Palinesque (Andrew Sullivan)

Quote of the Day - (Hat Tip: Brian Twomey)

"Keepin' your head above water
Makin' a wave when you can
Temporary lay offs. - Good Times.
Easy credit rip offs. - Good Times.
Ain't we lucky we got 'em - Good Times."

Double 'R'

Watching American Experience I just heard Ronald Reagan use the word 'conflagration' correctly, pronouncing it well, in a press conference, off-the-cuff, in a response, right out of his head, to a question posed by a reporter. He was answering a question with a lucid, well-considered, statement of his beliefs. Why did we ever dislike this guy? It's amazing how low the bar has gotten under W. The political system of our country has gotten to this ultra-low game of rock-paper-scissors. I'll do, say or believe whatever I need to do, say or believe in order to beat, RIGHT NOW, whatever you do, say or believe. Today I'm a rock to your scissors. Tomorrow I'll be paper to your rock. Whatever it takes. And presiding over it all is W. who is looking and sounding really scary lately. And Nancy Pelosi is just as scary. McCain is sounding unhinged and yet Obama is saying nothing, playing it cool but actually disengaging himself in a way frankly unbecoming of a wannabe president.

EARMARKS

...knew this was coming. The age of the internet is truly a wonder. This is a chart that indicates the relative percentage of the federal bedget made up of so-called earmarks. It sounds worthy but were not going to solve all our problems by elimintating the bridge to nowhere, as John McCain harangued in the debate. Build away Governor Palin...

Oh Shea Can you See

The Mets are playing what could be the last game ever at Shea and are playing for their playoff lives. They NEED a win to at least ensure a tie for the NL wild card. It's exciting there's still post season hope in NYC now that the Yankees have been eliminated. I know most Met fans don't want anyone on their bandwagon and for that very reason I say "LET'S GO METS!!!"

Sadly now - it's 5:18 and the Brewers have won and the Mets have lost and baseball is gone from NY for another year. Ummmmm...LET'S GO CUBBIES!!!!!!

George at the Roundtable

If you have the opportunity to watch This Week with George Stephanopoulos and the roundtable discussion thereon it's TOTALLY worth it. Newt Gingrich, Robert Reich, George Will and a WaPo writer, can't remember the name...anway the discussion is very honest and open and cogent, for once. Newt and RR actually reach a point where they're acknowledging to their mutual astonishment that they are remarkably in agreement.

There was one part I liked where George Will equates the economic bailout to airport security, i.e. it's more about psychology and the "drama of security" without actual security.

Mr. Newman

Paul Newman has died; a wonderful actor (his performance in the Verdict is in my top 5 by an actor of all time), a put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is liberal humanitarian, a passionate artist and liver-of life. God bless him.

Liveblogging!!!!

10:30 - Obama debated as a frontrunner and kept his lead for sure. McCain attacked more I think because he had to but he didn't land any punches and therefore didn't do anything to help himself get out ahead of Obama. For that reason I think he lost. I doubt people will want to tune into anymore debates. There were no real fireworks and nothing really exciting. Two guys being themselves, like I said. McCain equates Obama with Bush - they're both stubborn and Obama laughs.

10:21 - Obama has points and ideas, McCain talks about where he's been and what he's done.

10:16 - I'll say it again. If ou like how smart Obama is and want a 'smart' president Obama's winning. If you want the tough guy, the regular guy, the funny wise-ass (although he just made a joke that no one got about Obama's pretend seal), you'll think McCain "kicked ass - HEEEEEEE-HAH!!!!"

10:08 - "We cannot allow another holocaust??" Pander much? Oy vey...

10:04 - McCain's babbling. But then Obama says "I've got a bracelet too!!" That was realllllllly girly sounding. Me no like. Either way though he's sounding more presidential and he's making points consistently. He's sounding more generally that he's thoughtful and focused on what needs to be done. McCain wants to say he's more presidential because he WENT to Iraq and Obama didn't.

10:00 - This debate isn't going to change anyone's mind. These are who these two guys are. They're being themselves; they're both preaching to the choir.

9:57 - McCain for all his simplicity comes off as more decisive some how - more like he knows what he wants and knows what he's talking about---and that he's tougher...I don't know why.

9:53 - Obama blew the Iraq argument a little. he was all over the place and not finishing his sentences and sounding unsure of himself. Even now talking about Afganistan he's not hammering his points home. He needs to say that he actually wants to win. It's OK to explain it all but you also have to sound like you want to win - McCain will always appeal to the RAH-RAH element and I think Obama just has to try to connect with them a little.

9:45 - Obama's attacking directly now. How will McCain respond.

9:41 - I think this might be a better way to do it.
I don't know how Obama can lose on the Iraq argument.

9:35 - "We gotta know what our values are," that was a brilliant, focused answer to the question Obama gave to where to start when you're figuring out how to spend money in an economy post-bailout.

And Obama just nailed McCain to a Bush tree on spending. McCain says Miss Congeniality again and claims maverick status.

Obama's winning now...

9:27 - Obama's answer to what the effect the bailout will have on his presidency is excellent. A bunch of concrete things that people will understand he's saying are the things we're going to have to do if there are some things we can't do.

McCain's going on about getting spending under control which is somewhat disingenuous when we're spending what we're spending on the Iraq war - and actually talking about how vital defense spending is...

