tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78202382024-03-14T01:43:34.069-07:00gonzography"When the going get's weird, the weird turn professional." HSTdr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.comBlogger140125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-15712772820194567892008-09-03T22:55:00.000-07:002008-09-04T00:06:16.902-07:00Mc Same<img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKuoJ8Ye5oJk2bm9Huvz8o_d5Ckv7kmzLPbU1bxIAFpXlygG9n4oU3vUcibbFIxBmpxolssFn4Vvba1Nc3juGKVseR7ZgIMn36u6Df4ovolc7cxHk3QhLFSll33gJeSuQ1eGvnpQ/s400/brothers.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5242041341412921474" border="0" width="405" height="602" />dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1242653942771288842007-07-19T15:22:00.001-07:002007-07-19T18:31:41.923-07:00This Obama You Speak Of, Can He Run With The Bulls(hit)?<img style="margin: 0pt 5px 5px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://static.flickr.com/22/25268057_0ee73dce91_o.jpg" alt="" border="0" /><b>Trickie Dickie Redux ... Ho, ho, ho, Sparky, these fuckers are so dumb they play naked poker with prostitutes at the Watergate Hotel ... Oh, the humanity! ... Start your engines, Democrats, and don't say anything dumb ... Karl better be studying his E. Howard Hunt tapes before the Feds put him on the Magical Mystery tour and Fitzgerald orders the Grand Jury to paint his fence ... Presidential approval numbers have been setting the Way Back Machine to 1974, right about that time when Colson, facing arrest, had a life-changing brush with Jesus as a close friend tossed him a copy of C.S. Lewis' <i>Mere Christianity</i> ... Take a long look inside, Dubya himself will remove the "H" and "C" keys from every computer in the Big House.</b><br /><br />"Steps we're taking will help address the problem of availability, but it's not going to solve it. Americans should be prudent in their use of energy during the course of the next few weeks. Don't buy gas if you don't need it."<br />- Dubya proposes that Americans don't buy gas at $3-$4/gallon just because <i>he says so</i>, Washington, D.C., September 1, 2005<br /><br /><i>*** sound of crickets chirping ***</i><br />- Americans waiting for a solution, USA, July 19, 2007<br /><br />"[Dubya] is a humorless stump of a being and has been a career incompetent at anything he has ever touched and will go down in history as having committed more crimes and treasonous behavior in and around the White House than Richard Nixon would have been convicted had he not resigned first ... Trickie Dick was a genetically engineered miscarriage of a preznut and so is Dubya. They both have come to personify what H.L. Mencken once described as 'the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.'"<br />- Team Gonzography, <a href="http://syntallic.blogspot.com/2004/12/mea-culpas-at-sunset-of-american.html">Mea Culpas at the Sunset of the American Century</a>, December 30, 2004<br /><br />[speaking of an improvised scene] "Just before the take, he comes back to where we were all waiting and he says, 'Okay guys, this is what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna go bop bop bop ... whooooap, and then we'll all start dancing.' And I was like, 'okay,' and then he was gone, and then it was rolling, and then it was action, and then we were like, in the scene, and he did this thing, and we all, like, did it with him, and it was just... it was...amazing!"<br />- Lawrence Fishburne, Actor<br /><br />"One night, he and George Plimpton and I went to Madison Square Garden to see the fights. And, finally, we left the Garden and there were the three of us, him, Plimpton and I on 8th Avenue and 31st Street and all of the sudden we were surrounded by a tight, unbroken ring of young black men, and the three of us looked at each other and thought, 'well...what's this?' And they just stood there staring at us ... and then the leader of them stepped forward, put his belly against his, and said, 'Man, you are the coolest white man in America.' And, I said to him, 'That is the best compliment you will get as long as you live.'"<br />- James Lipton, Actor/Host of "The Actors Studio"<br /><br />"Some people got poetry in their blood and some don't. His is so difficult to track. It's hard to figure out whether it's angelic or satanic. But it is certainly poetic."<br />- Sean Penn, Actor<br /><br />"Hey fellas, I put my pants on one leg at a time like everybody. But once my pants are on, I make gold records."<br />- Upon my release from prison.<br /><br />"I remember that. I was talking to my attorney and I said how great it would be if he had a tail because I have animals and a tail is so expressive. On a cat you can tell everything. You can tell if they're annoyed. You can tell whether they're scared."<br />- Sizing up the DA, Superior Court Los Angeles Countydr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1128494477151776462006-05-09T03:34:00.000-07:002007-07-19T15:30:30.949-07:00Better Dumb Than Original<img alt="40_old_virgin" src="http://static.flickr.com/29/47365301_b3bcf15c50_o.jpg" height="593" width="400" /><br /><br />"Sucker" Carlson<br />MSNBC TV<br />30 Rockefeller Plaza<br />New York, NY<br /><br />Dearest Tucker:<br />This is to inform you that I have retraced steps on the offer to take the producer vacancy for your show and wish to have it voided immediately. After watching your network continue on its tedious downward spiral into abject insanity and religious fanaticism over these past few months I've decided that I could not, in good conscience, serve your network or show in any capacity. Nor would I feel a sense of personal security while representing any form of disinformation or thought terrorism inside our own borders.<br /><br />I refer specifically to your bizarre distrortions in particular, having compared <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200408040001">Democratic efforts to keep track of racial data to those practiced by Heinrich Himmler</a>, Nazi Germany's Gestapo head and SS chief, and insisting that <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200411230009">grouchy feminists with mustaches controlled the [Democratic] party</a> and that <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200407290003">nobody prevented anyone from voting in Florida</a> during the 2000 Presidential campaign. I am neither a grouchy feminist nor an advocate of organized demonstrations, but my sense or personal karma would be entirely rattled by the nightly spectacle of watching a tiny group of right wing fanatics howling at the calumniation machine whose selective amnesia over the facts and public policy which has already caused thousands of Americans to be killed for no good reason. On the day after John Kerry's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention you also stated that the Senator's plan was to have other "dark skinned foreigners from the Middle East [to] fight our war for us," which has left MSNBC in a position very much resembling the Gestapo's during the Spanish Civil War, serving up the free thinkers and contrarians to the right wing slaughterhouse known as pundit TV.<br /><br />As a lifelong progressive and fiscal conservative I cannot be dismissed as one of those tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists or an incompetent blue state minority-interest liberal freakshow peacenik. Nor am I totally ignorant of foreign affairs and military policy - nor have I been giving the Democratic party a free pass on their mistakes either, because most of them signed on for the Baghdad revival tour as well. In 1984 and 1985 I spent more time defending our country abroad in many, many late night arguments with elitist Europeans than I did earning a paycheck overseas. But since 2000, I would hate to be over there now, left with a cabal of outraged Euros to explain our delusions about God, Country and Iraqi colonization.<br /><br />It is indeed a fact that I actively supported Clinton in 1992 and John Kerry in 2004 - but in the case of Dubya's re-election I have been sadly disappointed by my fellow Americans. The categorical failures of the U.S. in the Middle East are not nearly so disturbing as the implications of our actions. Which country of dark-skinned heathens do we bomb next? Will Dubya invade Bangalore once there are no more call center jobs in Little Rock? Does the right wing want to put the entire Muslim world on another set of reservations? Can you seriously defend <em>any</em> Administration who gets its foreign policy advice from Dick Cheney and Condi Rice? Is it a fact, as I have read and heard, that even the staunchest conservatives are worried that the failure to ratify an Iraqi Constitution underscores Rumsfeld's intention to provoke Iran and Syria into another costly war - so that Dubya can crown himself Emperor with a Supreme Court packed with a fresh pair of cronies who regard <em>habius corpus</em> as nothing more than a minor inconvenience?<br /><br />If this is where we are going as a country, count me out. If these corporate lackeys in the White House really do intend to go into another country to defend us from "smoking guns" and "mushroom clouds" I have no intention of being an American any longer, regardless of the evidence that they might fabricate. Beyond that, I can only wish you a terribly short lifespan on MSNBC TV.<br /><br />In conclusion, it would be perfectly American to offer a solution - so I can't be labeled a frustrated leftist with no alternative to what I so deleriously oppose. Here it is - in a nutshell. We should get the hell out of Iraq and not apologize for this idiotic conflict to anyone. We really had no business being there in the first place and there are certainly more important things we can do with the US Treasury. We cannot possibly succeed with Democracy Iraqi-style, any more than Hitler could with the Eastern Front. And that money could be spent so much more wisely right here in the good old USA by getting us weaned off of the OPEC nipple stuffed so firmly down our throats.<br /><br />So, let's fold up the tents. Call it what you must and let's admit it quietly to ourselves that we cannot afford to spill any more dollars or blood. And stop trying to force feed the American public with all this hollow drivel about the need to democratize a region of the planet where <em>Baywatch</em> is considered pornography. Iraq is a destroyed country for another two generations and they are not going to bomb or invade us any time soon. Iran and North Korea, at last check, have the bomb and neither country has gone <em>Dr. Strangelove</em> on Los Angeles or Tel Aviv. And I really don't think that I have to explain why to you any further.<br /><br />At any rate, those are my simple ideas. You never asked for them - but then again I never asked for yours either on a nightly basis. If Kerry had been elected I believe he would have us on the way out of there by now, while conservatives like you have us knee-deep in the bullshit. So it's a GOP war, and I demand that your political friends and party bogeymen find a way to handle it without my help. The freaks that line the walls of the conservative movement are eating away at our once-proud way of life, much in the way that an unhealthy digestive tract packed with years of human waste needs a good flushing. We cannot claim victory in Iraq without eventually killing us all, and - unless you wake up and start acting like a rational human being instead of the batshit political fiend you play on TV - you and your kind will wake up some day in Gitmo, with a mob of outraged rednecks beating you with rubber hoses for a simple explanation and why you supported a moron with a bullhorn when he said Saddam Hussein had WMD.<br /><br />Your friends in Christ,<br />Team Gonzographydr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1127278235241062882005-09-20T21:41:00.000-07:002005-09-23T22:14:18.133-07:00Democracy Dies in America, But Few Seem to Really Care<img src="http://static.flickr.com/28/45224623_83f1d63d02_o.jpg" width="400" height="593" alt="0dubya" /><br /><br />"We want this city to re-emerge. As I said, I can't imagine America without a vibrant New Orleans. It's just a matter of timing. We're cautious about encouraging people to return <strong>at this moment of history</strong>."<br />- Has Dick Cheney already landed there and declared New Orleans a parking lot for Halliburton? Washington, D.C., September 19, 2005<br /><br />"Listen, I, I, I wanna to thank, uhh, leaders of the -- in the faith, and uhh -- faith-based and community-based community for being here, we've got people who represent thousands of volunteers who are in the midst of helping save lives.<br />- Not sure if we really need a definition for "community-based community", White House, September 6, 2005<br /><br />"Here's what I believe. I believe that the great city of New Orleans will rise again and be a greater city of New Orleans. I believe the town where I used to come -- from Houston, Texas, to enjoy myself, occasionally too much -- will be that very same town, that it will be a better place to come to."<br />- Dubya pledges to make New Orleans a frat boy party town once again, New Orleans, Louisiana, September 2, 2005<br /><br />"Well, I could be wrong, but I believe - uh - diversity is an old wooden ship that was used during the Civil War era."<br />- Ron Burgundy, <em>Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy</em><br /><br />Hector Straussman, my Paraguayan press agent, called me collect from Washington last night and told me that I was seriously wrong and mistaken about Our Child Preznut. "I know you won't believe this shit," he said, "but Dubya is a very different person than the way they make him out to be on television - and everything you've been saying about him is all wrong. I just figured that you oughta know ... "<br /><br />I reminded Hector that his grandparents were escaped Nazi's and told him I would call back after the Cowboys-Redskins tilt, which was suddenly getting interesting. I was getting three points, and Dallas had just missed a field goal ... Dubya could have been Jimmy the Greek at that moment: He was dead to me. The whole fallout from the FEMA chinese fire drill was like the sound of a dripping faucet in the darkness, even though ESPN was getting all Jerry Lewis-like with its telethon.<br /><br />But Hector ignored me, persistent with his line of thought ... He sounded very creepy and eerily drained, like he had spent the entire weekend hardwired with little electrodes attached to his brain beaming only FOX News. He babbled something about Dubya not being what anyone <em>thought</em> he was - that deep within him, beyond the cameras, lurked the shadow of genuine poet-warrior and part-time <em>philosopher laureate</em>.<br /><br />"He is more intelligent than Ben Franklin," Hector said. "When it's all said and done, he will be bigger than FDR and will stand in history larger than Abraham Lincoln on his best day."<br /><br />I almost choked on my tongue. "You lying bastard," I shot back. "I knew that your Nazi genes would infect you someday. Are you on the payroll now? Christ, you sound like Armstrong Williams."<br /><br />"You, of all people, need to know the truth," he said. "I'm just trying to clue you in before the march of history spells doom on your work. And it's really good work ... by the way." ... His cellphone started ringing and I could hear passing cars in the distance, then Hector returned back to the payphone receiver speaking all kinds of twisted mumbo jumbo.<br /><br />"Buddy, the <em>president</em> - Dubya - has read your work," he was stammering, almost incoherently. "They had me up at the Big House last night, all <em>alone</em> with the man. We drank Wild Turkey in front of the fireplace and ate some of the tastiest chicken fingers I ever had and listened to the his Coldplay collection and Dubya got a little emotional about things in New Orleans, then he went on and told me he was the last great social engineer left in the American political landscape, in the time honored tradition of B.F. Skinner and LBJ's Great Society." <br /><br />"Never!" I shouted. "And don't ever try drinking with me again. The concept of drinking with somebody who once drank with Dubya is too much to handle. Don't you know it's the two minute warning?"<br /><br />I sighed heavily. He finally lost his way, just like Christopher Hitchens did after 9/11. But here was Hector Straussman - one of the meanest and deadliest sharks in the publicist game - telling me how he had spent an entire night debating with Dubya about the relationship between the Greek and Roman cultures and how they influenced Alighieri's concept of Hell in <em>Dante's Inferno</em> and how the Romans stole almost their entire civilization from the Greeks except the notion of sin ... smoking Gauloises Blondes cigarettes and shedding tears at times while the preznut kept playing and replaying <em>All Along the Watchtower</em> by Jimi Hendrix on his 60GB iPod, belting out the familiar guitar riffs which felt more like a wall of feedback and distortion careening out of control by way of an alabaster-colored Bose SoundDock.<br /><br />"Awesome rig," Hector said, "he must have 5,000 illegally downloaded songs on that thing, but Dubya swears it's his personal stash and he never makes CD copies ... The man <em>really</em> appreciates music, especially classic rock-and-roll and heavy metal. He even has Metallica and U2 bootlegs on his backup harddrive, which he got from the bands themselves."<br /><br />Better get my phone lines swept for bugs, I thought. They finally flipped someone close to me, just like John Gotti felt when he learned that Sammy the Bull reached out for the Federal Witness Protection program; Hector jumped ship and he's landed in their camp.<br /><br />"You treacherous freak! Don't ever call this number anymore!" I shouted at him. "I'm leaving for Mazatlan tomorrow, uh, for an extended vacation. I don't know where you got my number, but lose it! For the hundredth time, stay away from me!"<br /><br />"Moron!" he shouted. "You know with these connections I could get you on Air Force One for the next trip to New Orleans? It would be me, you, Dubya and the Neville Brothers. We could survey the damage and discuss the events of the day with the president, eat some gumbo, get a leg up with the locals. We would be on the A-list, partner." ... and then he stated telling me how the preznut - half-crazed on absinthe and curious intentions, with yet another powerful hurricane bearing down on the Gulf Coast - would be arriving in the Crescent City this weekend with no Secret Service protection and a red Lamborghini Diablo Roadster Momo with a 10-pack CD changer and its original Italian license plates.<br /><br />It was a difficult thing to swallow. Hector was a true professional, at one time - and Dubya's daddy was a former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. This was a curious and uncanny coincidence; and especially unusual, given Hector's strange fixation on Dubya, which made me uncomfortable and extremely suspicious.<br /><br />"You know why he likes you?" Hector said. "He likes you because you butcher Scripture just like he does. Dubya loves a little Scripture. He can recite <em>The Book of Revelations</em> from top to bottom with no breaks." Right about there, Hector's voice became shallow and seemed more distant than before:<br /><br />"And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen ... " Hector paused for a long moment, then he continued with a solitary yet ceremonial tone, which disturbed me even further. "And has become the haunt of devils and a lodging for every foul spirit and dirty loathsome fowl. Now heaven, celebrate her downfall, and all you saints, apostles and prophets: God has given judgement for you against her - "<br /><br />The September 11 allegory, right out of the wingnut playbook. I laughed, more like a discordant caterwaul, but Hector failed to notice it. <br /><br />"Behind him, dressed in linen of dazzling white", he rambled on, "rode the armies of heaven on white horses. From his mouth came a sharp sword to strike the pagans with; He is the one who will rule them with an iron sceptre and tread out the wine of Almighty God's fierce anger."<br /><br />"Okay, stop right there," I said. "The idea of Dubya cruising around in a federal disaster zone in the perfect Italian sportscar and paraphrasing the <em>Book of Revelations</em> is too bizarre - <em>even</em> for me."<br /><br />I was getting sick, and said nothing more. Hector babbled on, drifting from one unhinged story to another, like he was the Dennis Hopper character in <em>Apocalyse Now</em> and Dubya was his personal Colonel Kurtz or a spiritual svengali or America's Dalai Lama of the damned. It defied logic and it made no sense.<br /><br />None of his ramblings did, for that matter. Dubya was a pansexual Pandora's Box of treachery and freakishness, born deep in the bowels of Nowhereville, Texas. Nobody really liked him and very few people in Washington wanted to be seen in the same picture frame unless it was tossed into a lit fireplace or raging bonfire. There was something disturbing about him, the quiet voices said - a sense of a deadly organic being that was morphing upon itself, like a corpse bloating in the New Orleans sun. It was inconceivable that a petty thief and unhinged frat boy could be leader of the free world and speeding around the bayou at night, squealing like a demented pig about alternative rock and the kings of the East joining the forces of the North and turning against world civilization, burning it to the ground.<br /><br />Welcome to the Garden of Agony, Sparky, and watch yourself. We may be a smart, free-thinking kind of nation and the boys packing it tight in the White House Press Room are getting antsy ... the New World Order that Dubya's pappy talked about is now ruled by crooked evangelists and tinpot theologians that seem more Trojan Horse than divine inspiration. Did the real Jesus freaks put one of their own in the Big House - twice - only to have God's secret agenda run a naked reverse on the Truth as defined in the eyes of Crazy Pat Robertson and Radical Racist Cleric Jerry Fallwell - King Mullah and Grand Ayatollah to the panoramic and pervasive view of American Taliban, also known as "the red states" on pundit TV, the same region for whom God can't quite seem to cut some slack in this apocalyptic hurricane season of the witch.<br /><br />There was something very wrong about Hector, deeply deeply wrong, even strange ... Yet Hector appeared to believe in these things about Dubya, just as American Taliban wants us to believe in <em>them</em>.<br /><br />It was like hearing the $250.00 Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe and the Great Kidney Harvest Caper urban myths, but this time with religious props and bad haircuts and rapturous exaltations.<br /><br />I slammed down the phone and felt betrayed for a while, watching the Redskins make the spread. Then, I made the journey back to pagan-like bliss - the kind of rational peace that requires neither a preacher nor a shrink - with five hundred more in my pocket and minus one Paraguayan press agent gone batshit and insane.<br /><br />Stay classy, San Diego.dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1126765958320880682005-09-17T23:31:00.000-07:002005-09-19T09:49:11.630-07:00The End of An Era: Orgy of the Dumb<img height="585" alt="usual" src="http://static.flickr.com/28/43457834_4360049ec8_o.jpg" width="400" /><br /><br /><strong>Dubya the Liberal and Semi-Merciful ... The Chimperor has gone so far to the Right that he can now be called a French Socialist ... Chimpy takes center stage in the Gulf while Cheney is turning the screws with a Halliburton bullhorn ... They came to Washington to decrease the size of government, and little did the wingnuts and fundies know at the time - the Rethugs meant <em>decrease our emergency services and say goodbye to the safety net</em> ... And by the way, where is Osama Bin Laden and should we now call him Keyser Soze?</strong><br /><br />"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government. And to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility. I want to know what went right and what went wrong. I want to know how to better cooperate with state and local government."<br />- If you're searching for any degree of remorse from Dubya, this is about it, White House, September 13, 2005<br /><br />REPORTER: Did they misinform you when you said that no one anticipated the breach of the levees? <br />DUBYA: No, what I was referring to is this. When that storm came by, a lot of people said we dodged a bullet. When that storm came through at first, people said, whew. There was a sense of relaxation, and that's what I was referring to. And I, myself, thought we had dodged a bullet. You know why? Because I was listening to people, probably over the airways, say, the bullet has been dodged. And that was what I was referring to. Of course, there were plans in case the levee had been breached. There was a sense of relaxation in the moment, a critical moment. And thank you for giving me a chance to clarify that.<br />- Like Team Gonzography, you're probably wondering if he would clarify who constituted the "lot of people", or what became of the plans for the levee breach, or perhaps just explain the "sense of relaxation"? New Orleans, Louisiana, September 12, 2005<br /><br />ROGER "VERBAL" KINT: "And like that he was gone. Underground. Nobody has ever seen him since. He becomes a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night. 'Rat on your pop, and Keyser Soze will get you.' And no-one ever really believes." <br />DAVE KUJAN: "Do you believe in him, Verbal?"<br />ROGER "VERBAL" KINT: "Keaton always said, 'I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of him.' Well I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze."<br />- "The Usual Suspects" 1995<br /><br />A man can convince anyone he's somebody else, but never himself. <br /><br />For a while I was content to return to my quiet life away from all the commentary and outrage, living in a distant place where any sudden sound at night means that something is about to happen. When you hear it you jump up, alarmed - considering all the ruthless alternatives for a moment, what the <em>hell</em> just happened out there.<br /><br />More times than I care to recall, it is nothing. But there are times ... it's so very hard to keep quiet when the world is sinking into level upon level of shit and swamp water, while most of us sit back with Cable TV beaming the days, hours and minutes until it slips into a comfortable routine. Bodies, national guardsmen, helicopters ... this is no time to relax; and while the message machine tries to drown out the failures of our disaster relief efforts with the most salacious methods of assessing blame - not seen since Donald Segretti used a faked letter on Democratic presidential candidate Edmund Muskie's letterhead, which falsely alleged that U.S. Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a fellow Democrat, had an illegitimate child with a 17-year-old and issued a bogus letter containing offensive comments about African Americans.<br /><br />Segretti called these frathouse pranks <em>ratfucking</em>. Just another terminal whackjob who bypassed the Peace Movement and Love Generation altogether, he was nothing more than a tormented mutation who never developed a human conscience or an atom of regret. Segretti reportedly checked into the Benson Hotel in Portland, Oregon in September 1971 carrying $500,000 in cash with a plan to hire prostitutes to seduce Senator Jackson. A former military prosecutor and civil lawyer, Segretti operated a ruthless campaign of political sabotage against the Democrats in Nixon's 1972 re-election effort. In 1974, he served 4 1/2 months in prison after pleading guilty to three misdemeanor counts of distributing illegal campaign literature. Segretti, never long in the shame department, briefly threw his hat into the ring as a candidate for Superior Court judge in Orange County in 1995, but was forced to withdraw after only a week, stating that the shadow of Watergate hung over the campaign.<br /><br />The old gang of ratfuckers is scattered in the wind today, blown into many directions and only resurface when the office of Preznut is in the balance. But the old standard still flies in the Big House - or at least in the West Wing where the newest ratfucker on the dance card is Ubermensch Karl Rove, who never missed an opportunity to burn an intelligence estimate or covert agent. Since the salad days of 9/11, when Dubya first discovered the power of bullhorns, his administration has been extremely successful at blowing off its citizens and misleading the country and treating the press like a serial rapist with a multi-colored mohawk haircut. All of his campaigns and all the meaningless rhetoric he used throughout his political existence were based on the simple and tired impression that Dubya was a high plains tough guy who went to Yale and stumbled repeatedly in life until he reached middle age, when he discovered that Laura had a vagina and then he found God, which transformed him into a studied world leader and he fooled roughly 51 percent of the nation that he could fix all of our problems by creating utopia in the Middle East. To question him on the facts and rationale was un-American, because Dubya could spell "noo-klear" and Cheney had control of the little red button.