First it was the 99% and the 1%. I won't get into the whole scope of that except to say that according to the Congressional Budget Office,between 1979 and 2007, the top earning 1 percent of Americans have seen their after-tax-and-benefit incomes grow by an average of 275%, compared to around 40-60% for the lower 99 percent.
Then a few weeks ago a video emerged of Mitt Romney speaking at a $50,000/plate fundraiser back in May 2012, saying
"There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it."
Mitt Romney believes that if you are a Democrat, you are de facto a helpless, possibly lazy, victim who cannot take care of yourself. Mitt Romney said these things to a room full of people each giving him $50k. Mitt Romney must be voting for Barack Obama.
And now, within the last week, a 2010 video has emerged of Paul Ryan saying that 60% of Americans enjoy more dollars worth of benefits from the government than the amount they pay in taxes, and that this 60% of Americans are "takers versus makers". This is probably true, or close to being true, but it's less about the numbers and more about the philosophy behind the statement, a poor choice of words perhaps, in order for him to make a quippy rhyme, but nonetheless, the belief that nearly two-thirds of Americans aren't pulling their weight. I guess that means there's a 60% chance he's talking about you and me.
Hmmm...Considering the amount of money spent to keep a congressional office running - staffers, security, travel expenses, operational costs, Paul Ryan is undoubtedly one of those 60% too. Paul Ryan is a TAKER! OMFG!
Anyways, I'm 93% certain you don't give a shit about my opinion about any of this, so allow me to say this, and try to disagree - the history of civilization has always been the story of a very small minority of people controlling a vast majority of money and power, and using those tools to exploit and control and even opress a very large majority of people without much wealth or power.
So there's really only one question to ask. Which side are you on?
01: Last Days [2005]: Writer and director Gus Van Sant goes out of his way to inform us that Last Days is NOT a Kurt Cobain biopic, but rather a "meditation on isolation, death and loss", but one only needs look at the poster to know this is mostly bullshit. Michael Pitt (as Blake, the protagonist of this film) has an uncanny resemblance to Cobain, helped in great part by the cinematography, in which we rarely see Blake close-up, and almost never see his face full-on. Instead, we see him stumbling around the large wooded estate surrounding his decaying "castle" in the woods, or shuffling aimlessly around the house, always on the verge of passing out. While we never actually see Blake doing drugs, the heroin use is certainly implied. Aside from the stumbling, Blake is nearly incapable of speech, and what does come out of his mouth is muffled and largely incoherent. Drugs or not, Blake is obviously a man with a serious, likely undiagnosed, mental illness. A mental illness that presumably doesn't matter to anybody else in the film because Blake is a huge rock star, and all those people around him have something to gain from his fame, whether it's bandmates needing him for a huge European tour and the wealth and fame it provides, his sycophantic housemates, who need him for money or lyrical help for their own songs for their own demo, or even the Yellow Pages salesman who simply needs another account, completely ignoring the near-catatonic Blake who sits across from him in the decrepit house. Yet somewhere beneath Blake's surface incoherence, it's quite obvious that he's aware of these leeches, because the entire film is really nothing more than a snapshot of Blake attempting to ignore, avoid, and escape them all, and when a friend brings a private eye hired by Blake's wife to find the rockstar, recently escaped from a drug rehap center, suddenly Blake doesn't stumble, but quickly and effectively escapes the house and evades the two. In the end, what Van Sant presents us is a portrait of a ghost, whether by choice or circumstance, who seemingly moves in a parallel world where everyone around him is incapable of seeing him for who he truly is, and more literally, often can't find him at all. It's a slow, haunting film, with little dialogue or plot, a strange audio track full of sounds that have absolutely nothing to do with what we see on the screen (ghosts, again), and even in the end, as the police stand over Blake's dead body in the greenhouse, one can't help but think he was gone long before he took his life.
02: Girl Eating Hotdog: Is it wrong that this photo turns me on? Yeah, it probably is.
03: Wolfguin: They can't fly, but they waddle rather fast. Long story short, you may want to laugh at the wolfguin, but once they clamp onto your leg, the joke's on you.
04: Whoomp! There Obama is!: The big question/conspiracy this week is that President Barack Obama appeared briefly in Tag Team's 1993 video for their hit, "Whoomp There It Is". True or not, the likeness is certainly uncanny, and I, for one, hope it's true.
