KURT-SPEAK

Staggering and stumbling through one of those periodic, anti-computer frames of mind; techno-overload, Internet indigestion. In response, I dig up one of my favorite Vonnegut quotes:

Don't give up on books. They feel so good -- their friendly heft, the sweet reluctance of their pages when you turn them with your sensitive fingertips. A large part of our brains is devoted to deciding whether what our hands are touching is good or bad for us. Any brain worth a nickel knows books are good for us.

Computers are insincere. Books are sincere.

And don't try to make yourself an extended family out of ghosts on the Internet.

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Agnes Scott College, 1999

It's way past time for an extended -- perhaps permanent -- breather from the horrors of this mechanized madness ...

TRYING NOT TO READ THE NEWSPAPER

As a general principle, I try not read newspapers, for reasons that are plainly obvious. Referencing a headline once in awhile is one thing; superficially scoping out the front pages of establishment rags like the Sacramento Bee, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, and of course the New York Times (all available in the vending machines just outside most of the coffee joints and beer holes I usually patronize), is about as far as I usually go. Yesterday morning, however, I splurged and managed to dig up fifty cents to waste on a copy of the Bee, only after an above-the-fold juxtaposition of a couple of stories caught my jaundiced and bloodshot eye.

My last two quarters gave me a soupy mixture of Jose Padilla being convicted of ... something or other, and another story of the Sacramento County District Attorney declining to prosecute a CHP lieutenant who awarded no-bid state contracts to a firm owned by his daughter and son-in-law. What do these two stories have in common? Well, nothing really, at least directly. Except, of course, they do function as the two sides of a "criminal justice" coin that's been debased and adulterated to such an extent, it hardly has anything to do with "criminal justice" any longer -- assuming it ever did.

Anyway. The Padilla case is sufficiently well known, among those paying attention, as to not need recounting here. It's enough to characterize it as the logical result of a co-called "justice" system run completely amok, political corruption settled in its gonads (and other vital organs) like heavy metals in a population exposed to depleted uranium. From what I understand -- and, naturally, I could be about as wrong as it is humanly possible to be -- the DOJ commissars never actually proved that Padilla really did anything, certainly nothing even remotely connected to the "dirty bomb" bullshit for which he was originally arrested and illegally held by the military, until his mind transmogrified itself into an especially rancid chunk of moldy roquefort. It was, from bogus beginning to pathetic end, a politically-motivated operation with a predetermined outcome; essentially it was an experiment within the wider project of eviscerating the United States Constitution, at least those sections of which that deal with "antiquated" notions of civil liberties -- you remember those things, don't you? Somebody had to be the precedent-setting sacrifice, the foredoomed rat in the diabolical neocon laboratory where the mad scientists attempt to alchemically merge the worst, most base characteristics of predatory capitalism with such fun-time concepts as Stalinism and the major tenets of National Socialism. Somebody -- in this case, Jose Padilla -- had to function as the procedural trailblazer for the rest of us, if you know what I mean.

In contrast to the Padilla case, this local tale of CHP corruption seems of little consequence. The mammoth chicaneries of, say, Halliburton and Blackwater, and other corporate monstrosities of their ilk, would seem to easily eclipse such penny-ante shenanigans as a Highway Patrol nitwit funneling the inevitable no-bid contract to his daughter. In dollar terms, that's certainly true. What's so significant to me is how the editors at the Sacramento Bee pinned this story next to the one on Padilla, actually sticking this article about low-budget CHP nepotism and thievery in the more prominent position, in the center above the fold. Clearly, they feel it's more important to emphasize how a minor public official is apparently entitled to escape criminal conflict-of-interest charges (in the words of Sacramento County DA Jan Scully: "The evidence does not show that [the CHP lieutenant] had any prohibited financial interest in any of the contracts at issue.") when a member of his family benefits from his decisions, rather than the sick story of how some poor dumb sap was railroaded into prison after being illegally held for years and having his brain turned into a rotten cucumber. A typically curious, but telling, mishmash of priorities on the part of the Bee's corporate hatchetmen.

Well, as I said, under ordinary circumstances -- whatever those might actually be anymore -- I usually avoid newspapers like a politician avoids the truth and/or his constituents. Looking at traditional conduits of news and information, such as newspapers, really has only two possible outcomes: the submersion of any and all issues into unfathomable depths of incomprehensibility, or the exposure of just enough of what's real to legitimize and solidify one's impending lunatic dissolution. That's precisely what I feel like is happening when a corporate ventriloquist's dummy such as the Sacramento Bee effectively declares that our sympathetic attentions should focus on the tribulations of an unindicted cop who broke the law, instead of a political prisoner who's merely a prototypical poster child for the right-wing dystopia-to-be. Ah, but such is the Bushworld zeitgeist, 2007.

*Sigh* Is it too early for a beer?

ACCIDENTAL FUN WITH A NEWSPAPER HEADLINE

Most unintentionally hilarious newspaper headline I've seen in ages and ages -- from the Sacramento Bee, 14 August 2007:

Void left by exit of Rove

Say what you will about McClatchy, and its flagship organ, the Bee, but every now and again they do seem to display an inexplicably oblique sense of humor. What "void" instantly springs to mind, when one gives thought-space to our chimperiffic fake president? Yes, of course, the echoingly huge void in the center of his pointed little head, particularly since his "brain" has (ostensibly) decided to take a hike. Hardy Har. I'm sure that when the McClatchy brothers founded the Sacramento Bee back in the 1850's, they hardly could've imagined it would evolve into the silly comedy rag it's apparently become.

As far as Rove is concerned -- fuck that doughy-headed, pasty-faced, amoral lump of shit, that spiritual inheritor of Josef Goebbels' special brand of creamy evilness. I guess a few people see some sort of significance in Rove's so-called "departure"; he may be removing his foul, disease-riddled bulk from the physical proximity of his ultimate creation, the Commander Guy/Decider-in-Chief, but it's ludicrous in the extreme to believe he won't still be exerting his devilish influence on the Unitary Marionette. He'll just be more deeply buried in the maggoty woodwork, that's all.