<br /><br />And the preznut won re-election by terrifying soccer moms and by selling the God-fearing red states on the idea that the war in Iraq and the Homeland Security infrastructure would keep us safe from all the bogeymen around the globe.<br /><br />How does that vote last November feel now, Sparky?<br /><br />How could it be possible that these unfortunate Iraqis would bite the Democratic hand that feeds them? Didn't they realize that good old fashioned American Democracy requires a lengthy period of ethnic cleansing - just like we did with our Native Americans - while denying its women the right to vote for about a hundred years?<br /><br />Believe me, even Ahmad Chalabi took copious notes from our history books.<br /><br />How is it conceivable that an administration can sit back and watch an entire region (that lined up in lock step and voted for them ten months ago) wilt in the heat and humidity without so much as a drink of water or a bag of ice?<br /><br />Well, these are the same deviants who transformed their incompetence into WMD, Iraqis greeting our soldiers with flowers, and "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here."<br /><br />How is it possible that a dangerous terrorist who lives in the caves of Afghanistan, while tugging along a portable dialysis kit, can get a hold of four commerical airliners and ram them into buildings? And then get away with it while being elevated to the mythical status of Keyser Soze?<br /><br />Please, somebody, explain these things to me. Somebody? <br /><br />Or, as Maureen Dowd recently pointed out in the <em>New York Times</em> Op/Ed section, "when you combine limited gubment with incompetent gubment," as Dubya would pronounce it, "lethal stuff happens." All kinds of lethal shit, Sparky, and we are just beginning to see the light at the end of the idelogical tunnel - although the rest of us have been mortgaged right alongside Our Child Preznut's view of the world as Him versus His tinpot view of Satan.<br /><br />In all of the dimwitted and tragic calamity, buried deep within the heart and soul of Dubya, runs a poisoned artery feeding a demented brain that despises nitpicky "liberals" and a cultural elite who want to examine the fine print before endorsing his bizarre plan, high-brow East Coast intellectuals who want to ask a few clarfifying questions at the risk of being called "non-patriotic" and those of us who just can't - or won't - jump aboard the co-dependent revival tent that has become America the Megalomaniac in the new millenium. Absent and mindless worker-ant hyper-consumers who jump in line at first sight of another ignorant mob, filled with a hyperbolic sense of self-love played out at a dizzying rate of narcissistic emptiness ... while choking on a hearty gulp of that toxic elixir known as Dubya's "culture of life" and "compassionate conservatism," as long as you reside in a tax bracket worth insulating.<br /><br />But this time ... the bodies are decaying in plain view of NewsChopper Six - and not tucked neatly away in formations of flag-draped coffins that this Administration has turned into a corner game of three card monty. Now you see them, and now you <em>can't</em>.<br /><br /><blockquote><em>"Who is Keyser Soze? He is supposed to be Turkish. Some say his father was German. Nobody believed he was real. Nobody ever saw him or knew anybody that ever worked directly for him, but to hear Kobayashi tell it, anybody could have worked for Soze. You never knew. That was his power. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."</em><br />- Roger "Verbal" Kint, <em>The Usual Suspects</em></blockquote><br />For reasons that will never be clear to anyone - and certainly not to the people who gladly voted <em>twice</em> for an abject buffoon and all the others who packed into the kiddie cars for Dubya's E-ticket ride to rapture - the national audience at home is operating once again with a few important questions, but the shelf-life for open thought in this age rivals the expiration warning label on a pack of seedless grapes. Average working people, the kind who watched Dubya and Ah-nuld and Rudi and McCain swagger around Madison Garden a year ago like New York City was the Alamo, are beginning to come to an even fresher conclusion on what really happened when we jumped before we looked at the Post 9/11 world. Certainly the comparisons between September 11 and Hurricane Katrina are erroneous - mostly because the latter can be predicted, and always more destructive and devastating - but the Rethugs still march on <em>ratfucking</em> free thinkers and those of us with questions while minimizing their own sheepish reactions in the face of <em>actual</em> forecasts.<br /><br />But they missed, seriously, on both occassions - ignoring the <a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0409041pdb1.html">Preznut's Daily Briefing - Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US</a> on August 6, 2001 and then again with <a href="http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/">Hurricane Katrina</a> which wasn't exactly a secret to the American public or Our Child Preznut himself, who was ostensibly <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/9/2/93521.shtml">warned also in 2001</a> by a report that landed on the front steps of FEMA.<br /><br />The parallels to the movie, <em>The Usual Suspects</em>, serve as a prescient allegory to the retarded "how could we have known" explanations that have been served up on a daily basis - from Rove's mouth to the Right Wing talking points on ideology TV. Like Dubya's reign of terror, the movie begins with a terrible explosion which sets of a chain of tragic events. After a waterfront blast, Verbal Kint, a small time con artist who happens to be the sole eyewitness and participant, explains the story leading up to the explosion to a customs agent played by Chazz Palminteri. It begins when five men are rounded up for a line-up, and grilled about a truck hijacking - who are, essentially, the usual suspects for any metropolitan crime. The interrogation goes tolerably well until the influence of the legendary, seemingly omnipotent "Keyser Soze" is mentioned, a criminal bogeyman if there ever was one. <br /><br />But the story is just that - a piece of fiction offered up by the master criminal himself, and he barely escapes by using his wit and pathological banter in a game of cat and mouse with facts that are more figment of his imagination, just like it went down with the intelligence estimates leading us into Iraq.<br /><br />Verbal Kint is either Keyser Soze, the master criminal himself, or he created the image of the bogeyman in an elaborate con game designed to keep the rest of us distracted. And to that end, Dubya and his party hacks transformed Osama Bin Laden into his own version of Keyser Soze because either he is the master criminal hellbent on our complete destruction or Dubya's inner sanctum of party pimps and carpetbaggers needed him for an Administration that emptied the US Treasury through its own back doors.<br /><br />There are not many senior political correspondents in Washington who could handle a scenario like that. Their minds would just refuse to accept the Nixonian potential ... for the same reason they still can't accept the patent and fearful truth that Our Dubya is as incompetent as the tinfoil hat crowd <em>already</em> believes he is - and that his handlers reach for any rationale lying about or make up the excuses as they go along. That clear and that simple.<br /><br />This is the one vanilla fact, right now, in a story that will become so heinously apparent in the next several weeks that every reporter assigned to it will need both a smart constitutional lawyer and a fearless economist right alongside him when the TV cameras turn on.<br /><br />There is no question at all - even now, in these last few days of calm before the fallout from both disasters mushroom into a cloud of regret - that this "Dubya incompetence" epic is going to destroy some of the best minds in political punditry before it's done. And that reality will just have to linger there for the time being; I reject any opportunity to explain it further. We have a ton of time to explore the alternatives, Sparky; and hundreds and thousands of hours of congressional testimony will expose the top players and the federal bench should remmand the rest. And Dubya will be left stammering and drooling at the gates when the end finally appears, and not even his family will be waiting for him at the end of that last helicopter ride to average citizenry.<br /><br />For the rest of us, Hurricane Katrina has finally broken the "post 9/11 world" spell that used to hang over everything and our addiction to terrorism and terrorism alone as the significant menace in our time, just like the Red Menace of the 1950s. The post 9/11 shin-ding is over, my friends, the end of a dark and ignorant era in American Politics, Inc. - and whatever the final body count is from the disaster zone, it will be harder and harder for the WMD propaganda machine to invoke the memory of bull horns and twisted rubble from the World Trade Center and the 3,000 dead. Just like those seedless grapes, they, too, have found their expiration date for political arm twisting and gutter ball exploitation and swollen military budgeting.<br /><br />Osama Bin Laden still runs free - probably morphing his limp into a fully crisp stampede for the exit, just like Verbal Kint at the end - Iraq is another Beirut in the making and our people and resources are stretched so thin that we couldn't get to the business of saving our people until - roughly ten - <em>days</em> after the tragedy.<br /><br />Here's what I know, after all is said and done tonight, hoping that another sound doesn't pique my attention. Osama Bin Laden is not Keyser Soze, because Dubya and his Circle of Doom has been explaining the story with concepts that were handpicked and conjured out of nothingness - and his people controlled both the facts and the intelligence all along. Because if either him or his people learned anything from 9/11 it was that we were not prepared for that terrorist attack and it only took four years to discover that we didn't learn a thing from it. Keyser Soze does exist and it's not Osama Bin Laden.<br /><br />It's Dubya himself, who tried convincing the rest of the world that the devil <em>did</em> exist.dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1126069012691988882005-09-06T21:27:00.000-07:002005-09-07T00:22:52.133-07:00High Gear Scrambling and Death to The Weird<img src="http://static.flickr.com/25/41057106_84ba9832de.jpg" width="400" height="172" alt="goof" /><br /><br /><strong>The Crescent City Sinks like Atlantis ... Wingnuts Run Amok Declaring that God Sent Katrina because of Interior Decorators in the Big Easy ... Oops, Did Someone Really Brief the White House? ... FEMA is More Chinese Fire Drill Than a Helping Hand and Homeland Security is a Mirage ... Fat Timmy Tightens the Vice Grips ... A Retarded Nero Speaks and a Shroud of Insanity has been Lifted, My Friends</strong><br /><br />"The good news is - and it's hard for some to see it now - that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house - he's lost his entire house - there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."<br />- Dubya pep talks the residents of the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast with a heavy dose of denial tossed in for good measure, Mobile, Alabama, September 2, 2005<br /><br />"Steps we're taking will help address the problem of availability, but it's not going to solve it. Americans should be prudent in their use of energy during the course of the next few weeks. <strong>Don't buy gas if you don't need it.</strong>"<br />- Dubya proposes that Americans don't buy gas at $3-$4/gallon just because he says so, Washington, D.C., September 1, 2005<br /><br />"Today's enemies do not mass armies on borders, or navies on high seas. They blend in with the civilian population. They emerge to strike, and then they retreat back into the shadows. And that's why there are thousands of our fellow citizens running down every single piece of intelligence we can find, doing everything we can to disrupt folks that might be here in America trying to hurt you."<br />- Kinda like the level of disregard shown the <em>American</em> people by FEMA, Nampa, Idaho, August 24, 2005<br /><br />There is desperation and exasperation in the air tonight. Not even Wolf Blitzer could handle it. Levees belched toxic waste in the streets of New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast slipped another mile toward Venezuela. Dubya was struck about the face and neck with the dope stick yet again, the U.S. Government failed to act when it knew that its own people would be massacred by a raging storm, and young children and elderly people died in the heat and humidity without so much as a drink of water.<br /><br />If Dubya had a personal delivery half as articulate as Crazy Horse, he would have been able to get past this one - instead of being labelled a closet racist while he races around the country looking all perplexed and destined for another $1000.00 chicken dinner fundraiser. But words always seem to confuse Our Child Preznut - and the very homespun diatribes that had once served him well inside red state revival tents and redneck bake-offs with Mable and Bess and Clara now make him seem like he's rolling in a trench filled with shit. Little Big Horn was settled about 130 years ago, but the ferocious warrior - also known as <em>Tashunca-uitco</em> - earned his reputation among the Lakota not only by his skill and daring in battle but also by his fiery determination to preserve his people's traditional way of life. The horrid fallout from this disaster in the Gulf has been building for years before the first gusts ripped into the shoreline, right about that time when Dubya and his party pimps first hijacked the vote count in Florida - and the only difference today, with Cable TV news broadcasting the catastrophe 24-hours a day, is that we finally seem to be on the verge of looking at the scoreboard for once while wondering how much of our traditions have been eroded away like the old Bayou itself.<br /><br />Crazy Horse made no distinctions when it cames to his people - they could have been Democrats or Republicans for all he knew, not that it mattered much in 1876, or in any other year, when the skies became terminal and the land succumbed to Mother Nature - but it's also very true that Crazy Horse never understood the concept of American Government, Inc. beyond its threat to the people it was built to protect, nor would he have appreciated the vile pleasure of dealing with our current administration; he would have missed the venemous wonder known as Karl Rove, Dubya's prince of bile, and he never would have met little Scottie McClellan, who can turn ignorance into an artform, but he would have had much to discuss with Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response, whose only qualification for the post is that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/national/nationalspecial/07brown.html">he knew a thing or two about Arabian horses</a>.<br /><br />If the legendary Lakota warrior was alive today, I sense - given his fierce contempt for the U.S. Government and every thing it stood for - he'd have looted a WalMart gun rack himself and taken matters into his own hands. For Crazy Horse it was about survival ... for his people, for his land, for his way of life.<br /><br /><div align="center">* * *</div><br />Today, the Warriors of the Plains have been replaced by the Lunatic Fringe of the Religious Right. Instead of horses and bows and arrows, they have taken to the Internet to file complaints with the FCC or write threatening emails to yours truly, and I have seen my share of these in these past two months. They are almost always from places where the hurricanes first meet the beaches, from the wingnuts and Jesus freaks and closet Nazis - and on some days they all seem eerily connected to Fred Phelps or the Westboro Baptist Church or even Crazy Pat Robertson himself, a dedicated Gulf Coast weather junkie who once warned Orlando that they were "right in the way of some serious hurricanes and I don't think I'd be waving those [Gay Pride] flags in God's face," about 15 years before he <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200508220006">called for the head of Hugo Chavez</a> during an August broadcast.<br /><br />Once awarded with the Christian Broadcaster of the Year by an organization called the <a href="http://www.nrb.org/">National Religious Broadcasters</a>, Crazy Pat and his prime-time berserk commentaries on the hidden agendas of God's natural disasters have been the best thing to hit the Bible Belt since Orson Welles took to the airwaves with <em>War of The Worlds</em>, just one short year before Hitler unleashed the blitzkrieg on Poland. Welles drove people batshit and crazy, to verge of a Jim Jones-like mass suicide, even without access to mescaline or blotter acid or poison Kool Aid.<br /><br />Robertson is also - according to a malcontent named Scooter, from Jacksonville - a religious visionary of some kind whose evangelical work only rivals the work of Jesus himself. This kind of commentary may be indicative of Robertson's maniacal following in the Florida panhandle, where his rapture-like admonitions about coming hurricanes "with the destructive force of two or three Hiroshimas" has elevated his television network to a spiritual version of the Weather Channel, a true and literal Messenger of God who can quote scripture as fast as he analyzes meterology and low pressure systems. More Jesus freaks have evacuated their trailers and shacks and scurried fast to the hills on the Good Word of the Reverend than ever marched through the Red Sea with Moses.<br /><br />When you get right down to it, all Pat Robertson ever does is scare people half to death by telling them to escape God's Wrath by making a love offering to his network. But the actual truth is that any ignorant hillbilly with a basic working knowledge of a barometer and enough sense with a teleprompter and his own broadcasting center could do what the crazy Reverend does, and the same panic-striken morons would happily oblige.<br /><br />A very angry married couple who go by the name of I.M and Fredericka Kaput of Huntsville, Alabama countered - in a very short email response - "You are a heathen bastard who doesn't deserve the right to criticize Pat Robertson with your liberal and elitist and demonic ways. We pray for you."<br /><br />"Only God can forgive your sins now, if only you ask him seriously," said another message from an email account with the alias <em>aroused@great.length.com</em>, which Team Gonzography traced to the outskirts of Tupelo. "No sin will go unpunished by the Lord, except if you turn your back on Jesus and don't accept him as your personal savior. May the Lord have mercy on your soul."<br /><br />Then another person named Claude Balls from the Christian Debt Guidance Service of Tampa called me a hyena with the brain of pea soup, then added that I was just jealous of Pat Robertson. "Jump back into that cave where they found you," he wrote. "Your kind, we christian people can do without."<br /><br />But then again, at last recollection, every one of these states voted for Dubya during the last election cycle. And if Our Child Preznut was God's candidate, as the argument went back then, why has he forsaken them?dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1118628738171693572005-07-03T19:11:00.000-07:002005-07-05T13:48:52.036-07:00This Is Your (Political) Life Dubya<img src="http://photos19.flickr.com/23307958_7e72841637.jpg" width="300" height="418" alt="fuckers" /><br /><br /><strong>Freak City Revelations ... Anatomy of a Party Fixer and Rogue Pimp ... What Next for the Good Ole Boys from the Crawford Fun Factory? ... A Rose Garden of Agony Spills Battery Acid on the True Believers ... The Democrats Tighten the Screws ... Treachery Looms in the White House Press Plane ... The Worm Has Turned, My Friend</strong><br /><br />DUBYA: I appreciate the Secretary of Energy joining me today. He's a good man, he knows a lot about the subject, you'll be pleased to hear. I was teasing him -- he taught at MIT, and -- do you have a PhD? <br />SECRETARY OF ENERGY BODMAN: Yes. <br />DUBYA: Yes, a PhD. Now I want you to pay careful attention to this -- he's the PhD, and I'm the C student, but notice who is the advisor and who is the President.<br />- Well, many of us have been saying things along this line for a long time now ... Lusby, Maryland, June 22, 2005<br /><br />"Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors."<br /> - George Herbert Walker Bush, 1999<br /><br />"I want to thank the President and the CEO of Constellation Energy, Mayo Shattuck. That's a pretty cool first name, isn't it, Mayo. Pass the Mayo. His wife, Molly, appreciated that." <br />- In case you were wondering if Dubya had some towel-snapping frat boy swimming in his moments of petty rapture, let's consider the evidence. Lusby, Maryland, June 22, 2005<br /><br />Holy Mother of Stammering God, I just took a break from this political psychobabble long enough to cleanse my soul of the constant and terminal angst that ushers the partisan soiree with all the misplaced resplendence of a Gay Pride Festival in Galveston, and then I turned to the cable television talking heads shows ... and there was the face and that voice of <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8409377/">Tweety Matthews beating the drums with Howard Dean</a> on Hardball, jolting a Washington glitterati with an alarmingly straight admission of failure on one count of deceiving the American electorate - an elaborate attempt to purposely confound September 11 with Saddam Hussein and the preznut's own guilt and profound involvement with most every aspect of the fraudulence - including stockpiles of WMD, oil that would subsidize the shameful nation-building exercise and hordes of repressed Iraqis waiting for our troops with bouquets of flowers because they so wanted to hand over power to another religious faction, for which Dubya should stand up and take whatever harsh punishment the special prosecutor feels he rightly deserves and then purge himself from our memories once and for all by "explaining everything he knows" and why, on his watch, we are less safe with a terrorist gladiator school in Iraq and the emergence of two nuclear powers in Iran and North Korea.<br /><br />Two more months of the shake and bake operation in Iraq and this lovely experiment in Middle East Democracy in Action will make Sarajevo seem more July 4th block party than a violent bloodletting of ethnic and biblical proportions. First Dubya gets up in the morning to see that a majority of Americans are ready to toss in the towel, then he jumps up on national TV to say he "thinks about Iraq every day because he understands we have troops in harm's way," as if this master of the obvious could put two and two together in the first place. Which means, clearly, that he better now watch his backside before Rumsfeld or Rove reach for the Gideon Bible like Chuck Colson once did and start taking their press conferences while standing in line at a Jerry Fallwell absolution soup kitchen in Lynchburg, Virginia.<br /><br />What will Dubya do in the light of these recent developments? Karl Rove, one of the most psychotic and treacherous thugs in the vast wasteland of American politics, has been Dubya's main and insulated lightning rod since the beginning of his fatally co-dependent inner sanctum of the "get in the boat and shut your mouth" deception machine - along with Condi, Andy Card, Cheney, Scooter Libby and Dubya himself - none of whom would think twice about stonewalling the Religious Right or even God himself with "take a message, we might get back to them - and Him - later on the fuzzy details." Not even Dubya, at this lowest point of his presidency, will feel comfortable with the knowledge that a loyal and abject monster like Rove has an office in the White House when rumors persist that he was <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/lawrence-odonnell/its-rove_3556.html">Matt Cooper's source</a> in the Valerie Plame espionage exposure, which in no other terms constitutes treason - in the non-Ann Coulter sense of the word, of course - not to mention completely unethical and immoral behavior, and a crystallized example of how this administration wields power from Dick Cheney's bunker. <br /><br />This is every American's responsibility, too, because it speaks volumes to the core values that we have claimed to represent during our last abuse of election powers and influence peddling ... and everything that is needed at this point to illustrate how the neo-cons - and not all rethugs and conservatives - at their core and essential means-to-an-end value system operates is clearly in the spotlight now, brimming with a full gastank of deceit, betrayal and a stubborn willingness to compromise national security for partisan political gain. Their every response to this unfolding story at the edges only adds to their disturbed and illustrative narrative - and in the end, their scrambling and flailing around the facts of the matter will reveal as much about them as about us as a people so willing to aim the barrel of outrage at anything that doesn't seem to fit our stereotypes or support a rational thought process in action, much like the dark days of Watergate when a vast majority of Americans who re-elected Nixon soon discovered that their preznut was a criminal and an oily stain on the very Constitution he took an oath to uphold, capable of almost any indiscretion or conspiracy to hold the reigns of power beneath his clenched fist.<br /><br /><blockquote>[Before] I could come to any conclusion it occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility. What did it matter what anyone knew or ignored? What did it matter who was manager? One gets sometimes such a flash of insight. The essentials of this affair lay deep under the surface, beyond my reach, and beyond my power of meddling.<br />- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness</blockquote><br />If I had better instincts or a sense of injustice running amok, I would put this stainless steel Apple G5 in the trunk of my 325i and race over to the closest politician's home - either Rohrbacher or Dreier or any politician, for that matter - and toss the airtight case through the large bay window overlooking a wondrous California countryside ... chase the bought-and-paid-for freak out onto his manicured lawn in an extreme act of merciless revenge then spray him <em>liberally</em> with several cans of pepper spray and force him to run naked along the main street wearing a propeller beanie and a brass cowbell while repeatedly jolting him with a <a href="http://www.tbotech.com/stun-gun-775v.htm">Stun Master 775,000 volt</a> stun gun, converting his blood sugar into lactic acid until his bowels and bladder no longer functioned properly and a blossom of bluish black lumps covered his body for the eventual press coverage and News at Six video package.<br /><br />But maturity and an ability to plan ahead has either caused me to pause before acting on such thoughts or the vile idea of wearing an orange jumpsuit for CNN's coverage of the arraignment has probably delivered me to the point where I could not act out on these youthful impulses - at least for the moment, because that blundering moron in White House should be held accountable for every dollar spent and each soldier sent home without a limb or sealed in a flag-drapped coffin, and these thoughts could plunge a rational person into a deep and contaminated hole of regret and misplaced desires.<br /><br />So with deep feelings of terminal angst rising to the surface yet again, we should probably examine and declare the two main and important outcomes from this revelaton on Karl Rove: 1> The clear and present necessity of using Rove as way to bring Dubya and Dick Cheney to trial like their old faux-nemesis Saddam Hussein, all wild-eyed and brutish and delusional, in order to have that unclouded vision stamped upon our minds forever and begin the process of understanding our own common reality in a way that the Germans did during the Nuremberg trials ... and then 2> The absolute and fundamental obligation of repairing the bizarre vacuum that needs a complete overhaul in our executive branch ... and how it is used and gets used by the intelligence and military apparatus, and how that unholy alliance is undermining our very freedoms and lack of national security in this new age.<br /><br />It's nutcracking time in the Big House, Sparky. And let's see if we can get a front row seat for the festivities ... and the bottles of 1800 and Wild Turkey are on me.