05: Music & Lyrics by Stewie Griffin: I must admit, I don't like Family Guy all that much, but I happened to catch a syndicated rerun of this particular episode. "Things are a little more complicated than they seemed at first." Indeed, Stewie, life is often a stone-cold bitch, and yes, writing songs isn't very difficult, although writing good songs is something else entirely.
06: Milios' "Charlie The Tuna" Sub:Milios is a midwest-based sub shop chain, and aside from the absolute best French bread rolls I've ever had anywhere, their sub sandwiches are second to none. Now, usually I go with their Italian Club, but sometimes, as I did this past week, I opted for their Charlie The Tuna, which is most excellent for two reasons - Milios' secret gourmet sauce, and the fact that they don't use too much tuna. That might seem counter-intuitive, but think for a moment of a tuna sub that had too much tuna salad - it's dry, chewy, and ultimately, not very satisfying. The fine folks at Milios have found the exact right amount of tuna for their sandwich, and it makes all the difference. Just make sure to hold the bean sprouts. Sprouts suck.
I shouldn't have to tell my fellow Americans (and most others around the world) what today is, so I won't...
The question has been asked before by others, but where have all the anti-war and protest songs been this past decade? Aside from Bright Eyes' "When The President Talks To God", I'm having a hard time thinking of any others...
("Military Madness" is a Graham Nash song from 1971, btw...)
While the Cheney administration was bullshitting the American public into a nasty war against the wrong country/regime (Iraq) at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars and untold human lives, it would seem the opposition was mostly ineffectual...It's not necessarily true that the anti-war people were completely quiet, but underlying the opposition (at least to me) was the feeling that we were helpless and powerless to do anything, and so we mostly did nothing...
Until the 2008 elections, when the majority of voters put the Democrats back into Congressional power and gave Barack Obama the presidency, which seems to me to be a fairly strong repudiation of the past 8 years...
And now President Obama and the Democrat-led Congress are attempting to pass some health care reforms, including a public option and insurance coverage for those of us who cannot afford insurance in any form, and dammit if Republicans and those with conservative political ideologies aren't storming town hall meetings and screaming bullshit talking points and trying to stifle any sort of rational dialogue. These are the same people who saw no problem with funding DEATH and WAR to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, but believe that taking care those who cannot take care of themselves, improving their quality of life, and in some instances, SAVING LIVES, is a waste of money, and even worse, SOCIALISM...
Words cannot express the ridiculousness of it all...Maybe that's why there are no decent protest songs these days. Cognitive dissonance is a stone-cold bitch.
Tape Jazz Massacre haven't done any videos, so I offer you this trim and sarcastic bit of nostalgia, called "War Bonus", courtesy of my friend Nort Weston down in the flatter lands west of Chicago...His music/video unit is called BURB...
Now excuse me while I blather a bit...
Remember the days when the wrong t-shirt got a loony liberal forcibly removed from Town Hall Meetings or campaign rallies if he or she had even gained access with that wrong t-shirt in the first place?
Remember when Dick Cheney was the only person who could bring a gun to a political function without question or repercussions?
Remember when Dick Cheney shot his billionaire friend in the face?
Remember the days when the government spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a War On Terror (the ultimate Death Panel), and if a person even questioned any of it (the war, the cost of the war, the justification for the war), let alone raise their voice in any sort of protest, they'd be called a traitor and worse?
Remember when waterboarding and the other assorted means of interrogation as used at Abu Ghraib were rationalized, justified and accepted, and if you didn't agree, you hated America?
Remember when the government would intercept any phone calls, emails, text messages and Pony Express messengers they felt like, and we better like it...Or else...??????
Remember those days?
Nowadays, the very idea government-provided healthcare for those among us who needed the most (one of the most fundamentally Christian things we can do as a society, I'd say) is called "Socialism" by those among us who are most Christian, and often enough in need of the very kind of health care they oppose violently in these Town Hall Meetings...
In the end, I guess I can only ask - why wasn't there that kind of vitriol in 2003? 2004? Where was that kind of passion when they tapped our phones and told us war and death was the only path to glory? Where were the viciously angry words in public forums when the Bush administration lied to us? Time and time again?