Humorous headlines aside, here's an ominous implication to Rove's rather precipitous exit: he just lost out in the overt power struggle with his co-controller, Cheney ... Now there's some food for thought. All of a sudden, I'm not laughing anymore.

CLUB NOTES -- GETTING AWAY FROM ALL THE PUKINESS, BRIEFLY

Time again for the extremely infrequent visit to Sacramento's oldest club -- opened in 1939 -- The Torch Club. Needless to say, I had to have a respite from the ugliness, the disaster that this nation has become, however briefly. So bear with me as I try to transcribe these nearly undecipherable scribblings in my beer-stained notebook ...

4:50PM. A typical scene: ten minutes before the "blues jam" is due to commence, and there's a grand total of seven people in the bar, and the four nearest are carrying on an overly-loud conversation about ... real estate. How exciting. Complementing the stupidity of it all are the well-stewed bikers who are now trickling in, wrapped in faux-leathers and carefully composed scowls; the outlaw aura is rendered slightly less convincing by their cell phones, and by the ubiquitous squinty-eyed over-concentration they display as they force their pudgy fingers to manipulate the tiny little buttons ...

5:00 PM. The "house band" should be launching their half-assed assault on the historical fundament of American blues music right about now, but so far there's only a drum set and an amplifier set up on the stage. It doesn't bode well, but then nothing ever does around here ... Four dollars for a pint of Guinness -- I find myself digging through the change in my pocket, hopelessly wondering if I have enough money left to buy another drink ... Tattoo people just walked in, so perhaps the afternoon isn't a complete wash after all.

5:05 PM. I'm disappointed to see that the bulbously curvy bartender is still sporting that stupid bobbed haircut. It's The Bicycle Thief meets T-Bone Walker in a dingy downtown club. How revolting.

5:30 PM. The bald-headed security guy just turned on the jukebox. Hmmm ... Ah yes, the harsh and beat-to-crap semi-street people have finally arrived, the Torch Club's primary clientele. The real estate buttheads are getting pretty drunk ... You've never seen so many pony tails and bald spots in one room -- I love this place.

5:50 PM. The "band" starts playing, only 50 minutes late ... somebody, anybody, please punch me in the head as hard as possible. Please! I can still hear this unconscionable affront to taste and decency. I do love this place, but I seriously wonder why I ever bother to come here. Jeeze, I can play 12-bar blues as badly as these fuckers ...

6:15 PM. To be completely honest, these guys are god-awful hacks, this bar is a funky nasty mess, the patrons have lived very hard lives ... but I haven't thought about NeoCon aggression or constitutional destruction or Presidential orders or the likelihood of being locked up in a Halliburton-constructed prison -- among other horrors -- for at least an hour. So, it's time well spent, I suppose.

6:30 PM. OK. I'm so bored I could spit. The idiots on stage are the drunkest people in the joint ... I'm done.

Well, that was fun.

THE BOSS KNOWS BEST -- A MINOR SKIRMISH IN THE CLASS WARS

Not that this would be particularly interesting to anybody -- which is nothing new, really -- but I'm oddly compelled to relate a funny little story about a confrontation I had this week with the denial-ridden, deeply-closeted Stalinist Bushniks by whom I happen to be employed. It's a microcosmic explication, it seems to me, of the macrocosmic heap of existential dog-doo we all find ourselves in these days.

Anyway, it goes something like this:

I made the decision recently, for a variety of reasons, to return to college. No big deal, you know. Nothing earth-shattering, nothing especially original, nothing likely to dramatically alter the trajectory of human history; merely a moderately desperate, mid-life-crisis-fueled attempt to change, however fleetingly and/or delusionally, the direction of the gaudily empty merry-go-round on which every last one of us is so speedily heading towards oblivion. A tough bill to fill, and an ultimately futile one, but it's all about the journey, not the destination. As the more enlightened might put it.

Yes, well. In any event, all this modest project would've involved was one lousy class, twice a week, necessitating a minor alteration to the hours my fascist employers require me to toil for them. You'd think, perhaps, what possible problem could there be -- after all, this is a case of someone choosing to continue their education, and high-minded Americans place such a premium on education, don't they? Aren't we constantly being harangued and bludgeoned and otherwise battered with rhetorical shillelaghs about "bettering" ourselves, particularly when said "bettering" involves a school of some sort? Aren't the supposed economic rewards of a college education dangled before our over-credulous noses like radioactive carrots, starting when we're too young to understand what the fuck it's all about ...?

The shitwits I work for were obviously out sick the day they taught the critical, paramount importance of education. When I informed my would-be corporate "masters" that I would have to leave early a couple days a week, since there was only one section offered for the course I was taking, this is what they cobbled together, in what they euphemistically referred to as "seeing what they could do" for me: I would have to give up my present position, swallowing a $2 per hour pay cut in the process; I'd be re-assigned to the exact same work I was doing a full twelve years ago; and, best of all, they would alter my hours so I could leave earlier -- but not early enough to actually make it to school on time.

How's about that?

As my boss was trowling out, with an amazingly straight face, this ridiculous joke of a non-solution to my rather simple and prosaic educational dilemma, it required a huge effort on my part to keep my lip zipped and my opinions to myself. In the dank wake of this noisome managerial bilge washing over me, I couldn't help but think: if I was a sycophantic salary-earner there would be no problem at all, but since I come out of the hourly-wage monkey class I deserve no consideration whatsoever. I realized that this was just a very minor skirmish within the much broader class war -- you know, the class war that, supposedly, only liberal democrats and union organizers engage in, not ass-sucking Republicans who live in an area that repeatedly sends somebody like John Doolittle to Congress. That's the bottom-feeder I work for.