9:23 - I think they're both remarkably good debaters but very very different debaters. I think in the end this debate won't change anyone's mind. Obama is coming off as smart and agile but studious. McCain, smart quick on his feet but more folksy.

9:13 - They're both taking credit for warning us about the coming crises. Obama says he wrote a letter which PROVES it - he's such a lawyer...

McCain get a WWII reference in. But he has morphed it nicely into a statement about accountability that I think will connect with people.

Obama is sounding studious. He know what he's talking about but McCain so far is winning on the regular guy front. He just got off a nice quip at Lehrer for weirdly trying to get Obama to talk to McCain ala Marriage Counseling.

9:06 - Obama was OK in his opening. He looks and is speaking hard...forcefully but hard somehow.

McCain is thinking of Kennedy - that was weird...he hasn't been feeling great lately but he's feeling better...

9:00 - Cindy's hair looks fabulous!

8:55 - C-Span 2 is showing Jim Lehrer addressing the crowd - this is much better than CNN.

8:54 - Wolf just asked Bill Bennett how excited he was - WHO CARES!!!!!!

In honor of my many, many readers. I know you all want to know what I'm thinking as the debate progresses. So I'm there for you. Here for you...

Hanging Out Shirts in the Dirty Breeze

"In my little town
I grew up believing
God keeps his eye on us all
And he used to lean upon me
As I pledged allegiance to the wall
Lord I recall
My little town"
- My Little Town - Paul Simon

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Another Day in Das Kapital

It's finally raining here in the big town - that combined with the Secret Service/NYPD lockdown brought on by the Clinton Global Initiative headquartered across the street and some UN rigamarole going on on the east side (along with Sarah Palin and Katie Couric checking out the midtown tunnel) is making it all feel like some scene out of Blade Runner. And I keep waiting for something to blow up.

Zardoz responded to Jeffrey Simmons at the post a comment section below - maybe go check it out. Jaime Piscitelli responded on Facebook (thus giving Zardoz something to do today besides downloading last night's episode of Grey's Anatomy on iTunes):

"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."I miss Saul Bellow. Even though towards the end he sort of looked like the creepy old guy from Poltergeist II.The fact is that if John McCain were to come out tomorrow with a plan to end America's dependence on oil by drilling for it in the foreheads of every grandmother in the country; or if Sara Palin were to announce an initiative to scrap sex education in favor of gunsmithing/quiet reflection time...the people of whom you speak would still vote Republican. They may even be aroused.You see, people need their totems. And for people who seemingly need to cling to the dying, if not dead, 1950's/80's conception of America as infallible (middle class, and white) bulwark against the Communist/Asiatic Hordes...John McCain is their "wooby". The reality that the policies he's proposing (and the type of governance he stands for) will largely continue the stunning pace of America's decline doesn't really enter into it. After all, a fetus is divine until it grows up and robs a liquor store...then the state can abort it by lethal injection and bury it in a potters field. There's a healthy ethos.But hey, 8 years later, with bin Laden still living in Pakistan somewhere, I'm just glad we're all Georgians...because lord knows that's important.And regardless of what Keith Obermann says, I'm confident that Palin can, in fact, find Georgia on a map.I'm just equally confident that her finger would rest squarely on an area above Florida.It has nothing to do with intelligence. It has nothing to do with facts, trends, or likelihoods. It's apparently (to me, at least) about some people's belief in one America over another, and in that regard John McCain is as much a symbol to those people as that bronze age hippie nailed to a cross is...well...to many of the same people.Of course, the bronze age hippie, alive today and un-punctured would probably vote for Obama.

Good Lord...Avert Your Eyes!!!

That Katie...she's like a bulldog...oh, wait that's a really pedestrian simile. Let's just say she seems like an intelligent, informed, curious journalist.

The Incomparable Jeffrey Scott Simmons

My Facebook (and hopefully real-life) friend Jeff Simmons has posted a challenge on Facebook that I think deserves publishing and one I will sign onto along side Jeff. I pledge my vote too:

Lately I’ve been making what I think is a fair and interesting proposal to some of my conservative friends. So far I have no takers. I describe it to you now to see if you have any thoughts about it and in case you’d like to make a similar
offer to conservative acquaintances of your own:“If you voted for Bush in the last two elections and intend to vote for McCain in this one, I have a serious proposition for you. Let me describe it in well-intended, yet frank terms. I promise I mean them quite sincerely and, while they may not all be pleasant to hear, I ask that you please try to take them in the inoffensive spirit they are intended. This is a proposal in two parts.“The first part is a request. If you did vote for Bush in the last two elections, own up to the fact you voted for the wrong guy. I am not trying to get you to change your mind on any of the issues that are important to you. I have been debating with you and other conservatives this entire campaign season till I am red and you are blue in the face, and neither of us want to be that way. I am seldom successful in convincing intelligent conservatives their take on any given policy is wrong and none have been able to get me to yield on any of my progressive ideals and positions. And I acknowledge that, when you voted for Bush, you were not intentionally, or even knowingly, voting for a bad president. I respect you enough to agree you had your own and then nation’s best interest at heart when you went to the polls, much though I may disagree with your perspective on those things.“Despite all that, after eight years, the nation and the world are more dangerous and not as well off as they were before Bush took office. He must be held accountable for this. (Or else why does it even matter who we elect president?) Hence, he has been a bad president, the wrong guy for the job. If you voted for him in 2000 and then, after those first four years, you did so again, you made two honest mistakes. I do not mean this as some sort of terrible accusation. I make mistakes (often repeatedly) all the time. So it is in no way meant to imply there’s something wrong with you as a person. But there does seem to be something wrong with how you select who to vote for in presidential elections lately. “If you voted for Bush in the past, I understand why McCain appears to you to be the better candidate to vote for now. It’s only natural. I am not asking you to take a closer look at McCain, hoping that you will somehow miraculously slap your forehead and say, ‘Yeah. You’re right. Senator John S. McCain sucks and I just never saw it.’ However, I do ask that you calmly look at your own voting record. If you voted twice for Bush you are 0 for 2 in selecting good presidents in the twenty first century. Please don’t refuse to acknowledge this on the basis that it’s some kind of admission that you are a bad person. That is not my intent and I promise that is not how I see you.“But admitting that two votes for George W Bush were a repeated honest mistake is the premise for the second part of my proposal: the offer of a deal. Here’s the deal.“If you voted for Bush in the last two elections and, so far, intend to vote for McCain,
accept (as I say) that you’ve made a couple of mistakes in the past and admit that whatever criteria you use for choosing a candidate may well be leading you to make a third, similar mistake. Instead of doing that, take my deal and vote for Barack Obama this time around. If, after four years under President Obama, the situation in the nation and around the world is worse off than it is today, I promise in the next election I will vote for whoever you ask me to select. And I mean ANYBODY. Pat Robertson? Fine. Marion Barry? You got it. If you vote for Barack Obama this year and things are worse four years from now, I’ll vote for the Cat in the Hat, if you wish it.“I am convinced this is a fair deal. While you do have to follow through on your end four years before I must fulfill mine, this does not mean you would somehow be ante-ing up everything with no risk to me. It is a ‘gentleman’s agreement’, the only risk to either of us is that the other might secretly renege once inside the voting booth. You may say you also risk four bad years if Obama wins and turns out to be a bad president. But, to be fair, I have endured eight bad years of bad president Bush thanks, in part, to your well-intentioned bad voting. I believe my asking you to take the slim chance that things will be worse for half as long is not only fair, but kind of gracious. And who knows? You could lose miserably and we’ll find ourselves living in a happier, healthier world. I give you my additional word: I will not rub it in.“Let’s please do this. I’m happy to hear any counter-offer you might make, but I hope you see that this is pretty reasonable and honestly proffered
in a spirit of friendly invitation. It will definitely make things interesting till 2012.”So, that’s what I’ve offered to three conservative friends so far. Still no takers. All three have laughed and said I’m crazy in one way or another. When I ask why they won’t do it, they resort to their reasons FOR voting for McCain, which I had hoped to indicate wasn’t the issue. And none of them have come to me with an alternative deal. I think they think I am joking, which is a shame, because I am not.Anyway, I’d love to hear what any of you have to say and, especially, if any of you manage to get one of your own potential McCain voters to buy in. I don’t hold out much hope for winning this season. But I thought it couldn’t hurt to help at least one person avoid making a bad mistake for a third time.

I'm Ready

After the game, Derek Jeter gathered the team on the mound and gave what he says now was an off-the-cuff address directly to the crowd about Yankee fans being the “greatest in the world” and how we were the keepers of memories and how he was relying on us to carry those memories across the street to the new stadium where they would be joined with the new memories – presumably the 27the world championship for the team (we’ll see, now that the Yankees have been officially eliminated from playoff contention for the 2008 season by their arch-rival Red Sox winning last night.)

I thought the speech was very good. I was impressed also with his delivery, although it’s hard to imagine Jeter not being poised under pressure. And I think I officially became a real Jeter fan (actually maybe even a few days ago when I read the SI piece about the stadium closing and about how Jeter had told W. after Sept. 11th to make sure he didn’t bounce the ball when he threw out the first pitch because “they’ll boo you.” It takes a lot of chutspah to tell the leader of the free world 'you better not suck'.)

And but so, the thing that struck me, laying there in the dark, not being able to sleep after the night at the game, how beloved Jeter is. People LOVE him. Yankee fans love him anyway, and most Yankee fans I know would like to think that baseball fans in general love Jeter but I think those people would say he was overrated. Nevertheless, the average Yankee fan loves him, adores him, and would stand weak-kneed and voice-atremble if they had the good fortune of actually meeting him. But these are, in many cases, the same people that make Obama’s road to the White House that much more arduous, needing, as it has been reported recently, something like a 5-10% point lead over McCain in the national polls to overcome the unspoken reluctance on the part of those being polled to have a black man as president.

So I thought about how similar Jeter and Obama are in many respects. Well, in some important respects; both children of white mothers and black fathers, both talented but also extremely driven to succeed (i.e. successful because they WORKED for it) and both poised and controlled to the point of being considered ‘cold’ at times. But the comparison is what it is; what I was thinking about, obviously, was the racial aspect.

If asked, I believe, the average Yankee fan would actually honestly be able to say that they have never even thought about Jeter’s race; that they aren’t sure whether they think he’s white or black. That is, it doesn’t even enter their thought process and it’s irrelevant to the question of whether he’s worthy of their admiration, as it should be. The question then remains: why does Obama’s race matter? I think most Americans take sports more seriously than politics, so why does Obama’s race matter and Jeter’s does not?