Who championed de-regulation in the financial markets, and why didn't anybody raise a bigger stink before it all came crashing down?
At this moment in time, what right does ANYBODY on the conservative/Republican side of the political aisle have to bitch and complain about ANYTHING? Their elected officials have been fucking up seemingly everything they touch, and spending us into the poorhouse all the way, and now they've lost an honest election and their political power...If they can't sit down at the table, so to speak, and discuss their opposition to the policies of the Obama administration and this Democratic Congress in a rational, civilized manner, they ought to sit at home, ride it out, and most importantly, just shut the fuck up...
I give to thee...EIGHT AMAZINGLY ACCURATE PREDICTIONS FOR 2009 AND BEYOND... [Wagering implied] HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP
01: In defiant response to the passing of Proposition 8 in California, the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences awards the Oscar for BEST ACTOR to Sean Penn for his portrayal of gay activist and politician, Harvey Milk in the film Milk. Sorry Mickey Rourke, although it's always an honor to even be nominated, isn't that what they say?
02:President Barack Obama is attacked by a gang of squirrels while taking a smoke break out in the White House rose garden...Secret Service agents are able to eliminate the small and furious attackers before the president is seriously hurt, but NOT before the entire scene is captured on a Sony DCR-HC62 MiniDV camcorder by a tourist from Houston, who's identity isn't coming to me at this time. This young man will become famous, however, when he sells the footage to YouTube for $600,000.
03:Paris Hilton will suddenly and unexpectedly marry David Lee Roth, and their honeymoon will be the basis for a reality show on VH1. The dynamite ratings will naturally lead to a second season, in which the couple record and album together and talk about having a baby...Paris wants a kid just like her old friend Nicole Ritchie, but it seems Diamond Dave's sperm aren't nearly as lively as they used to be...Stay tuned, babycakes, in Season Three we find out whether or not DLR has what it takes to knock up his all-American princess once and for all...
04: Spring flooding of the Mississippi River devastates farmland along the river, and in cities such as Dubuque and Burlington, Iowa, and St. Louis, Missouri...REO Speedwagon write and record a charity song about lost corn crops which fails to generate any interest among the general population.
05: The Carolina Panthers will defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 20 to 16 in Super Bowl XLIII at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida on February 1st, 2009. During Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band's halftime performance there will NOT be a wardrobe malfunction, however Clarence Clemons will purposefully whip out his dick on stage during "The Promised Land" portion of the second medley. A 3 second delay is enough to keep the footage off the air, but in March an unedited version starts showing up on P2P network filesharing sites, and soon becomes an internet sensation...Naturally Christian and Pro-Family groups are outraged, but the FCC has no idea who to sue.
06: In May, actor George Clooney is horribly disfigured in a freak deep-frying accident. A series of complicated facial-transplant surguries leave him looking like Kevin Spacey.
07: Sometime in the first half of 2009 this very HOT POOP blog will begin to use Google Adsense. As a result, I will make 16 cents a month from this site, and can finally put "professional blogger" on my business card.
08: Scientists in Finland will make the startling discovery that puppies cause cancer. Two months later the less-startling discovery will be made that those Finnish scientists were funded by Cat Fancy Magazine to try boosting their subscription base. Ultimately, however, they will be vindicated when several other unbiased scientific teams determine that yes, puppies do indeed cause cancer, as well as Type II Diabetes.
More than half of America and countless people around the world are ecstatic about President-Elect Barack Obama. I'm rather excited too.
But this ecstacy can't last, because reality can be a stone-cold bitch sometimes, and aside from whatever other woes currently exist in our world, the fact remains that despite Obama's best efforts, I believe the economy is only going to get worse for America and many other countries around the world, and the recession/depression isn't going to disappear anytime soon.
So yeah, I'm wearing a happy face right now, and maybe for a short while longer, but eventually, this emotional high has got to end, and we've all gotta face facts once more. So, enjoy your happiness while you can, because it can still get worse before it gets better...
I went to my polling place at about 10am, figuring the mid-morning or mid-afternoon would be the best time to find a short and efficient line (Give me convenience or give me death!), and I was right. There actually wasn't a line at all, and I was in and out of there in less than five minutes.