<br /><br />Here, Lord knows, is a real barnburner of a scandal waiting to leap out into the next news cycle: betrayal, treachery, gallows humor and an undying suspense of not knowing who is undercutting whom while the creaky deck chairs get re-arranged on the preznut's political ship of fools ... All of which matters even less to the average citizen or registered voters who will soon find themselves all hooked on the daytime drama like "The Price is Right" or "One Life to Live." Before long, even Hollywood screenwriters and super-agents will jump into the act looking for an angle that cuts into the cashflow ... and if the Democrats take their party chairman's position that Dubya "essentially pinned down our troops in Iraq [with] Zarqawi" and other foreign terrorists, before long a myriad of congressional hearings should start chopping down the illusions and delusions sponsored by the Rethug message discipline operation which lands nightly on the doorstep of the partisan political process including our incompetent corporate media funnel as its dependent flashpoint.<br /><br />The massive complexities of the gathering evidence, and Rove's inability to come clean on his Grand Jury testimony, must have the preznut's attorneys all up in arms and neck-deep in fiction by now - searching for every loophole and a plausible way for Karl Rove to fall on the sword in the event that public opinion cannot by corraled, especially with the vast amount of political capital that will be spent on the upcoming Supreme Court nominations - because the raw drama that is beginning to unfold will offer the stark and simplistic plot line of a "Perry Mason" script - with the Democrats controlling the lights, camera and action, and whose sole interest in watching this debacle develop is the midterm elections and a wide open field for 2008, while the rest of us get to bask in the glow of watching once powerful freaks brought weeping to their knees after taking the perp walk on CNN, FOX and MSNBC - which gets replayed as the "Big Story" on the half hour.<br /><br />Drop a pig like Karl Rove in a three piece suit, Sparky. And it's still a pigdr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1118084513208645222005-06-06T11:57:00.000-07:002005-06-06T12:04:25.263-07:00Armageddon Days Are Here (Again)<img src="http://photos2.flickr.com/2489615_63a05b276c.jpg" width="400" height="127" alt="delete-ba" /><br /><br />They’re 5 miles high as the crow flies<br />Leavin’ vapour trails against a blood red sky<br />Movin’ in from the east toward the west<br />With balaclava helmets over their heads, yes!<br /><br />But if you think that Jesus Christ is coming<br />Honey you’ve got another thing coming<br />If he ever finds out who’s hijacked his name<br />He’ll cut out his heart and turn in his grave<br /><br />Islam is rising<br />The christians mobilising<br />The world is on it’s elbows and knees<br />It’s forgotten the message and worships the creeds<br /><br />It’s war, she cried, it’s war, she cried, this is war<br />Drop your possessions, all you simple folk<br />You will fight them on the beaches in your underclothes<br />You will thank the good lord for raising the union jack<br />You’ll watch the ships out of harbour<br />And the bodies come floating back<br /><br />If the real jesus christ were to stand up today<br />He’d be gunned down by the CIA<br />Oh, the lights that now burn brightest behind stained glass<br />Will cast the darkest shadows upon the human heart<br />But God didn’t build himself that throne<br />God doesn’t live in Israel or Rome<br />God belong to the Yankee Dollar<br />God doesn’t plant the bombs for Hezbollah<br />God doesn’t even go to church<br />And God won’t send us down to Allah to burn<br />No, God will remind us what we already know<br />That the human race is about to reap what it’s sown<br /><br />The world is on it’s elbows and knees<br />It’s forgotten the message and worships the creeds<br />Armageddon days are here again<br /><br />(matt johnson - the the)dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1116563715638426502005-05-20T18:22:00.000-07:002005-05-25T23:10:38.276-07:00Bang The Gongs Slowly<div style="float: left; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;"><img src="http://photos13.flickr.com/14739394_83bf342649.jpg" width="250" height="259" alt="chuck barris" /></div>Unknown Comic: What do you call a Mexican with a vasectomy?<br />Chuck Barris: What?<br />Unknown Comic: A dry Martinez!<br />* cue audience laugh track *<br />Unknown Comic: Do you like sex?<br />Chuck Barris: Yes.<br />Unknown Comic: Do you like sports?<br />Chuck Barris: Yes.<br />Unknown Comic: Then take a fucking hike.<br />Chuck Barris: You can't say that on television.<br />* cue audience laugh track and hard cut to commerical break *<br /><br />"My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world."<br />- Muhammad Ali<br /><br />Back in the 1970s, "The Gong Show" was one of those boffo TV extravaganzas that come once in a generation - the type of cranked up audience dedication that sparked as much entertainment as it did outrage, even if the latter represented that famous media truism which states, rather simply, "Bad Publicity is Better Than No Publicity." As was the case with "Reverend Gene Scott" or "Jerry Springer" or "The Morton Downey Jr. Show," either you loved "The Gong Show" or you hated it, but everybody tuned in to watch this stripped down version of "American Idol" and shuffled about like Gene Gene The Dancing Machine in the bank line. <br /><br />Millions of Americans went out and bought gongs for their homes - so that they could <em>gong</em> their spouses or friends with Smiling Bob-ish glee - and there were gong shows in churches and temples and community centers to raise donations, then even cruise ship social directors and singles getaway destinations jumped into the act. "Gong" became the catch phrase of that decadent period between free sex and recreational drug use - before the Reaganites declared that AIDS came from monkeys and Ed Meese got a hard-on for the end of pornography and Nancy canvassed inner cities with the ultimate "Don't Worry, Be Happy" beat manifesto by proclaiming "Just Say No" to our country's brownish people ... but "gong" really meant "Make That Idiot Stop" or "Get That Crazy Bastard Off The Stage!" Singer Jaye P. Morgan, comedian Arte Johnson (of "Rowan and Martin's Laugh In") and Jamie Farr (of "M*A*S*H*"), plus one or more guests, was each assigned the torture of enduring and judging the ameteur acts that performed on the show and could end the act by striking his/her mallet against an oversized <em>gong</em>, because that person or group was deemed as too hideous to continue.<br /><br /><blockquote>And now, let us introduce, <a href="http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/ShowMainServlet/showid-3970/The_Gong_Show/">for your viewing pleasure</a>: <br /><ul><li>A bearded, demented-looking dentist taunts his hapless patient as he drills her teeth, flipping the drill's switch to the tune of "Stars and Stripes Forever." <br /><li>A petite homecoming queen, obviously nervous, is duped into singing the National Anthem after she and fellow members of the choir have been introduced as collectively performing "The Star Spangled Banner." <br /><li>A grossly overweight man tap-dances to music from "Swan Lake"; later his equally obese wife squeezes into a tiny tutu and, after fitting her head in a teacup, spins around while playing "Old Folks at Home" on the mandolin. <br /><li>An Elvis impersonator sings "Hound Dog," but his voice is a monotone.</ul></blockquote><br />Now, 20 years later, the journalistic establishment that speaks for Dubya's erstwhile <em>52% mandate</em> takes to the airwaves and fishwrap with more lame whackjobs and bizarre yoyos than can be found in either the Halls of Congress or within the Peacetime Army or The Gong Show green room ... and we are left clutching our nuts beyond the mylar glow of a pop-culture effervescence and creeping paranoia not seen since the dog days of 1973, when guys like Sirica, Ruckelshaus, Woodward, Bernstein, Jaworski, Cox and Richardson were skulking around the hellish little byproducts of another debacle in hyperspeed which, of course, became "The Watergate Crisis."<br /><br />This is a grim thing to draw comparisons to - or even put into words - given the current atmosphere of American Narcissism, Inc. and our renewed collective amnesia that regretfully pervades the press and our politics these days. Not just out there in Washington, but almost everywhere you find waves of average people who are so ass-deep in self-delusion about the balloon payment that is coming due in the form of far more serious and emerging threats aimed directly at our very resources and talents, our way of life and the ability to pay off our debts.<br /><br />It's the Witching Hour, Sparky, and you better get a program because we're going to need a scorekeeper.<br /><br />There are huge numbers of people in this country - with columnists and editors and congressmen and strategists at the tip of the opinion iceberg - who stay awake at night for the way they ducked and ran during the salad days of the "Post 9/11 World" and the disgusting blob of revolving horseshit leading to our pseudo-spiritual sojourn into the Iraqi desert, while there were others who turned-the-other-cheek and accepted the facts as they had been dictated to the media funnel ... not because they <em>really</em> believe everything that their Godfilled Government broadcasts, but because once they open their minds to the real and dangerous possibilities there is no turning back - which means that they, too, are going to be sucked right down by the same whirlpool of shame and regret, then will say to themselves along the back pews of their unstable congregation of <em>ignis fatuus</em>, "Well, it really seemed like attacking was the right thing to do, but if we gotta bury a few more heathens out in the sand dunes, so be it."<br /><br />We are sliding into a very deep hole here, and if I'd written this sort of thing two years ago I would have almost expected to find my email account bombed and the comment mechanism filled with freakish posts on the coming armageddon, and then beaten down into a quivering bloody sushi by the next evening by some of Dick Cheney's hired thugs in a greasy alley behind the <em>Los Angeles Times</em> building - along with a tattered polaroid festival of dead hookers scattered around my feet and a length of rope still clutched tightly in my hand.<br /><br />But like Bob Dylan once sang, "Then you better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone for the times they are a-changing."<br /><br />And, man, was he right, Sparky. There is little mystery left in that corpse. But after scanning talk TV news on all three of the main cable networks during the last two days and then watching <em>Newsweek's</em> Howard Fineman perform his best Marcus Welby on <em>Hardball</em> tonight, I have a deep and clear sense that - besides the idea of the stone sinking at last - the times aren't very different from the days of "Chuckie baby! Hey, Chuckie, Chuckie, Chuckie!"<br /><br />From here on out it will be a nasty story to cover, especially with an electorate driven by insatiable inner rage and a low-rent fascination for high speed and ignorance and seem highly similar to the "good germans" from The Thousand Year Reich and have pledged allegiance to a recalcitrant Prometheus of the dysinformation age. Dubya is the guy who realized that politics and message discipline hadn't come anywhere near its lowest common denominator yet, and that the public's appetite for salaciousness and humiliation had remained relatively crimped. <br /><br />But beneath all his crazed layers of tinpot ambition and childish bluster, Dubya will eventually become excoriated by the high culture as the ignoramus who destroyed politics and public policy as we once knew it ... and the televised mini-series will be worth watching, because whatever form of harsh judgement and fuzzy reality that finally reveals its ugly head will be another Rethug landmark calamity in the panorama of American History and will serve as a stern warning, for both sides of the aisle, and to all the generations who will inherit this once great nation - or whatever scraps we leave them - that just because the audience at home appears entertained and is buying the products that endorse its taped existence, game shows and politics require a combination of profound mental illness and powerfully tormented minds feeding on uncontrolled guilt and shame to push the envelope.<br /><br />By the time Dubya gets his last joyride on Air Force One - assuming he can sustain his appetite for prolific humiliation which has never been fully appeased - the fate of his legacy will have retracted to the dimensions of a crushed oil barrel. The long running game show of a presidency will be sent to syndication in Jakarta, and the outcome of his challenge with intelligence and the facts will have a USA Today-like color coded chart in the history books, right alongside the books that stress daddy has a penis and mommy has a vagina, and that Uncle Bruce's "male friend" likes to decorate. Dubya will have his seat next to Nixon and Harding and will be regarded as nothing more than a corrupt and incompetent monkey who got all slap-happy in the Oval Office, and the only reason for mentioning him will be to understand how he ever rose to the office of preznut in the first place. And if the Democrats ever find some balls and start demanding a Special Prosecutor ... the real defendant at this juncture will be the American political system, because if we once came to the brink of impeaching a president elected by the largest margin of victory in the long history of national elections why has the political system become a retractable righteousness roof and used kid gloves on a buffoon?<br /><br /><blockquote>Unknown Comic: Chuckie baby! Hey, Chuckie, Chuckie, Chuckie!<br />Chuck Barris: Yes? What do you want?<br />Unknown Comic: Is my fly open?<br />Chuck Barris: No, it isn't.<br />Unknown Comic: Well, it should be. I'm peein'.</blockquote>dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1116134593385555252005-05-15T22:13:00.000-07:002005-05-19T10:01:29.066-07:00Attention K-Mart Shoppers: Pick Up Your Collective Illusions At The Door<img src="http://photos8.flickr.com/8492440_36bd38656a.jpg" width="400" height="267" alt="snowstreet" /><br /><br /><strong>Inside the Rethug Funhouse all the Distortions look Normal ... Water Cooler Talk about Plato's Retreat and Dubya's UN Nominee ... The Bizarre Emergence of a Vague and Scaled Down version of Doom ... Not even Ehrlichman would have Stooped this Low ... The Sharks finally have turned on one other ... Ask Not for Whom the Bell Tolls</strong><br /><br />"Look, John Cornyn is a good friend, and we look forward to analyzing and working with legislation that will make -- it would hope -- put a free press's mind at ease that you're not being denied information you shouldn't see."<br />- Close enough for Dubya these days ... Washington, D.C., April 14, 2005<br /><br />"A good conspiracy is unprovable. I mean, if you can prove it, it means they screwed up somewhere along the line."<br />- Jerry Fletcher, from <em>Conspiracy Theory</em>, 1997<br /><br />It has been a fascinating tale, no doubt ... and perhaps the most significant thing about it is that it has made absolutely no sense at all, not even to a delusional person willing to make that giant leap of faith and accept it as God's Humble plan. But you were warned, Sparky, and so were many others. Way down here at the bottom of the neo-conservative barrel, swimming around in the dark and sticky goop like a pack of seagulls in the aftermath of an oil spill, an indifferent American electorate is beginning to sum up the very cost of all the poisonous rhetoric and political malfeasance conducted in the name of the "Old Fashioned American Way" ... but somehow, with Iraq spinning into a reality TV version of <em>Assault on Precinct 13</em> and the military missing its recruitment targets at the range of 41%, at least a dozen or so right wing legislators (read GOP targeted seats in 2006 and presidential hopefuls for 2008) are stepping back from comment as the Pentagon is considering a new round of job cuts and closure of more than 150 military installations nationwide, for some reason, while talking points pinheads like Norm Coleman make a poorly timed appearance on HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher" to chatter about the "post 9/11 world" in virtual absentia, saying all the right words but doing nothing about it.<br /><br />Incredible as it may seem, the dollar signs on the Pentagon's downsizing - or "right-sizing," depending on what version of the creative semantics cookbook you read from - are yet another codephrase like "the DEA in an early morning raid seized a huge shipment of cocaine with an estimated street value of 25 million" ... while the less impressed ask ourselves, "Get a load of that street and what are the property values?" <em>Street Value</em> has almost no bearing in the real world nor does the size of the Pentagon budget, of course, and while the head honchos in the basement actuarian cubbyholes <em>say</em> they are cutting $30b US from the military's budget over the next six years, the certainty of the matter is that many of these program cuts will be planted deeper into the bottom line once Congress steps to the plate and the usual bureaucratic meanderings take hold.<br /><br />There is a critical notion beyond this points-on-a-curve diatribe, however, that even the rational mind could settle beyond any reasonable doubt. To paraphrase Jerry Fletcher one more time, "Love gives you wings and it can make you fly, but don't even call it love ... call it 'Geronimo' because, when you're in love, you'll jump from the top of the Empire State building screaming 'Geronimo' and you won't care." And neither does half of the American people, in fact; they are wrapped up in a version of love for an America subjugated to themselves, while stuck in the middle of a disturbing co-dependent relationship between <em>who </em> the country truthfully represents and what its creators clearly designed us to be. And we all tend to love for the very wrong reasons, from time to time, which explains the skyrocketing US divorce rate and the level of venom that has decended upon our politics and civil discourse. In the end, "We the people" and our perverse political world are about <a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0118883/">as misplaced as Jerry Fletcher</a> at all corners of the plausability and righteousness spectra - from which we have become nothing more than a roving cabal of lunchbox blunders filled with lives of half-mad stupidity and malignant ineptitude on most every level of our intellectual and emotional well-being.<br /><br />What the political wizards and barstool pundits will say about this dilemna is that we got what we rightly deserved - for many reasons, but mainly because we just so happened to surrender our way of life and our ideals to vicious pimps and thugs and thieves when we should have been more closely involved. The End of the American Century is unfortunate, but if the players in power had to do it all over again, they would have done it more quickly.<br /><br />That is the key point of the matter. It's just a low-rent version of the old Nixon axiom: "When you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow" - wafting through the rafters of corporations like WalMart shifting its responsibility of providing fundamental benefits to the local taxbase and romancing our organized media with absurd and distracting tales of humanity gone deranged while billions are skimmed off the top and out the backdoors of the US Treasury like the Mafia did with union pension funds and Las Vegas casino counting chambers in the 1970s.<br /><br />And, Sparky, don't think for a second that this absolves you of responsibility. To a larger degree, we have all bought into the ornery and spiteful gameplan.<br /><br />This is the essence of what some intelligent minds have called "The Absent Democracy" in practice: neither truly opting out of the political system entirely, nor working within it for real and demonstrative change ... and by always counting on the simple ideals that both the freaks in power are more greedy than smart and that their semi-entrenched constituencies are one step removed from your column if only your candidate could appeal to an otherwise barren world of demiurgic rapture. By the conclusion of the last campaign, I became convinced, despite my inner barometer clanging "the fix is already in and we better watch our flank in Ohio," that the people would rise up and declare <em>enough nation building</em> and let's now begin to define new priorities for a new and challenging time. Not the media, or the special interests or the politicians - but the people would define our shared possibilities, as a common entity who know what's best for themselves, as inscribed in the faded and fragile parchments honoring our establishment and which admonishes us to constantly observe their creation or risk losing it all.<br /><br />But in November of 2004 we spent too little time for this kind of inspiring talk or priority building. We took the easy way out of the barfight and let someone else throw the punches and take a few lumps along the way. The main punching bag soon became John Kerry - and to a lesser degree, Tom Daschle - but the real loser was the American people who couldn't get past the pseudo-psychic maze of denial and sodomy and religious outrage and drummed up color charts at every juncture which, when looking back at it, seemed more in line with vengeance than politics. Needless to say, the average voter was dragged into the abusive exercise and discovered that the media was there to flail them constantly with gibberish and a steady dose of cruel and convulsive assaults on everything but the direction into which the country was headed. Which is not to say that the strategy wasn't effective, but as a long term mandate to control the national agenda history tells us that it has delivered some truly disastrous results like the "House Un-American Activities Committee" and "The Contract With America," just to name two.<br /><br />Anyone who thinks that Dubya, now apparently retired in place at The Big House, is telling the truth probably has a very good working relationship with the Tooth Fairy and believes that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. As for the current list of party pimps and spinmeisters, they have cleverly parlayed his quaint little persona into a fascinating and frequently hilarious tale of self-delusion and arrogance and infomercial-style salesmanship. And through the snickers and open-jawed stares from the rest of us, they clearly have executed an ingenious burlesque on lowbrow media distortion in the New Century, of which Karl Rove was clearly the ring leader and Donald Segretti of his time.<br /><br />The bad movie will eventually end in two short years, right about that time when the clock strikes 2007 and a New Congress begins, and no one will barely notice Dubya looking as polluted and batshit as Howard Hughes at the end. Many of us will assume that this appearance has something to do with liquor or garden variety uppers and downers, but as Karl Rove types out the last of his speeches, which jump around like a starving flea in a dog kennel, the true believers among the preznut's unhinged flock will finally realize that Dubya has been on a destination much crazier than anyone ever imagined. Not only was he the catalyst for "No Child Left Behind," which did exactly that in reverse, he cut the wealthiest people a check several times because <em>he could</em>, beat the drums on a notion of "activist judges" when any good constitutional lawyer will tell you that's exactly what their role <em>is</em> on the country's federal bench, and then spread "democracy" at the barrel of a gun once his people realized that there were no weapons of mass destruction to be found, stored and recycled for the next Dictator <em>du-jour</em>. Too bad Dubya wasn't as entranced with "Catcher in The Rye" as Jerry Fletcher - because then we would have understood why he was so conflicted, and why he has lowered his nation into paranoid episodes so freakish that it makes Richard Lewis seem as calm as Bing Crosby. And who can blame Dubya for thinking that the world is out to get him at last? When not busy with his work killing foreigners for no other reason than their being foreign - while coincidentally sitting on a pile of petroleum - he is destroying the rest of us along with them.dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1114993518015601372005-05-08T23:35:00.000-07:002005-05-09T11:25:30.596-07:00And Texas Toast Is Another Name For Garlic Bread<div style="float: left; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;"><img src="http://photos2.flickr.com/2507272_79928eb5d8_m.jpg" width="240" height="159" alt="fullspectrumdominance" /></div><strong>The Gravity Geek Boots Land in Crawford ... Andy Card Delivers the Post Mortem to Fat Timmy ... Tommy Franks and the Sack of Shit ... An Opulent Former Nazi is Crowned Panzer Kardinal ... More Discussion of Pressing the "Freak Button"</strong><br /><br />"If you're a <strong>two-working family</strong> like a lotta families are here in America, and, uhh -- two people working in your family, and the, the spouse dies early -- before 62, for example -- all of the money that the spouse has put into the system, uhh, is gum -- held there, and then when the other spouse retires, he or she gets to choose the benefits from his or her own work, or the other spouse's benefits, which is ever higher but not both."<br />- Dubya discusses "two-working families", Prime Time Press Conference interrupted by Paris Hilton, White House, April 28, 2005<br /><br />"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."<br />- George Orwell<br /><br />What will Dubya do now? That seems to be the question that has every strategic thinker and corporate pimp in Washington up late at night - from the dark alleys and recesses of the Beltway to the corner chairs of the National Press Club to the dried up cocktail parties in locales such as Arlington and Georgetown. You can only imagine what the discussion is like in the tense and comfortless bunkers of the organized spin operation known as the American Enterprise Institute, where bought-and-paid-for shills like Bill Schneider and Frank Luntz are burning a great deal of midnight oil wondering if the second-teamers amongst the Rovian Fiasco Court have indeed shot their load entirely or whether Dubya should go back for sloppy seconds on his personal e-ticket ride to pinheaded rapture and messianic nationalism.<br /><br />In the murky world of Rethug politics these days, the idea of a "vision thing" is like rubbing salt into a gaping wound that is now festering beneath the surface of an impatient electorate. Not even Dubya's daddy liked the "vision thing," a codeword from the 1992 campaign that became the dunce cap for a candidate lacking a true political agenda and a clear understanding of what needed to be done after the election. There was so much public discussion of <em>vision</em> with respect to Bush 41 that Clinton did an end-around and beat him with the Herbert Hoover dope stick until he became marked with the Scarlet "L" for <em>Loser</em> - and Dubya apparently never forgave him for it. But our wonderful Child Preznut learned something important from this political lesson too. In his mind, and in the collective estimation of his loyal minions and big contributors, all you have to do is step to the microphone, order up a crisis of the day, and appear somewhat convincing and devoted to Jesus for about 45% of the voting public: The rest of the petty hassle - the liquid six to seven percent of the <em>registered voters</em> who could shift a poll from "go" to "no go" - is left to the talking heads filters and dissection machines on Cable TV and Talk Radio; the very air of American politics is so electrified with manufactured outrage that forty doses of Oprah and Klonopin couldn't <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taming_of_the_Shrew">tame the shrew</a>.<br /><br />Millions of dollars and thousands of high-cash jobs depend on what Dubya does next; then what the Democratic and Rethug leadership brings to the knife fight; on how the media machine parses the fallout from the Social Security flamethrower battle and whether the margins are so close for the 2006 midterms that calculating Senators such as Frist, McCain and Lott start scurrying for the escape hatch and make a few proposals of their own, all of which will never reach the floor.