Is it because the presidency, unlike baseball, hasn’t been integrated yet? Can it actually be the simple fact that it matters because it just hasn’t happened before? Or is it just that the bigotry is always there and, ugly as it is, people instinctively and sub-consciously, don’t want to taint their beloved baseball with the smell of it, but don’t mind making it an issue in the presidential election, a “sport” they care less about and hold, comparatively, less-closely to their collective heart?

I sense that I’m being naïve, but intellectually there seems to be a disconnect that warrants “discussion.” There’s a cutesy argument I use sometimes that inspires a loss for words when I use it (I think because race is still such a taboo in our culture) but isn’t Obama just as white as he is black? Isn’t Jeter? Does it matter? From here all the questions will be rhetorical:

Is Jeter “blacker” than Obama because he actually HAD a black person in his life, raising him and contributing to the person he is whereas Obama ‘only’ had his white mother?

Would Jeter have been perceived as more black now had he been raised, as his own father was, the son of a single mother in Montgomery, Alabama as opposed to the son of two parents in a “whiter” Michigan suburb?

Is it actually skin color (or in this case tone) that makes the difference and are we therefore judging people by the most superficial measure there is?

Are the questions getting ridiculously offensive (or offensively ridiculous) yet?

Who’s whiter (or blacker), the kid from Harlem who’s in love with Mozart’s operas or the Jewish kid from Long Island who knows every 50 Cent lyric by heart?

The problem with these discussions is that the bigotry only really goes one way, despite Obama’s brilliant speech in which he had to hi-light both white-to-black prejudice as well as black-to-white. But isn’t it really only the white-to-black racism that results in economic discrimination, i.e. the only kind that really matters (calling someone a name is bad enough but what really matters is when you don’t pay him the same salary, or even give him the job to begin with, because of his race.)

Thus, the Jewish 50-Cent fan is still a white kid with interesting taste in music, but the black Mozart fan is, as Obama has often been criticized, not “black enough.”

So our only hope, (that hope which is in the soul of our nation and in no other way more about who we are as Americans) after all is to follow the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and others, and make “content of character” the yardstick. That’s really what we like about Jeter anyway; he’s a decent person, who governs himself and his behavior and has a very high standard for his own life, inspiring us, through his actions, to do the same. And Mr. Obama, who doesn’t have the luxury of leading quietly by example (you can’t be quiet and run for president), is the picture of republican responsibility, of religious virtue (no matter what you think his religion is) – a man who grew up in a middle-class family and who, through his mother’s drive to succeed, made the most of his life; went to school, educated himself, married, had kids and just happens to be running for president. Don’t we like all those things? Do we really want to be a nation that rejects everything we love in people because we can’t get over the brown skin?

It should be noted that Jeter has never made any reference to his race whereas Obama clearly identifies himself as black. But Jeter never comments on anything but the game and Obama, again, does not have that luxury.

All that Jeter is to the Yankees, the true leader of the team, widely acknowledged as the lesser player (to A-Rod and others) but the greater man, arguably one of the principal reasons the Yankees have won as much as they have in their recent history, and really the first person of color to join the elite pantheon of Yankee heroes (not a lot black men with retired numbers out there in monument park – Jeter is really the heir to an all-white throne: Ruth/Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Munson, Mattingly, Jeter), what if Derek Jeter wanted to play for the Yankees but we told him, sorry, you can only play in Triple-A – we’re just not “ready” for a black Yankee. Up until 53 years ago this would be the case (the Yankees, sadly, embarrassingly, nauseatingly took 7 years after Jackie Robinson to field a non-white player). Still that’s a long time to have passed to still be having this debate. What if we said Jeter can’t play but Sarah Palin can be our back-up first baseman, just in case something happens to Wally Pipp. She played some softball in college and she looks H-O-T in pinstripes, she should be able to figure out how to catch the ball, if it comes to that. But Jeter? Sorry, can’t help you. We’re not ready.

Anthems

So my slightly inebriated seat mate and I sang the National Anthem (aka the Star Spangled Banner) together, chuckling occasionally at our inability to hit some of the high notes, caps in hand over our hearts. The fans generally were respectful but moderately impatient for the game to begin.

Cut to: Ronan Tynan, the Irish fecking Tenor, trotting out to home plate in the 7th to sing the song I'm assuming was just elevated through act of Congress to anthem status - God Bless America? You would have thought Kate Smith herself had just died what with the reverence and drama the stadium crowd brought to their collective, full-throated choral performance of this song urging the good fortune of the almighty on the richest, more privileged nation the world has EVER seen. Tears were streaming...flags aflutter...Wixted stood astew.

The Old Grey Mare

So before it gets too late in the game so to speak I wanted to circle back to the final game at Yankee Stadium.

I spent a few hours walking around the stadium taking pictures and eating waiting for the Farber boys to arrive. There was palpable excitement but it was more like a party. Oddly, the typical stadium-area no-nonsense edge was missing. People were generally happy to be there – a lot of different shirts, people representing their favorites; I was wearing my Bernie shirt in honor of his return.

The ceremony ended up being long, especially because of the parade of Yankee stars, all inspiring and deserving our adulation. Clapping and standing got tiring after awhile. I loved seeing O’Neill again, and Bernie and Cone. Yogi looked great. I missed seeing Mattingly and Torre and Piniella, the latter two play-off bound unlike (maybe) us (oh, and A-Rod was booed, slightly – I guess .300, 35 HR’s and 100+ RBI isn’t good enough.) Babe Ruth’s ancient daughter took a giant step to avoid treading on the first-base foul line on her way to the mound to throw out the first pitch, the baseball tradition evidently coursing through her old blood. All in all, it was a fitting tribute to most of the players who have “graced” that sacred field over the years, but in a way not sufficiently venerating the PLACE itself.