In fact, there were about five times as many volunteers as there were actual voters at the time, and one of those volunteers was an older white man of about 75 years of age who was manning the machine in which voters fed their ballot after filling it out, and handing out the "I Voted" stickers...
(trust me, this is going somewhere)
So, after I had filled out my ballot, I approached this man and the ballot machine, and in front of me there was a young black woman of about 20 years old who had apparently made a mistake on her ballot because the machine rejected it. She had to tear up her ballot in the presence of a volunteer, and then fill out another ballot, and so she walked away, back to a booth to do it again.
She couldn't have been more than fifteen feet away when this old man, out of the blue, says directly to me, "Fucking jigaboos."
I stood there dumbfounded for a second or two, staring incredulously at this man, who continued talking.
"There are so many blacks voting today, and apparently alot of them never voted before because alot of them are filling out their ballots wrong. What's this world coming to?"
This apparently wasn't a rhetorical question, because he looked at me as if he expected an answer from me, or more likely, some agreement.
But I just stood there, staring at him. I truly didn't know what to say, and could finally only suggest, after a few seconds, that he "ought consider what he's saying, and who he's saying it to". I shook my head, fed my ballot into the machine, and left the polling place with a slightly sour and bittersweet feeling, which had stuck with me until earlier tonight.
This is the 7th presidential election I've voted in, and aside from my very first vote in 1984, the most exciting and satisfying presidential vote I've ever cast, and here was this old racist fuck who had tainted the experience for me, and who knows how many others...
But tonight, that sour and bittersweet feeling has given way to something approaching hope, the kind that Barack Obama has promised America with his words and his demeanor throughout the campaign.
Take a look at that picture up above, which I think encapsulates how I've come to feel about this election in general, and my unfortunate encounter with that racist old man.
Racism surely won't disappear in America with the election of our first African-American president, but I do know that the old America that the old racist fuck knows and understands is now sliding into history, and while it's still going to be awhile before we put our country's troubling history completely behind us, I think it's safe to say that we're all, right now, bearing witness to some deep and fundamental changes in our society.
America no longer "belongs" to old racist fucks like that guy. His beliefs and worldview are now truly becoming a thing of the past, an archaic reminder of untenable ideas.
America now belongs, not just to those two kids in that picture, but to all of us, moving forward towards a more perfect union, unconstrained by worn-out ideologies of blind hate and ignorance.
Like I said, we've still got a long way to go, but we're definitely moving in the right direction, and last night's election of Barack Obama is a huge step. That's the world "we're coming to", and it's a newer, better world for sure.
Now, how about we secure civil rights for homosexuals? That would be another huge step towards that more perfect union.
In a different year, I might have voted for Ron Paul. If I had to describe my own politics, I'd say that I fall somewhere in that nether region between Libertarianism and traditional Liberalism, a place where extreme conservatism (small or no government) swings back around to meet the extreme liberalism. It's a tough place to be because while I believe that government should stay the fuck outta the way of progress and personal liberties (we ought to legalize drugs, prostitution, etc), I also believe that we have a moral obligation to take care of those who cannot take care of themselves, and for better or worse, government programs and money are the quickest and easiest way to make sure that the less fortunate are provided for. So you see, it's a schizophrenic political philosophy that I've cobbled together for myself over the years.
Typically, I do not vote for major party candidates. Beyond my Libertarian streak, I believe the two party system is mostly a sham, and that both sides of the aisle are beholden to the true wielders of power in Washington - corporations and their lobbyists. I have voted for third party candidates with the idea, as silly as it sounds, that if enough people did likewise, we may someday be able to expand American politics beyond the two-headed beast we must suffer with today. I thought for awhile that the 1992 election might be a watershed moment in this regard, when Ross Perot garnered almost 19% of the popular vote (yes, I voted for Perot), but by the next election in 1996, Perot was only able to garner about 8% of the popular vote, and here we are today, back to the old comforts of the two party system.
So, anyways, I was struck by this picture of Ron Paul, and the loneliness and futility of the third party candidate. Ron Paul has plenty of crazy ideas (he is a Libertarian, after all), but he's been a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq since day one, and for that alone, I commend him. Like I said, in a different year, I most likely would have voted for him, but in this year's election, my biggest concern was that John McCain not become our next president (to say nothing of Barack Obama's impressiveness as a man and candidate) and so I cast my ballot for Obama. Let us all hope that Obama can run our country as impressively and successfully as he ran his campaign.