Like I said, there isn't much reason to think that this is of any interest to anybody, except maybe for those whose workplace environment is unduly influenced by the corrupting poison of present-day political culture, as is mine. If anybody has a similar story, I'm all ears; if anybody thinks there's something "actionable" here, I'm all ears for that, too.

In the meantime, I guess I'll just get on with the business of not "bettering" myself, since the Cheney fetishists I work for won't allow it. Surely they know best. Don't they?

TRYING TO PUT IT INTO PERSPECTIVE

In the foul wake of the latest Congressional giveaway to the Bushniks, trying to digest this example of incomprehensibility is nearly impossible:

Via Raw Story:

Democrats introduce Bush, Cheney, Gonzales censure resolutions in House and Senate

Democrats in the House and Senate have introduced resolutions calling for the censure of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Sen. Russ Feingold sponsored two resolutions in his chamber calling for the legislative action against the administration officials because of they misled the country in pursuing war with Iraq and have undermined the rule of law, he said.

"These censure resolutions will let future generations know that Congress stood up to the destructive policies of this administration that have weakened our national security, cost more than 3,600 American lives, and undermined the principles on which our country was founded," Feingold said in a prepared statement.

Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) introduced companion legislation in the House.

“From misleading this country into invading Iraq to establishing a warrantless domestic spy program, this White House has continuously misled and deceived the American people while disregarding the rule of law that guides our democracy,” Hinchey said in a prepared statement. “The Bush administration has placed an extraordinary burden on this and future generations to recover from the damage done to our Constitution and national security."

I don't know if I should laugh until I upchuck my stomach lining, or rage until I faint, or what. The depth to which craven cowardice and authoritarian greed have become welded together is truly breathtaking ... If somebody like Profmarcus is seriously considering calling it quits, then the point of no return has, indeed, been finally reached.

Hard to imagine the circumstances under which this blogging business might actually seem like a worthwhile endeavor ...

TOO DISGUSTED TO COME UP WITH A TITLE FOR THIS POST ...

I'm having a harsh time of it trying to reconcile the two most significant bits of political news from this weekend: Debra Bowen's shot across the Diebold bow, and Congress' official self-termination as the legitimate legislative body of the United States government. These two stories are intricately linked, if in a somewhat convoluted fashion, and making sense out of them should be a top priority for thinking people everywhere -- if there any thinking people left out there, that is.

It seems to be the epitome of cruel irony that, apparently, the long hoped-for beginning of the end of the electronic voting hoax finally starts to manifest itself the very same weekend the Congress shamefully surrenders more of its prerogatives and responsibilities, in the face of yet another pathetic Shrub temper tantrum. Just as the electoral process is, perhaps, reprieved from the corporate straightjacket the NeoCons have been desperately trying to stuff it into, the Democratically-controlled Congress essentially votes itself out of existence, for all intents and purposes. The very faction within the political class that has the most to gain from "election integrity" shows that they, themselves, have no integrity, and effectively negate the point behind the California Secretary of State's moves against the privatization of voting. So, great -- votes get counted more-or-less accurately, electronic election fraud becomes more difficult to perpetrate; meanwhile, we work to elect erstwhile opponents of the present regime, and they prove to be just as willing to ratfuck us as their NeoCon counterparts. Unglaublich.

The ragged DLC remnants of what was once known as the Democratic Party have just shot their last steely wad, nearly guaranteeing their ignominious defeat in 2008, and all but burying representative government in the US in the process -- "election integrity" be damned. What an unbelievable pack of stupid assholes.

***

I understand that members of Congress, in recognition of their fervent dedication to the tenets of constitutional law and democratic governance, are planning to vote on a pay increase for themselves after they return from their slightly delayed, but so well deserved, summer vacation.

Have we had enough yet?

WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?

The ultimate rhetorical question: What are we waiting for?

Does anybody have an answer? I sure as hell don't, being so benumbed and exhausted by the endless death-grip minutiae of tedium imposed by corporate employers and forced participation in the consumer culture. Like most people, I guess. Within the framework of petty confusions and over-amped monkey-motion that constitutes daily life in this doomed and deluded society -- this penny-ante brain froth of trivial pursuits and programmed ignorance -- the question inevitably presents itself, fighting for attention against a colorful backdrop of spasmodic emptiness and hollow diversions: What are we waiting for?

I don't know. A collapsing bridge or two, the "war hero" who was actually murdered, the apparently never-to-end catastrophe in Iraq, Katrina victims being ram-rodded by the courts, the dictatorial ambitions of Cheney's sock puppet, George Bush ... Stir all this together, along with countless other galling ingredients of disgust and outrage, and you're left with a fetid stew of bubbling toxicity, every noxious whiff of which stakes this question more firmly to the forehead of my shredded consciousness:

What are we waiting for?

Maybe the more witless among us, if they even bother to devote brain space to such things, are waiting for the Democrats to boldly save the situation. These are the same Democrats, you'll recall, who've thanked the voters who put them back in control of Congress by betraying them -- us -- at every opportunity, proving themselves to be utterly incapable of overcoming Republican obstructionism and Chimpy's playground bully-boy schtick. Unquestioning, highly disciplined faith in Reid and Pelosi tends to stray into masochistic territory; the more you politely request that it would be greatly appreciated if the legislative branch at least went through the motions of discharging its constitutional responsibilities, hobbling an obviously out-of-control administration of thugs, the more said legislative branch seems to adopt the sour Neo-Con program for its own, competing with Cheney and Rove in how much pain and destruction they can inflict. That might be seen as perfectly sufficient in some quarters, such as virtual bastions of "respectable" opposition like Kos and Democratic Underground. A growing klatch of the disaffected and pissed-off believe otherwise.

