In the last six years, I have become accustomed to seeing gut-twisting, rage-inducing, bile-causing tidbits in the newspapers, thrown in casually on A16. Or Q28. Yesterday, though, I was reading Nicholas Kristof's editorial about Darfur and felt eviscerated. Kristof wrote that one of the new tactics of the janjaweed fighters (controlled by the president of the Sudan, Bashir, who was almost made chairman of the African Union this weekend) is to beat women with their own infants until the infants are dead. Whatever happens to the women next--though we all know what happens to the women next--Kristof doesn't say.
What are we, people of good faith, supposed to do with this kind of information? If I could, by myself, stop this from happening in Darfur or anywhere else, I would--but to know it and not be able to stop it engenders this helplessness in me and this hopelessness about humanity in general. Even if the violence stopped tomorrow, what kind of society can be made with soldiers like this in it? How would they be rehabilitated? What kind of rule of law would they respect? And, furthermore, how do we, the Great White West, most effectively stop what is happening there? Sometimes all of the "help" we give African nations just seems like a continuing version of the White Man's Burden.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Thursday, January 25, 2007
By W.H. Auden
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
welcome to the world baby girl
At one in the morning what is there to say
your child is beautiful and it never ceases to
amaze me that women create this
whole new life, this whole new person
this future
in herself.
that she is beyond all of us
that she is a wish, a dream, a promise
I am for her:
whatever I can do to make her safe happy
fearless: I will.
your child is beautiful and it never ceases to
amaze me that women create this
whole new life, this whole new person
this future
in herself.
that she is beyond all of us
that she is a wish, a dream, a promise
I am for her:
whatever I can do to make her safe happy
fearless: I will.
Hunter S.
What was I doing? What was the meaning of this trip? Was I just roaming around in a drug frenzy of some kind, or had I really come out here to Las Vegas to work on a story? Who are these people, these faces, where do they come from? They look like cariacatures of used car dealers from Dallas, and sweet jesus, there are a hell lot of them at 4:30 on a Sunday morning, still humping the American dream, that vision of a big winner, somehow emerging from the last minute pre-dawn chorus of the Las Vegas casino."
No, no, calm down: learn to enjoy losing."
The late, the great, the completely fucked up: Hunter S. Thompson.
little miss sunshine
Far be it from me to actually agree with the Academy, especially since the "Titanic" debacle, but Little Miss Sunshine was one of the most enjoyable movies I watched this year. How many movies make you cry from laughing and cry from compassion at the same time?
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
SOTFU FUBAR
Against my better judgement and ignoring the wise advice of my peers, I watched the preznit give his SOTU address tonight. It was not nearly as teeth-grindingly awful as the last five. I did not once feel the urge to shoot the TV. The smirks were kept to a minimum. Still and all, who the fuck actually believes anything this man says about anything anymore? Sure, there's the twelve people in North Dakota who are still on board. Preznit-Appointed-by-God could tell them that there are aliens coming who want to experiment on their babies, and those aliens are named "Nancy Pelosi" and "Hillary Clinton" and they would just nod and put lamb's blood on their door, or whatever the Bible says to do. (Yeah, I haven't read it in a long time, okay? Actually I'm allergic to religion.) By the way--Dick Cheney's normal face: causes kittens to turn into stone. Dick Cheney smiling: causes me to run for the nearest bomb shelter. I may have my doubts about immutable truth, but here's one: whatever causes Dick Cheney to smile is never, ever anything I would smile about.
Yes, so even Dubya couldn't put his whole heart in it this time. He was trying to sell someone else's goods: the Democrats, and you could tell he was pretty bitter about it. We're not going to privatize Social Security, we're going to save it? What, now we're concerned about balancing the budget? When did this happen? This whole line about cutting the deficit in half is great, until you remember: we didn't have a goddamn deficit when this man-child came into office.
There were times when I wondered if Nancy Pelosi was going to go all Maxwell Silver Gavel on Dubya. There's the gavel, lying right there, oh, so tempting, so heavy...but she knows that Cheney will freeze her with his android stare of ultimate grimness, so she waits for another day.
Yes, so even Dubya couldn't put his whole heart in it this time. He was trying to sell someone else's goods: the Democrats, and you could tell he was pretty bitter about it. We're not going to privatize Social Security, we're going to save it? What, now we're concerned about balancing the budget? When did this happen? This whole line about cutting the deficit in half is great, until you remember: we didn't have a goddamn deficit when this man-child came into office.