I'm having a hard time deciding if our beloved WINONA ROUGH RYDERS' victory this week over the WINOS can be chalked up to LUCK or GENIUS.
If there's genius involved, it would be making a couple of quick, last minute dips into the Free Agency pool to grab Leon Washington and Kevin Smith off the wires...Because of BYES and injuries, I had no choice but to make some changes if I even stood a chance this week.
Now, Leon Washington is Thomas Jones' backup for the NY Jets, and second stringers typically don't put up great fantasy numbers, but if I had to use a backup, it only made sense to use the backup to one of my own players. Washington ended up contributing pretty much exactly what I expected him to, which wasn't earthshaking, but was better than the alternative, which was starting Darren McFadden and hoping beyond hope that he'd actually play with not one, but TWO, turf toe injuries. McFadden didn't play. GENIUS!
Then there's the rookie Kevin Smith, the best running back on the Detroit Lions, but not actually starting, because washed up veteran Rudi Johnson gets the nod for being, um, a veteran, I guess. You see, in Detroit, that kind of logic is often employed, which is why they are arguably the worst team in the NFL. The Lions were playing the Chicago Bears, who have one of the better defenses in the league, so pulling the trigger on Kevin Smith was doubly risky - not a starter, going against a staunch run defense - but he put up as many FP in my team's flex position as anybody else this season, and I consider that GENIUS.
On the other hand, LUCK played a major part in this week's victory. The WINOS' starting QB, Kyle Orton, only played about half a game because of an ankle injury, and if he had stayed healthy and finished his game, we definitely would have lost. Definitely.
Otherwise, most everything else went as planned. Greg "Brillo" Camarillo far exceeding expectations, and that certainly played a part. And then there's the Pittsburgh Defense, which had a huge game against the Redskins last night, and nearly doubled their projected score...
Consider this - I was trailing by 50 FP going into Monday night's game between the Redskins and Steelers, and I didn't really think I had a shot of actually winning. I had Chris Cooley, Pittsburgh's Defense, and James Harrison left on my team, and the WINOS had Troy Polamalu, and I knew I'd close that 50 point gap, but I never thought I'd pull out a victory...
But here we are...For me, it may have been the single greatest comeback (and unexpected victory) in my fantasy football life...
Having said that, I'm going to cut this week's recap short, because it's election night in the United States, and I'd like to watch Barack Obama bring it home.
I would like to write about "values" today. The desire arose because once again this election year, we are hearing the term "small town values" bandied about by the Republicans in the context that people who live in major metropolitan areas (presumably more liberal/Democratic) have lesser values than people who live in small towns. This notion is complete and utter bullshit, of course, and I just thought I'd share some anecdotal evidence to counter this claim.
I grew up in a suburban town of 8000 people. For the most part, it is an upper-middle class community, and as I was growing up there in the 70's and 80's, there were exactly two black families in the entire town. This wasn't by accident, either. If you've heard the term "white flight", that's pretty much the reason why Grafton is 99% white - these white families were literally escaping the city of Milwaukee and it's minority populations in the aftermath of desegregation, as dictated by the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown Vs. Board of Educationruling. Grafton was founded in the 1870's, but didn't see it's one major population "explosion" until the decade or so after that ruling, and this holds true for many small towns just like Grafton. I mention all this because this trend, this phenomenon, illustrates a very specific value - that many white people simply do not want to live, work, play, or go to school with non-white people.
Racism is a value.
That's the most pervasive value in Grafton, but it's not a value that's readily apparent on the surface. No, this sort of racism is a quiet kind, so subtle that plenty of small town people don't even realize they're practicing it, but it is there nonetheless. It's part of a larger mindset that shows itself more readily in other prejudices and opinions, many of which are easiest to identify in the halls of a typical small town high school, where cliques inform the dynamics of the entire school, and one's status is pretty much wholly determined by surface and appearances.