Others are of the opinion that, faced with the reality of an enfeebled Congress implacably opposed to the one possible constitutional remedy for this cancerous Bush-Cheney affliction -- impeachment -- the only thing to be done is, well, nothing. After all, they argue, the administration has but a year and a half remaining in its term, and considering that whoever is the Democratic nominee for President in '08 is an iron-clad shoe-in, all we need is a little patience. Just wait out the next 18 months, and presto! All traces of the foul Neo-Con age are magically flushed away, happy days are here again, here comes the sun, etc. This Hoping-For-The-Best approach obscures a few critical points: electronic voting machines, a judicial apparatus crammed to the rafters with far-right corporatist ideologues, and the (nearly) unassailable fact that presumptive front-runner Hillary Clinton will (probably) never be elected President. Besides, even if she somehow does get elected, what's the fucking difference between a George Bush who violates the US constitution at will, launches blatantly illegal wars of aggression, steals from the American people on an unbelievable scale, and allows the nation's physical infrastructure to crumble into dust ... and a Hillary who'll do the exact same things, or worse?

Beyond the plurality of people who are at least paying attention, outside of the political dead-enders (both Democratic and Republican) and the angrily clamoring progressive minority, lies the great heaving mass of the citizenry at large. Unfortunately, and this just might be the greatest understatement of all time, they don’t seem to be waiting for much of anything. Granted, they don't have a particularly high opinion of the artificial Mensa Man President, or of politicians in general; they have vague misgivings about the catastrophic course along which this country is being goaded; they're going broke in record numbers, standing by helplessly while their jobs are shipped to China or India, and what little money they still have finds its way into the bank accounts of various HMO and/or oil company CEO's; but even so, they still inexplicably manage to maintain the sloppy-grin pretense of unbridled consumerist optimism, somehow ignoring the all but inevitable thermo-dynamic meltdown of our debt-addled dollar economy and Gestapo-infested civil society. Their indifference is as much a danger to what remains of this democratic republic as the authoritarian freak-sticks who're bent on destroying it.

Well. Sadly caught in the cognitive trough that always seems to form on the ass-end of these interminable screeds, it occurs that a much better question than What are we waiting for? might be: What the hell are we going to do?

I'll ask that one again: What the hell are we going to do?

READING INTO THE UPCOMING CONGRESSIONAL RECESS (AND GETTING BLOTTOED IN THE PROCESS)

Not a day passes within this milieu of micturating morons, this tired tableau of tribulated trickeries and diversified dumbness, that I fail to thank [insert favorite deity-image here] for beer. We may be sinking fast down a murky right-wing rat hole, and there probably isn't a great deal we can do about it -- at least we can still patronize the local brewpub and, unaccountably encouraged by the cloying atmosphere produced by clots of neighborhood drunks and greasy food and AC/DC songs playing on the musak machine, gratefully toss up an alcoholic fog of blessed relief. The bare fact that said relief is illusory at best, and temporary in any case, is beside the point. Logic and reason are all fine and good in their respective places, but you have to set them aside every once in awhile. Right now seems like a good time.

It's especially appropriate to jettison the burden of reasonably linear, rational thinking when confronted with the notion of the US Congress taking a month off, leaving Cheney and Rove free to work their uniquely vulgar brand of deadly mischief unimpeded. Yeah, I know -- six months into the present legislative term and the Vichyite leadership has done very little, if anything, to hobble the Neo-Con juggernaut. However, their physical presence in DC, as feeble and ineffectual as it is, at least serves as a symbolic counterweight to Cheneyist ambitions; the thought that they’re going to abandon the capital to such a Stalinist-inclined administration, for an entire month, is enough to send me stumbling back to the bar, rudely shoving the nearly immobilized alcoholics and the ugly transvestite with the guitar out of the way, to desperately order another round of brewed forgetfulness.

Weren't some of these vacation-minded Congressional nitwits recently scolding their counterparts in the puppet Iraqi government for proposing pretty much the exact same thing that they, themselves, are planning to do? Oh yes, I forgot -- hypocrisy is not the exclusive property of the Republican party, as much as we'd like like to believe otherwise. DLC Democrats are just as brazenly adept in its use as any diaper-loving, prostitute-addicted "family values" GOP dirtbag could ever hope to be. In fact, riding on the hot wind of revulsion and anger and disgust among the voting public (at least those fortunate to actually have their votes counted accurately), the Dem leadership is probably more hypocritical than the Republicans, in that they pretend they weren't swept back into control of Congress with the express mandate to end the war and rinse the stain of this phony administration out of the US political system’s collective undershorts. Instead of vigorously moving forward with the urgent -- desperately urgent -- task of nailing these bottom-feeding bastards to the lonely wooden stake of their perfidious criminality, and hanging them out to dry while an aroused citizenry reviles them unmercifully, our Democratic saviors intend to indulge the one base instinct that even a chuckleheaded fuck like George Bush understands: they go on vacation.

I wonder if these paragons of the pathetic, these monumentally ineffective shills who, theoretically at least, function as "leaders" in Congress, ever imagine that this ill-timed recess could very well be the last one they ever take. The Chimp, prodded by the Neo-Con puppeteers fighting for finger room in his scaly ass, has quietly erected the legal foundations for the dictatorship to come; one carefully staged, sufficiently bloody and destructive "terrorist" attack, and the betraying Vichy Democrats won't have a Congress to which to return. I just wonder if that ever crosses the minds of Reid and Pelosi. I wonder.

A beer -- I need another beer! Quick!

SICKENING, BUT NOT PARTICULARLY SURPRISING

Seems as if the name of the game these days in Congress is to hold a hearing. I suppose it's better than nothing, but not much. I think we all agree at this point that impeachment -- right now -- is the only answer.

Anyway. From The Gavel (via Crooks and Liars) comes the tale of Henry Waxman's latest hearing, this one concerning Bush & Cheney's imperial embassy in the shattered, god-forsaken country of Iraq. It isn't enough to feed the degenerate Cheney bloodlust for violence and death; degredation and chattel slavery have their roles to play as well. Check out The Gavel site for the whole sick story. A couple of excerpts from C & L are sufficient to deliver the sordid tenor ...