Perhaps that was up to the fans. The sold-out crowd cheered through the ceremony and the game that followed and I witnessed no looting nor rude or rowdy behavior of any kind. It was just one last fun night at the game. The stadium has wonderful memories for me and my familiarity with the place made it always a comfortable and fun place to be. But she has grown old and I felt a little like she was shoo’ing us away; saying that she had done her duty and it was time for her to go. A little dramatic I admit but I think I’m feeling less sentimental than most about the old stadium going under the wrecking ball. I think generally her time has come. I felt terribly sad leaving but a chapter was closing and it was time for it to end.

After the game the players and their families gathered on the field to take pictures and grab souvenir shovels of mound dirt under the overwhelming (and on horseback) protection of the NYPD, keeping the scumbag fans that (over)pay ALL the bills at a safe distance (THANK GOD – we’re all so gross, with our smelly store-bought Yankee gear stained with $4.50-worth of French’s mustard and $8 beer.) Clearly I found it a little galling and slightly disrespectful, little Jason Giambi Jr. and his brother rolling around in a rumble on the infield while Mom and Dad got snapshots of each other and all their rich friends. Again, a little dramatic but we were all eventually asked to leave so I’m not sure how long the country club party went on without us.

New Link

Not sure what Shakesville is all about but I like it! This was the means of my linking to Maureen via a guy who has a West Wing clip of the day. My first blush opinion in a nutshell is that I like any blog with a writer who goes by the sobriquet (had to make sure to spell-check that one) "PortlyDyke".

I Don't Wanna Talk About It

I didn't even want to post anything because of the fatigue of being at THE STADIUM all night and feeling bitter and sh*t because it's over and...well, I'll write more about it later...maybe. I should, since this blog is really all about me and all you people (3) that read it should stop because it's really just all about me...

By the way to Zardoz and Mrs. Zardoz respectively: why would Oriole fans (or the Sox fans and Cubs fans I saw want to come to just sit there and sulk) and Section 5, Row K, Seat 8 - NICE!

Apparently Maureen Dowd did a whole West Wing thing that I missed but it's here and it's AWWWWWWWE-SOOOOOOME (that was Jon Stewart's enraptured, near-orgasm voice in case you were wondering.) Money quote (as Andrew Sullivan would say [did you catch him on Real Time? - he was AWWWWWWWE...oh, you get the idea]):

Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.

Goodbye

"You know you can't hold me forever
I didn't sign up with you
I'm not a present for your friends to open
This boy's too young to be singing the blues..."

I will be on-hand tonight for the last game at Yankee Stadium, saying goodbye to this place of history for the Yankees but of wonderful memory for me. Coming here with my Dad - just the two of us (not sure how that happened what with the other four kids) - learning everything about the game, scalping tickets with Dave Farber, and lately coming here with my own girls, my loves; I don't know how they're going to get us all out of this place for the last time tonight. I don't know how we're supposed to just leave her behind.

Rangel, Bernhard & Allen

Why can't they shut....the f**k...up!!!!

Sarah the Cartoon

"Zardoz" (what's the name origin dude? I don't want to make some Superman II reference but I'm tempted...although, I'm sure you would agree Zardoz that I lack the wit) anyway, "Zardoz" commented on the Sarah Palin cartoon below and makes a good point - essentially that it's not funny. I agree in retrospect. And that it's essentially inaccurate and, I think, I also agree there too. So I retract the posting. Actually, I don't mind the post - I retract my comment that the cartoon is more scary than funny. I don't think she's necessarily attacking women's rights. I think she's just incompetent and overly-ambitious.

Zardoz, God bless him, also links to an excellent Camille Paglia piece at Salon that's worth the read to be sure - thanks for the heads-up. And he also goes a step further and endorses her as a reasonable voice of feminism which of course she is. But I disagree with his assertion that the only other possible "type" of voice in the world of feminism is best typified by that offered at Jezebel.com - they do sound a bit shrill; maybe they're genuinely angry - who am I to say? I know, though, that there are women (my mother included-don't go there Zardoz, just don't) who are perturbed at what they perceive to be McCain's pandering for the women's vote. Oddly what he actually seems to be getting more of is the white male vote (i.e. the porn-surfing, Mommy-fantasy-having white male vote). OK - don't get mad at me again Zardoz - don't melt my car with your laser beam eyes (see, I'm totally witless).

Anyway, again, the real criticism of Palin is that she's not qualified. And every critic of Obama who maintains that HE lacks experience HAS to be honest that this same charge can and must be leveled at Palin. If they're being honest. That being said, she's "only" the VP nominee and despite the desire on the part of some democrats to twist the 72-year-old-heartbeat-away-from the Oval Offfice argument into an indictment of the whole ticket, it's really McCain vs. Obama. Not Obama vs. Palin. Perhaps Obama is less experienced albeit arguably McCain's intellectual superior. But I question McCain's judgement putting Palin on the ticket. I think ultimately it will be a hollow political choice on his part and that she will be seen as an empty suit. I think he made a really bad decision on one of the biggest decisions he had for his campaign. Obama on the other hand beat Bill and Hillary and their $250 mil., despite the fact that he's an inexperienced black, Muslim, racist, anti-American community-organizing communist. How did he do it? He talks pretty? Really, that's it?

