.

Post Katrina, many countries have offered aid to the Unites States.

This has to pose a deliciously difficult dilemma for our leaders. If they refuse the aid they look arrogant. Acceptance of the aid will send a message of weakness and vulnerability, with an uncomfortable frisson of third world desperation.

How will they spin this?

Chertoff's informal logic

DHS chief Darth Chertoff once again sunk his own talking points in a rough sea of contradiction today.

He proposes on the one hand that DHS is not at fault for being slow out of the gate because the hurricane was so unpredictable in course and power.

On the other hand he states that citizens of New Orleans should have known they had to get out of the city.

In order for both things to be true the citizens of New Orleans must have much better weather monitoring and prediction equipment than the Department of Homeland Security and its faithful sidekick FEMA.

Despite the fatal illogic of this, Chertoff never comes close to going off message. Scott McClellan better make sure his resume is up to date.

The future of hired transportation (Part 2)

I think I have my answer from the previous post. If only all those people at the convention center had the below press release! How irresponsible of them. Maybe someone should forward this to Chertoff.

From The Blackwater USA homepage :

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 01, 2005

BLACKWATER JOINS HURRICANE KATRINA RELIEF EFFORT!

This morning (September 1, 2005), Blackwater USA joined the ongoing relief effort in the Gulf Region devastated by Hurricane Katrina by dispatching a SA-330J Puma helicopter to help assist in evacuating citizens from flooded areas. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Erik Prince stated, “At this time, all
Americans should band together and assist our countrymen who have been struck by this natural disaster.”

The following services are available:

Airlift Services

Security Services

Communication Support

Crowd Control

Humanitarian Support Services

Logistics and Transportation Services

Anyone having a security or evacuation request may call (252) 435-2052/2488.

All requests shall be prioritized and acted upon as quickly as possible.

The future of hired transportation

Last night, during our approximately twelve hours a day of hurricane news viewing, we saw a very telling moment.

A camera crew was interviewing a surprisingly well-heeled and relaxed family. They had been visiting New Orleans so their son could look at a college, clearly Tulane, when they became trapped by the hurricane.

The mother seemed unconcerned for her pocketbook, and the family, surprisingly, didn't seem to be in too much of a hurry.

It turns out they were about to be taken out of the city by members of a "private security company."

This made me wonder how that was arranged. Did one of the parents call their law firm/investment bank employer and ask them to arrange to hire whatever part of Blackwater USA isn't in Iraq to extricate them? Or are well-armed private security company SUVs just cruising around NOLA like some kind of post-apocalyptic taxi service? Or maybe their hotel arranged it as some sort of high-end airport shuttle?

Thought provoking in any case.

Department of Homeland Talking Points

Michael Chertoff has his talking points. Unfortunately for him they make no sense.

He asserts with the dogged repetition of a press secretary that the hurricane and the flood are two separate and unconnected events. If you buy that then he hopes you'll buy the idea that no one could have predicted the two things happening in conjunction.

As part of this odd formulation he even says that the levee breach was just like a nuclear weapon going off in conjunction with the hurricane. (I guess a volcano or attack by space aliens would work here too.)

The problem with this logic is that flooding is an integral part of most hurricanes, and nuclear weapons are not.

Indeed, massive flooding of the below-sea-level city was predicted years ago in great detail by The New Orleans Times Picayune, National Public Radio, and even the federal government.

So, Chertoff, I may eventually be convinced that everything that could be done was done, but not that this situation wasn't anticipated.

More likely, since the correct logical starting assertion was that this situation was predicted, I and many other disillusioned Americans will continue to be furious at the inadequate response.

Point of spew

Can everyone try really hard to ask themselves how they'd feel if the shoe were on the other party's foot?

How would you feel if the Katrina situation were the same but Clinton were in charge?

I'm pretty sure I'd be just about as furious.

How about you?

Spiteful political cartoon idea

The photo ops of the First Gentleman and First Lady comforting Katrina victims made me wish I were a political cartoonist.

Here's the pitch, in case you know one:

George and Laura are at a Coney Island-style amusement park with their heads through the head-holes of a large board for the taking of a novelty photograph. On the front of the board are painted their own headless selves in the poses of victim comforting we're sure to see depicted on the front pages tomorrow.

Too harsh?

How the press found its guts (aka Ball 1)

Once upon a time an administration bungled a post-war occupation resulting in social chaos and death. When the 4th estate started asking hard questions they were accused of treason. Criticizing a war president is bad.

Once upon another time the same administration bungled a post-hurricane occupation resulting in social chaos and death.

But here's the important difference: it's open season on emergency managers up to and including the highest level of the executive branch because a hurricane doesn't have the get-out-of-impeachment-free card that a war has.

Watch CNN and prepare to be amazed. I even heard conservative Paula Zahn stick it to Michael Chertoff last night when he admitted ignorance of the New Orleans convention center situation until sometime yesterday when it was too late for a lot of people.

Making no mistake

Hard kernels of cliche meant to lend the appearance of strength and steadfastness spew forth from the powers that be on a regular basis. If you watch much news you'll recognize them instantly:

Up or down vote
We're not ruling anything in and we're not ruling anything out

But the greatest of these is "Make no mistake."

This seemed to preface every other statement from a military or administration official just after 9/11.

It's actually seductively fun to introduce statements in every day conversation with "make no mistake." Try it, but be careful not to get addicted.

"Make no mistake, this chicken is delicious! Make no mistake, I think it's about 8:30."