In high school, if you are fat, you are almost guaranteed to never be one of the "cool kids", and you will have to suffer countless slings and arrows of outright mockery and public humiliation. If you do not wear the most current and fashionable clothing and shoes, you will be ridiculed and reminded of those shortcomings ceaselessly. If you are gay, you will face all those slings and arrows, nevermind the steady, neverending beatdowns (or threats of beatdowns) from "the jocks". If you are a girl who is sexually active, you will be called a "slut" and a "whore", but if you are a girl who who isn't sexually active, you will be called a "dyke" by the very guy who want to sex you up. If you are academically gifted, you will be marginalized, mocked and perhaps even beat up with some regularity. Hopefully, you are not a fat homosexual who is academically gifted.
I mention these sorts of things because they point to an overriding set of values that are pervasive in small town America, a set of values that is best described as xenophobic, I suppose. If you do not "fit in", or are merely perceived to be "different", the chances are quite good that you will be ignored, marginalized, ostracized, and perhaps even the target of physical threats and violence itself.
(WHO IS BARACK OBAMA? McCain's campaign commercial asks countless times every day, and if you do not believe his campaign is deliberately feeding into the xenophobia and racism of the Republican base, you're probably a part of that base, a base that is becoming increasingly rabid with vocal hatred, if you've seen the YouTube videos of recent McCain-Palin rallies.)
It would easy to say that racism and xenophobia are interchangeable, but that isn't quite true, because I moved to a small unincorporated farming town of approximately 120 people, a place called Helenville, where I lived for about two years before coming to Madison. Now, I'm a white male, so you would think my presence in Helenville would not be an issue, but I was instantly perceived as an outsider, an "other", and during those two years, I couldn't seem to shake that stigma.
First of all, I have a Polish name, which proved to be troublesome to a community that was almost entirely German. I was even asked by one of the locals once, "So, are you one of those Polish Jews?"
I shit you not.
In this small, unincorporated town of 120 people, there are three churches, two taverns, a post office and a bank. God and alcohol rule Helenville, and as you can imagine, drunken fundamentalism was rampant. Even in the most innocuous of conversations, somehow topics such as "fags" and "baby killers" would get woven in. At first I would protest, exposing my liberal tendencies, and I believe these outspoken protestations were responsible for the locals never liking or accepting me. Like most small towns like this, word travelled fast, so after the very first of my protestations, I started noticing the dirty looks, and the way the locals basically shunned me. A friendly wave to neighbors as I walked to the post office would be met with cold indifference. If I entered one of the local taverns, all conversations would cease immediately and all eyes would turn to me. It was unnerving at first, but soon became laughable.
Like I said, gossip is quite prevalent in communities like this, so from time to time I would hear word of alcoholism, infidelity, domestic abuse, and even incest. It would seem every last person in town had their secrets, except that there were no secrets.
In that way, Helenville is no different than Grafton. I can tell you that on my own block in Grafton, we had a married woman having an affair with a married man who lived in the house behind hers. More than once, my friends and I saw him sneaking from his house to her house late at night (yeah, most of us had very liberal curfews), when her husband was out of town on business. Across the street we had a raging alcoholic that beat his children with regularity. These children would grow into teenagers who were exceedingly violent and hateful themselves. Meanwhile, up the street, there was a kid who took great pleasure in torturing and killing cats, and was so creepy in general, that none of the other kids in the neighborhood wanted anything to do with him. When my sister's cat, Tigger, suddenly disappeared, never to be seen again, we immediately suspected this kid. I assume this boy grew up to be a serial killer.
Alcoholism and drug abuse were also fairly rampant in Grafton. In fact, around 1982, two former Grafton high schoolers stabbed a third to death in his bedroom over a cocaine deal gone bad. Stabbed him more than two dozen times, in fact. In my own experiences, it was just as easy to procure any kind of drug imaginable as it was to go to one of the four liquor stores in our town to buy beer.
I guess I could go on and on with anecdotes about small town life, but I hope I've made my point.
And my point is this - conservative Republicans can talk about "small town values" all they want, but the fact of the matter is, small town values are no better than the values found in any large city. People are people, flaws and all, no matter where you live, and if anything, I would argue that people are worse in small towns, because there is the sheen of hypocrisy that covers everyone and everything. Many people in small towns are doing the exact same bad shit that people in the cities are doing, but they wrap themselves in scripture and the flag, and claim to be better than all the "fags" "niggers" and "commies" who are supposedly a blight on those cities and a threat to their "small town values" and America itself.
