More on animal dignity

You may remember the goats in the tree and how you thought they must be really happy because they decided to not care about what you think and throw away their dignity and pride?
Well, here are two guys who were born happy -- with nothing to throw away.

Words of advice

1. Never attempt to contact a guy who has videos of primitive insects fighting each other on his website.
2. Don't let them save your life because if you do they'll wonder where you are when their time has come.

November 22, 1963

It's not raining today - that's just the sky crying for the death of the progressive ideal.

Predictive news

I watched the news last night. And here it is:
It MAY snow this week.
It is POSSIBLE that the airports will be busy around the holidays.
It COULD HAPPEN that there is not enough turkey for everyone on Thanksgiving.
Terrorists WILL PROBABLY continue killing people.
The bird flu COULD SOME DAY kill a lot of people, too.

That's the news for you!

Light A Fire

"Cadillac said we could all fly out to Detroit and give input as they start putting together their hybrid models and the way they would be presented to the public…. Artists and corporations working together, that's the 21st century. That's the true Age of Aquarius. But John's ego wouldn't let him see it was a good thing to do."

How pathetic is that? The LA Times has more. It's exceedingly creepy the way the music industry and advertising industry just speak the same language now - all shit about target markets and "brand exercises."

I remember John Densmore's essay in The Nation a few years ago, and I found his refusal to sell out to advertisers heartening. He says later on in the above article "maybe i'm just out of touch with the times," but I think in this instance, it's a pretty good issue to be out of touch with. Now only if there could be such a principled stance from someone whose music was actually, you know, good.

Security or Nonsense?

"NEW YORK - Police have stepped up patrols of hotels in Manhattan as a precaution following the suicide bombings of three hotels in the Jordanian capital of Amman."

I can't wait until the terrorists bomb a f---ing sewage plant so we can send all our cops to guard crap until some other establishments get the terrorist bull's-eye. At the same time I do respect police- plenty of them mean well but come on! American pragmatism is so childish sometimes! They bomb the towers- guard all the big buildings, they bombed the trains in Madrid- guard our trains! No! Just stop talking to me like I'm stupid- I know there's no real defense for everything on a street level- sure we need protection from our various governmental agencies- but sticking an extra cop here and there (at a lead from the terrorists themselves- always a bad idea- just like rebellious kids trying to do the opposite of what most people do- you're still taking your cues from them you moron!) planting these cops is nothing more than what George Carlin said it was a few years ago- an attempt to make WHITE PEOPLE feel safer.

Good News, Taken With Caution

Some of the more disgustingly reactionary elements of American society took a few hits this week: Republican gubernatorial defeats in Virginia and New Jersey, the President's very public humiliation in South America, the defeat of abortion notification measures in California, the retreat of Congressional Republicans from their zealous pursuit of Alaskan oil drilling, and now this.

Leaving aside for a second the issue of whether Democratic positions on these matters are really that much better, let's take a breath and savor the good news - it's been a while since we've had any - and hope that the momentum swings back in the favor of progressivism.

Nomenclature

In a recent post someone mentioned how words lose their meaning repeated enough times. Last night, for whatever reason, I started getting into this little game with my name, repeating it over and over and thinking about it's essential meaninglessness. And then today, checking my MySpace account, I was invited to join a group called "Bunch of Brendans." This is the second time I've been invited to this group, and the first time I didn't even look through it, but today it was disturbing to scroll through Brendan after Brendan, each of whom had a face that wasn't my face. I felt slighted, reduced to a mere nominal category, a member of mammalian Phylum, Genus Homo, Species Brendan, rose is a rose is a rose.

No More Apologies

Waaaaaooooouuuuuuwwwww!!!!! I caught some of The Apprentice last night and no lie- it was sickening. Thank God I only caught a little less than twenty minutes. It was plenty. You know they pick these people on purpose to be televised disasters- I bet they’re fucking disasters in their own lives as well- sorry, is that mean? Maybe that show just brings out the beast in me. It was like watching someone try to take a dump- and they’re constipated and hemorrhoids and there’s all this moaning and praying to a God that I have trouble believing in during times like these.
This goes out to all of you- reading this, Apprentice fans or not, anyone who works on that show, everyone… just promise with me- no more apologies. It’s cooler that way. Say it out loud into your computer monitors just one time- no one will hear you, no embarrassment- just say, “No more apologies.”

Thank you, goodnight.

Denver Voters OK Marijuana Possession

Can you believe this?

Under the measure, residents over 21 years old could possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

"We educated voters about the facts that marijuana is less harmful to the user and society than alcohol," said Mason Tvert, campaign organizer for SAFER, or Safer Alternatives For Enjoyable Recreation. "To prohibit adults from making the rational, safer choice to use marijuana is bad public policy."

Bruce Mirken of the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project said he hoped the approval will launch a national trend toward legalizing a drug whose enforcement he said causes more problems than it cures.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051102/ap_on_el_st_lo/denver_marijuana

Calling Bullshit on the Pro-War Rationale

James Traub and Fareed Zakaria each contribute book reviews to the Times this week, and each fall prey to one of the more obnoxiously naive fallacies surrounding the Iraq war: attributing the administration's failure to a surfeit of idealism.

A simple proposal - wars are fought for material reasons first and ideological reasons second, and often the latter is simply a rationalization of the former. Any democracy-building enterprise in Iraq is a rationalization (after the fact, I might add) for the invasion itself, which is not the same as being the primary purpose and inspiration. This is what I mean: the architects of the war believe it is beneficial to remodel the Middle East into an area more friendly to the US, an area more economically beneficial to the US and less hostile to US world hegemony (it's not as if I'm making this up, its publicly stated policy). The best way to make the Middles East more amiable to the US is to make the Middle East more like the US, i.e. more democratic. This is the actual rationale for war, as I see it, and it is quite apart from florid idealism. Installing democracy in Iraq is expedient to the goal of angling US power into a more secure position. It annoys me to see the two equated so carelessly by people like Traub and Zakaria.