Or maybe what he's saying makes sense to some people - people with votes...and with money.

Oh, and Zardoz, I'm not sure I'm up for a wade into the abortion stream. Yes, I'm catholic. I'm anti-abortion but pro-choice. Legal, safe and rare. I would never have one but then again I don't have a uterus so it probably won't come up. But I would discourage the option to anyone I met who was considering an abortion. I would offer to adopt their baby if it came to that. But I would respect their choice, as I kinda sense you would. I'm also catholic enough to loathe, right along with the Pope, the death penalty, all war and all torture.

Dixie

Lost MadTV classic character: Dixie Wexworth

Debates

In case you're wondering and want to mark your calendars ahead of time, this is the schedule of presidential and vice-presidential debates over the next month and a half courtesy of Youdecide2008.com:

September 26, 2008: Presidential debate with foreign policy focus, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS

October 2, 2008: Vice Presidential debate, Washington University, St. Louis, MO

October 7, 2008: Presidential debate in a town hall format, Belmont University, Nashville, TN

October 15, 2008: Presidential debate with domestic policy focus, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY

Each debate will begin at 9pm eastern, 6pm pacific time and last for 90 minutes.

Really? Seriously?

This is one of those stories that we've gotten used to seeming normal that I'm starting to think our collective horseshit detector has gone a little screwy:

If this election were about which candidate people wanted as their child's schoolteacher, Barack Obama would be moving to the head of the class. They'd also rather watch a football game with him, but only by inches.

Are you kidding me? Isn't "who would you rather have as your child's president" really the only relevant question? Because, despite the premise of the piece, this election is not, nor will it ever be, about which candidate people want as their child's schoolteacher. IT REALLY, REALLY ISN'T!!!

Let's Get Back to Work

Obama is always so great in how he handles protesters. He doesn't lose his cool and he even seems to give them their say.

But after these protesters file out of the auditorium he says to the crowd: "Settle down everybody, lets get back to work." And I think this is what REALLY scares the Republicans about him. No matter what you say about him you can never say he isn't serious. And not like the John Kerry kind of serious where you think "God this guy is so friggin' boring!" But more like the one person in your group of friends that is always watching the clock and knows when it's time to go home because we all have to get up early and go to work. You know, not like a kill-joy as much as the one you know is always right - like there's no arguing with him, you just have to do what he says.

So when he says, "Let's get back to work," you think first "Do we have to?" But then "OK, I guess Barack's right. Let's get back to work." Dammit!

Homecoming at the Electoral College

The political number-crunching website FiveThirtyEight.com is now saying that Obama has regained the lead in the election in an analysis accumulating state-by-state polls and running probability models. I still don't understand why the media dwells on nationwide polling numbers which usually indicate a real horse-race with McCain and Obama trading a narrow lead over the other but always with a generous margin of error. Ultimately, all that matters is who gets the most "points" in the electoral college-it's sooooooo cool!!!! A format just MADE for our sports-obsessed country. They should have brackets and office pools; maybe people would be more interested. I swear that the average Joe is still debating whether Obama is a Muslim: "You know what? I just don't trust him. He's says he's christian but with a name like Barack Obama? Come on! He'll say anything to get elected."

What if he actually is a Muslim? What do you think is going to happen? He's going to hand the keys to the country over to Osama Bin Laden? (oh yeah, by the way? OBL is still alive - it's 9/11 + 7 years and the f**ker is still kicking - weren't we going to get his ass?)

"Here you go Osama - the keys to the country. Paint's a little faded but she runs like a dream."

"Why thanks Obama. First thing I'm gonna do is make everyone Muslim. OK? All you Christians and Jews...y'all are Muslims now - HAH-HAH!!"

Damn you Osama bin Laden. You tricked us with your stooge Barack Hussein Obama - we're all Muslims now!! We have to buy all new clothes. Wait, I still have to go to work? Shit. I'm Muslim and I still have to go to work? Boy I wish John McCain was president. And Sarah Palin doesn't look half as good in a burqa.

It Might Be Funny If It Was Less True

Get In Their Face

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Obama had a message for his supporters at a rally in Elko, a Nevada mining town:

I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face.

Sounds like a great idea. I love a good argument.

Let's Hear It for the Hippies & Yippies

Everybody's talking and no one says a word
Everybody's making love and no one really cares
There's nazis in the bathroom just below the stairs
Always something happening and nothing going on
There's always something cooking and nothing in the pot
They're starving back in China so finish what you got
Nobody told me there'd be days like these...

The Wages of Virtue

So John Andrew sent me this piece about Fannie and Freddie – Mae & Mac respectively, taking democrats like Barney Frank, the “ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee” to task, for their part in the bailout of these (now) federal mortgage institutions in the context of a week and even quarter of bailouts and sell-offs of all shapes and sizes in our current economic crisis. And I’m totally with him. Barney Frank is a loudmouth – a loudmouth I love most of the time because I find he often makes sense – but he IS a loudmouth, know-it-all and inasmuch as this particular crisis is happening on his watch he should bear some culpability. Yes.

What’s bugging me about this current crisis we’re going through is the way the middle class is again being squeezed. We are bearing the brunt of the cost of all these bailouts – any federal expenditure is coming out of our pocket, just as the enormous cost of the Iraq war is “owned” by us. And to get less abstract about it, what bothers me is that I pay my taxes and I pay my mortgage month after month and am generally a responsible citizen—where’s my bailout?