So, Sarah Palin can invoke "Joe Sixpack" all she wants, but know this - plenty of those Joe Sixpacks are alcoholics who routinely abuse their spouses and children, and then they go to church on Sunday where they're repeatedly told that it is the Godless liberals and secularists who are the problem with America.
Now I'm living in Madison, a progressive, liberal city which those same smalltown Joe Sixpacks like to say is "20 square miles surrounded by reality". If places like Helenville are "reality", I'd much rather stay here, safely ensconsed in our relative "insanity", thank you very much.
I couldn't find any George Akaeze videos on YouTube, a rare misfire, but of course they've got a whole lotta Fela Kuti, straight outta 1985 in this particular lumpen...The self-proclaimed Black President of Nigeria, and here we are...
Are enough of us ready for a black American president? It would be a giant step for our nation, but not our last, getting past our biggest sin, the slave trade...
Race and ethnicity aside, is a man as relatively young and unseasoned as Barack Obama ready to lead us through these dark and story times? Or do these times call for a dynamic leader from his generation, the next generation...Post-Boomer...
Born in 1961, Barack Obama might be considered a Gen-Xer, but he's on the very front edge of that generation, MY generation...What's important is that he's clearly not a Baby Boomer like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and that's the biggest reason I'm voting Obama in 2008...
John McCain is going to be 72 years old at the end of this month, which means he's PRE-Boomer...
Race and ethnicity and gender and political parties aside, it's simply time we make a move towards the future...It's time for Generation X to run things for the next couple decades, to see what we can accomplish, and there's certainly plenty of serious shit to keep us occupied...
Does Barack Obama have what it takes? I think he's worth 4 years of our time and our trust...
And speaking one last time about generations, I certainly urge the Millenials, the so-called "Echo-Boomers", the eldest of whom are coming of age right now, to vote for Obama as well...
Nothing more than a cheap and easy Giraffe Fart I did the other night...Quick and dirty...
The thought had crossed my mind to try and recreate Tupac's tattoos, but that's not how I roll, babycakes... "High Performance-Low Art-Hank Mohaski" and all that...Anyways...
My home PC unexpectedly crashed a couple of nights ago, and attempts to fix the problem have been unsuccessful. It was the impetus I needed to finally buy a new PC, which I had been contemplating for the past year.
Of course, this means that this HOT POOP blog and EVERYTHINGATHON!are not going to be active for the next 1-3 weeks, depending on how fast DELL can deliver my new PC, and how quickly I can get all the appropriate software programs and files onto that new PC.
So, until next time in the very near future, I leave you with this, which is NOT an endorsement by yours truly for Barack Obama. I just ran across this picture somewhere on the net, and thought it was a pretty well-done PS...
BTW - I am voting for Barack Obama this November, and I urge all other voting Americans to do the same.
Osama Bin Laden is left-handed. So is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Kim Jong Il is not left-handed, but Hugo Chavez definitely is.
John Kerry and John McCain are both left-handed, but Kerry writes right-handed, so he's a goddamned traitor to Thee Sinistral League. They both voted in favor of the War In Iraq.
Barack Obama is a lefty.
As far as I know, none of the main players in the current administration are southpaws, but you know, this schtick's gotta breakdown sometime...
Master orator, A-1 flirt, table tennis champion, world class lover, known slacker, sinistral minstrel, funky drum machiner, actual guitar hero, hungry freak, radio disc jockey extraordinaire, Pope of Discordia, advanced sloganeer, licensed coffee drinker, authorized cat fancier, snow globe juggler, ice skating judge, bonsai superstar, published poet with an unpublished number, understander of Jazz, leader of men, follower of my mom, Oracle database user, part-time billboard liberator, full-time Grand Marquis handler, accomplished pipe smoker, dental floss tycoon, fully-certified celebrity impersonator, dues-paying snake-handler, hyphen-minister, soft-spoken carrier of big sticks, amateur sleuth, semi-professional haberdasher, professional lifestyle consultant, chronic inhaler, retired bartender, grower of beards, psychic to the stars, Mint Spy agent, Friend Of Flat Atom, action figure model, stunt double, former paperboy, previous drunk, perpetual teen, and Nobel Prize winner in Theoretical Etymology. I'm also mighty handy with very large axes, extremely small firearms, celery salt, and Derrida texts. Possibly fake references available upon request.