Maybe it's the Republican answer to the whimpiness of "sense." (see "Sensorrhea" below)

Well, now it's back in force, more hideous jetsam of Katrina's evil winds.

I guess I'm slow, because I've only just connected this chest-inflating introductory phrase to the semi-official position that this administration doesn't actually make mistakes.

I guess it's kind of a blessing, as in "we don't make any mistakes, so don't you start doing it either."

Will any mistakes be admitted to in the aftermath of this tragic, yet frequently predicted, mess? Accountability is fun.

Sensorrhea

As you listen to members of the press (especially NPR) interview politicians, experts, and each other, keep your ear out for the echolalic use of the word "sense."

"Can you give us a little sense of...?"
"Is there a sense there that...?"
"What's the sense of the sense of...?"

This may seem like a trivial point in the face of so much tragedy, but I believe language use is an important clue to worldview and motives.

This "sense" clue, I believe, begins to explain why the press is so tentative in their coverage of important stories, especially the questioning of public officials. Reporters could easily just drop the "senses" and go right to the question, but they generally don't.

Maybe it's laziness. People can be held responsible for getting facts wrong, but not "senses."

I think what this really reveals is a sad mistrust of reality, a defeatist, post-modern capitulation to the fluidity of fact. The corollary is a susceptibility to spin.

The result is the cowed, bourgeois press we have seen for the last few years. I hope the naked reality of Katrina will shake them out of it enough for them to hold certain people, and even certain popular ideas, responsible.

Some are more equal than others

The quickest way for a politician to shrug off irrefutable criticism is to claim that "everyone was doing it." If a Republican is accused of making outlandish negative political ads, they will quickly claim that the Democrats do the same thing. The question of degree, of whether the Republicans produce measurably more or more inaccurate ads than the other side, is too complicated to fit into what passes for mass media political dialog and is therefore never addressed in a wide forum.

A lot of people and political/economic ideologies are to blame for the mess New Orleans is in, going back to the original sin, the choice of location. This provides a lot of fodder for those who would minimize their own blame, a chronic habit of the Bush administration. Currently the response of the powers that be when pressed on who is responsible for the instant third world country (just add water!) we find on our gulf coast is "there'll be plenty of time for that discussion later." But we can be sure that once that discussion is in full swing every citation of the many clear warnings, FEMA budget cuts, tardiness of relief, etc. will be met with some conveniently parallel sin of the other side.

I can't wait to find out precisely how this is entirely Clinton's fault.

Single Prayer Health Care System

Thousands upon thousands of Katrina victims, most of them poor, need urgent and long term medical care. Their medical records are destroyed or unavailable.

They are clearly being treated for free now, but how long will that last? At what point will people discover that Katrina has swept them out of their "preferred provider area?" How much will the nation spend treating these people? How will the hospitals be set up again?

Suddenly a universal health-care system with national disaster contingency plans and safely archived easily accessible record keeping seems less like galloping socialism and more like a practical necessity.

Patron saint of filthy water

Is it ironic or appropriate that Dave Matthews has announced a Katrina benefit concert?

Debt of credit card companies

It is time the Credit Card companies pony up in return for their sweetheart bankruptcy legislation passed last session which takes effect on October 17. (Just in time to add extra misery to all the Katrina victims by foiling their inevitable bankruptcy claims !) Get this, it's actually entitled "Bankruptcy Reform and Consumer Protection Act."

Politicians should demand that they exempt from monthly interest or other charges all donations to the Red Cross and perhaps other charities in the name of Katrina relief.

Right now credit cards are the easiest, fastest way to donate, but many Americans are already shouldering too much credit card debt.

In addition, it is unseemly for these companies to make profits from kind hearts and human misery. They should stick to making money off compulsive consumerism and human shortsightedness.

What's with this century?

2000: Election chaos, Bush "elected"
2001: World Trade Center attack
2002: Invasion of Afghanistan
2003: Invasion of Iraq
2004: Bush re-elected, Madrid Bombing, Beslan tragedy
2005: Tsunami, London Bombing, Katrina

You get the point.

Mad Dads

Growing up, was your dad an angry dad? Were any of your friends' dads angry dads? If so, then you know the tone of voice and demeanor of a man who comes home from work and doesn't want to be bothered by his children. A man who doesn't know how to handle teenagers during a famliy dinner and creates a quiet, sullen fog throughout the household whenever he's around. I was always thankful my dad wasn't an angry dad whenever I was over at friends' houses run by mad dads.

Many a mad dad insists on being referred to as "sir" by his children if not his wife.

The reason I bring this up is that almost every official in Republican leadership gives me that mad dad feeling, especially at press conferences when anything they say or do is challenged. Even Condi Rice seems like a mad dad.

Cheney, of course, is the ultimate Mad Dad. Can you imagine what it was like for his daughter to come out to him as a lesbian?

Yet, in spite of the ubiquitous mad dad veneer, I constantly find myself asking where the real, responsible, grown-ups are in this administration.

Dumbocracy In Generica

Will George Bush be seen as the worst president in U.S. History? How soon?

Have the Straussian neocons and the Project for a New American Century now assured that this will be America's most ignoble century?

Will the nation ever recover from our current misguided brainless factionalism?

Will the media ever be able to criticize the powers that be without the appearance, real or accusatory, of bias?

Will my picayune peeves about NPR's style and substance ever be heard by the actual on-air "folks"?

What is the nature of our cultural decadence and can we dig our way out of it?

These are the kinds of questions you will find discussed here.