<br /><br />The wiseguy money is moving heavy on the Democrats right now because the momentum has swung - not all the way to the left, but a lot closer to the center. Not just because Dubya can be seen retreating from the pressure of public opinion in the very manner that outraged the Rethugs when Clinton did it - by reading polls and shaping the public policy debate in light of them - but because every elected politician in Washington has been reading the tea leaves from back home and the approval numbers on Congress are shrinking twice as fast as they are on Dubya, neither of which is a positive turn for the majority in power, and why the Rethugs in private are lobbying the preznut to stay clear of the political third rail - not for <em>him</em> but for <em>them</em> and their long term survival.<br /><br />There's no reason to mention names at this point, but it's probably a good time to point out how things are shaping up under the big circus tent. For the party loyalists and chief policy wonks who have to deal with legislators who threaten to cut and run on paid for votes and hang out the their associates because they want new appropriations and federal funding for their constituencies, here's something else important to consider: For the first time in 56 years <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7761272/">neither an incumbent president or vice president</a> will be on the ticket in 2008 and the Rethug field seems wide open, unless Dubya's Number Two holds another of his appointment committees and selects himself as the most qualified crony in the pack. <br /><br /><blockquote>MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you another poll. That was Quinnipiac. This is Marist College, the Democratic field for 2008. Hillary Clinton's at 40 percent; John Kerry, 18 percent; John Edwards, 16 percent; Joe Biden at 7 percent; General Wesley Clark, 4 percent; Russ Feingold from Wisconsin, 2 percent; the governor of Mexico, Bill Richardson, 1 percent; Virginia Governor Warner, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, Tom Vilsack of Iowa all asterisks.<br /><br />Republican side, Mary Matalin, Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York at 27 percent; John McCain at 20 percent; Jeb Bush, the president's brother, governor of Florida, 10 percent; former Speaker Gingrich at 8 percent; Senator Santorum of Pennsylvania at 3 percent; Bill Frist of Tennessee at 3 percent; New York Governor Pataki at 2 percent; Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, 1 percent; Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, 1 percent; Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi, 1 percent; Governor Owens of Colorado, Senator George Allen of Virginia and Sam Brownback of Kansas all asterisks.</blockquote><br />Happy Mother of God, Sparky! The fat is indeed being hung above the fire already - touching the flames ever so gently for the moment, and without any one major candidate in mind, just yet, but there is no underestimating the harsh taste of blood in politics. Sometime between now and the end of 2005, Dubya will have to bite the hand that's been feeding him since the day he took a meat cleaver to John McCain's shins in South Carolina - essentially calling the Arizona Senator a crackpot with a Negro child and his wife a dope fiend. Even the most sadistic operatives in Washington know that the moment of truth has to happen before the 2006 elections - if not for the selfish reason of setting the stage for 2008, then because of Dubya's real inability to sell the rest of the conservatives and moderates within his own party that the lunatic fringe of the religious right is not scaring the shit out of the country, or why our "Freedom Is On The March in Iraq" soiree is breeding more terrorists now that their elections have been settled and a governing council is in place.<br /><br />Another great piece of action to take if you like long odds at the betting window, a great purchase at 20-1, is that Dubya will finally crack both mentally and spiritually under all the theocratic posturing and outrage incitement, and he will develop a serious case of Munchausen Syndrome: A psychological disorder characterized by the repeated fabrication or causation of disease symptoms or trauma for the purpose of gaining medical attention or treatment.<br /><br />This is not as crazy an idea as it may seem at first glance - not even in the framework of my own cruel and punishing opinion of the state of national politics these days. The Chimperor, a semi-professional archetype of Forrest Gump as leader of the quasi-free world on Xanax, has never felt the sense of pressure that is about to be deposited at the White House back door. His whole existence is turning to hell and his wife suddenly gets all the best one-liners from Karen Hughes' twisted imagination, now that Dubya is reduced to a broken and battered shell ... like the abusive husband who violated the terms of a restraining order one too many times and becomes the prison house pleasure unit for a gang of serial rapists.<br /><br />Domestic abusers don't do very well in the can. To land in general population with the tag of "wife beater" is to violate some kind of savagery litmus test to the career criminal who specializes in armed robbery or assault or even murder. Not even the unlucky stiff who got five to ten on grand theft larceny will sit next to the wife beater during morning chow time, unless he wants a second helping of scrambled eggs by beating his mark with a metal feeding tray.<br /><br />Now and then you get this same sense about Dubya - that he is not more than just big talk and strength in numbers tough <em>status quo</em> until the hungry sharks arrive for the real bloodletting, the type of people and special interests who can smell weakness beneath his twelve layers of juvenile hubris and know exactly how to push his "wow, a new skateboard!" button. It happened with Iraq, and then again with ANWAR and the Bankruptcy Bill. And for this same reason, my position is and always will be that I highly distrust power and supreme authority, whether those in charge of the Skinner Box keys have earned them by conventional or religious means - or whether it came by distortions, lies, armed conflict or bribes to the shadowy players behind the scenes. Today there are three main evils in the world as far as I can tell: the first is religion, the second is politics and the third is ignorance. And frankly - in America these days - there is no hope of abolishing any one of them. So we're going to have to chip away at these evils slowly, and that's where the battle must be drawn. On one side are those with enough discipline and conviction to see it through, and then those who believe that the freaks at the gates are just playing along the margins with no impact on the forest without the trees - which happens to be the current administration's environmental policy. But it's <em>really</em> either camp now, with no middle ground. All of what I used to know about America, plus all of my experience in Europe and plus all of what I have read or studied about the Third World and global history have convinced me that the "civilized" nations of Planet Earth are about to get their "once-over" from the "under developed" world who are all waiting in line to pounce because of centuries of collective hatred and ignorance about anything that does not look like our Giant System of bullshit, suppression, puppet governments and social order.<br /><br />In the end it may not even be a real threat - certainly not like what a fundamentalist thinks about an activist judge. But the parallels are disturbing. Because in the last half century, this precious little experiment known as the American Way of Life has been dimmed by reactionaries with a hard on for disturbing progress on the small planet we share. And it should worry you - greatly - and this reality should scare you about what is being left behind to a generation of young people bloated on pails of soda and WalMart-sized buckets of Cheetos, and their brains made more vacant than a dozen Terri Schiavos by the relentless pounding of videogames and cellphone ringtones on the cerebral cortex. Which means by the age of forty most of these children will grow up to be the best addiction society of sociopaths ever created, their medication cabinets glistening with bottles of narcoleptic wonder and their TV sets blaring "product placement" twenty-four-seven. Our eroding democratic experiment may have worked out well for you and me, but they will not be so fortuntate or even lucky. <br /><br />Then again, the preznut has not yet called your children a crisis.dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1113252282081480682005-04-13T23:33:00.000-07:002005-04-17T10:55:37.120-07:00The Freakiest People on the Planet<div style="float: left; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;"><img src="http://photos8.flickr.com/8492444_3a38720c92_m.jpg" width="140" height="198" alt="050330_fineman_delay_vsmall10a.vsmall" /></div><strong>They were such nice guys. God-fearing, patriotic and rich. A real principled bunch of regular Texas folk, generally ... Honky Tonk Payola and Problems with the E-Mail Server ... Constant Cash Flow Problems, Useless Press Releases and a Dim Voice in the Distance</strong><br /><br />"The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent and labour power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a country so powerful, so big, so pleasing to so many of its’ citizens that it can afford to give freedom of dissent to the small number who are not pleased. There is no system of control with more openings, apertures, flexibilities, rewards for the chosen. […] There is none that disperses its’ control more complexly through the voting system, the work situation, the church, the family, the school, the mass media – none more successful in mollifying opposition with reforms, isolating people from one another, creating patriotic loyalty."<br />- Howard Zinn, from <em>A People’s History of the United States</em>, first published 1981<br /><br />The game itself does indeed get heavy at times. You shouldn't go gallivanting around picking fights or putting the hammer down on your enemies unless you're absolutely free of dander, excrement and bad intentions. <em>No skeletons in the closet, Sparky:</em> no loose hotel room receipts or secret vices or shady deals with a paper trail ... because if your sordid past outweighs your political capital or reputation, not even Jesus H. Christ can save your vote or your soul, and the lobbyists and party pimps will cash you out as firmly in their column come vote time. If you took payoffs from Indian Casinos in the name of party dominance and dissecting the electoral map, the K Street boys with the dark suits, designer sunglasses and silver briefcases will come knocking in the wee hours of the morning to confront you with hardcopies of the emails that you thought were completely destroyed, in which you once referred to your key Native American clients as "monkeys" and "idiots" or the tribal leadership as "Chief Running Scam" and "Keeping Two Books."<br /><br />When you get caught playing dirtbag, you're screwed. The cost of your vote just hit rock bottom - <em>zilch</em> - and your supporters back home and your interests are worth about as much as Atari or Digital Equipment stock.<br /><br />Every once in a while a major political player goes up in flames in a way that kindles the concept of spontaneous combustion, just like we're about to witness with The Bugman, and it goes a little like this: On Monday morning, on the first day that the new UN Ambassador nominee goes up on the Hill for filleting and grilling, you - the treacherous and ambitious party insider and House Majority Leader with more than a few skeletons in the backseat of your limo - are working the hallways of the Rayburn Building in good - albeit, a twisted sense of good - faith, basking in all the attention and requests for a moment to speak about a new appropriations measure when you hear a dim voice in the distance calling your name. You battle an urge to ignore it, then glance down the hallway for your office door to see a smiling, crisply attired young operative of about thirty five years, waving at you to join him for a brief but important discussion.<br /><br />"Nice to see you, Tommie Boy," he says. "My name's Clayton B. Normal. I've been sent here from the White House and we'd sure like you to come out hard on the flank on this Social Security Bill we're working on. You can call me Clay."<br /><br />You let out this sheepish smile, but remain silent - waiting for Normal to continue with his pitch. There's going to be a price, and you've been down this road before so you want to fish out this hole before calling it a great deal.<br /><br />But Normal is already lining up a few more staffers with his hand gestures, settling his sideways gaze on a hot little staffer in black pumps who just started working for Congressman Raptures ... then just as suddenly his expression turns hawkish and he starts rambling about how he always wanted to be one of those pilots in Air America that supplied Cambodia and Laos with supplies and armaments, but the politcal bug caught him and he never looked back ... "And well, goddamned Almighty, we are going to <em>really</em> need these last few votes ... "<br /><br />You flash an impatient grin and scratch at an ear, wanting to get down to the details. But Normal starts shouting down at a Senator, then turns back again and says: "Holy Mother of Christ, Tommie Boy, I'm really sorry to leave you hanging out here like this, but I have to chase him down. That Senator over there is a regular on <em>Meet the Press</em> and he promises to deliver us half an hour on Sunday morning." He lets out an impish grin and extends his hand for the first time: "Perhaps we can chat over dinner about this? I know this little out of the way place that does a fascinatingly devine carpaccio and tuna nicoise. You game?"<br /><br />"Tonight."<br /><br />He nods at the only demand you've made thus far, in an almost mocking tone. "I'll phone your office with the details. How's about eight ... <em>tonight</em>?"<br /><br />"Right."<br /><br />"Perfect," he replies gleefully. "Say, Tommie Boy, we can take a scramble in my new 645Ci convertible - take in the sights, come to an understanding over a 1996 Bien Nacido and little thing on the side."<br /><br />Christ! He's got the 6 Series, a rag top, two hundred bucks a bottle ... Normal is big-time and here for the kill.<br /><br />"We'll meet at the place by seven thirty," he says, clucking his tongue and pointing to nobody in particular. "Sharp."<br /><br />Later that night in that out of the way place that Normal described, half sick from the warp speed transport in the BMW - now praying that your wife won't call to wish you a merry good night.<br /><br />"Listen, Tommie Boy." Clayton B. Normal, grinning like a lion with a small animal in its mouth. "It kinda pains me to have to do this to you. After all that you've done for the party and all - "<br /><br />"It's all a bunch of shit - the fucking press is responding to leaks and hearsay." <br /><br />"Really? That's too bad. And I just wanted to lock up that dirty little vote of yours, along with a few of your colleagues."<br /><br />"Dirty? Wait on there a minute, Clay ... This whole thing is crap; we never took anything that wasn't locked down."<br /><br />"Bullshit! You've got JOD looking into your travel arrangements. Your lobbyist buddies are talking to the opposition already, Tommie Boy. But heck ... if we weren't on the same side, we would have tossed you under the bus long ago."<br /><br />Anger mixing with the first bottle of Bien Nacido, a dull throb behind the eyes. "Fuck you, Clayton! This ain't about sides or <em>there ain't no I in team</em> horseshit! If you need my vote - or want me to lean on a few guys for theirs - you damn well know how to put it into play. So save the circus tent speech for the focus groups and fundraising tables in Des Moines."<br /><br />Normal lets out a heavy grin. "Speak to me, Tommie Boy - what would it take for you to deliver your vote and a few others? Become a party chairman, what?"<br /><br />"You're fucking A-right! You know what kinda shit storm you guys got me into back home, Clay? When I went back there over the holiday, those liberal vandal bastards spraypainted "Pimp" and "Theif" on my driveway. My fucking driveway! And stretched toilet paper from my goddamned trees."<br /><br />"I know. But you did call those people monkeys."<br /><br />"What?"<br /><br />"Look at these, Tommie Boy. Some of the most vile and repugnant messages I've seen come out of the Congressional e-mail system."<br /><br />"E-mails?"<br /><br />Normal slides faxed copies across the table.<br /><br />"Jesus Mother of God!"<br /><br />"No kidding. That's what <em>I</em> said when I first saw them, Tommie Boy."<br /><br />"Never! This wasn't me who wrote <em>these</em>! I would never say such a thing about ... Christ, why in God's great name would I ever say such things!"<br /><br />"That's why these e-mails are disgusting things, Tommie Boy. Never mind the stuff we could <em>allege</em> when you sit down and read between the lines. You're lucky somebody didn't leak them to the press already - or call the IG." Normal starts banging his fist to stress the point that he is about to make. "That's the lead story for the News at Six in Odessa <em>and</em> Peter Jennings. Next thing you know - Stewart and Leno and Letterman start pissing on your grave."<br /><br />"No!"<br /><br />"Yes, Tommie Boy - and now you gotta pay for your sins, big fella."<br /><br />"How so?" A pregnant silence. "Like what are you talking about ... exactly?"<br /><br />Normal reeling in the big fish now, flashing a cocky grin. "Votes, Hoss. And Gold Member treatment at the Rules Committee when <em>we</em> decide to use it. Get all your boys in line and tellem to 'go fetch' - especially the California Closetboy in charge of rules, he better deliver the goods."<br /><br />Quiet rage in all the non-verbal expressions, a guzzle from the wineglass after a heavy pour. "You fuckin' monsters! You're telling me that the White House sent you to blackmail its own Majority Leader? A friend of a friend, right?"<br /><br />"Don't be so dramatic, Tommie Boy. This is called alliance building and shaping the public policy debate."<br /><br />"In this climate I can't guarantee anything. Not without some budget giveaways. And besides, Clayton, they all want <em>something</em> in return."<br /><br />Normal motions for the check. "Spare me the <em>grubby</em> details. I think in big concepts and my mind is only good for speeches, columns and white papers. But <em>you</em> should get yourself immersed in a way that instills accountability and measurability in your communications plans. Just have seven votes off this roster of names by the end of business Friday. If they come through when the time comes, we'll be sure to burn those credit card receipts along with these e-mails."<br /><br />"Gimme a break ... by Friday? I'm leaving this rathole."<br /><br />Normal shifts to his feet and reaches out for a handshake that is not returned. "Nope, Tommie Boy. I'm leaving - and I think you need to dedicate a little more time to consider the possibilities. Just make sure that your life doesn't take a turn for the worse."<br /><br />Alas, total castration at the highest point of the curve ... a scene like this could go on for hours, and it gets replayed day after day in the world of organized politics. Rewards and threats are all part of the gameplan, and it becomes easier to orchestrate once the bright shining glare of election season subsides. All the smiling never leads to laughter and an appreciation for the subtle details is better left to the high-stakes strategists and high-visibility spokesmen of their time, who develop messages and tactics to lead opinion during the most intense public debates of the new Congressional session. Theirs is a gig too deadly serious and expensive for the less inclined - and the political leader, just like his master motivator, is not too different from a crackhead interrogating the emptying streets for spare change along with washers and subway tokens substituting for spare change.<br /><br />The payoff is extremely high in both unhinged worlds, for those who are into the chaotic parade - but anyone who has ever been cornered by an angry yet preoccupied junkie with a vibrant sob story to share will tell you that it's a fear of the unknown that motivates the sudden reach into your pocket for a quick donation to the cause.<br /><br />Politics - as Tom DeLay knows it - is really no different. There is nothing but extreme highs and terrible lows when dealing in the total involvement of any rapid-response public policy debate - especially when you're keeping score on so many fronts that you begin to feel more like a wiseguy sharking money to degenerate gamblers than you do the House Majority Leader.<br /><br />As far as we can tell now, there is no point in kidding ourselves about what Tom DeLay and his cronies <em>truly</em> want for America in the New Century. When he glares out the window of his spacious office and sees the greater Washington power structure converging at his feet, he doesn't imagine "legislators" or "honorable public servants," he sees "price tags" and "marks that can be bought" like cheap, toothless hookers in Atlantic City. Little systematic parasites that are all there to serve his every whim and his personal firesale of the American Dream, and he's prepared to drive a wooden stake in the heart of the Great and Very Democracy that put him in the place where he stands today.dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1112686049932482382005-04-05T23:07:00.000-07:002005-04-14T00:11:17.526-07:00PAJAMARAMALAMADINGDONG<div style="float: left; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;"><a href="http://www.michellemalkin.com"><img src="http://photos7.flickr.com/8491976_1ff672764b_m.jpg" width="114" height="164" alt="Michelle Malkin Meets Mattel" /></a></div><strong>Mistress Michelle Meets Mattel ... Suspended Somewhere Between a Newsroom and a Brothel</strong><br /><br />"Any good time had while wearing pajamas. Positive, uplifting experience. Can be a party of one or several. Not to be confused with a pajama party, although it would fit in some circumstances."<br /><em>Example: We stayed up late last night and had a pajamaramalamadingdong of a time blogging about the Nazi impulses surrounding Michelle Mattel's opinions of Arab Americans."</em><br /><br />Babiecakes - received your postcard last night and I was immediately left astonished by that alluring scent of Christian Dior and the scribbled Cupid's arrow on its back, pointing to "our beachfront getaway." What getaway? Have you moved back to Koreatown? I guess it's not such an extraordinary concept, considering your vast and wayward history in Los Angeles. Did you already find work down there and do you need me to rough up that crappy editor of yours? <br /><br />Anyways, don't send any more of your designer wardrobe to my Hermosa Beach compound. Hang onto those things until the contractors are done expanding the deck and the bedroom. The fellas might rifle through your nighties and things, and I'm not much of a garment policeman. As of right now it seems like you can move your things back into the pleasure hut in about ten days or so. The general contractor, a stocky and hirsute 310-pound Chicano surfer dude named Pedro D. Infringement, has been a bit sluggish in pouring the concrete, and the constant hammering has been a huge distraction from completing my book. It's been going badly for about a month now; I'm yelling more and writing even less. The agent has been checking in daily, telling me that the characters are borish and that I should stay clear of your hypnotic seductiveness until I get the plot better aligned. Personally, the criticism has been a little too much to bear - and it's about the last thing I need. "A brilliantly crafted tale of political intrigue and cultural upheaval," he barked into my voice mail this morning, "but it needs ... " And so the tiring beat continues, like we're distant vessels breaking against a raging sea ...<br /><br />I trust you're having better luck with your blog and media appearances. FOX is a tough line up to crack, it seems, even for a woman of your innate talents. Might I suggest an approach more in line with a hot asian incall escort selling a <em>GFE</em> service for the newsboys in the production silo - which I've heard stands for <em>girl friend experience</em> in the adult entertainment business - so that way you're not obligated to go <em>that</em> far with an undesirable client such as Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity or Brit Hume. But <em>caveat emptor</em>, my girl. Once you've travelled down that slippery slope, you would be nothing more than Ann Coulter with a better ratchet set and all that would be left of your destiny would be the occassional semi-nude appearance on HBO's <em>Cathouse</em> or an edition of <em>Girls Gone Wild: The Kinky Blogger Edition</em> or working the casino lobby in Vegas when the Shriners and Bar Association hit town. Then no one would look at your blog and the advertising dollars would dry up, unless you parsed out some space to the online seek-and-screw databases that seem to be the rage on the internet these days - the very services that <a href="http://blogslut.com/corpsnap.jpg">Jeff "Bulldog" Gannon</a> and <a href="http://nikita_demosthenes.blogspot.com/2003_02_02_nikita_demosthenes_archive.html#88661061">Laura "grace919" Ingraham</a> have been found to frequent under assumed names borne from years of cathartic alterego addiction. Even then, I still can't think of a compelling reason why you would subjugate yourself to such a creepy <em>quid pro quo</em> anyways, and these types of things seem to get straightened out rather quickly if you lay down the law on sexual advances. But it's a thought that must occupy your imagination from time to time.<br /><br />A rumor hit my email the other day - to jump into another subject - that the editorial staff of the <em>Caracas Herald</em> is searching for a new Op-Ed contributor of note. Would you be kind enough to shake the tree on this for me? Clearly my South American Rolodex needs brushing up and I wouldn't even know who to contact. With all your powerful connections in the World Press you could probably snoop something out rather quickly. The fishwrap was something of a ruse, if memory serves me correctly, but it would be right up my alley, or yours, even if they offered a mere pittance in terms of contributor's fees. If you come across anything noteworthy, drop on by the compound with a nice Syrah and two or three jars of Nutella because it could get kinky.<br /><br />Now for observations from your blog - Do I detect <em>just</em> a change in your hairstyle or did you go under the knife recently? You disappeared there for about three weeks; and the contrast with your old photographs to this new one on your site has got the better part of my imagination all riled up. Not sure why it caught me this way, but you seem to have one of those permanent surprise expressions found on those thirty-something women with more plastic than Mattel who saunter freely along the mean streets of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills ... and I was wondering how much work you had done. Even my personal assistant, Uma T. Vogue, a nubile young Aryan lass who delivers the morning latte and inspirational backrub, has noticed that the shape of your face is more narrow. God only knows how much plastic surgery and dental bleaching really costs these days and whether you got one of those <em>pro bono</em> semi-celebrity deals; I'd rather examine you with my own two eyes and other sensory exploits too carnal to mention in this space.<br /><br />As I look back over the first page of this message, the language seems rather dim and non-linear. So I have attached a short article I just finished for the <em>Arizona Republic</em> on the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?040726ta_talk_schaler">military offering free cosmetic surgery</a> to recruits and active soldiers that "compensates for the tremendous sacrifices they are called upon to make" in the name of God and Country. I have also enclosed some other ideas on sculpting your otherwise provocative appearance, and what some of these procedures mean in layman's terms, even if you have received some of these already - and I hope you at least got number three and number six in anticipation of our next "journalistic" endeavor:<br /><br /><ol><li><strong>Rhinoplasty</strong> - is considered to be one of the most gratifying plastic surgeries to receive, because the patient often will find their entire facial aesthetic modified.</li><br /><li><strong>Chin and Cheek Implants</strong> - Cheek implants are one of the most popular surgeries in Hollywood, because they make the face appear more youthful and less tired. The cheek implant is placed through an incision just inside the mouth. This creates a partial face lift, which makes the patient look younger.</li><br /><li><strong>Breast Augmentation</strong> - is one of the most frequently requested surgeries. Implants are inserted behind the breast tissue of each breast or behind the pectoralis major muscle thereby increasing the size of the breast. Silicone implants are made of thick material and filled with either saline or an antibiotic solution during the operation.