Rory Mayberry, a former subcontractor employee for First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting Company, gives opening testimony:

Rory Mayberry: "Mr. Chairman, when the airplane took off and the captain announced that we were heading to Baghdad, all you-know-what broke out on the airplane. The men started shouting, it wasn’t until the security guy working for First Kuwaiti waved an MP5 in the air that the men settled down. They realized that they had no other choice but to go to Baghdad. Let me spell it out clearly: I believe these men were kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work at the US Embassy… I've read the State Department Inspector General's report on the construction of the embassy. Mr. Chairman, it's not worth the paper it's printed on. This is a cover-up and I'm glad that I've had the opportunity to set the record straight."

***

John Owens, a former employee of First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting Company, gives opening testimony:

John Owens: "This was a man-camp, and by nature not the most pleasant of places to be. But the conditions were deplorable even beyond what a working man should tolerate. Foreign workers were packed into trailers tight, with insufficient equipment and basic needs like shoes and gloves. If a construction worker needed a new pair of shoes he was told 'no, do with what you have' by First Kuwaiti managers. The contract for these workers said they had to work twelve hours a day, seven days a week, with some time off on Friday for prayers. A few people from India told me they were making $240 a month…"

I'm so overfull of such disgusting obscenities, I can't think of anything to add.

"DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND" -- WHO NEEDS 'EM?

Trolling around the interwebs today, ostensibly taking advantage of a day off from work by looking for a new job ... There certainly are a lot of online employment resources out there these days. Holy shit. Anyhow, taking a well-deserved break from such an irritating and odious pastime, I order another beer and point my laptop towards Democratic Underground, where I stumble over a post by Skinner entitled:

In case there is any confusion: You cannot use DU to support Cindy Sheehan’s third-party candidacy.

Well, that's more than enough to grab my feeble attention. He goes on to write:

As you know, Cindy Sheehan announced that she is going to run for Congress against Nancy Pelosi as an independent candidate. This post is to remind everyone that supporting Cindy Sheehan’s independent candidacy is not permitted on this website. If Cindy had chosen to run as a Democrat in the Democratic primary then you would have been permitted to support her campaign here, but instead she chose to run as an independent.

Now, honestly, there are so many things about this declamation that chap my ass, I hardly know where to begin. Skinner goes on to quote DU "rules," including:

You are not permitted to use this message board to work for the defeat of the Democratic Party for any political office.

It's all too clear, as if it wasn't quite before, that the "Democratic" in "Democratic Underground" is a reference to the "big-D" variety. In the world of Skinner (and Kos and Move On, among others), perceived loyalty to a corrupted, thoroughly debased political wing of the corporate class (commonly referred to as the Democratic Party) trumps all other concerns, and precludes any possible discussion of what the concept "democratic" actually means. Controlling the agenda, shoe-horning the range and character of the discussion to fit into a narrow, pre-determined ideological framework, silencing dissent and any hint of criticism, telling people what they can and can't talk about, and possessing a no-matter-what allegiance to a political machine -- well, fuck me with a branding iron if that isn't the M.O. of any number of anti-democratic wingnut pressure groups out there, working diligently to beat us all into submission and stuff fascism down our throats. Imposing no-compromise ideological discipline upon an online community with "Democratic" in its title makes Skinner and his cohorts fundamentally no different than the agenda-mongers at Fox News, or Drudge, or any other freeper-freaks irresponsibly polluting the body politic.

Skinner can believe any damn thing he wants -- if he's delusional enough to believe that the astoundingly pathetic and wretchedly servile DLC Democrats at the helm of the party, the Pelosis and Hoyers and Reids and all the rest, are the unsung saviors of the American Republic, that's his problem. It's a "free" country, as they say. On the other hand, censoring others who might not quite agree with you 100% of the time means only one thing: you're nothing but a toweringly hypocritical asshole. As far as I'm concerned, that applies to Kos and all the other Frankenstein monsters of the "acceptable" democratic opposition as well. Fuck the lot of them.

By the by, I realize it's a hell of a longshot, but I sincerely hope that Cindy wipes the floor with Pelosi's useless, corporate-owned, off-the-table ass. Take that, Skinner.

LOOKIN' FER SOME INSPIRATION

In these increasingly brief moments of relative stillness, when the hard edge of the frantic, input-overloaded, aimlessly spasmodic lurch-fest of 21st Century consumer existence is temporarily blunted, I at least try to find some wordy inspiration within the pages of a good book. This week I'm re-reading The Grapes of Wrath -- it feels almost like a "prequel" to what's to be, when Cheney's jackboot utopia is finally established beyond doubt.

OK, well. Perhaps another work of literature is required. Tom Robbins' Still Life With Woodpecker maybe, or even some 30-year old back issue of Mad Magazine.

***

Monkey Man's executive order from last week, wherein the First and Fifth Amendments to the US Constitution were effectively eviscerated with one fell swoop of his turd-shaped pen, for some reason sent me scurrying toward my dog-eared copy of William L. Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Jeeze, talk about pumping too much hot air into one's already dangerously distended psychic innertube -- it very nearly qualifies as criminal self-abuse. Shirer explicates, in no uncertain terms, what always seems to happen to nations when hubris and/or psychosis becomes the animative principle of policy; if nothing else, his monumental history of Nazi Germany serves more than admirably as a cautionary inspiration, if you know what I mean, rather than as (one would hope) an inevitable blueprint of what we have to look forward to.

Speaking of Shirer: I highly recommend his almost-but-not-quite so well known work, The Collapse of the Third Republic. Read about the outrageous machinations of the hard core of defeatist collaborators -- Laval, Petain, Weygand, and others -- who single-handedly destroyed what remained of constitutional government in France, in the disastrous backwash of a lost war; for some reason, it always reminds me of a certain "opposition" political party in the United States, here in the sad Neo-Con era. Vichy Democrats, indeed.

