Then It Came Back To Rescue Me Today.

I saw American Beauty last week, for the 3rd time.

"This isn't life, it's just stuff. And it's become more important to you than living."

"I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst...

And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life..."

You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure.

But don't worry... you will someday."

A year after Alan Ball wrote this, he created Six Feet Under.

Jump The Gap Wit Meh

Zefrank de-uninspires me to this day. And man, bring it, I have work to do. Huh - apparently The Show does go on.

Dance Wit Meh

Dennis' Studded Tongue Lashing

Dennis and Elizabeth Kucinich on some morning talk show, where he generously infers that the prompter-mouthing makeup model is a professional journalist with attendant responsibilities. Then again, the channel knows its audience: A Pew poll in April found that 69% correctly identified who Dick Cheney was, which is a nice way of saying one out of three Americans doesn't know who is vice president. Strangely, 54% of Americans support impeaching him.

Anyway, back to the "news."

Pwned.

Barbara Jordan & John Conyers on Impeachment

The Resolution to Impeach Vice President Cheney from Rep. Dennis Kucinich is schedled for debate in the House Judiciary Committee. The Chairman, John Conyers, is no fan of Dick "go f*** yourself" Cheney. The day before, he offered the White House one last chance to comply with Committee subpoenas before he files contempt charges against the VP and his Texan sidekick.

Even so, Conyers (D-MI) is treating the issue with the gravity and deliberation that Congress is expected to, as Barbara Jordan (D-Texas) pointedly articulated during Nixon's Judiciary Committee impeachment debate:

(Washington, DC, 11/6/2007)- A spokeswoman for the House Judiciary Committee issued the following statement today in response to floor action on a house resolution to begin impeachment proceedings against Vice President Dick Cheney: "The committee has a very busy agenda - over the next two weeks, we hope to pass a FISA bill, to vote on contempt of Congress citations, pass legislation on prisoner re-entry, court security and a variety of other very important items. We were surprised that the minority was so ready to move forward with consideration of a matter of such complexity as impeaching the Vice President. The Chairman will discuss today's vote with the committee members but it would seem evident that the committee staff should continue to consider, as a preliminary matter, the many abuses of this Administration, including the Vice President."
- House Judiciary Committee Spokeswoman

Here's Barbara Charline Jordan's Statement on the Articles of Impeachment, delivered July 25th, 1974 in the House Judiciary Committee. Click here to listen to the entire Statement. A brilliant reminder that there is such a thing as American legislation in action.

"Today I am an inquisitor. An hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution.

...Common sense would be revolted if we engaged upon this process for petty reasons. Congress has a lot to do: - Appropriations, Tax Reform, Health Insurance, Campaign Finance Reform, Housing, Environmental Protection, Energy Sufficiency, Mass Transportation.

Pettiness cannot be allowed to stand in the face of such overwhelming problems. So today we are not being petty. We are trying to be big, because the task we have before us is a big one.

...James Madison, again at the Constitutional Convention: "A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution."

If the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that 18th-century Constitution should be abandoned to a 20th-century paper shredder.

Has the President committed offenses, and planned, and directed, and acquiesced in a course of conduct which the Constitution will not tolerate?

That's the question. We know that. We know the question. We should now forthwith proceed to answer the question.

It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision."



Click here for the LA Times article on what Cheney's being charged with. WARNING: Large, snarly headshot of Tricky Dick Jr.

Jim Henson's "Time Piece"

Long before the mucking Fuppets, there was Jim Henson. He made this the year I was born. You're very, very, very welcome.

What a Bargain - I'll Take Three.

How many million Americans does it take
to screw in a light bulb over their heads?

A real war on poverty

"According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth.

At the upper range of those estimates, the $611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world's poor for seven years."

(Boston Globe, Nov. 11, 2007)

"Why Are We In Vietnam?" is Not an Essay About Vietnam

The first paragraphs of the first two chapters:

Intro Beep 1
Hip hole and hupmobile, Braunschweiger, you didn't invite Geiger and his counter for nothing, here is D.J. the friendLee voice at your service-hold tight young America-introductions come. Let go of my dong, Shakespeare, I have gone too long, it is too late to tell my tale, may Batman tell it, let him declare there's blood on my dick and D.J. Dicktor Doc Dick and Jek has got the bloods, and has done animal murder, out out damn fart, and murder of the soldierest sort, cold was my hand and hot...

Intro Beep 2
The fact of the matter is that you're up tight with a mystery, me, and this mystery can't be solved because I'm the center of it and I don't comprehend, not necessarily, I could be traducing myself. Por ejemplo, the simple would state that Into Beep One is a stream-of-conch written by me, and consequently commented upon by my mother up tight with her libido-drained psychoanalyst. But now you know Chap One with Fink Razzbah (rhymes with Casbah) is made up by me, D.J., alias Ranald such-and-such such-and-such Jethroe, Disk Jockey to the world (my mental connections are faster than anything afoot) and lightning which is a special case of light-how about that, Zack!

Norman Mailer died this weekend. I admired "The Naked and The Dead," but I will have read and learned about him more dead than alive. Somehow, like Vonnegut, that matters to me. I'm certain I don't like it, but what're you gonna do.