</li><br /><li><strong>Blepharoplasty</strong> - is the name of the plastic surgery procedure that corrects aging eyelids. This surgery helps a person look alert and rejuventated. Most patients need an upper and lower procedure. The surgery is often covered by insurance if the upper eye lids droop so much that they obscure vision. The price range for surgery is $3000 to $4000.</li><br /><li><strong>Brow Lift</strong> - A brow lift is wonderful for treating a tired upper face. It can help eliminate droopy eyebrows, forehead lines, and frown lines that come with age. Sometimes a brown lift is combined with a face lift to help eliminate age.</li><br /><li><strong>Liposuction</strong> - is the most popular cosmetic surgery in the world. The procedure has evolved to include liposculpture and ultrasonic liposculpture. Ultrasonic liposculpture is a technique in which a metal probe is inserted through an incision in the skin into the depths of the fatty compartments of the body. The probe is moved back and forth in different directions. Next, the fat is removed using the routine liposuction technique. Unfortunately, the use the the ultrasound machine increases the length of the incision because of the size of the probe that is inserted.</li></ol><br />As for me, I'm a writer, an enigma, a keen observer, an inspirational conversationalist, a true artist, a thinking man's journalist, a heat-seeking searcher of fun and profit - and, generally speaking, a battle-tested svengali of note who will stand the test of time. If it occurs to you suddenly that I am trying to lay down a slam on your right wing inclinations, don't even go there. Because I'm content to let you be who you really are, even if you got an extreme makeover to jumpstart the career. Politics and personal appearances are important, of course, but I prefer people when you get right down to it.<br /><br />Anyways, if the article interests or inspires a couple of blog entries, please make sure you credit the source. I'm going to let the newspaper print it <em>as is</em>, but if you have any additional insights that I may have overlooked I'll be sure to quote you fully and not cut-and-paste your explanations into a misleading byline. Also, please send me some of those bikini shots we took in Cozumel so I'll know if you went under the knife for sure.<br /><br />Until our next distorted and concupiscent rendezvous,<br />Team Gonzographydr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1112563900869780292005-04-03T14:19:00.000-07:002005-04-14T00:06:20.286-07:00The Holy Simp and His Showdown at the Communion Rail<div style="float: left; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;"><img src="http://photos7.flickr.com/8345880_08a09dd75d.jpg" width="200" height="263" alt="pope_andrew" /></div>"For the first time in my own life, I find myself unable to go to Mass. During the most heated bouts of rhetoric coming from the Vatican this summer, I felt tears of grief and anger welling up where once I had been able to contain them. Faith beyond resentment began to seem unreachable ... Perhaps a new pope will change things. But the odds are that hostility will get even worse. I revere those who can keep up the struggle within the channels of the Church. I respect those who have left. But I am somewhere in between now. <br /><br />There are moments in a spiritual life when the heart simply breaks. Some time in the last year, mine did. I can only pray that in some distant future, some other gay people not yet born will be able to come back to the church, to sing in the choir, and know that the only true scandal in the world is the scandal of God's love for his creation, all of it, all of us, in a church that may one day, finally, become home to us all."<br />- Pope Andrew the Heretic, <em>Losing a Church, Keeping the Faith</em>, October 2003<br /><br />"Life is a job. You get $14.50 a day, but after you die, you have to pay for your sins. Stealing a hub cap is around 100 dollars. Masturbation is 35 cents ... it doesn't seem like much, but it adds up. If there's money left when you subtract what you owe from what you've earned, you can go to heaven. If not, you have to go back to work. Sort of like reincarnation - many nuns are Mafia guys working it off."<br />- Father Guido Sarducci, gossip columnist and rock critic for the Vatican newspaper <em>L'Osservatore Romano</em><br /><br />Trapped in the never-ending <em>pontification</em> of the religious coverage that became borish - say, after the eleventh hour - and then, just as the nation was forced to watch that frightful self-fulfilling replay of Keith Olbermann interviewing Chris Matthews on MSNBC <em>just because</em> he's Catholic, it became abundantly clear who the next Pope should be.<br /><br />Pope Andrew the Heretic of Provincetown. And why not?<br /><br />The main noise in the aftermath of The Pope's passing in the media has been an unlikely and unholy alliance between John Paul II and good old Ronnie Reagan with some maniacal passion they shared in bringing down the Iron Curtain, but nobody in Washington really cares anymore about the Russians - or the Poles, for that matter - despite their sudden and obvious ignorance that World War III is already in the catalyst and countdown stages with the rest of the Islamic world.<br /><br />Not to jump on anyone else's parade here, but the rational mind could not do anything but agree with <a href="http://billmon.org/archives/001799.html">Billmon's</a> simple assessment of the Pope and his place in the pantheon of christian victories and its laundry list of charlatans and false prophets and grotesque efforts to subjugate the masses. But so what? John Paul II led the Catholic world for a little less than 27 years, which is longer than almost anyone else in the currently active political sphere of influence except Fidel Castro in Cuba, Moammar Khadafy of Libya and the grandsons of King Abd Al Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia - none of whom would be considered harbors of global democratization and general good will.<br /><br />Twenty six years is a very long time in the Big Chair or for this century, no matter how you slice it. Dubya has the look of a crazed baboon who traded the taste for ripe bananas for gushy warm hyena blood a long time ago, and he's been wearing the preznut sportscoat for a little more than four years. Gerald Ford only got three years before they snatched him out by the collar, and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu only held power for ten years because the U.S. military was stubborn enough to replenish an endless supply of body bags.<br /><br />Let's just agree that political tenure is mighty brief in the passing lane. Brutus did in Julius Caesar after five years at the top of the food chain and Lee Harvey Oswald whacked John F. Kennedy before he even finished three, while that freakish little degenerate Caligula was tossed out like the trash in only four years, his reign even shorter than Jimmy Carter's was at the helm of a modern superpower.<br /><br />Only Franklin Delano Roosevelt came close to Pope John Paul II in terms of American longevity, and he only lasted that long because the camera shot missed the wheelchair and the world was at the brink of complete disaster. As a people we tend to measure the world in four year cycles, while the rest of the planet cannot resist the urge to calibrate political power in terms of lifetimes and monarchies. And in the curious case of Khadafy, he will probably outlive the next Pope and certainly Dubya, whose regime is apparently more stable and slightly less prosperous than half of the European Union and Central America combined.<br /><br />He is clearly smarter than Dubya and dumber than the Saudi Royal Family, but Moammar has never lost the absolute genius nor the capacity to wreak destruction and massive retaliation in one fell swoop. Not even the Israelis want to fuck with him, regardless of how many people he's vaporized along the way.<br /><br />The Colonel might be a ruthless and insane and barbaric plague on the Arab world, as Reagan once regarded him, but even some of our closest allies in the War on Terror still enjoy doing a little business with him, and while the rest of world society marches along on its Papal reunion tour, Khadafy is busy polluting the airwaves with his evening thoughts on Islamic fate and incoherent ramblings on the idea of recognizing the Jewish state.<br /><br />Which brings us back to His Holy Simp, Andrew Sullivan, who is also prone to polluting the airwaves with his ideas. Many of these range from not knowing if he agrees more with the Rethugs or Democrats to whining about not being welcome in any of the red states because he is openly gay to connecting everything from Abu Ghraib and Terri Schiavo to debating the rate of HIV infection and demanding gay marriage all in the space of one discordant and stammering blog entry. Truth be told: you want to agree with this pinhead right up to the point where he gets too emotionally draining and sermonizing, but he's so damned annoying that even a prolonged view of his written word makes you wish that he could be expatriated to the Vatican City Order of Interior Decorators. And word has it that Brother Andrew from the Jesuit Society of The Conflicted can perform wonders with a roll of velvet, and his concepts with lace curtains are to die for.<br /><br />For those less-steeped in the strange and bizarre life and times of Andrew Sullivan, his biography reads straight (no pun intended) out of a Catholic high school yearbook. Almost all of his readers are the type of conservatives who could go over the edge at any moment or kill or maim or destroy or burn down your house with your family <em>still</em> in it, or imprison thousands of stray felines in their summer condos while worshipping yellowed photographs of Ray Sharkey and Liberace. They are almost always from Miami or Key West or living a repressive existence in places like Austin, Texas or Santa Fe - and they are all connected to the festival of political schizophrenia that is AndrewSullivan.com, from the fish-headed wingnuts to the deviant Jesus freaks and closet Nazis who wear the uniform only on "special occassions" at Kate O'Beirne's pad.<br /><br />He is also - according to a young Peruvian houseboy who goes by the name "Zorro" in West Hollywood, California - a hopeful and wannabee disgraced priest of some form or another, who can slide into a long winded evangelical mode reminiscent of Oral Roberts or Billy Graham. This probably accounts for his terribly huge and devoted following in many of the blue states, where his constant doomsday-like warnings of an impending gay persecution has elevated him to virutal sainthood amongst the male Edith Bunkers of this world, a quasi-Messenger of God for the Adam and Steve division of the Christian faith. More homosexual males have abandoned their sublets and variable rate mortgages and began scrambling around like cranked up rats on Andrew's good word than ever ran blindly into the streets screaching their girlish outrage once the Bryman School of Cosmetology lost its authority to issue Pell Grants.<br /><br />All Andrew really does in the end is scare homosexuals to death and tell them to flee God's wrath. But the serious truth of the matter is that any mildly educated buffoon with a skill for accessorizing and a reasonable vocabulary and a contract with <em>The New York Times</em> could do Andrew Sullivan's gig, and the same vacillating collection of homosexuals - latent or otherwise - will just so happen to be selecting a new Pope in the coming days, the exact Catholic church that was quick to rescue Cardinal Bernard Law of the Boston Archdiocese from hundreds of lawsuits alleging that he allowed pedophile priests to molest children, by appointing him Archpriest of St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome and giving him a vote that should determine John Paul II's successor.<br /><br />In the end, one man's Holy Calling is another man's ecclesiastical kink in the Year of Our Lord 2005. Somebody - just <em>anybody</em> - at least make Andrew Sullivan our Holy Simp of paternal matrimony, so he'll crawl back under the rock from whence he came.dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1112404764509044212005-04-01T17:18:00.000-08:002005-04-02T17:31:44.000-08:00Just Another Terrorist Organization Gone Terminal on Itself<img src="http://photos7.flickr.com/7863969_324cfbb11b.jpg" width="400" height="228" alt="flog the operative" /><br /><br /><strong>jumping the shark</strong><br />1. when your favorite show starts to flag and go downhill, as when Fonzie jumped the shark on waterskis. We all knew that <em>Happy Days</em> was on its way down then.<br />2. a semi-popular phrase for "selling out" or turning into shit.<br />3. the precise moment when you recognize that something is really over although it's momentum carries it on for a few steps.<br /> <em>source: <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jumping the shark">UrbanDictionary.com</a></em><br /><br />There was a strange vibe all over the globe last week. Terri Schiavo finally went off to her maker, the Pope took a turn for the worse in the aftermath of another Easter Parade, <em>The Wall Street Journal</em> and <em>Newsweek's</em> Master of the Obvious Howard Fineman declared Tom DeLay dead on arrival, a real and significant Democratic leadership still hasn't emerged long enough to grow some <em>cajones</em>, the preznut's commission on weapons of mass destruction found that America's spy agencies were "dead wrong" in most of their judgments about Saddam Hussein's WMD capabilities - and just about everywhere else in this shrinking world, including Afghanistan, either Dubya or members of his immediate family were being hunted down like a pack of rabid animals before they could sink their fangs into another uninfected creature or constituency.<br /><br />Karl Rove and Karen "Man Hands" Hughes, in the mean time, flew back up to the Big House for a series of late night strategy sessions to consider the alternatives along with Dubya, which all seemed to be growing bleaker with each passing morning and evening news cycle. Chimpy from Crawford was still hunkered down in the Oval Office with spent Jim Beam bottles and a few bad intentions and some choice words for his predecessors' paintings, too distressed to venture close to the Briefing Room and cursing the worm that had already started to turn on his presidency from blowing every bit of politcal capital he once had, which he foolishly brandished like a loaded 12-gauge in the salad days of his November re-election, by rolling the dice on a braindead woman in Brother Jeb's home state of the damned, a place <a href="http://syntallic.blogspot.com/2004/10/people-love-bad-taste-in-everything.html">filled with steroid-addicted rednecks</a> looking for skull sessions with trailer trash degenerates proud and eager to serve them.<br /><br />Some have called this outrageous episode a microcosm of our time. That a standing president would gamble everything on the fate of one tug of the feeding tube from deceased speaks volumes about his arrogance and otherwise good fortune. But Dubya <em>had</em> to win this battle with the courts and our Constitution, it was argued amongst the religious fanatics. Even now - after having issued edict after canon followed by dictum through the legal pad and hollow squak box that has become Karl Rove - he still needs his right wing base to articulate a position that clearly stands on the wrong side of his addictive need to control the ebb and flow of our collective morality ... just as he did with WMD, Saddam Hussein and the Saudi Royal Family. It's a deprived sickness worse than black tar heroin. Out of one side of his mouth Dubya will dig deep into all the reasons why we should put Arabs (pronounced Ay-rabs) on a magical mystery tour of Uzbekistan's best and most lethal torture huts - and so what if a few of them die during the funhouse ride - then on the other side of the morality scale, this corrupt and freakish hellhole of an administration spikes yet another few testosterone shots of greed and outrage and revenge ... then settles its gunsights on a perverse cocktail of homophobia, quasi-military fetishes for destruction at any cost and taking that dip into a rank and wretched conservative sewer known as the culture of life.<br /><br />The rest of the somewhat free world just laughed, but the religious fundamentalists are clearly not amused. They are, after all, the reason why Dubya got the nod on the second go-round - and if the Constitution got in the way, so what? Laws are meant to be broken, and anyone who complained about it was probably a socialist anyway. They could be villified through the cable TV cuisinart once the boys and girls at FOX and MSNBC and CNN secured the White House talking points. And in the meantime there were enough religious maniacs to clutter the airwaves and carpet bomb the secular view on things. For them it was the only <em>Godly</em> thing to do.<br /><br />Or at least that's how it was justified, for the moment - but in reality, once the message and its intention were stripped down to its bare essence, it was just another moronic white-knuckle form of terrorism that appeared on the nightly news about as terrible as anything normally blamed on Osama Bin Laden or masked insurgents or Chechen rebels invading a school.<br /><br />Innocent people were beaten down and had their reputations shredded forever. Whole towns were so bitterly divided over it that the terrorists gathered in churches on Sundays after having been energized by their preznut and outlaw Congress, who have distracted the rest of us long enough to write even more checks on the National Treasury like it's their own overdrawn personal bank account.<br /><br />It has been political arrogance delivered at such a polished level that even party warhorses like John Danforth are no longer biting their tongues. The <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7346310/">letter sent to the preznut</a> from the "Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction" has been largely seen as a universal indictment on American interests in Iraq and around the world.<br /><br /><blockquote>"We conclude that the Intelligence Community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. This was a major intelligence failure. Its principal causes were the Intelligence Community's inability to collect good information about Iraq's WMD programs, serious errors in analyzing what information it could gather, and a failure to make clear just how much of its analysis was based on assumptions, rather than good evidence. On a matter of this importance, we simply cannot afford failures of this magnitude."</blockquote><br />Not even Ted Koppel could take it anymore. When he gave his <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/ClosingThoughts/story?id=631043">closing thought</a> on "Nightline" the other night he delivered the issue into a clear and blinding light - but the nation of fundies and beserk Jesus freaks were still reefed on that Holy Ghost power, dismissing the sanest newsman in the business as nothing less than leftist pinko commie swine. <br /><br /><blockquote>"What bothers me is when politics and ideology get in the way of logic and consistency."</blockquote><br />Indeed. And with that last take, Koppel announced that he was leaving the network at the end of December. And who could blame him? Why go on and play traffic cop to a news media overriden by dehumanizing voices of outrage and trivialization?<br /><br />Why play along with the game at all?<br /><br />We are getting into dangerous territory here, because we are still talking about a preznut who treats the entire country like it is his personal joystick to every gutter kink and ephemeral pleasure, after all. Dubya uses the military and our intelligence agencies like bathroom tissue and he pisses all over your future and your kids' future every time he declares "somebody will be left behind" or "we gotta major crisis on our hands" if nothing is done but jiffy-quick ... and he routinely hands over the regulatory keys to the most generous lobbies and most abusive corporate pimps after a single phone call that is always met with a home-spun <em>Mayberry RFD</em> "come on down and tell us how you want it sized, scoped and press released, partner."<br /><br />Washington is no place for rank amateurs these days. Not even Don King could deal with the venality of it all. Take my word on it, Sparky - I've seen heartless and calculating thieves in my lifetime, and this crowd should be sent to a small and vacant island with no government of any kind and no extradition treaties where all the inhabitants would be found absolutely guilty, if only an impartial jury could be impanelled, and no crime against the state or humanity is regarded as too heinous to obtain acceptance into the club.<br /><br />High-stakes freaks like David Duke and Manuel Noriega and John Poindexter and "Redrum" Rumsfeld would be sipping pina coladas poolside, along with Gordon Liddy and Oliver North and Tommy Franks, shacking up together as one big delusional and happy family in a single - albeit monstrous - Mandalay Bay-like existence all tucked away forever, with a fully stocked open bar and satellite TV beaming <em>Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous</em> reruns and overflowing platters of tropical fruit and Don Ho yodelling <em>Tiny Bubbles</em> behind the Hawaiian organ and hordes of tanned topless servants lapping the grease and shards of meat from their fat fingers while others comb at the thin hairs on the backs of their necks, insulating them from all the struggles of the outside world.<br /><br />Meanwhile, the rest of us are going to witness some very strange doings on the TV sets stateside in the next few weeks. It should lead to some fits of very strange behavior on both sides of the aisle while the factions start choosing up sides ... But one thing is for sure: Tom DeLay will be sent off to the Cayman Islands in the dead of night before Ken Lay can roll over on him and the party loyalists are worried that the Bugman may outsmart all of them and make a run for Iceland with their stash of campaign contributions for 2008.<br /><br />As for what it means to Dubya and his brother Fredo, there is no word yet from above on how all of this should play out - at least not until Dick Cheney can sort out that little problem with the Inspector General way in advance of the inquisition, and when the trail needs sweeping only Number Two knows where the bodies are buried. But these kinds of things always come together in due time.dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1111950584684916202005-03-27T10:31:00.000-08:002005-03-27T12:03:33.313-08:00If He Was a Messiah ... Why All The Insanity Then?<img src="http://photos5.flickr.com/7592657_05be059901.jpg" width="400" height="311" alt="031805_terri" /><br /><br />"We have a court that has essentially stuck its finger in God's eye and said we're going to legislate you out of the schools. We're going to take your commandments from off the courthouse steps in various states. We're not going to let little children read the commandments of God. We're not going to let the Bible be read, no prayer in our schools. We have insulted God at the highest levels of our government. And then we say, 'Why does this happen?' Well, why it's happening is that God Almighty is lifting his protection from us."<br />- Pat Robertson, explaining on his 700 Club cable TV program why the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, had occurred two days earlier (but oblivious as to why such nations as Sweden and The Netherlands, which are more secular than the U.S. could ever hope to be, are spared such tragedies), quoted from Beth Corbin.<br /><br />"If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses."<br />- Lenny Bruce<br /><br />Ah, yes! It's all about the values. You just had to know that the unctuous wonder of NBC, Pudgy Timmy, who is also known as the Pillsbury Doughboy of pundit TV, had to see the ratings opportunity for Meet The Press: He couldn't let go of such a wonderful opportunity to rattle the cage under the guise of actually giving a shit. Hell, Sparky, there's nothing like Easter Sunday to make us grab onto those bloody wooden Christ-o-fixation symbols and profess our allegiance like Stuart Smalley drinking mightly from the Jerry Fallwell Kool Aid dispenser.<br /><br /><blockquote>PUDGY TIMMY: I want to read something that you said to The Washington Post in 2003: "Catholics have no right to impose their views on others. Even if they say homosexual conduct is unfitting for a Catholic, they have no right to impose that on the nation."<br /><br />If you believe that homosexuality is immoral or that abortion is the taking of a life, or that you believe very strongly that Terri Schiavo should remain on a tube, are you not honor-bound as a political figure to try to, in effect, bring about that result, if it's a firmly held motional belief?<br /><br />REV. DRINAN (MY KINDA PADRE): Yes and no. Go back to Vatican II. Three thousand bishops agonized over this, and at the end of the day, they said that the church should never seek to impose its views. They should not have any shadow of coercion, renouncing 20 centuries of the church dominating the scene. So I think that it's a different world, and we respect everybody else and there's lots of things that are immoral that should not be illegal.<br /><br />...<br /><br />PUDGY TIMMY: There are now more Muslims than Jews in America. Is there an Islamic view of the Schiavo case? Is there a monolithic view?<br /><br />PROFFESSOR ASLAN: No, just as there isn't a monolithic view amongst Christians and amongst Jews or amongst any religious faith. I think that most Muslims agree that life is a precious commodity, that we must endure life and we must respect it and value it. But I also think that the important thing about this Schiavo case is that it is bringing up, not just a legal issue, but as Father said, it's bringing up this--an important debate about what life truly is. Is it just simply a heartbeat or is it a matter of quality of life? Is it a matter of vitalism?<br /><br />...<br /><br />PUDGY TIMMY: You are a Catholic priest, a Jesuit. You are also a member of Congress, and then the pope told you, "Get out of politics." What was it like when you received that order?<br /><br />REV. DRINAN (THE PADRE GETS IT): Well, it's a little more complicated than that. They changed canon law. I had the permission of Cardinal Cushing to run for Congress, and he was enthusiastic about it. There were three or four Catholic priests in politics in Latin America, and they were contentious, and they were now revising canon law. So all that the pope did was to centralize the decision. A bishop can't do it anymore, the Holy See has to do it. And if you want to see some up-side to it, after I left Congress, I was in Brazil, talking to some priests over there, and one priest said to me, "We wept for you," but that if priests were allowed to enter the Congress all over the world, we would have people who were very conservative, fascists, the brothers of generals becoming elected in Latin America.<br /><br />PUDGY TIMMY: You don't miss it?<br /><br />REV. DRINAN: Democrats say they're not happy up there these days.</blockquote><br />Watching Pudgy Timmy bob and weave this morning reminded me that it seems we have supplanted the 12-step <em>du jour</em> society for an evangelical one, with organized religion seizing upon our general level of emptiness as individuals trying to find our way in a rapid-fire world with all the cookie cutter answers found in an interpretative account of one man's life while under the thumb of despotic Rome. That, to me, has always been the historical context of the Jesus allegory and it may be that Jesus in his real form was probably a number of characters put to the cross as political prisoners or seen as a threat to the general order of things - sacrificed either at the behest of the Romans who needed some ritualized blood letting (and they were heavy into the need for symbolic sacrifices and punishments) or the Jews with their own political ambitions in mind - with the Legions or the Praetorian Guard running an Abu Ghraib-like interrogation facility of their own in the land of Judea ... and who under Caesar could fault them for making a few mistakes and creating a martyr or two along the way?