There were times when I wondered if Nancy Pelosi was going to go all Maxwell Silver Gavel on Dubya. There's the gavel, lying right there, oh, so tempting, so heavy...but she knows that Cheney will freeze her with his android stare of ultimate grimness, so she waits for another day.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Patton Oswalt and David Cross
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:
Patton Oswalt, and how I feel about Amsterdam
David Cross and how I feel about protests
I went to almost every protest I could against the Iraq war, and the most dispiriting thing was the chanting. Why the chanting? Are we into mindless repetition? Is this what we, as the crazy leftists, stand for? Hell no, we won't go? Fuck. Maybe it worked forty years ago, when it was fucking new. I'll go, but I'm not going to chant, and I'm not going to say this is what democracy looks like, and so on. I just figure, at least if I am foolish enough to bear live young, I'll tell them, look, kiddos, we did what we could. It wasn't much, and it was kind of pathetic, and everyone wanted us to chant, but you know, we were there. We stood up. Good luck with the global warming, assuming the nuclear apocalypse or the chinese overlords don't get you first. Hand me the Quietus, would you?
Patton Oswalt, and how I feel about Amsterdam
David Cross and how I feel about protests
I went to almost every protest I could against the Iraq war, and the most dispiriting thing was the chanting. Why the chanting? Are we into mindless repetition? Is this what we, as the crazy leftists, stand for? Hell no, we won't go? Fuck. Maybe it worked forty years ago, when it was fucking new. I'll go, but I'm not going to chant, and I'm not going to say this is what democracy looks like, and so on. I just figure, at least if I am foolish enough to bear live young, I'll tell them, look, kiddos, we did what we could. It wasn't much, and it was kind of pathetic, and everyone wanted us to chant, but you know, we were there. We stood up. Good luck with the global warming, assuming the nuclear apocalypse or the chinese overlords don't get you first. Hand me the Quietus, would you?
Monday, January 15, 2007
Sunday, January 14, 2007
to hate like this is to be happy forever
Richard Nixon attended law school at Duke. Post-Watergate, he said, "I always remember that whatever I have done in the past or may do in the future, Duke University is responsible in one way or another." (p.7)
This really just sums it up, doesn't it?
This really just sums it up, doesn't it?
a three dog life
The best book I have read this year--by far--is A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas. Stephen King, in his blurb on the front of the book, said it was "a punch to the heart" and it is. At the same time, it's so honest and true that you laugh while crying. Or cry while laughing. Or just sigh in recognition of a feeling.
This is what the best poetry and literature does. It articulates our feelings more perfectly than we ever could. It is like having an itch scratched: yes, you say, that's exactly how it was. That is what I felt and had no words for. In that moment, I feel such profound gratitude, as if the book or poem was written just for me.
Here is one of my favorite parts, although that is a disingenous statement. I love every page of this book. This may be because I identify so strongly with the author--she loves dogs and wears Danskos-- and then again, I can only hope that I would be able to turn tragedy into everyday grace, the way she does.
It may be a bit long, but it's my blog, after all, and blogs are nothing if not self-indulgent:
From a chapter entitled How to Banish Melancholy.
"You will need three dogs, one of whom has caught the scent of something interesting wafting through the second-floor window...When you open your eyes, she will be staring at you with such intensity that you burst out laughing. When you open the kitchen door they will fly into the yard and immediately commence hunting, noses to the ground, some small creature whose zigzagging trail resembles an electrocardiogram. You follow them onto the wet green lawn. So now you're outdoors and it's five a.m.
For the last month you've been inside while it rained. Perhaps you are a fan of rain, but this may have gone on too long. You have stopped answering the phone. You don't gather the mail. You have noticed that bad as it was when two dogs followed you from room to room, it's even worse with three. Every time you get up, they get up. Please don't, it's not worth it, you want to say as you rise from your soft red chair to wander into the kitchen on an errand you forget before arriving. You look out the window while the dogs settle down on a rug by the stove. They are so good-natured. Moments later you drift into the living room and again the dogs trail along behind, and if you do this often enough, the aimlessness of your day is driven home. From here it is but a hop, skip, and a jump to the pointlessness of your existence, which is why it is so excellent to be outdoors with your clothes on at five this morning."
Most of the book is more serious, if that is the right word, than this. Her husband suffered a traumatic brain injury when he ran into a New York street after their dog. No one thought he would live. He did, but his right frontal lobe is gone, among other brain injuries. He has no memory of the past, no concept of the future: he lives only in the moment, which, it turns out, may not be as pleasant as some Buddhists and New Age gurus would like you to believe. He was a writer, and his facility with words still comes through even after most of the rest of him disappears. Sometimes he speaks with startling clarity. Every time Abigail goes to see him, though, he says, "Absie! How did you find me?" because he cannot remember that she was there the day before, and the day before that. It is as if he is reporting from some other world, far away, and the messages reach our world only imperfectly if at all.