Then again, logic and common sense would tend to indicate that larger, transcendent themes are much more the order of the day -- hard to imagine even attempting to superimpose some wider, encompassing perspective over the utterly trashy and base circumstantial footing of Bushworld, if one spends every waking moment wallowing in all of the filth and putridity. During these sober moments, when the essential futility of all human activities and aspirations is nothing but blatantly apparent, I usually reach for something like Nine-Headed Dragon River, by (in my opinion) the greatest living literary figure in America today, Peter Matthiessen. It's next to impossible to view the obscene foibles and criminal follies of the Neo-Cons -- and our constant knee-jerk reactions to them as well -- in quite the same way after reading passages like this:

I lower my gaze from the snow peaks to the glistening thorns, the snow patches, the lichens. Though I am blind to it, the Truth is near, in the reality of what I sit on -- rocks. These hard rocks instruct my bones in what my brain could never grasp in the Heart Sutra, that "form is emptiness, and emptiness is form" -- the Void, the emptiness of blue-black space, contained in everything. Sometimes when I meditate, the big rocks dance.

The secret of the mountains is that the mountains simply exist, as I do myself: the mountains exist simply, which I do not. The mountains have no "meaning," they are meaning; the mountains are. The sun is round. I ring with life, and the mountains ring, and when I can hear it, there is a ringing that we share. I understand all this, not in my mind but in my heart, knowing how meaningless it is to try to capture what cannot be expressed, knowing that mere words will remain when I read it all again, another day.

If only I could write so well, and apprehend the true nature of things to such a depth ... sort of makes the whole silly business of blogging seem, well, rather shallow and empty in comparison. No kidding, I hear somebody muttering.

***

LATER: I was going to interminably continue with this, but within the understandable yearning for inspiration -- literary-based or otherwise -- the above quote from Matthiessen seems to have inspired me just enough to want to shitcan this waste of a blog, once and for all, and do something authentic instead.

Hmmm ... food for thought, I guess.

HOW COME NOBODY'S TALKING ABOUT THIS?

Bush signs another executive order (heard of this from Mike Malloy):

Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004. I hereby order:

Section 1. (a) Except to the extent provided in section 203(b)(1), (3), and (4) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(1), (3), and (4)), or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the date of this order, all property and interests in property of the following persons, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported,

withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense,

(i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of:

(A) threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq; or

(B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people;

(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or

(iii) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.

(b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to, (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and (ii) the

receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.

Sec. 2. (a) Any transaction by a United States person or within the United States that evades or avoids, has the purpose

of evading or avoiding, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.

(b) Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.

Sec. 3. For purposes of this order:

(a) the term "person" means an individual or entity;

(b) the term "entity" means a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or other organization; and

(c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.

Sec. 4. I hereby determine that the making of donations of the type specified in section 203(b)(2) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)) by, to, or for the benefit of, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order would seriously impair my ability to deal with the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, and I hereby prohibit such donations as provided by section 1 of this order.

Sec. 5. For those persons whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that, because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets

instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to section 1(a) of this order.

Sec. 6. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, is hereby authorized to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may redelegate any of these functions to other officers and agencies of the United States Government, consistent with applicable law. All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order and, where appropriate, to advise the Secretary of the Treasury in a timely manner of the measures taken.

Sec. 7. Nothing in this order is intended to affect the continued effectiveness of any rules, regulations, orders, licenses, or other forms of administrative action issued, taken, or continued in effect heretofore or hereafter under 31 C.F.R. chapter V, except as expressly terminated, modified, or suspended by or pursuant to this order.

Sec. 8. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right, benefit, or privilege, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers or employees, or any other person.

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,

July 17, 2007.

Does anybody have a comment? Anybody?

NEED A NEW GIG -- A GENERIC JOB APPLICATION

Everybody could use a change now and again -- a change of scenery, a change in employment, a change of clothes; a new vice for an old one, a new opportunity for a stale dead one. You all get the picture, surely.

I certainly don't need any new bad habits, however, since those I have at present are sufficiently ridiculous and debilitating to last a lifetime or two. Don't need a new wardrobe either, or a car, or some such ephemeral consumerist pacifier.

What I seem to be in need of most is merely a radical, fundamental alteration of the vocational realm. In other words, a new job, a job that has a discernible depth of meaning, one that has a true public purpose, preferably something that serves the needs of the citizenry at large; or, failing that, at least a position from which to snipe, snarl, and snarkify at the entrenched criminal dinosaurs who've managed to transform this country into -- whatever the hell it's become.

So, if anyone has any (reasonably polite) suggestions for a disaffected bastard searching for something meaningful within the filled-to-overflowing and rapidly collapsing septic tank of the dollar economy, who's toiled at just about every conceivable crap job from punching keys on a cash register to fighting fire, from soil engineering and cartooning and cabinetmaking to being a full-time student, and back again -- I'm all ears. I can play the bass guitar a little, and I have a pretty good working knowledge of computer-based audio recording; modern-day political culture makes me both infuriated and sick to my stomach; and I like beer, for whatever that's worth. Like I said, if anybody has any ideas ...

Yes, well. Please excuse this sickeningly self-indulgent flapdoodle. We'll return to the regularly scheduled program of vomitus bile soon enough.

I am serious about the job thing, by the way.





UPDATE: Really, people. If you're seriously looking for employment information with the state of California (good luck), please go here. For crying out loud.

MISCELLANEOUS THINGS TO CONSIDER WHILE WAITING TO BE CHERTOFFED

Just guzzling coffee and staring out the window, mildly considering the where and when and how we’re all to be Chertoffed this summer -- or is that Santorumed? Perhaps being “Cheneyed” is a more apt descriptor. Whatever.

***

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder: which is stronger, stupidity or fear? Ignorant dumbness must be, given that nobody I associate with seems particularly fearful about anything, really; on the other hand, the great majority is about as swift on the uptake as a sack full of claw-hammers. I suspect there’s some sort of connection here.