<br /><br />Martyrs, like Christ and his apostles, were a very big deal in the ancient world - and they were necessary to fuel the debate between religion and politics and power. The <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09736b.htm">Catholic Encyclopedia</a> takes the exploration of martyrs from there:<br /><br /><blockquote>Acceptance of the national religion in antiquity was an obligation incumbent on all citizens; failure to worship the gods of the State was equivalent to treason. This universally accepted principle is responsible for the various persecutions suffered by Christians before the reign of Constantine; Christians denied the existence of and therefore refused to worship the gods of the state pantheon. They were in consequence regarded as atheists. It is true, indeed, that the Jews also rejected the gods of Rome, and yet escaped persecution. But the Jews, from the Roman standpoint, had a national religion and a national God, Jehovah, whom they had a full legal right to worship. Even after the destruction of Jerusalem, when the Jews ceased to exist as a nation, Vespasian made no change in their religious status, save that the tribute formerly sent by Jews to the temple at Jerusalem was henceforth to be paid to the Roman exchequer.</blockquote><br />Doesn't it always come down to death and taxes and who exactly is passing the plate on Sundays? And there's no reason better to ask for just a little bit more when the anniversary of martyrdom is at hand.<br /><br /><blockquote>For some time after its establishment, the Christian Church enjoyed the religious privileges of the Jewish nation, but from the nature of the case it is apparent that the chiefs of the Jewish religion would not long permit without protest this state of things. For they abhorred Christ's religion as much as they abhorred its Founder. At what date the Roman authorities had their attention directed to the difference between the Jewish and the Christian religion cannot be determined, but it appears to be fairly well established that laws proscribing Christianity were enacted before the end of the first century. Tertullian is authority for the statement that persecution of the Christians was <em>institutum Neronianum</em> - an institution of Nero - (Ad nat., i, 7).<br /><br />Of the 249 years from the first persecution under Nero (64) to the year 313, when Constantine established lasting peace, it is calculated that the Christians suffered persecution about 129 years and enjoyed a certain degree of toleration about 120 years. Yet it must be borne in mind that even in the years of comparative tranquillity Christians were at all times at the mercy of every person ill-disposed towards them or their religion in the empire. Whether or not delation of Christians occurred frequently during the era of persecution is not known, but taking into consideration the irrational hatred of the pagan population for Christians, it may safely be surmised that not a few Christians suffered martyrdom through betrayal.<br /><br />From the age of Constantine even still greater veneration was accorded the martyrs. Pope Damasus (366-84) had a special love for the martyrs, as we learn from the inscriptions, brought to light by de Rossi, composed by him for their tombs in the Roman catacombs. Later on veneration of the martyrs was occasionally exhibited in a rather undesirable form; many of the frescoes in the catacombs have been mutilated to gratify the ambition of the faithful to be buried near the saints (<em>retro sanctos</em>), in whose company they hoped one day to rise from the grave. In the Middle Ages the esteem in which the martyrs were held was equally great; no hardships were too severe to be endured in visiting famous shrines, like those of Rome, where their relics were contained.</blockquote> <br />So, essentially, the entire psychotic rabble of evangelicals clutching "graven images" and praying for Saint Schiavo's mystical powers is based on nothing more than a suspension of disbelief - a literary tactic mastered by guys like Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy - which means that the writer throws in a few key historical facts and weaves a mind-blowing narrative with larger than life characters around which the storytelling and dialogue confers status to the plot. Some may call this hypothesis a form of blasphemy - and I readily admit that it is only "best guess" from a number of theological accounts, mind you - and they may even chalk this up to a deviant's acidic rationale, but in reality this Jesus archetype probably lived a dissident's humble existence with a loyal group of followers who were trying to find their own way in a harsh ancient world and he died a violent death for giving people hope or thinking beyond the horizon or mountaintop. Sounds like a version of Martin Luther King with a lesser form of weaponry ... the more I think about it.<br /><br />But overall Easter is a symbol of rebirth, and in that sense I wholeheartedly join with your reason to celebrate for that reason only - no matter the religious affinity, or whether you believe in the Easter Bunny or not - because the winter of our extreme discontent is finally over and here comes Spring.<br /><br />Enjoy the silence, hope that many more of us have awakened to the cold reality and don't do something really stupid while on a chocolate buzz.dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1111726516517332722005-03-26T20:50:00.000-08:002005-04-13T22:38:51.576-07:00Ayatollah Dubya Issues a Fatwa and Cable TV News Becomes Al-Jahzeera<div style="float: left; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;"><img src="http://photos8.flickr.com/7360384_907aef2e44_m.jpg" width="240" height="178" alt="aya" /></div>"The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public, he offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin -- and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost."<br />- Vaclav Havel<br /><br />"I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes and I don't think I'd be waving those [Gay Pride] flags in God's face if I were you."<br />- Pat Robertson, The 700 Club television program, August 6, 1998 <br /><br />The Texas Stranglers - our child preznut, Dubya, and "Bugman" Tom Delay - along with Senator "Doktor Mengele" Frist went off the deep end this week, but nobody seems to know what this all means ... not just yet, anyways. The whole and sordid notion of a "culture of life" was lost, once again, in a staggeringly vast Skinner Box of rabid dumbness and bitterly placed innuendo that apparently represents nothing at all and were put together at the cost of interrupting Sunday afternoon brunch for a host of politcally needy Congressmen who were denied the golden opportunity to wine and dine only Washington's best cash and carry flesh ... never mind that in the rest of the civilized world this weekly endeavor is widely regarded as the world's second oldest profession.<br /><br />The religious right base, a sleazy collection of defrocked and delusional priests, constitutional attorneys, slimy moralists and crackerjack punishment addicts, have spent the better part of four years roaming about people's bedrooms and hijacking the Rethug party to examine almost everyone for alleged sex crimes and un-Godly thoughts in places like Miami and Columbus and deep into the East Los Angeles barrio.<br /><br />The calculated <em>quid pro quo</em> was to trade away social freedoms for theocratic jurisdiction, while establishing a pattern of some kind of bond between starving the beast known as the federal budget and erecting a series of smoke screens to tangle the scent - but there was never any firm agreement on anything but the high cost of inserting a feeding tube when the clock on billable hours runs twenty-four hours a day.<br /><br />There was even more hollow muttering and vicious slander and endless paranoid moaning that arrived via the media pimps, crooked preachers, dirty cops and crud merchants. Freaks with bad teeth and even worse breath and skin conditions were pounding the desks of CNN and MSNBC and FOX and staggered aimlessly into the legions of security guards protecting Terry Schiavo - our pundit patron saint of the <em>Million Dollar Baby</em> gone insane - from receiving a non-court-ordered glass of water or Wheat Thin. There was a sense of ignorance turning into madness followed by anger amongst the medical profession for allowing Bill Frist to take the Hypocratic Oath.<br /><br />Both <em>The New York Times</em> and <em>The Washington Post</em> jumped knee deep into the issue with front page analysis into the life and times of America's worst and most baffling social lightning rod since John Wayne Bobbitt had his manhood tossed on the side of the road, as the rest of the nation continues on its collision course with doom, despair and duncehood.<br /><br />The final obituary by the media wonks held hostage by this age of irrational fanaticism will clearly be an expansive roadmap on everything ever transcribed or analyzed within the breadth of the DSM IV - The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - starting with anxiety conditions, a wide and general level of manic-depressive psychosis and a massive collective dip into every kink, disturbance and perversion since Freud took his first hit of cocaine and dreamt of trains and tunnels and fruits and vegetables contorted into sexual organs. Our last slip into a theocracy of the banal, due sometime in July when the Chinese hold a fire sale on our federal debt and Dubya goes fishing in Lynchburg for a Supreme Court Justice, will be the end of what we once knew as the American Century.<br /><br />The reaction to our demise will be almost predictable and the rundown to the end will be less intelligent and probably more violent than the French Revolution on Mark McGwire's secret stash of anabolic steroids. There will be widespread looting and tenured professors being led out in the square by the short hairs for a lengthy stoning by evangelical whackjobs - and soon enough even the moderates will start pissing their pants and pushing shopping carts filled with cardboard and copper pipes and empty bottles and cans to convince the extremists that they are more insane than intellectually malleable. John Ashcroft will be yanked out of retirement and appointed a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court - even if nobody drops dead from natural causes or a scheduled plane crash in the Rockies. The hottest rumor of the day features a persistent rumor between the Big House and Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who is known to be suffering from an advanced stage of senility or trench foot or cancer of the testicles. Many of our nation's best genetic scientists and most profitable pornographers expect to be rounded up by the Homeland Security Department on the night that Ashcroft packs his church organ and moves up into the high court with all the pomp and circumstance of General MacArthur taking back the Philippines.<br /><br />So while a new CBS poll shows that 82 percent of the respondents want Dubya and our first Evangelical Congress to stay out of the Saint Schiavo case - and the rest of the world wonders why America seems more enraptured than appreciative of the freedom it chooses to enforce around the globe - Brother Jeb seems more Pontius Pilate than Governor of Florida as Good Friday turns into a good night and the usual suspects start preening their feathers for the fallout once Our Lady of the Worthless Feeding Tube passes away, while Operation Rescue's Randall Terry pulls a Lee Harvey Oswald and starts attacking the County Coroner's meat wagon with a high-powered rifle aimed from the odd vantage point of a church steeple.<br /><br />There is no absolute concensus about how this will play out for 2006 - and, ultimately, 2008, when all the cards get played once and for all - but the heavy hitters are already taking bets and gathering names for the draw ... and there are operatives working overtime tonight who get paid <em>large</em> because they are smart about politics and elections, and they are not advising anyone of note to place their hard-earned cash on either Doktor Frist or John McCain once the nuts are dropped into the vise for the glare of a media primary excursion that seems more Miss Teen USA through Blood-of-Christ-colored sunglasses than a slash and burn deathmarch toward the GOP's prudish refusal to face facts. <br /><br />They are not stampeding down to the window to bet on Brother Jeb or Pat Robertson, either, for that matter. But Jeb is kaput already, unless Terry Schiavo sprouts angel wings in Pinellas Park and gives birth to the second coming, and Robertson is just another one of those fanatic high-stakes multi-millionaire televangelists who have descended upon this political age in the name of Jesus H. Christ because a good buck can be made by passing the ignorance plate. But Robertson has some good things working in his favor, and in the world of big-time politics, early victories are key indicators and are often won at the margins, so it seems more a factor of what your opponent <em>isn't</em> than what you stand for, at least during the primary phase ... and once the train leaves the track and the pundits start kissing the pet rock known as the front-runner, the clock cannot be turned back. A lot can change between now and 2008, and three years is a lifetime in politics, but given the current state of theocratic mania brewing where alcohol and ammunition can still be purchased in the same corner store, Robertson looks about as dead-lock as any candidate does in present form. He sounds more like a wealthy uncle than a freakish religious deviant with avarice in his soul. So if Doktor Frist is a fire-breathing speed bump and John McCain remains a stupifying gasbag of biblical proportions, Boss Reverend looks pretty appealing to the prayer tent wingnuts at this moment - or at least like the certifiable theocratic fly in the ointment, until the Rethug powers-that-be can latch onto something less conflicted. Robertston may never make it to the Big House, but truly he feels that God speaks to him and to us <em>through</em> him, and he will not be easy to beat as long as they still can tack up little white crosses on plywood churches.<br /><br />He is a fortunate man who has not lost the petty urge to ram christianity down our throats, and that counts for a lot in game of politics these days. Dubya has always managed to pull out the great victory with a little help from his thuggish operatives in the field, but he is not really a spiritual fellow, and when all is said and done he will be chased out of Washingon like some mad poison swine gone giddy on greed. The Chimperor will be lucky to get out alive ...<br /><br />Boss Reverend won't face the same fate. He's a man of God, or so he says, and he has a vast television empire - uncontrolled by the idea of fairness in media or equal time - along with his own reporters who will swear that God speaks to him almost nightly ... even though they are on the payroll. Robertson can pull apart the numbers and polls better than Karl Rove, uses the Good Book as his Karen Hughes, and he knows how to raise campaign finances because he does it on a daily basis, while spouting recommendations ranging from the stoning of UFO enthusiasts because demons can appear as slanty-eyed, funny-looking creatures and blaming Muslims for slavery in the US and calling AIDS the "hammer and gun" of the homosexual movement. "We have enough votes to run the country," he once opened at a Washington for Jesus rally. "And when the people say, 'We've had enough,' we are going to take over."<br /><br />To the uninformed spectator, this political clash will be an incredible struggle between David Hasselhoff cast as Jesus and Osama Bin Laden in the form of Democratic Party, but in reality, the fate of a once great nation will rest on a blindspot that no one can quite yet see. Robertson will set up shop near his CBN headquarters in Virginia Beach, which will then become known as the "altar of the free world," and even though he will do his due dilligence with the botox shots and facial peels, Boss Reverend will say that Jesus has given him that jaw-droppingly attractive sepia glow because he's running for president and many will ring the call center with a love offering.<br /><br />"If Christian people work together," Boss Reverend once penned in his self-titled <em>Pat Robertson's Perspective</em> in 1992. "They can succeed during this decade in winning back control of the institutions that have been taken from them over the past 70 years. Expect confrontations that will be not only unpleasant but at times physically bloody ... This decade will not be for the faint of heart, but the resolute. Institutions will be plunged into wrenching change. We will be living through one of the most tumultuous periods of human history."<br /><br />"When it is over, I am convinced God's people will emerge victorious."<br /><br />And now back to Joe Scarborough for another breaking story on the Saint Schiavo vigil - "she <em>still</em> isn't dead!" - and perhaps another gratuitous Nazi death camp comparison brought to you by the people of Enzyte, Cialus and Levitra.<br /><br />Amen.dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1111261980377557342005-03-19T11:52:00.000-08:002005-03-29T21:08:46.150-08:00Existential Terror ... The Rethug Playbook on Amphetimines<img src="http://photos3.flickr.com/3999709_60b073c647.jpg" width="390" height="290" alt="timetogether" /><br /><br /><strong>amphetamine</strong> noun. A colorless, volatile liquid, C<sub>9</sub>H<sub>13</sub>N, used as a central nervous system stimulant in the treatment of certain conditions, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, and narcolepsy, and abused illegally as a stimulant.<br /><br />"I like the idea of people running for office. There's a positive effect when you run for office. Maybe some will run for office and say, vote for me, I look forward to blowing up America. I don't know, I don't know if that will be their platform or not. But it's -- I don't think so. I think people who generally run for office say, vote for me, I'm looking forward to fixing your potholes, or making sure you got bread on the table."<br />- Dubya brings us his favorite local political issue (potholes) of representative government, Washington, D.C., March 16, 2005<br /><br />"The only way to look at a politician is down."<br />- H.L. Mencken<br /><br />We are still too caught up in the collateral damage now to consider all the ramifications and understand what truly has taken place in these last four frenzied years ... or to consider for a moment that the Real Intendment of what our current corporate oligarchy calls the "The Post 9/11 World" and what historians will forever term as "Shock and Awe Democracy" which will surface not so much from the day-to-day events of Iraqi self-determination and America's new role in shaping geopolitical borders - or even from our own terminal destiny with the unpaid purchase order - but mostly from what the survivors will inevitably accept as <em>what all of this madness really cost us</em> in the end.<br /><br />Here, to take the Lord's name in vain, is a Jesus Christ-sized mini-series right out of <em>The Sopranos</em>: tragedy, conspiracy, dark and off-the-wall humor, and the unending suspense of never really knowing who was lying or who was running his mouth to the bank of corrupt feds or who was telling the truth all along ... These days it hardly seems to matter much to the vast wasteland of political greenhorns who find themselves ensnared by a 24-hour Orwellian dysinformation campaign - as it is being played out in the duplicitous morass known as "organized media" - like it was another summer rerun of <em>Desperate Housewives</em> or <em>American Idol</em> with tanks, humvees, jets and missles as the teen heartthrobs. Not even hardcore libertarians or your garden variety moderates quite know what to make of this direction we have chosen or have even a remote clue as to whether we have reached the other end of this phase or whether we're trapped in a constant state of bizarre transmutation.<br /><br />The massive downstream fallout from this exercise, the raw and sometimes petty drama of the daily malfeasance and the deceptively played ignorance from Our Preznut, "Chimpy McFlightsuit," comes together in a multi-tiered plot that appeals to almost every form of curious mind - from the bleeding heart activist and peacenik demonstrator to the tightly packed constituency of <em>Barnaby Jones</em> aficionados and the millions of silent voices whose sole interest in these proceedings is the inevitable spectacle of envisioning once-dominant and self-righteous men brought down to their knees like Jimmy Swaggart whimpering for <em>our</em> forgiveness.<br /><br />Consider Donald "Redrum" Rumsfeld and Paul "Dopey" Wolfowitz, as examples - a pair of career bureaucrats and close allies of every Rethug chief executive since Gerald Ford - who, if they were Romans back in the ribald days of Tiberius and Claudius, would have purchased only the best gladiators by loaning Caesar the cash at triple the going rate. They are the ideological toxic waste from the Reagan Revolution as it then played out in the penetralia of the Defense Department, who rationalized and supported Saddam's brutal existence in one instance and then both signed the infamous <a href="http://www.theindyvoice.com/index.blog?entry_id=417960">PNAC letter</a> faxed off to Bubba in 1998, by simply stating that "the only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction" and advocated for the "[removal of] Saddam Hussein and his regime from power" ... Here were two career insiders with enough camouflage to erase even the faintest heat signature and so much power that they considered it a normal day's work to treat the CIA, the Department of Defense and every federal agency with a diplomatic or intelligence mission statement like brainless minions in their own private agenda ... and who could summon battalions, clandestine forces, covert paymasters or even a few well-placed assets in the so-called liberal media establishment by simply punching the "homeland security" buzzer under their desks.<br /><br />And suddenly, just at that wonderful moment when the Saddam statues fell, they casually put their initials on some benign memo proposing that the use of torture leading into an election year would fall to the back pages of <em>The Nation</em> or <em>Salon</em> with hardly a bit of outrage or even probing questions during the weekly Pentagon press briefings - and several months later while basking in the adoring glare of Neo-Con power-players at Cafe Milano, both get a call from some administration flunkie that could take the heat if the message got mangled, whom neither of them really knows from the daily cabinet briefings, saying that the press got a hold of some photos showing a group of the detainees being dragged around like anesthetized chihuahuas to a water dish filled with lava rocks ...<br /><br />It all seems like a bad atavistic dream, at first, like it first did when Dutch got hit with that little scandal called "Iran-Contra," because Ollie North couldn't keep his business "off the farm" - as it was first theorized back then - but when they get back to the White House to see their old buddy Dubya, it seems that something has gone terribly wrong. Both Alberto Gonzales and Dick Cheney are in the Oval Office with the preznut; Dubya welcomes Redrum and Dopey with that waxy smile and chimpish expression when he get his nuts in a vise, but otherwise he says nothing because little Alberto advised him that it was in his best interest to keep quiet. A queer tension hangs in the air like a lead cloud and Redrum is the first to flinch. How will this play out in the press? Wolfowitz starts to shift himself to the couch and motion for a drink but Cheney cuts this off at the pass: "We're working out the details on this, Paul. Scooter will give you the run down later tonight at home ... from a pay phone."<br /><br />Redrum stares back at the room, realizing that he's just been handed the murder weapon, then he reaches for his swollen leather briefcase and barks out his best subordinate good afternoon. Mother of fucking Christ! What the hell <em>was</em> that all about? During his clipped march back to the Secret Service Escalade, he sees Scooter and Scottie reading an early morning edition of <em>The Washington Post</em> and he angrily shoots off a nice morning to you as they stroll by ... Less than thirty minutes later, Redrum descends upon the Pentagon Situation Room like Count Dracula overcome by a major league bloodlust, along with a carton of Cubans, the Sy Hersh story and the best and the brightest serfs to be found among the recent graduation classes at West Point and Annapolis; some of the lesser known cowboys in the Department are already rounding up their personal effects and trading in their bathroom keys for an extended stint in the Near East Division, which means it will take another Rethug administration before they can trade spit with another hot Air Force captain. Things couldn't be worse for the boys and girls on Redrum's team - and mixing it up with Dick Cheney is like asking a Medellin loan shark for an extension and eating the interest.<br /><br />That was his last good day in Washington in a harsh nutshell. We will probably never know what he and Dubya talk about these days, nor how they actually communicate, because Alberto and Dubya's Number Two know what happened to Nixon when he made a couple of calls from one of the White House phones that fed into the tape-recording system ... Redrum was not relegated to <em>Fredo</em> status - officially - but when your boss can't be seen in the same room with you for an extended period of time ... let's just say that the Secret Service will duck in the event that shots are fired in your direction and your virtues will be fabricated to such a layer of deception that Congress may actually name a highway in your behalf, albeit posthumously.<br /><br />Indeed ... and now we have drifted off into some dangerous compound equation. And it's beginning to mushroom into some unmanageable entity, much like our obsessive soiree in Iraq ... But before we zoom off into the panoramic camera shot just above the horizon, it would be unfair not to dig deeper into the mothership of our current discontent further, a reacherous cabal so ruthless it was called the "California Mafia" by its detractors and responded in kind with gnarled fangs, angry threats to just about anyone who opposed them and subpoenaed enough dissidents to the point of begging for a poorhouse deep in the mean streets of Calcutta. Dubya is - in the same instance - the legacy of Ronald Reagan <em>and</em> Lee Atwater, a vile and noxious combination of planned dementia and social carcinogen, armed with the same level of acute psychosis that absolves the master when he blasts the hell out of the enemy to prove that God was still protecting them ... which in the case of Ronald Reagan was manifest during a microphone check before one of his Saturday radio broadcasts: "My fellow Americans. I'm pleased to announce that I've signed legislation outlawing the Soviet Union. We begin bombing in five minutes." Without becoming too obviously unfair with this point, the administration certainly could not send a diplomatic envoy to Al-Qaeda to smooth down the feathers, so to speak, nor could it ask Muslims to question Islamic views of reality without questioning their own religious motives ... because for many untold Americans, it would unleash its own brand of soul-wrenching terror about the very terror we have unleashed.<br /><br />But at least Rethugs and Democrats can agree on one thing tonight: Dubya is no Ronald Reagan. But ironically, both Dubya and Reagan draped themselves in the shrouds of religious conservatism at home and openly pushed for religious moderates or even liberals abroad - seeing foreign religious conservatives as constituting huge threats to America's interests. Yet even Reagan's unburdened view of the world has now proven very costly in the new century, on many wide and synergistic fronts, his decision to destroy communism at any cost meant that we funded terrorists in Central America and that our hard-earned tax dollars were used by dictatorships worse than even Uday and Qusay and led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Under his watch, Dutch also provided intelligence and supplies to Saddam Hussein and gave Stinger missles and paramilitary training to the same band of Islamic fascists who eventually became the Taliban and now have retreated back to Afghanistan's other disturbing legacy - by doing for the heroin marketplace what the Cali cartel did for cocaine. Dubya, as well, has shown that not considering the complexity of the world is costly on many fronts - placing it in a constant state of existential terror that plagued the late 20th Century and endures even today - because his approach on the threat of global terrorism will only feed the very forces that want to kill us all. <br /><br />In the end, when considering the tragic and compounding costs, perhaps Dubya, too, shares the same fiscal sense as his master, Ronald Reagan, who once remarked about the government's ability to outspend its means, "I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself." <br /><br />Jesus, Lord Almighty, those were the days, eh?dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1110867197258765772005-03-14T22:08:00.001-08:002005-03-19T11:42:11.583-08:00Off With Their Heads and Other Curious Delivery Systems<img src="http://photos3.flickr.com/3050785_9853156abb.jpg" width="400" height="194" alt="we-werent-soldiers" /><br />"<strong>The United States and the U.S.