This is what the best poetry and literature does. It articulates our feelings more perfectly than we ever could. It is like having an itch scratched: yes, you say, that's exactly how it was. That is what I felt and had no words for. In that moment, I feel such profound gratitude, as if the book or poem was written just for me.
Here is one of my favorite parts, although that is a disingenous statement. I love every page of this book. This may be because I identify so strongly with the author--she loves dogs and wears Danskos-- and then again, I can only hope that I would be able to turn tragedy into everyday grace, the way she does.
It may be a bit long, but it's my blog, after all, and blogs are nothing if not self-indulgent:
From a chapter entitled How to Banish Melancholy.
"You will need three dogs, one of whom has caught the scent of something interesting wafting through the second-floor window...When you open your eyes, she will be staring at you with such intensity that you burst out laughing. When you open the kitchen door they will fly into the yard and immediately commence hunting, noses to the ground, some small creature whose zigzagging trail resembles an electrocardiogram. You follow them onto the wet green lawn. So now you're outdoors and it's five a.m.
For the last month you've been inside while it rained. Perhaps you are a fan of rain, but this may have gone on too long. You have stopped answering the phone. You don't gather the mail. You have noticed that bad as it was when two dogs followed you from room to room, it's even worse with three. Every time you get up, they get up. Please don't, it's not worth it, you want to say as you rise from your soft red chair to wander into the kitchen on an errand you forget before arriving. You look out the window while the dogs settle down on a rug by the stove. They are so good-natured. Moments later you drift into the living room and again the dogs trail along behind, and if you do this often enough, the aimlessness of your day is driven home. From here it is but a hop, skip, and a jump to the pointlessness of your existence, which is why it is so excellent to be outdoors with your clothes on at five this morning."
Most of the book is more serious, if that is the right word, than this. Her husband suffered a traumatic brain injury when he ran into a New York street after their dog. No one thought he would live. He did, but his right frontal lobe is gone, among other brain injuries. He has no memory of the past, no concept of the future: he lives only in the moment, which, it turns out, may not be as pleasant as some Buddhists and New Age gurus would like you to believe. He was a writer, and his facility with words still comes through even after most of the rest of him disappears. Sometimes he speaks with startling clarity. Every time Abigail goes to see him, though, he says, "Absie! How did you find me?" because he cannot remember that she was there the day before, and the day before that. It is as if he is reporting from some other world, far away, and the messages reach our world only imperfectly if at all.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Girls Know How to Make Nice
A recent discussion (if by "discussion" you mean: a conversation among old men trapped in the 1950s barely managing to mask their terror at the fifty foot women roaming the streets these days and hiding their urine-stained pants) indicated that The Establishment has decided: it's Nancy Pelosi's job to make nice-nice with the President. They just stop short of suggesting she send over some cookies (acutally, maybe they did suggest that. I really couldn't read the whole thing).
I'd like to take this little meme out, stomp on it's little deformed head and put it out of its misery. During the last several million years (if time is measured in Abu-Gharib/Gitmo heartbeats) while Dubya has eviscerated the Bill of Rights, used the Constitution for toilet paper, and laughed like a crazed monkey in all our faces, has Jim Lehrer or David Fucking Brooks suggested that Dubya should perhaps consider making nice with the opposition? Should in fact think that balance of powers--estanciated in the Constitution by better, wiser and more educated men than David Fucking Brooks would be if he had several kazillion more synapses to work with--was there for a reason?
No, no, no. In the great Sandbox of American Politics, it's the boys who hit little girls over the head with shovels, and the girls who grovel and make sandcakes. For the sake of the Republic.
I'd like to take this little meme out, stomp on it's little deformed head and put it out of its misery. During the last several million years (if time is measured in Abu-Gharib/Gitmo heartbeats) while Dubya has eviscerated the Bill of Rights, used the Constitution for toilet paper, and laughed like a crazed monkey in all our faces, has Jim Lehrer or David Fucking Brooks suggested that Dubya should perhaps consider making nice with the opposition? Should in fact think that balance of powers--estanciated in the Constitution by better, wiser and more educated men than David Fucking Brooks would be if he had several kazillion more synapses to work with--was there for a reason?
No, no, no. In the great Sandbox of American Politics, it's the boys who hit little girls over the head with shovels, and the girls who grovel and make sandcakes. For the sake of the Republic.
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