***

Congress passed a “defense” authorization bill that requires a withdrawal (of sorts) from Iraq, to commence in -- what -- a few months or so. I’ve always had a soft and fuzzy spot for Vaudeville, especially when it involves “elected representatives,” political apparatchiks, and thuggish goons lusting over dictatorial power. However, one of the problems with such cheap theater, as is the case with popular entertainment generally, is that the ending is, always, invariably the same -- in this case, Chimpy vetoes another feeble, largely symbolic non-check on his death-cult ambitions, his media enablers crank up the noise machine and brand TRAITOR on the seamed forehead of every Democratic “lawmaker,” and the Dems in turn bleat like goats with their gonads caught in a barbed-wire fence before they cave completely. Happens every time, it seems.

***

Is it just my imagination, or is the appalling, insufferable, overbearing, crap-vinyl-bound, bully-boy bullshit practiced by midlevel supervisor/managers -- ambitious mediocrities and sycophantic reamers promoted out of the grimy swill-pit of lowly wage monkeys, for the most part -- usually spewed forth in direct proportion to the pointlessness and/or uselessness of the work at hand? (If this comes uncomfortably close to a confession of the derelict nature of my “professional” life, I apologize.)

***

It could be worse -- I could be in the military, which is no place for thinking people these days. When I was an enlisted Air Force nobody back in the late 1980’s, I and my firefighting compatriots never could’ve imagined being stuffed into a bottomless sausage machine like Iraq, or becoming lost and abandoned in the lunar deathscape of Afghanistan; daily existence was trying enough, after a fashion, particularly in Germany, where the mostly fictional “Soviet threat” was hung around our necks like a dead pigeon on a string made from entrails and bad intentions. Within the framework of USAFE (United States Air Forces in Europe), we chuckleheads were burdened by quarterly “Operational Readiness Inspections,” periodic NATO exercises, endless fire training, far too much alcohol consumption, and an anemically weak US dollar against the West German Mark. To be perfectly honest, it was a semi-artificial, faux-military experience at best, particularly when compared to today: endless deployments, compelled participation in an ongoing war crime, Republican middle fingers, sudden violent death ... We had Ronald Reagan, that noted doddering old fuck. Now they have -- holy crap -- Bush and Cheney.

***

Oh, well. It’s now mid-morning -- time for a drink. Bottoms up, people!

OUR GREAT SENATE IN ACTION

A snippet, a quick explication of mental illness; some of the serious business the illustrious United States Senate is bravely taking up this week (thanks to Crooks and Liars):

110th CONGRESS 1st Session

S. RES. 236

Supporting the goals and ideals of the National Anthem Project, which has worked to restore America's voice by re-teaching Americans to sing the national anthem.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

June 14, 2007

Mr. BAYH (for himself, Mr. CRAIG, Mr. KENNEDY, Mr. HAGEL, Mr. CRAPO, Mr. NELSON of Nebraska, Mr. CARDIN, Mr. BYRD, Mr. DURBIN, Ms. SNOWE, Mr. ROBERTS, Mr. LOTT, Mr. COLEMAN, Mr. MENENDEZ, and Mr. AKAKA) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

---

RESOLUTION

Supporting the goals and ideals of the National Anthem Project, which has worked to restore America's voice by re-teaching Americans to sing the national anthem.

Whereas a Harris Interactive Survey discovered that of men and women 18 years of age and older, 61 percent of those surveyed did not know all the lyrics of the first stanza of the national anthem, and of those who answered the question affirmatively, 58 percent had received at least 5 years of music education while growing up;

Whereas an ABC News poll revealed that more than 1 in 3 Americans (38 percent) do not know that the official name of the national anthem is `The Star-Spangled Banner', less than 35 percent of American teenagers can name Francis Scott Key as the author of the national anthem, and as few as 15 percent of American youth can sing the words to the anthem from memory;

Whereas the national anthem, `The Star-Spangled Banner', holds a special place in the hearts and minds of the American people as a symbol of national unity, resolve, and willingness to sacrifice in order to preserve the Nation's sacred heritage of freedom;

Whereas the National Anthem Project has inspired the American people to have a greater appreciation of their patriotic musical heritage while learning American history;

Whereas music educators are the among the leading caretakers of this important piece of our Nation's heritage, in that many students learn the national anthem in music class;

Whereas our Nation's future is enhanced by the quality of the historic knowledge and awareness provided to children of all ages through learning about the national anthem, and that high-quality music education represents a worthy commitment to our children and our Nation's future; and

Whereas, the national anthem is the symbol of American ideals and freedom around the world: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Senate--

(1) supports the goals and ideals of the National Anthem Project;

(2) commends the American citizens who have participated in this project; and

(3) encourages the people of the United States to learn the national anthem, `The Star-Spangled Banner', and its proud history.

In the spirit of the previous post, I'll just add this: FUCK.

"WE ARE FUCKED!!" -- ALWAYS HAVE BEEN

Web-meandering in recent days brought me to a blog post that ended, in about as emphatically opaque a manner as possible, like this:

“We are FUCKED!!”

Now, it’d be tough to argue with such a statement, as we do seem to be teetering precariously over the Neo-Con abyss, blandly awaiting the last good shove that finally sends us over the edge. By any objective method of measurement -- the existential “fuckedometer” that some people carry around in their heads, perhaps -- we are, certainly, stuck in the dark hole of extremity, rapidly approaching a multi-forked constitutional crossroad where every choice of direction is fraught with unspecified dangers, perils, and pitfalls. Fucked, indeed.

I’ve spent the last couple of days chewing on this expression of despair (among others), this bald declaration of anger and frustration at our sheer inability to affect the fundamental course of things. While it’s impossible to gainsay, at least in any intellectually honest way, it nevertheless starts to stick in my mental craw the more I give brain space to it.

Yeah -- we’re fucked alright. But then, when were we ever not fucked? When was there ever a human being who was ever spared the extreme discomfort of getting stared down by the harsh exigencies of reality? Who’s never, sooner or later, had to come to terms with the absurd fictions of permanence, security, and immortality? Name one individual who’s managed to avoid being terminally flashed by the drool-dripping, scythe-wielding, pervert-in-a-raincoat otherwise known as the Grim Reaper? When were we ever not destined for dissolution in the boneyard or ash heap?