</strong> stand together in support of the Iraqi people and the new Iraqi government, which will soon come into action."<br />- Dubya redefines the present coalition forces in Iraq, Brussels, Belgium, February 22, 2005<br /><br />"Sometimes, words have consequences you don't intend them to mean. 'Bring 'em on' is the classic example, when I was really trying to rally the troops and make it clear to them that I fully understood, you know, what a great job they were doing. And those words had an unintended consequence. It kind of, some interpreted it to be defiance in the face of danger. That certainly wasn't the case."<br />- It's kind of hard to draw that conclusion if you revisit the evidence accumulated over years of listening to Dubya, Washington, D.C., January 14, 2005<br /><br />Friends tell me I watch way too much pundit TV, but they are only half-right. There's a wide disparity between simply "tuning in" for the lastest spin session on CNN or ABC or MSNBC - or the Home Shopping Network, for that matter - and charting a course that actively responds to the public relations slime job being rammed into cyberspace like Play-doh through a fun factory fuzzy pumper. The key distinction, for the vacant and retarded and uninformed, is the moment it takes to stand on the ledge in a moment of total freedom with the adrenaline vibrating through your fingertips and a tragic misstep that leads to a meaningless and terrible death.<br /><br />The lesson from all of this is that you must be an educated observer, and you have to throw each broadcast over on its side to truly understand who benefits most from the message: If all you learn from the constant disorganized barrage of fractured facts and bloated commentary is the story <em>appears</em> to be truthful, you have been sentenced to a lifetime of confusion and horror beyond human capacity - especially if you have one of those high-end satellite systems beaming seven hundred TV stations, non-stop, in the form of a jagged white hum - from which the deliberate distortions are marked by some hellish metronome bent to hyperspeed. Our world is surrounded by a cool plasma oasis today, whether the medium is TV or HDTV or Internet, and it's getting even harder to pinpoint the distinction. The only difference between Peter Jennings on ABC and Hewged B. Clanked pimping overstock asian pornography by way of some exploited email list that burped out your domain is not so easy to comprehend when all you've done is sit in front of a terminal while the whole world is trying to lift the last bottom dollar from your wallet. These are the sum of all the passive-aggressive activities driven by incessant greed and the petty need to control, and the voices sound so genuine and concerned that it seems like it's coming from your own conscience - as if it were a whisper calling out to you during the transition of one dream and into another - until you can no longer escape the inevitable choking sound in your throat.<br /><br />This is what happens when technology passes too much information at a dizzying and convergent pace, forcing you to parse out every fifteenth word just to keep up, which is like neglecting to read the fine print before you drove off the lot in that practical used car with the great finance rate that you just <em>had</em> to have - the one with the new coat of paint and bald tires and the pesky leak in the radiator - and many good people get taken on a bad deal every day.<br /><br />Hell almighty, meandering once again, but not so far from the point I was trying to make - because any mention of "bad deal" can always be traced back to the dubious and painful reality that is Dubya. Our peachy and sociopathic child preznut, The Chimperor of Crawford. He has this deep-seated resentment about serving overseas in an unpopular war ... Clearly, he does, but we'll dig deeper into these matters at another time. But we should not totally release on this point right now, because it has a lot to do with our level of uneasiness about Iraq and the personal ideas we keep to ourselves on the nature of this conflict, even if we were to separate logic from the rationale we were spoonfed all too efficiently, then we breath a collective grunt from having been steamrolled by that coordinated scam called <em>The Hunt for WMD</em>, like it was penned by a drunken Tom Clancy trying to meet a publisher's deadline ... which evolved into a series of terrorist connections to Al-Qaeda and, only then, was fashioned into a <em>pro bono</em> exercise to spread gunship democracy in the repressive Arab world. Facts can become very flexible in this information age: Make a webpage, take donations, produce an infomercial, sign the loyalty oath, enforce message discipline ... pick any focus group tested position ... change a mind and take the ride.<br /><br />Perhaps there never was a concept of <em>in the public interest</em> when it came to organized media, much in the sense that there never has been any concept of honor in the world of organized crime. It's all been a myth no bigger than the bogeyman living under your bed or rabid alligators running amok in the New York City sewer system. Perhaps the idea of a free and rational media - no matter the channel - bit the dust on the night Walter Cronkite declared, about Vietnam, that it was "increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could." Today these words echo like a faucet dripping in the darkness as the message machine churns out images of happy and grateful Iraqis blowing kisses into the distance like bodacious sausages in the frying pan at Denny's, while Pentagon crisis managers edit the package late into the next day, so all of it can be offloaded onto the morning drydocks feeding a media factory stripped bare of ethics and personnel and the venerable notion that news should provide a service beyond tacit servitude to the policy-elite.<br /><br />It used to be that "positive spin" on the evening news was so expensive for an administration to obtain and so maddeningly difficult to manage that no public official except Richard Nixon ever rose up to the "ends justify the means" pathology of Ted Bundy without the psychotropic medication - and it was mostly out of the question to risk a spin operation in the hands of some roving journalist who might not be able to connect the dots in time. There were oversight committees with real teeth and a harsh interpretation of the equal time provision, who are now called socialists by right wing extremists aimed at your checkbooks and tax dollars and online subscriptions to Bill O'Reilly gear - but it's always done in the name of progress or sponsored by groups like The Club for Growth ... which means that somebody else is getting ahead and living fat off the public dole like Matthew Lesko minus the question marks on his suit, while "your child gets left behind" and your job gets "right-sized" and you get taxed in even newer ways because grandma can no longer live on her own because the waiting list at Golden Years Rest Home is longer than the season tickets line at the Meadowlands.<br /><br />Ah, yes! The new century looks even dimmer than the old one, offering us unchecked opportunities for premeditated abuse and unheralded ways to make a buck. Anybody with a $69.95 per month PHP Server and a MySQL backend along with Zend Performance Suite and enough bogus email accounts to throttle the tsunami-spared half of Indonesia, for instance, can send two or three thousand anonymous emails a day to the prime ministers of Bangladesh and France or NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue that simply say, "REMEMBER OUR ENCOUNTER IN PRAGUE? I LOVE YOU. WHEN CAN WE EMBRACE AGAIN?" Or something more like this, "I AM THE BORDERLINE RETARDED BROTHER THAT MOM NEVER TOLD YOU ABOUT. THE DOCTORS HAVE JUST RELEASED ME INTO THE WORLD SO YOU BETTER CALL BEFORE THE VOICES TELL ME TO KILL AGAIN."<br /><br />Internet technology has this wonderful capability of leveling the communications playing field, and a lot of fun happens over the wire almost every night on chat rooms with web cameras and enterprising young minds devising new ways to deliver your Vicodin and Cialis and Ambien and Xanax over the wire without prescriptions. It's the same mindset that created P.T. Barnum and Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. And this same enterprising spirit lives on today from the bowels of occupied Iraq in the shape of some of our military men and women armed with personal video recorders and laptops which can burn personalized combat movies straight to DVD.<br /><br /><blockquote><a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fg-videos14mar14,1,1044248.story">Extreme Cinema Verite</a>: BAQUBAH, Iraq - When Pfc. Chase McCollough went home on leave in November, he brought a movie made by fellow soldiers in Iraq. On his first night back at his parents' house in Texas, he showed the video to his fiancee, family and friends.<br /><br />This is what they saw: a handful of American soldiers filmed through the green haze of night-vision goggles. Radio communication between two soldiers crackles in the background before it's drowned out by a heavy-metal soundtrack. <br /><br />"Don't need your forgiveness," the song by the band Dope begins as images unfurl: armed soldiers posing in front of Bradley fighting vehicles, two women covered in black <em>abayas</em> walking along a dusty road, a blue-domed mosque, a poster of radical cleric Muqtada Sadr. Then, to the fast, hard beat of the music - "Die, don't need your resistance. Die, don't need your prayers" - charred, decapitated and bloody corpses fill the screen.<br /><br />"It's like a trophy, something to keep," McCullough, 20, said back at his cramped living quarters at Camp Warhorse near Baqubah. "I was there. I did this."</blockquote><br />Imagine the Kevin Dillon character from the movie <em>Platoon</em>, a self-professed redneck with an Alabama-sized sadistic streak, who tells the others in his unit: "I like it here. You get to do what you want. Nobody fucks with you. The only worry you got is dyin', and if that happens you won't know about it anyway. So what the fuck, man?" Now imagine this Bunny character with a palm sized digital camera and a few hardcore metal CDs and a laptop with an Avid editing program, having captured his latest firefight on video. Welcome to Redrum Rumsfeld's all-volunteer army in the 21st century, a treacherous combination of My Lai and Wes Craven, with a little Vlad the Impaler and <em>Headbangers Ball</em> thrown in for extra spice. Any soldier can create action packed snuff movies and send them back home to his buddies via e-mail or by way of a secure edge-server, uncensored by the military, and this practice has become a cottage industry of "photographs and video footage depicting mutilation, death and destruction that soldiers collect and trade like baseball cards." Several websites already sell some of this snuff footage from the war - which in many cases seems more like MTV meets <em>Faces of Death</em>, the Iraqi years.<br /><br />"It gets the point across," McCullough said. "This isn't some jolly freakin' peacekeeping mission."<br /><br />In the end, who really needs a big brother when you're already watching and imitating him?<br /><br />This is Team Gonzography. Signing off. Good night.dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1110251190106150162005-03-08T19:03:00.000-08:002005-03-12T15:23:47.896-08:00Strange Myths and Arguments from A Loser's Den<img src="http://photos3.flickr.com/5724965_2d09cf97e3.jpg" width="400" height="232" alt="tutu" /><br /><br />"It's an important concept for our fellow citizens to understand: That no one in need will ever be forced to choose a faith-based provider. That's an important concept for people to understand. What that means is if you're the Methodist church and you sponsor an alcohol treatment center, they can't say only Methodists, only Methodists who drink too much can come to our program. 'All Drunks Are Welcome' is what the sign ought to say."<br /> - Dubya's uplifting Tony Robbins moment in Washington, D.C., March 1, 2005<br /><br />Some stories in the naked city are terribly messy, and this one could take a very long time to tell if I ventured to describe all the sordid particulars and reasons for all the blame and bizarreness and freakishness that surfaced along the journey and rationalized all the blood on the walls. It's a pretty vain time to be American - and it's getting more and more dangerous, but we'll get back to that point later.<br /><br />The last thing I did before taking that tragic leap of faith that kept me free from an unrelenting depression over the current state of political affairs these days was to tune into <em>Hardball</em> for another menagerie of despair, speculation and provocateurism, alternating between moments of low-grade cosmic precision and a suicidal tendency that reared its ugly head in the forms of Marie Cocco, columnist for <em>The Washington Post</em>, and Tony Blankely of the <em>Moonie Times</em>, another bastion of journalistic mendacity.<br /><br />Such scandalous bastards! These freakazoids pundits are the same retreads who played the lead role of organized lap dogs for the last biggest deception of an administration, known in the criminally insane wing of the Rethug party as the "Reagan Revolution," a grotesque collection of down-low misfits and cranky ideologues and high-stakes racketeers so befuddled with psychosis and esurience that Baby Doc Duvalier was their Ricardo Montalban and Imelda Marcos became a pin-up gal.<br /><br />And the nation had fallen for the Gipper's cruel hoax. But so what? Americans love hucksters and carneys and fairy tales, as they say in Hollywood back lots, and we are easily inspired by the sleight of hand in front of a circus tent and the big lie from our desperate politicians constantly in re-election mode, which explains why pinheads like Billy Mays can get rich with mind-numbing infomercials hawking truck loads of Kaboom and OxiClean, while good men are forced to die like dogs in the street ... I am not exactly sure if I should fork over the credit card or pop a cap in my temple from hearing, "Woooooood Driiiiiiiiiies Oooooouuuut," a thousand freaking times a day. Call now and get a "reusable" cleaning bucket as long as you can handle the noise pollution ... or a win a date with Ron Popeil - inventor of " The Pocket Fisherman" and "Inside-the-Shell Egg Scrambler" and "GLH-9 Hair in Can Spray" - with an orange glow coated gopher grabber shoved down your piehole to muffle the shrieks of boredom during an all-expenses paid trip on a deserted island to make ass-children.<br /><br />Ha, ha, ha, Sparky. How's that one for a funhouse mirror? There is no worse agony in life than to realize that in the course of every thirty seconds no less than a thousand Americans could be <em>inspired</em> to dial Billy Mays' toll free number, which probably gets answered in places like Bangalore and Manila, shifting the American trade deficit another fifty cents each time you grapple with the Gator grip.<br /><br />Ah, but never mind this fruitless dive into the shadowy realm of infomercials. They are no more appropriate than the nightly post-mortem on the American Century that seems to ooze from the White House like a giant blob of liquified Kobe beef with the Jesus H. Christ five-alarm hot sauce - and, in fact, it may be a harsh reminder that at least 51% of our lost nation hasn't evolved much past the simple cause-and-effect that fire does <em>indeed</em> burn.<br /><br />So is it any surprise that Dubya, still clutching to the twisted belief that he has this huge and all-encompassing mandate, is officially changing his name to "God's Preznut."<br /><br />"He has already remarked that God wanted him to be President," a top cabinet official says. "By changing his name to 'God,' he's just making it official." Dubya feels this will solidify his authority, says the aide. "He can't wait to send a bill to Congress and say, 'Pass it. It's God's will.' <br /><br />"He told me, 'Whenever liberals raise an objection to my plan to privatize Social Security, I'll just point to our currency where it says 'In God We Trust' and say, 'Lookie over here? It says In ME we trust.' And when the moonbats say I must be impeached for lying about the war in Iraq, I'll remind them that the Pledge of Allegiance says that 'Murika is 'one nation, under ME.'" <br /><br />Dubya also feels changing his name will give him more clout on issues like teaching creationism in schools, faith-based social programs and abortion. The preznut also thinks it will help win the war on terror. "When I say to the radical Muslims, 'This is the voice of God. Surrender!' they'll stop attacking us," he once told a counter-intelligence advisor. <br /><br />Many Democrats are going ballistic, but admit there isn't anything they can do. Said a top Democratic senator, "We can't come out against God. We'll get killed."<br /><br />The narrative and its symbolism could go on for hours from here, but what's the point? Which reminds me of an old saying - which states, in effect - that both the pragmatist and the true believer can be right, but not <em>correct</em>, at the same exact point on the curve. The outrage aimed at the Credit Industry lobby vis-a-vis the Bankruptcy Bill and the get-in-line-and-be-counted Rethugs and DLC-don't-rock-the-business-boat wannabees who voted their intentions for 2008, while righteous from an emotional and ideological standpoint, the crystal clear technical matter is this: a Democrat will be standing in the White House in 2008, and the fractures already appearing at the base of the party statue are crackling ... which means a fifty year trend of short term progressive thinking bordered by stretches of right wing domination will endure, at least until the deep thinkers on the left learn how to flip the script. <br /><br />It goes a little like this, and it has been this way since Julius Caesar first considered that Brutus wanted him dead. Which was a solid gold bond, and he did. John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Brother Bobby and Rasputin and Martin Luther King each had a morbid fascination with the great beyond, and what the great darkness would do to their legacies. But it also recalls that the first order of politics is <em>survival</em>, and that the <em>real leadership</em> of the national Rethug party understands this object lesson with the clean and ruthless efficiency of a diamond-encrusted hacksaw.<br /><br />Flashback to 1992, when they said, "It's the economy, stupid." And how James Baker III, then svengali to the first Bush decent into the abyss of ruination, took his marching orders and scuttled the re-election campaign before it ever caught steam. Not out of fear for destroying the planet or giving out fat checks to key contributors or waging bloody excursions into the Third World for commodities, but because the economy was so bad that it had to be dumped on Democrats. But Bubba threw them a huge curve ball by rolling dice on the powerful lobbies that put him there, and what should have been destroyed in a short four years took millions - <em>your</em> millions - in special prosecutors and eight years of built-up hate. What fears the Rethug party more than anything else, even today, is the general impression that they are perceived to be more in lock step with Herbert Hoover than Ronald Reagan, and that Dubya's failures could lead to another 20 year domination of populist Democrats who could pack the Supreme Court and build new public infrastructures in the name of Big Government and go to war with new emerging enemies of the state, further distancing the right wing base into a series of walled complexes filled with hate-crazed, bottom-line maniacs and survivalists.<br /><br />It almost happened - twice - right at those moments in time when Dwight Eisenhower almost decided to run as a Democrat, as did Colin Powell many years later. It was the same thought process that delivered us Wesley Clark, because he brings with him, as it was rationalized in the backrooms of power at the time, a combat-driven economy kept in order by fascist thugs weined on the breast of the military thought process, where places like Texas and Georgia and Alabama and South Carolina produce the best meat for the grinder and just a fortunate few can land in Harvard and Yale to begin their lives as career <em>gubment</em> spooks.<br /><br />Rewind the tape back to 2000, and once again it was Baker-cubed who pulled the strings in Florida when all the nuts were tossed into the vise, and the court system was left to turn the screws. Kennedy may have been an accident that took only one motorcade to solve, but the Democrats have made short order of themselves ever since; for every single step forward since Camelot - and it could be argued since the dawn of the Korean War - the party of FDR and Truman and Jefferson has taken four steps back either in disgrace or the perception of being out of touch. Al Gore became one symbol, paying for Bubba and the blue dress, and then Kerry became another, but the pattern goes a lot deeper than just that. It reaches into the pathetic boyish wonder known as Jimmy Carter, as panacea to Nixon's vileness and treachery, and LBJ - a tinpot and ignorant precursor to our child preznut Dubya - as a monument to national mourning and the unlearned lessons of Vietnam being played out in Iraq today and, perhaps, Iran and Syria in the future.<br /><br />This is all part of the gameplan, Sparky, and this, too, shall pass - maybe with all the excruciating pain of a kidney stone, but we will endure. The question is: Can we survive? The Rethugs will end up passing the torch to some passionless senator or another party hack next in line, but they are going to drop the bad debt and the Middle East mess and the misery index on the Democrats to solve and become identified with for the next twenty years. Even Dubya, in all his wretched wonder, knows the bill is coming due, and comng soon. It works in cycles - whether a few DLC wonks want to appeal to the middle or still others want to play "class warfare" as an afternoon sport on MSNBC or Air America - but the truth of it all is pure politics, and James Baker III will be called in again to do the dirty work at the docks so the bad karma and blame can be dropped into the landfill that has become the American electorate. Bill Frist and John McCain and Newt Gingrich and the daily assemblage of right wing punditry will not be amused, but they will get in line and adapt. They will go quietly into the night, if they know what's good for them and their bank accounts.<br /><br />It was good old Ronald Reagan who once told everyone who was listening that "this generation may be the one that will have to face the end of the world as we know it." Thus far we've made it to 2005 - barely - surrounded by scams and pimps and misinformation and political junkies left swollen from years of personal addiction. The Gipper warned us, and I still have no reason to think that he was lying at the time. Good luck with your debts, keep your powder dry and just survive.dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1110138932299220142005-03-06T18:38:00.000-08:002005-03-06T19:47:40.236-08:00Staying on Theme With Pathetic Ramblings from the Freak Desk<img src="http://photos4.flickr.com/5724964_a096596b54.jpg" width="400" height="307" alt="whpress7pf" /><br /><br />Even with tax refund season upon us, we've been a little cash strapped here at the Team Gonzography complex on the sandy shores of Hermosa Beach. It's not a plea for paypal referrals; it's just the way things are these days. But to make up for the expenses required to operate this place, we have let some of our creative juices do the talking and recently shipped off several ideas for TV pilots for the coming entertainment cycle, which follows this loosely based "to-do-it" list if we are to have an impact on the Nielsen ratings by September - proposals and contracts with the networks in the spring, casting and pre-production by the start of summer, and an expeditious production cycle leading to the pilot itself. Our crack Hollywood representation - led by the indomitable Malosi Shapiro, the first Samoan/Jewish agent in the entertainment industry - has advised us that the vast majority of these pilots never see the light of day much less a first episode on FOX, but we remain undaunted in this challenge to impress the network executives in charge by aiming our proposals at a new and fractured viewing public at home.<br /><br />Here, fresh from the shared server holding the treatments and scripts to our pilots, are just a few of the TV series we are pushing for the upcoming season:<br /><br /><strong>The Metal Detector</strong>: This reality show reveals the hidden world surrounding America's "unsung heroes in the war on terror" - the security guards who frisk you at airports and make the tough racial profiling decisions and force you to take off your shoes - appears to be the front-runner, but we'll need the guy from <em>COPs</em> or the other narrator from <em>Most Scariest Police Chases</em> to get this one to committee. "As long as the test audiences don't fall asleep, this one is a go!" according to our agent. <br /><br /><strong>Abdullah's Heroes</strong>: Positioned as a campy homage to the TV classic <em>Hogan's Heroes</em>, the setting is Camp X-ray at Gitmo, and this sit-com traces the lives and escape attempts of a ragtag pack of Al Qaeda detainees and their dim-witted American captors who seem more occupied with Beyonce posters than guarding them.<br /><br />With each week comes another botched-but-humorous plot to overtake the prison camp, which is always broken up by the guards - often through pure luck - by a gregarious sergeant from with a severe eating disorder, played by Drew Carey. "We may be able to pursuade Tony Shahloub from the USA series <em>Monk</em>," says Malosi, our representation. "But in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, Arab-Americans see the plot line in a terribly bad light."<br /><br /><strong>CSI - The Archdiocese</strong>: Need I say anymore?<br /><br /><strong>McQueer</strong>: Key West's meanest and badest law enforcement official just so happens to be gay, but in a real manly sort of way - at least that's the synopsis we pitched to the network execs. We have serious doubts about finding success with a homosexual storyline of any kind, unless we can get Tony Danza to play the lead role and Jude Law to take on the part of his feisty but organized significant other. <br /><br /><strong>Who Let That One Go?</strong>: Another key reality TV show idea from the Team Gonzography think tank, it's all about five average Americans who eat way too much fast food - a spirited cross between <em>Candid Camera</em> and MTV's <em>The Real World</em>. They share a stylish apartment in Beverly Hills and venture out into public places with a harsh case of flatulence, and unsuspecting shoppers and visitors and church goers must guess <em>Who Let That One Go?</em> for tons of cash and prizes before the next commerical break. This one, we believe, has a great deal of traction and a cable deal on Spike TV is imminent.<br /><br /><div align="center">* * *</div><br /><a href="http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/articles/2005/03/06/no_love_in_their_xs_and_os?pg=4">No love in their X's and O's</a>: "When Louisiana State professor Leigh Clemons went to NFLShop.com to order a Patriots jersey with the name of one of her former students, [New England] cornerback Randall Gay, she was rejected, according to Rex Wockner, a columnist for 365gay.com, a website for gay-and lesbian-related news and issues. <br /><br />Clemons was told that the league's official online merchandise center does not print 'naughty words' on jerseys. She had to make a series of phone calls to get 'Gay' on a jersey. Columnist Jim Buzinski of Outsports Magazine, which covers the gay sports community, did further research and found there are 1,159 banned words in the NFLShop filter. Among the acceptable words were 'Hitler,' 'Fag,' 'Terrorist,' and 'Bin Laden.' Buzinski's story got the NFL to revise its filtered list, and now Randall Gay fans can order a jersey with his name on it."<br /><br /><div align="center">* * *</div><br />Fed up with having the wool pulled over your eyes? YOU can tell when your favorite politician is lying through his teeth by using the technique of a top body-language expert! <br /><br />"Experienced politicians have learned to avoid body language associated with deceit," says Dr. Stephanie Gotwell of Chicago. "They don't, for example, look away when fibbing - instead they stare brazenly into the camera."<br /><br />Luckily, you can see through even the wiliest politician. <br /><br />"Just like a poker player, every politician has a <em>tell</em> - a tiny signal he unwittingly gives out whenever he's being deceptive," Dr. Gotwell explains. <br /><br />"Once a politician has been caught in a single lie, all you have to do is scrutinize a videotape of the speech and find his tell' - so you can't be hoodwinked again."