(photo: PBS American Masters)

Cheney's War-Sized Safe

We were told that the reason we sent troops to Vietnam was to stop the Communist World threat (the falling red domino scare theory), which is now generally accepted as complete twaddle. So our leaders in the White House who made those decisions either genuinely believed in an imaginary enemy, or were purchased by the American War Machine for Its bidding. The truth is, we were in Vietnam to fill the pockets of war profiteers, and test new military swag.

Here we are again, only now we're being told that we're in Iraq to :

Prevent the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction
Depose Saddam Hussain
Set up Democratic Iraqi Government
Defeat Al-Qaeda
Defeat Iraqi insurgents
Defeat somebody, anybody
Springboard into Iran

But again, the real reason, the truth, is to fill the pockets of war profiteers.

Three years before we invaded, Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton. Halliburton, aka KBR, is today the #1 American contractor in Iraq ($15-30 billion, but who's counting?). According to Corporatepolicy.org, "In nine different reports, government auditors have found "widespread, systemic problems with almost every aspect of Halliburton's work in Iraq." Exactly like they did in Vietnam.

The Vice President has a man-sized Mossler safe in his office at the White House. The story below is from Wikileaks.org.

Over a thousand safes for secrets and cash

“	[S]ome American contractors correctly believed they could walk off with as much money as they could carry. The circumstances that surround the handling of comparatively small sums help explain the billions that ultimately vanished. In the south-central region of Iraq a contracting officer stored $2 million in a safe in his bathroom. One agent kept $678,000 in an unsecured footlocker.	„
	— Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Billions over Baghdad

Safes have played an important role for US Army in Iraq: not only for securing important documents and official funds, but also as a way to hide away largess obtained corruptly from the US federal reserve, via authorities which did not care to introduce even minimal oversight or accounting mechanisms. The October 2007 edition of Vanity Fair reports on US$12,000,000,000 in cash brought into Iraq under the auspices Coalition Provisional Authority, of which $9,000,000,000 cannot be accounted for.

Below are listed the types and unit assignments of 1,056 US military safes in Iraq.

Military unit	NATO Stock Number	Item name	Quantity
HHC 1 CD (WAGET0)	7110014821441	SAFE-(SPECIFY ON REQUISITION)	18
B 125 FIN BN (WH0FB0)	7110014821441	SAFE	16
A CO 4-1 STB MI (WJK2A0)	712501C006774	SAFE SECURITY CONTAINER: MOSLER	12
...	...	...	...

Woke Up This Morning, New Kind of Music in My Head

Since I was a kid, I've caught myself saying things like, “you know, my Grandfather said, 'if you stay awake long enough, you learn something new every day.'” He said no such thing, I'm the one who said that, but it sounds more wisdomy if I attibute it to an old person. My Grandfather did say that the difference between a good haircut and a bad one is three days. That's according to my Mom; he died before I was born. My point is, I found a new music thing today, and I'm shocked I was awake long enough for it.

"Math Rock" - who's heard of this? I was downloading my 25 free mp3s from some emusic site, and saw it as a genre description of a band that sounded interesting (Don Caballero). Searching for that, I read this description on Eptonic.com:

"Take the intricacy and complexity of classic weirdo hard rock bands like Rush and Voivod, then add some of punk's hyperspasmodic schizophrenia, and you'll have a legitimate math rock contender. Math rock bands take pleasure in being erratic and unpredictable, often experimenting with peculiar tempos and jazz-derived rhythms while keeping the rock hard and aggressive all the while. Their lyrics tend to be as cerebral and expertly designed as their songs. These bands are rock's architects of the future, recrafting and reinventing the genre's tired song structures."

Really? That sounds like the only kind of music I like to listen to, with any real enjoyment.

So, as of today I listen exclusively to math rock. Until I get as sick of it as I am of Zappa and Phish and 80s Rush and Crimson.

Not as open-minded as you though I was, am I, hippie?

Dad's New Ship

Photo: John Esparolini & ESP Images

The American Spirit

Email from Mom this morning:

Dad will be captain of the American Spirit—taking the boat out on educational and pleasure trips. During the day, they often have naturalists taking out school kids to teach them all about the ecology of the river—and then at night, often groups charter the schooner for pleasure trips. He will also be responsible for the maintenance of the ship. He already has spent many hours volunteering on the schooner—and is so happy to be hired as the captain. Right now he is out on the water doing his last on-the-water training of the season. It's a little nippy today.
Hugs and kisses to all,
Pat/Mom/Grandma

The National Maritime Heritage Foundation entry:

"Unique to the National Capital region, American Spirit offers three-hour educational tours exploring the maritime life of Washingtonians in the 1800s. This program allows students to gain a greater appreciation for the history of maritime Washington while moving through a variety of learning stations that reinforce classroom subjects including mathematics, physics, geography, language arts and music.

American Spirit functions as a learning museum, presenting the critical role that sailing vessels played in the development of America through hands-on experiences. (She) provides a dynamic learning environment and educational platform for students throughout the national capital area."

Go Dad Go!