In this vein, substitute nations and/or societies for individual human beings, and it’s rather obvious where this is going.

Believe you me, it isn’t as if I’ve suddenly broken-out in a rash of equanimity as far as the dangerously amorphous condition of “representative democracy” is concerned. Hardly. In fact, I blither and dither and howl and rage, kick shit around and break things in half, and become nearly immobilized with stationary panic as much as ever. More than ever, probably. But now, after much time spent allowing the perfectly flat, nuance-free declamation We are FUCKED!! to re-arrange the cheap plastic cognitive furniture on my psychic patio, I’m compelled to tack on an addendum, a qualifier, of my own, which I’ve basically already mentioned: ...and we always HAVE been!

That’s the hard crux of the matter. We’ve always lived an agenda that wasn’t our own, we simpleton Americans. Silly people! Of course most Americans are lazy, intellectually hollow chumps, easily manipulated by misinformation, disinformation, and outright falsehoods -- we’ve always been so. As much as we’d like to believe otherwise, Bush and Cheney and the rest of the hard-core Neo-Con Sturmtruppen haven’t really concocted anything of particular originality in their warped and polluted vision of a corporatized America; their only true innovation has been to drop the age-old and outmoded pretense that there’s any such thing as a “democratic republic” on the continent of North America -- and, naturally, they possess the ambition and ruthlessness to re-model, whatever it is, over in their own sick image. They bring nothing new to the table, the table that’s weighted down with the overflowing minced-meat pie that used to known as the body politic. They’re just more than willing to start carving it up, is all.

So, yes: We are FUCKED!! Always have been.

MORNING-AFTER BEWILDERMENT

Plowing through the eerily deserted streets of Midtown Sacramento this morning, seeking solace in a cup of coffee and bitterly resentful that the weird emptiness is due to the fact that an inordinate number of people have the day off (and I don't), I noticed something rather strange. At least, stranger than the lack of traffic.

Anyone else notice this ...? Where are all the smoking piles of blown fireworks? Where's the burned detritus of garbage that symbolizes (what is commonly referred to as) the Freedom and Liberty which we know so well? Come to think of it, where was all the noise and clouds of barbecued Chinese gunpowder last night? It had to be the quietest, least stench-ridden Fourth of July on record, so far as I can recall.

I'm rather flummoxed, which comes as no surprise. It's almost possible to believe that a significant number of over-heated fellow Valley denizens actually had better things to do yesterday evening; that maybe their primitive nationalism, animated within the framework of unreflective "patriotism" and unquestioning obedience, is beginning to evaporate; that reason and common sense are finally starting to trump the overbearing, imperative qualities of the consumer culture; that the nitwits and flapdoodlers are, perhaps, coming out of their media/commerce-induced stupors ...

Is this really possible, or am I merely clutching at straws that don't exist?

ISN'T IT A PITY

Isn't it a pity
Now, isn't it a shame
How we break each other's hearts
And cause each other pain
How we take each other's love
Without thinking anymore
Forgetting to give back
Isn't it a pity

Some things take so long
But how do I explain
When not too many people
Can see we're all the same
And because of all their tears
Their eyes can't hope to see
The beauty that surrounds them
Isn't it a pity

Isn't it a pity
Isn't is a shame
How we break each other's hearts
And cause each other pain
How we take each other's love
Without thinking anymore
Forgetting to give back
Isn't it a pity

Forgetting to give back
Isn't it a pity
Forgetting to give back
Now, isn't it a pity


-- George Harrison, Isn't it a Pity

WHAT'S TO CELEBRATE, EH?

Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. “Patriotism” is its cult.

--Erich Fromm, The Sane Society


It’s that unfortunate time of year when the tired, depleted landscape inexplicably sprouts rickety plywood-and-chickenwire shacks, manned by religionist fanatics and/or vacuously stupid college students peddling cheesy Chinese-made engines of noise and stink. Somewhere within this cloying reek of commerce and greed -- generating a palpable funk of enthusiastic ignorance that nearly gives the smog a run for its money -- lies, in all its dilapidated and largely unexamined glory, some notion that this spasmodic convergence of ear-splitting explosions, a stench not unlike (I would imagine) that which turgidly wafts from Lucifer’s underpants, and the pathetic accumulation of dollars, has something to do with “independence” or “political democracy.” The complex relationship between these things is enough to completely defeat the cognitive abilities of most people. Including my own, such as they are.

By all means, let’s “celebrate” American Independence Day with as much of a gunpowder-flavored racket as possible, swilling and gluttonously stuffing our already over-fed selves into rapturous stupors, spitting out drunkenly fulsome odes and sow-bellied declarations of undying loyalty to a nation-state that never was. Let’s not stoop to reflect on the actual nature of the Cheneyist hellhole trying desperately to give birth to itself; let’s just pretend that the Founders and their high-falutin’ documents still mean anything, if they ever did. Whatever you do, though, don’t allow the multitudinous victims of American benevolence and idealism -- not to mention our love of peace, freedom, and democracy -- to inject a note of discordance into our raucous symphony of self-indulgent excess. Drink up -- it’s not that difficult to shut your eyes and ears to the horror of Iraqi children covered with white phosphorous, or Afghani wedding parties blown to pieces, or the death rattle of young GI’s puzzling over the circumstances that drove them towards such a fate. Come on, people, you ignore this shit all the time. Just enjoy yourselves!

I’ll tell you -- if I actually had a US flag, I’d “celebrate” by burning the fucking thing. But then, since it would likely be made in China, the extra poisonous fumes produced by the uranium-soaked thread and the lead-based paint, and all the other crap that was supposed to end up as dog food or toothpaste, would probably waste an untold number of loyal Americans downwind. I guess I’ll just get loaded instead.