I just had to fill out a short bio at work and for the question “How long have you worked in a finance related job” I answered 19 years. That’s a long time already to have been contributing to the economy and to social security as a tax payer. I generally don’t draw from the federal rolls yet. I use the roads and the post office, yes, but I’ve never collected unemployment or any social security benefit. I’ve never been bailed out nor have I collected on any federal disaster relief. But I DO understand that I’m lucky. I’ve had a job for those 19 years – and most of the time a well-paying job. Some people haven’t been so lucky. And other than a short stint in LA when I survived the ’94 Northridge earthquake, and the brush fires and the Rodney King riot, I haven’t really been on-hand for any significant natural or unnatural disaster. It gets cold sometimes here in NY but that’s it. Oh, and I was in Manhattan on 9/11 but like many people that day I experienced it more as a lovely pre-autumn day and not the horror visited upon so many of my city-mates – again, lucky for me.

So, the mortgage crisis stems from the fact that too many people made bad loans with obviously favorable interest rates being offered by irresponsible banks not caring that they were signing people up for an easy over-extension of their financial viability. The same people, more often than not, are, or were, already living beyond their means with bloated credit card debt. And society IS to blame partly, to be sure, that is, our “culture” of greed and of feel-good, have-it-all-now over indulgence; the desire to be more like Lindsey Lohan than {INSERT UNKNOWN CLOISTERED INTELLECTUAL [UNKNOWN BECAUSE HE/SHE NEVER SHOWS UP ON THE COVER OF ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY FOR HIS/HER PAPER ON THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING ON THE LOBSTER-FISHING INDUSTRY IN RURAL MAINE] HERE}, said desire stemming as it does from the unrelenting advertisement and thematic focus of our entertainment/news/publishing/world-wide-web industr(ies) on the “good life” and on the easy self-congratulation for an essentially effortless sensitivity to the right way of thinking – a sensitivity requiring nothing in the way of actual/real-world physical, economic or even emotional commitment beyond the occasional placing, for example, of one’s used plastic bottle in the recycling receptacle, conveniently-located, as always, necessitating little more than the synaptic impulse to turn off the death-grip on the sugar/caffeine rush promised, sub-consciously at this point by the bottles contents, and to open one’s fingers to drop and release.

Poe said: “The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.”

So anyway, it annoys me that I don’t default on my loans and I pay my taxes but those who don’t are allowed to get away with it. And the banks that enable these people are given a walk and not required to adequately secure the homes their clients defaulted on and to prevent their swimming pools (the houses’) from becoming breeding grounds for west-Nile-virus infected mosquitoes nor from becoming (the houses "themsevles") crack dens/whorehouses, and destroying their neighborhoods. And the politicians, D & R alike, who create the legal environment, through a desire to satisfy their most-generous constituents, that fosters and nurtures all this negative behavior and how they then pontificate in holier-than-thou press conferences while not even bothering anymore to pitch their simultaneous pandering sotto voce. And we who allow them all to get away with it through our cynicism and our self-imposed helplessness.

“All politics is local,” Tip O’Neill said to me via Dave Wixted. Thus the father reads to elementary school students in a classroom he almost relentlessly fundraises for. (Unfortunately, unlike the sins of the father which seem to magnify on the son [I speak not AT ALL, make no mistake, of the other sons nor of the daughters, nor any of the sons/daughters-in -law], all his virtues seem to wither on the olive branch until all the son can manage is a defiant glare at the Mercedes parked directly over the words “No Parking” spray-painted into the pavement in front of the Ossining Carvel, not realizing how completely the glare’s purpose is emasculated by the deposit of not-so-hot “fudge” on his shirt.) Maybe we change the world by not defaulting on our loans. By shuffling off to the job we’re lucky to have and fiddle while Rome burns hoping some of the bow-moving/arm-flapping will squelch the flames and save part of the city. All I insist on is that if we’re going to fiddle can we at least play Mozart and not Charlie Daniels?

Seema

Seema Boesky writes for a free Westchester monthly called the Westchester Wag - the very name makes me want to go Michael-Douglas-in-Falling-Down on the Donald Trump Golf Course. Anyway, Seema's the ex-wife of Ivan Boesky and fabulously wealthy via divorce settlement and writes this nutty column about her life--Seema Says....HAHA!!!!

This is the most recent column: CLICK ME

But not the one that I wanted to write about. When I figure out how to link it here I will write about it then. For now I will enjoy the karma of DFW, Father Mychal and Seema-baby on this one page. I rock!!!

UPDATE: TEETH MAESTRO already did the story. My picture's better though. So I don't rock.

Doing It Justice...

"Redtown" responded to my Father Mychal post with a extremely well-stated point about saints and their existence in our daily lives:

We must get over the idea that saints are icons of perfection. Every single saint was a sinner, including Mychal Judge. Their holiness lies in the fact that they allowed God into their very human and wounded lives, not that they were perfect people.Mychal Judge is indeed a saint, and like all saints, he should be imitated more than venerated.

I already knew I wasn't stating it correctly so fortunately you can check out the website for the definitive story. Thanks.

Poetry Corner

I am inexplicably reminded of a poem from when I was a kid; a haiku if you must know. I think I'm feeling bad that winter is coming and the baseball season is ending:

Forsythia blooms
And little winds of springtime
Ring the golden bells

Isn't that sweet?

