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.

goats at peace

"There is this strange sense of peace that comes over you when you give up that last shred of dignity. It's nice."

That's what the goats in the tree think.

Electoral Futility

I see that the Times has attempted to spice up an overwhelmingly dull election cycle with some speculative reporting about Fernando Ferrer's missing middle name. Give a shit. Can't we just hand Bloomberg his re-election, thus sparing Ferrer the embarrasment?

Which is not to say that I particularly care for Bloomberg, though I do give him credit for not pussyfooting around for the last year in anticipation of the campaign. Even if his flagship policy, the West Side Stadium, was complete bollocks. And it could have something to do with his essentially unassailable position in the polls, held since forever. Still, I can't imagine voting for someone other than him, certainly not Ferrer, that swine. I dunno, is Lyndon LaRouche running?

Of more interest is the Transportation Bond Act, the only real reason to even vote at all on November 8th, though once again more a case of "damned if you do damned if you don't" than participatory democracy. Wouldn't it be just swell to assume that the MTA would deal wisely and scrupulously with any carte blanche handed to it? Part of me wants a "No" vote simply for a fuck you to everyone's favorite unaccountable transportation authority, but the subways can always use work and then fares might go up.

Then again, fares are certain to go up anyway, so maybe I'll just close my eyes in the ballot booth and let chance decide, trying my best not to laugh at the idea that any of the major decisions weren't already made before I'd even closed the curtain.

Barcelona

-Philip Truong [Barcelona] We arrived in the city at rush hour. Friday was bustling the same as any major city in America. Trendy kids were pulling open the steel shutters on their trendy shops, business men were pumping soberly through the streets and old men paced in the Plazas of the Old City. I was with Joseph and neither of us knew how to use a pay phone in Europe. We were reduced to asking an adorable girl working an information booth on Las Ramblas why our calls to confirm the hostel reservation kept failing. I swear she sized me up as a complete idiot telling me in clear English that the country code wasn't necessary, but Joseph says there was no such look on her face.
After securing a room, we showered and slept, but not for long. We had to try and call Christina Pau, the Hong Kongese girl from Manchester who had arrived with her friend two days before. After leaving a message on her cell we found a quiet cafe to drink coffee and eat Tapas, our first meal since the single-serve beef and potatos from Delta Airlines. Coffee in Spain is a revelation. Cafe American-style is like a half a coffee cup of espresso. The sugar packet they give you could hold two-and-a-half to three American sugar packets worth. Needless to say milk is completely unnecessary at this point. Just sit back and listen to yourself speak as fast as the ideas erupt.
To make a long story short, all four of us ended up together for dinner and drinks, and now I am too tired for any more details.

Can it get any better than this?

Two of my favorite forms of entertainment are uniting: Radiohead & Harry Potter! I'm not sure if you all know this, but Johnny Greenwood & Phil Selway (from Radiohead of course) have helped make three tracks for the upcoming Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire movie with Jarvis Cocker, Steve Claydon and Jason Buckle.

You can download one of the songs "This Is The Night", but you'll have to venture over to the sometimes overwhelming Fansite: Mugglenet.com. The link below also has the song, but it doesn't always work.

http://www.ateaseweb.com/news/archive/2005/10/exclusive_harry.php

As an added bonus, Johnny and Phil will be appearing in the film as part of a rock group of witches called "The Weird Sisters" - a very popular band in the wizarding world.

Untitled

"A poet is, after all, a sort of scientist, but engaged in a qualitative science in which nothing is measureable. He lives with data that cannot be numbered, and his experiments can be done only once." --Lewis Thomas

More to come...

Dali's Exorcism

A sculpture of Christ on the cross was recently found in Rome and attributed to Salvador Dali. This piece of art was given to a priest in exchange for an exorcism. An exorcism? No. Surely not. But wait...it doesn't seem completely out of the question that Salvador Dali would have had an exorcism when we think about the bizarre images in his work. Surprisingly, though, we learn this:

"The reported exorcism took place during a period in which Dali had broken away from Surrealism and started producing more realistic works, often with religious imagery ."

It puts a smile on my face to think that Dali needed an exorcism when he had drifted away from the unusual and into reality & religion.

The Enigma of Bob Dylan

Like a lot of people, I'm experiencing a renewed obssesion with Bob Dylan since the No Direction Home documentary aired. I used to listen to Dylan a lot in high school - my parents' old records of Blonde on Blonde and Planet Waves - and it's nice to come back to the music a little bit older and find new, deeper appreciation.

But there's been a crankier reaction to all the recent Dylan hoopla as well. I came across this article from the Belfast Telegraph, which articulates the feelings of a particularly cynical branch of the baby boomers, who apparently yearned for a more intimate understanding of Bob Dylan for thirty years and then were terribly disappointed to discover that he is a mere human being. Nothing irks me quite like the self-indulgence of the baby boomers. To a certain mindset their time (the 60s) was the end-all be-all of music, culture, politics, protest, you name it - we're all familiar with the cliche. But the boomers had the misfortune of being able to grow old and see their beloved pop idols tarnished or their totemic stature reduced to simple humanity, and damn if they haven't adopted a luxurious weariness about it. I begin to understand more and more why arch-conservatives hate the boomers so much - they're like spoiled children throwing a hissy fit.

The Belfast Telegraph author writes of his disappointment with Dylan - which is in reality his dissapointment with his own image of Dylan - in the manner of someone writing a complaint letter to a department store. This, I think, exposes the fundamental hypocrisy of the 60s generation - for all their talk of revolution and change, they couldn't recognize that their behavior still played exactly by the rules of whatever power structure they claimed to oppose. Pop stars like Dylan illustrate this perfectly - the musician/fan relationship plays out in the product/consumer model. The musician Dylan is the product that the fan consumes, and therefore feels they own. So, by extension Dylan "owes" the fan something and is met with righteous indignation anytime the fan feels snubbed. Now, pop stars are often selfish primadonnas, sure - after all they're egomaniacal narcicissts - but they're involved in a fundamentally dehumanizing situation and the self-absorption of the fans is equally absurd.

It is the logic of the person who sends back their food and is rude to the waiter while dining at a restaurant. This type of attitude is the result of privilege, and the baby boomers were and are the most privileged generation our country has ever seen. And just look at the zeal with which they cling to their tattered icons, like some ratty teddy bear from a Cape Cod childhood.

I'm just glad I can listen to Dylan as just quality music, without the attendant anxieties of the failed 60s.

Quote of the Century

"Lenin," mused Natasha Zakharova, 23, as she walked off Red Square on Tuesday, admitting that she was not quite sure whose body she had just seen. "Was he a Communist?" (from today's NY Times)

Well, it's at least good to see that a casual ignorance of recent history pervades other countries as well as our own. Even so, this is a little like being a German and saying "Hitler - yeah, didn't he fight a war, or something?"

On the other hand, some people never forget. I'm sure you could find hardline Palestinians or Israeli Jews who could recount every historical injustice ever inflicted upon their people.

I wonder which is more dangerous - selective memory or selective amnesia?

Honey? I Beg to Differ.