Maybe One More Thing

To begin, I think I write here as if there is an audience which I'm pretty sure there isn't. Maybe someone every now and then will wander into the room and listen to me talk to myself but probably not all that often. I think therefore that I will dispense with this voice that sounds like I'm speaking publicly and write more in keeping with the bloggy spirit - i.e. for me.

That being said, I wanted to make sure I recorded here my complete DFW thoughts and explain to myself what's going on.

There's a picture below of DFW that while I know it doesn't completely look like me there are some VERY familiar things about how he's dressed and his hair and glasses. I'm identifying with him superficially. And I think that's why there's the Fr. Judge piece below. This confluence of events for me - the anniversary of 9/11 which is hard (not because I lost anyone but more because we ALL did and I think sometimes the average Joe doesn't take the day seriously enough and then there's the whole republican thing blah blah blah) and then the death of DFW. (I use DFW because that's what I call him when I talk or think about him - which is less familiar than the "Dave Wallace" that he apparently preferred [because I didn't know him] and less formal than "David Foster Wallace" which is his "stage" name).

The connection is this: the most stirring image from 9/11 for me is the "my-age-dressed-like-me-at-work" man falling from the upper floors down, head-first. This image meant for me that it could have been any of us and in that way it WAS all of us. That poor guy just had to do all the hard "work" of that identification and I will therefore forever honor his memory, whoever he was. Then there's DFW - I could never be a writer like him but his writing was joyful to me. I don't know if he took joy in doing it I only know that when I read his words they absolutely delight me. He's funny and brilliant and has such a great heart - at least that's what I see in his writing. Most importantly he makes me want to write. And to write better. To know that he was so tortured by his own BIG BRAIN - that his thoughts plagued him, that he found the racing energy of his own mind a thing so difficult to handle that he had to choke off the air and oxygen to it to make it stop. That scares the crap out of me. He wrote about 9/11. He wrote about the choice of the people who jumped - how frightening it was to him to realize how horrible it was that falling from 90 stories seemed like the better choice.
Anyway, I won't plague you anymore Johnny with the thoughts of your own brain. Let this be a lesson to us all.

DFW cont'd (apologies)

This is a nice piece from a librarian acquainted with DFW. Leave it to the damnable librarians...The best writings I think after his death have been like this; stories by people who had encountered him all of whom found him to be at least a nice person:

(H)e wanted the best for all of us. He had an unstoppable brain that could do anything it wanted and yet at the same time reminded him constantly just how much his brain couldn’t save him from. I’m sad to see him go.

Me too.

Saint Us

I heard an interview with the author of a book on Father Mychal Judge, WTC victim 0001, the chaplain of the FDNY describing his life and death from the perspective of someone who knew him well. The description was of a wonderfully down-to-earth priest who would've bristled at the desires of "followers" to have him canonized. Michael Daly the book's author described Father Judge as someone who sought the saint in everyone - that we are all flawed but there is good in all of us.

He recalled a conversation with Rudy Guiliani in which the mayor asked Fr. Judge to pray for him to which he joked in response "He hears from me all the time; I think he'd like to hear from a real sinner for a change."

But the other nice point he raised about the priest while discussing a ceremony he attended to scatter the ashes of a jewish acquaintence (the ceremony took place on 9/11/98-Daly went back through Fr. Judge's appointment book to find things he did on 9/11's prior). He said that Father Judge's theory was that God communicated with you however you imagined him communicating with you. Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist...

I'm really not doing it justice but it's clear that Father Mike was a unique and wonderful person and it came through the stories that Daly told. I think it's worth reading.

I Vote for a Repeal of the 1st Amendment

Must watch Monday Night Football performance of the National Anthem by Kat DeLuna.

BLUE MONDAY

It feels like a David Foster Wallace kind of day, doesn't it? There's a pre-apocalyptic series of financial services industry company failings. Can the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment be far off? The Pope is declaring the power of love in France at Lourdes...you know with the funny hat and all...aftermaths of train crashes, hurricanes and ridiculous accusations in the most expensive and lengthy presidential election in history.
Maybe Sarah Palin is right. Maybe these are the end times.

Time Magazine has a nice piece about his journalism with some links to some of it which, if you haven't read him before, is a great way to discover his ability to simultaneuosly use "big words" and yet connect via his conversational style, and, if you have read him before, is a nice way to revisit the joy that is DFW.

The internet and blogosphere are still reacting. The NY Times published a esoteric "appraisal" of Wallace which seemed a little premature. I'm interested in seeing what reaction, if any, there will be from the so-called popular culture. He was a unique and influential writer. His style appears in tiny forms throughout modern writing and even in journalism and TV. If you know his writing you'll be able to see it but I'm afraid that his death will go largely unnoticed.
The Huffington Post has a nice remembrance from John Seery for anyone who is interested.

D.F.W.
This seems appropriate - at least for me given that I just decided to start blogging again...DFW is dead. He hanged himself. An intense reality that if you know his writing is very much in keeping with the world he created in his books. This is a nasty, nasty thing. A terrible loss to the literary world. A singular voice - completely unique.

Thinking about coming back to the blogging but really doing it this time. I've spent too much time bullshitting on facebook and I think I just need my own forum. So I don't know how to get back into it other than just doing it so I'm going to just do it.