<br /><br />Here, from the expert, are the tells of some of America's best known political figures: <br /><br />BILL CLINTON -- The former Prez gestures with his index finger when lying. Most infamously, he did that on national TV when insisting, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." <br /><br />GEORGE W. BUSH -- Dubya's tell is a smirk before the fib. Says Dr. Gotwell: "You see the President doing it in his State of the Union address of January 2003, when he warned that Iraq had WMDs, citing as proof that 'The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."<br />"Of course, the White House already knew that evidence had been forged." <br /><br />DONALD RUMSFELD-- The crusty Secretary of Defense grimaces as if experiencing hemorrhoidal pain when he's being deceptive. Says Dr. Gotwell: "Rummy can be seen doing this last spring when he vowed publicly that all Iraqis detained by the Coalition would be 'treated subject to the Geneva Conventions."<br /><br />DICK CHENEY -- The Vice President's lips always twist when he tells a whopper -- most memorably when he stated during the vice presidential debates that he'd never met Sen. John Edwards before that night. <br /><br />CONDOLEEZZA RICE-- The Secretary of State's dead giveaway is a nervous laugh. Says Dr. Gotwell, "For example, prior to the invasion of Iraq, Condi told CNN that Iraq's aluminum tubes were <em>only really suited for nuclear weapons</em> and warned, 'We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.' But experts had already told her the tubes were for small artillery shells."<br /><br /><div align="center">* * *</div><br /><a href="http://www.majorityreportradio.com/weblog/archives/001264.php">Minister Pushes 'Jesus Condoms' to End Teenage Sex</a>: "A controversial preacher says teenagers will stop having illicit sex no matter how strong the temptation if parents will make sure they never leave home without one of his trademarked 'What Would Jesus Do?' condoms stashed away in their purse or wallet. <br /><br />'WWJD condoms are a divinely inspired idea and they work like a charm,' says the Rev. Dr. Paul Morehead, whose short-wave radio broadcast from Montgomery, Ala., reaches an estimated 16 million listeners worldwide. <br /><br />'Don't tell me about hormones. Don't talk to me about unbridled appetites of the flesh. <br /><br />'When a young man and a young woman give in to Satan, when they strip down like animals in the wild and prepare themselves for a lusty round of heavy petting and full-blown sex, what better reminder for them to buck up than a WWJD condom with the image of our Lord and Savior right there on the package, and then, as a fail safe measure, also on the prophylactic itself? <br /><br />'I've tested them with my own teenagers and hardly a weekend passes when one of them doesn't come back home with a WWJD condom completely unrolled and dangling unused from his or her fingertips or pushed up under the seat of the car as a badge of honor. <br /><br />'At the very moment their temptation was strongest, they turned back from sin after seeing the boldly-lettered WWJD logo that signifies, 'Stop! Think! What would Jesus do in this situation?' ' <br /><br />Flabbergasted critics couldn't disagree more. <br /><br />They say putting Jesus Christ on condoms isn't just tacky, it's a sacrilege -- and they openly wonder if preacher Morehead hasn't lost his mind. <br /><br />'If you give a child a condom, you're pretty much telling him that sex is O.K. as long as you use protection,' fumes Marcia Kenderly, a born-again Christian with four daughters ranging in age from 13 to 18. <br /><br />'Rev. Morehead says his own children show him their WWJD condoms as proof that even though they came close to having sex, they didn't. <br /><br />'But how can he be sure that instead of having sex with the condom, they didn't have sex without it? I'm a married adult and I wouldn't let my husband use one of those things. <br /><br />'I feel like I'm committing a sin just thinking about it.' <br /><br />Naysayers aside, Morehead has arranged for a manufacturer to produce 100,000 of the WWJD prophylactics that he plans to sell for $5 a pop over the Internet and through Christian bookstores nationwide. <br /><br />'All the profits will go to a home I'm building for unwed mothers,' says the preacher. 'A home that wouldn't be needed if those girls had been carrying a WWJD condom.'"dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1109739448359217142005-03-03T20:56:00.000-08:002005-03-05T16:54:36.750-08:00Quien Es Mas Macho ... Jeff Gannon or Rip Taylor?<img src="http://photos6.flickr.com/5724963_e7583f2285.jpg" width="400" height="250" alt="gannonb" /><br /><br />Sex. Sex. Sex. On some days you wonder what it all means. And then on some days you actually find out. It's like noticing a gigantic mushroom cloud in your rearview mirror during rush hour traffic, and you're locked into <em>assuming the position</em> for a cruel annihilation that is about to begin. <em>Ka-blam!</em> Total destruction. Nothing more to debate, it's all right there in the fiery gloom.<br /><br />Some of us live for these moments of supreme clarity, these low-rent and ribald revelations that produce a hot and ruthless moment of total understanding, and on many days I can be found wallowing in the muck with them ... but there are times when I chose to ignore the naked truth. It's not so different than the raw anticipation you feel when inching toward that first decent on a roller coaster, or getting into a violent bar fight. <em>Whoosh!</em> An immediate charge inside your bones, eyes darting and the senses settling on a dull and distant whisper.<br /><br />Extremism is the sport of deviants and fools. Some of us enjoy the ride, but you really have to want to go there after the first chance at anything.<br /><br />History is chockfull of these odd and crazed beings. They surface momentarily to remind us that the pathway between man and creature is terribly narrow and then somebody throws a match into the gasoline and the road flare becomes a brushfire, and many times it can't be subdued. The foul scent of terminal perversion overtakes the motives and alibis. It happened to us in the summer of 2004 and it's been reshaped into the Iraqi Governing Council, that "dead can dance" rhumba towards the nuclear problem in Tehran and the administration's crusade to <em>evaporate</em> Social Security in the name of a designer crisis much like WMD. It defined our latest descent into the abyss of corporate dysinformation disguised as <em>fair and free</em> elections. The stretched truth is all part of the public record now; the fix is in.<br /><br />It's one part Marquis de Sade on a quaalude martini, another part <em>Fight Club</em>, with the rest of us starting to lose our minds, along with a ton of people dying, and suddenly our boyish lad Dubya isn't quite what he was making himself out to be, now, is he? The press nursed him through two rubber-stamped elections, allegations of a cocaine habit the size of Midland, difficulty mixing Jim Beam with a steering wheel and a knocked-up receptionist at best. But Dubya is God's little wonder. His special little creature. You've been warned already, Sparky, and you'll be warned again, while we are forced to watch him bounce around the planet like a wind up toy on speed, just another self-serving testament to high stakes greed. Good old Dubya: Take a real good look at him because he's the archetype for a new American century, perhaps the last in all its gutter ball resplendence. These people who put him there - the freaks from the penthouse office spaces and supremacist think tanks and secret bunkers - it's really no mystery where they come from. We've sharpened the human instinct into a relentless need of marking our time on Earth with every petty desire or base deception or eager addiction, we have manufactured reputations to the size of the Hoover Dam, separated the world by connecting it to endless moments of instant gratification through a cybernetic network of scams and spams, recycled even the dullest and least attractive fads with consolidated house notes that are all coming due, until every living human being becomes an aspiring emperor to his own avidity, and thus becomes his own blueprint for God that the rest of us are forced to wade through daily, just to endure. So, in the end, where else can you go from here? What's left? And while we're hustling from one fabricated plight to the next because we're too overwhelmed with the meaningless details to really notice the build up, who's watching the planet as the air fills with killer particles, the water turns into chunks, and even the fish and vegetables take on the greasy aluminum taste of chemicals? And it's not about to slow down, Sparky. It will disintegrate even faster now, and there's no chance of turning it back ... we'll just keep hedging our bets on the future, or sell a version of what we want the future to look like - flat, filled with fear, religious, insane and paranoid - even when there's no future in the distance. It's Jon Voight and Eric Roberts on that <em>Runaway Train</em> to dawn. And there's now thousands of little Dubyas all giddy and intoxicated about this breakneck race to the future - replacing AD on the Judeo-Christian calendar with <em>AO</em>, for <em>after Osama</em>, because Frank Luntz told them that everything after September 11 was negotiable in "the minds of voters," somewhere in a 4H tent on the outskirts of Terra Haute - trapped in starched white collars or behind the scanner at a convenience store or waiting tables with no purpose or place, but always raised to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires or movie stars or rock and roll icons, while the powers-that-be are getting ready to rape and pillage God's soon to be former-planet and lick their digits clean as they reach for the bloated P/E ratio and a business plan that seems more fist-fuck than pristine. Then you wake up, but just a little too late. You can't buy back the old house note or even shit out the chemical sheen eating away at your intestines - you've been had ... and had <em>hard</em>, Sparky. Your therapist is a serial killer with a "thing" for runaways, your belly is distended from years of ravenous gluttony, your medical doctor is nothing but a dimestore pusher who would rather prescribe than treat, your eyes are bruised shut from the deliberate plastic beating of advertising and over-extended credit, your dick can't get up without ten minutes of porno <em>and</em> half a bottle of Vitamin P, and you're stuck in traffic screaming for somebody - <em>anyone</em> - to show you the light. But guess what? You've rolled the dice one too many times, and gambling is nothing but a tax on stupidity. We're waking up slowly, Sparky. And when enough of us get there - all at once - we're going to discover that we are a very, very pissed off bunch.<br /><br />But it could be worse. An oxford-wearing, "don't ask don't tell" homosexual with a shaved head could be lobbing softball questions to your preznut in the name of "fairness in media," with a front row seat for this theatre of mass destruction. Not that having a gay man in the White House Press Corp is a problem, but at this rate we might as well contact Howard Stern or <em>Saturday Night Live</em> for a correspondent. Maybe former SNL regular Tim Kazurinsky could re-introduce his line of ice cream delicacies from the Carvel sketch, including "Jingle Buns", "Santa Snowballs", and "Peter, the Yule Log... in vanilla for $4.95, or chocolate for $19.95!"<br /><br />Babba-booey!<br /><br />[ resubmitted because of browser cache problems ]dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1109550541068012702005-02-27T20:45:00.000-08:002005-02-27T21:26:20.316-08:00Let the Cheap Freaks Pick Over the Carcass<img src="http://photos3.flickr.com/5551201_812a59ef18.jpg" width="400" height="381" alt="SoftBallMatthews" /><br /><br />Christopher Matthews (a.k.a., Tweety)<br />MSNBC TV<br />30 Rockefeller Plaza<br />New York, N.Y. 10112<br /><br />Dear <a href="http://hardball.msnbc.com">Chris</a>:<br /><br />Thanks for your comments on my Hunter S. Thompson tribute piece about two posts down on the <em>Gonzography</em> blogroll. I've been underground from three weeks of harsh escapist reality, and could have easily done another several more, when the good Dr. Gonzo passed on due to karmic events beyond his control, and thus I was left with the odd bit of luck to discover your most recent <em>and</em> unedited email.<br /><br />That said, however, I'd be more than honored to write a few words for you. Has your producer finally allowed you to share what you have in mind? My prime turf has been the world of Dubya, with an occassional sale to publications in Buenos Aires and Slovakia; that should give you a hint as to where my thought process is at, although the blogworld is just as fun and entertaining as your book, <em>American: Beyond Our Grandest Notions</em>, appears to be. Overall, I tend to gravitate more towards the path less tread, offbeat types of stories, the kind of journalism that seems to float just beneath the surface for weeks at a time, and anything dealing with a society drenched in hypocrisy, pointless military build-ups, vacant political leaders, and failures of our intelligence apparatus on a biblical scale. I have done some movie and book reviews for some far out rags, but the fly-over state crowd keeps sending me nasty emails from <em>Scarborough Country</em>, saying that I gave them a wrong turn on books like Richard Meltzer's <a href="http://www.twbookmark.com/authors/71/71/"><em>LA is the Capital of Kansas</em></a>, recalling the worst recommendation to date. The rednecks and fundies didn't seem to enjoy that one in the least.<br /><br />There are any number of storylines to which I could add commentary for your show.<br /><ol><li>An expose on the rampant homosexuality surrounding the GOP. Out here in California, being gay is really no big deal at all and you can even find work in retail or a call center that hasn't yet been outsourced. So far today I met several gay people and none of them asked me to marry in the spring. The idea behind this one is to disturb red state idiots into acceptance by tracing Dubya back to his homoerotic days back at Yale with the former Mayor of Knoxville, and how it shaped administration policy on providing <a href="http://www.jeffgannon.com/">Jeff Gannon</a> (who has kicked off his newest online adventure) an unspeakable level of security clearance for the White House Press Corps, along with the appointment of Ken Mehlman as the new chair of the GOP. This doesn't mean that we are "outing" anyone of note here, but the more we juxtapose homosexuality with the party in control, the sooner gay people can marry without the fear of Moral Majority re-education camps. Somehow I don't think your network will jump at this story.</li><br /><li>A tragic piece on the state of race relations in "The Sixth Reich," as Hunter once wrote about Las Vegas. I haven't come to a final theme with this storyline just yet; but let's just say that a number of Italians have declared themselves as having a tribe called The Rigatonis and they're moving into formation around the American Freak Kingdom known as The Bellagio.</li><br /><li>Some sort of seedy examination on the lack of sex scandals in Washington, in light of Condi Rice's apparent state of androgyny whenever she is surrounded by the troops. All of which is very interesting because you can actually watch her behaving in this terrible way, but you can't control the impulse to kick in the TV screen.</li><br /><li>An in-depth study on "the precarious geography of the mainstream media now that progressive thinkers have tuned out the idiot box and have begun to take over the internet where the agenda is being defined in the next century." This <em>leitmotiv</em> was the subject of a much debated progressive idea seminar with all the big names in attendance - along with a few smaller but louder voices - people like the real conservatives who see the real bullshit being spouted from the mouths of neo-con base, moderate democrats with real diversity in their hearts who can reach out and revitalize minority constituencies who have been shown the backdoor every time they vote, and grounded liberal minds who are tired of being labeled as a block of "activists" who would rather fall on the swords of their causes than move the agenda forward. We'll need some guaranteed publicity in order to attract average people to our movement, like your network did for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth last summer, which clearly made their message relevant and extremely newsworthy, just because of your news organization's constant free advertising of their claims. It wouldn't take long to organize and the cost to MSNBC would be minimal with the exception of my first class airfare, hotel accommodations, some spending cash and an overactive room service bill once I touch down in New York City.</li><br /><li>Several of us are considering a trip to Thailand and Indonesia this spring to see how the tsunami relief efforts are going now that nobody is paying much attention. By the time that you receive this email I think many of the players should be set in stone, so just tell me if this story interests MSNBC ... we can cross-charge the expenses for some exclusive coverage now that David Shuster is a <em>persona non grata</em> for the required pre-screening and vaccinations.</li></ol><br />That's about all I have to share for now. Your email was a wonderful surprise, of course. I tend to not pay much attention to MSNBC anymore, mainly because of Joe Scarborough and Ron Silver and Pat Buchanan, I suppose, but your occassional story with Seymour Hersh does receive some TiVo time on the voodoo box. As it was with Hunter before he went on to the great beyond all Hemingway-like, the pictures out of Abu Ghraib finally sealed the impression in my mind that The Fourth and Fifth Reich were the CIA and the Pentagon, making Las Vegas its Sixth. Give me a ring on the wireless when you have some time to discuss these and other matters.<br /><br />Good men must die, but death cannot kill their names.<br />Team Gonzographydr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1108794276430198552005-02-26T22:20:00.000-08:002005-03-11T04:46:11.063-08:00Speaking in Trainwrecks With a Pack of Vidiots<img src="http://photos3.flickr.com/3601905_22cb3bfea3.jpg" width="388" height="290" alt="slurpee" /><br />And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack<br />And you may find yourself in another part of the world<br />And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile<br />And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife<br />And you may ask yourself — Well...How did I get here?<br />- "Once in a Lifetime", The Talking Heads<br /><br />Can you imagine if my name had been Mungo Bush?<br />- Dubya taking shots at a reporter's son's name, while with European journalists at the White House, February 18, 2005<br /><br />As Somerset Maugham once said, the facts never made a story truer. The delusional and - sometimes - ribald tales of Dubya B. Moron have made for a compelling study into the mind of a 1970s failure turned corporate might-have-been who soon became a fortunate deceiver (while racking up a death toll approaching Idi Amin's), and his is among the most brazen political administrations since ... oh, well ... since Saddam Hussein was found <s>in a spider hole clutching to the hopes of escape from an American unit on patrol</s> in a <a href="http://www.wokr13.tv/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=422B960A-26BA-4891-9E60-21C8818788D4">modest home in a small village</a>, and not in a spider hole as announced by the Tommy Franks wing of the FOXNews <em>junta</em> abroad. At first glance, the story of a brain-dead ferret son of a successful political figure - who in his own words said, "the Oval Office is the kind of place where people stand outside, they're getting ready to come in and tell me what for, and they walk in and get overwhelmed in the atmosphere, and they say, man, you're looking pretty" - will never be regarded as a profoundly thought-provoking or moving political dissertation.<br /><br />Unless he turns out to be the result of a CIA “mind control experiment” who Daddy traded off for a few greedy years at the top of the food chain, having killed a few enemies of the state in the dark and shadowy world of Cold War espionage during that timeframe when - according to most accounts - he went AWOL from the Air National Guard and reportedly went under the wagon for a couple of <em>strange</em> and <em>recalcitrant</em> years. Even then, at its lowest form, his biography places a harsh and interrogatory light above the American Dream, with America's undying obsession with two of its major forces as its white hot theme: the unbridled power of TV packaging and the government's intelligence apparatus, each of which seems to reach into the dark corners of the other's cottage industry these days, sharing a point in the middle termed, "message convergence".<br /><br />Dubya has drawn us all into his shady netherworld of half-lies, outright lies, scandal and murder, a world to which he's both addicted and fascinated. He's caught between the Jesus Christ who forgives him and the abject sin he's driven by. And he's torn between the demands of the job of preznut and the light television entertainment he provides on a nightly basis. There isn't a more conflicted man in America, now a prisoner of his own hopeless self-destruction and self-loathing once the long shadows pass midnight in the happy confines of the Big House. His supporters say he has this homespun tell-it-like-it-is vulnerability that gets him into trouble at times, but those of us grounded in reality know the bitter truth. Under that thick veneer of morbid dreadfulness, Dubya still manages to infect them with his own bizarre wavelength of enthusiasm ... which means nothing more than "he was the horse that brought us to the cliff, so we might as well jump off the ledge and join him in the ditch ... because he has been at the helm long enough to realize that it's best for us." <br /><br />The only flaw in this sense is that Dubya never seems to have aged beyond 25 years, remaining unusually static for a preznut who has been under attack by a terror group, conducted an unpopular war, been torn down by 48% of the people and won a re-election bid by too close a margin to invade anyone else. With such charismatic customers as Redrum Rumsfeld, Condi Rice - and even Allawi, Karzai and Osama Bin Laden in brief cameos - it would have been easy for The Chimperor to take a back seat to the heavy hitters while the complex details could be ironed out between mulligans on the back nine. But Dubya can play his part, too, and he has delivered a breakthrough academy award performance as an undeniably simple and vacant character in the tradition of Chauncey Gardiner from <em>Being There</em> or Forrest Gump where the lovable, benign <em>vidiot extraordinaire</em> grows up amongst the pimps and pushers and fixers and fiends ... then he wakes up to discover that he has <em>become</em> The Preznut of the Red States with all the grace and tone of Jethro Bodine on crank when he told Uncle Jed that he was a "double-knot" spy.<br /><br />The world of Dubya has become a funny, strange, sad, violent and wonderful daydream, brimming with bold performances by Washington insiders and over-their-head advisors while designed and staged by his political svengali - Karl Rove - with an expansive Speilberg-like cinematic imagination. At the lunatic fringe of the narrative, it might seem like nothing more than a lightweight bedtime story or an over-the-top remake of <em>Smokey and The Bandit</em> with Dr. Phil playing the Jackie Gleason role: A compendium of dumbass sound bytes, spring break girls with more plastic than Mattel and always those bright American colors - greed, fear and gold - but the longer you ride along with the ridiculous vibe the more it seems like an expose on the American soul in all its paranoid, romantic, damaged and delusional wonder.<br /><br /><blockquote>"Now, if you're a worker who earns 35 dollars a year over your lifetime, and this system were in effect where you could put 4 percent of your payroll taxes in a personal account, and you start at age 20, by the time you retire, your personal account would grow to $250,000. That's compounding rate of interest."<br />- Dubya, calculating some seriously compounding interest that not even Larry Kudlow could validate! Raleigh, North Carolina, February 10, 2005</blockquote><br />In the end - its payoff, if you will - this extraordinary administration is itself a biography of a marginal conman with a sexual identification problem straight out the J. Edgar Hoover School of Overcompensation, haunted deeply by a mad childhood of extreme expectations and petty regrets, who's most likely a nut-job of the highest order. In the stark moonglow, when he's alone, standing before the full length mirror in his skin-tight silk pajamas, Dubya almost wants to admit it: He's careening out of control. Overwhelmed. Wondering when the rumors will finally catch up to him. What remains, though, is something much stranger and extravagant than that: a crazed tale of deception gone terminal, a Horatio Alger tale of bootstrap success thrown a curveball by way of a blind trust fund, a Greek drama on cocaine or methodone.<br /><br />Dubya's fantasies about being a Jesus Christ's intelligent agent - while butchering the very gospel he repeatedly leans upon, now that Jeff Gannon has retreated to the ... ahem ... bowels of the White House spin operation - are so overblown and ridiculous that they don't even seem pathetic. These vain attempts at justification are just about as linked to reality as the strikingly similar delusions suffered by Pol Pot or Osama Bin Laden; in each case there is some exotic combination of deep-seated mental illness and a powerful, tormented brain feeding on uncontrolled guilt and shame. The good news for the Rethugs has been that Dubya was the guy who realized that game show politics and Jerry Springer-style punditry hadn't arrived at the lowest common denominator in the Year of Our Lord 2004, and that the average American's political thought process hadn't evolved much beyond a vile hunger for salaciousness and rank humiliation, which at that fork in the road became the quest to destroy gay marriage, when a normal heterosexual would probably take some advise from Nancy Reagan and "Just Say No".<br /><br />But considering that this is a story about Dubya, there's never even a hint of freak-show condescension from the normal media outlets, nor the heavy-handed moralizing that Clinton's indiscretions would have brought to the subject. Not even a whimper of regret, as our Will Rogers of American trash kills off what's left of our national credibility with the same level of dignity and compassion that John Wayne Gacy did for the deceased.<br /><br />[ edited on March 9, 2005 ]dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820238.post-1109127480199528532005-02-22T18:56:00.000-08:002005-02-24T21:16:09.630-08:00The King is Dead; Raoul Duke Cashes His Check<div style="float: left; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;"><img src="http://photos4.flickr.com/5272701_8e214c904e.jpg" width="303" height="440" alt="crousehst" /></div>"George W Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn't vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today - and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads?"<br /> - <em>Kingdom of Fear</em>, 2003<br /><br />"At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles - a restless idealism on the one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going."<br /> - Paul Kemp, <em>The Rum Diary</em>, 1959<br /><br />"At one point during the campaign I mentioned Pat Buchanan at McGovern headquarters, for some reason, and Rick Stearns, perhaps the most hardline left-bent ideologue on McGovern's staff, sort of chuckled and said, 'Oh yeah, we're pretty good friends. Pat's the only one of those bastards over there with any principles.' When I mentioned this to another McGovern staffer, he snapped: 'Yeah, maybe so ... like Josef Goebbels had principles.'"<br /> - <em>The Great Shark Hunt</em>, 1975<br /><br />"We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls ... not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked in a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can ..."<br /> - <em>Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas</em><br /><br />Son-of-a-bitch! But what we want to keep in mind is that "principles" is a very relative term in and about Washington these days - with the diabolical claws of the Neo-Con agenda poised to strike down everything that was once proud and good about being a player in the American Century, at any hot and ruthless instant - so when Dr. Gonzo slipped out the backdoor in an eminently reasonable fashion from within the confines of his rustic home on the outskirts of Woody Creek, Colorado, he must have had an idea just how appropriate a day on which he decided to take his life, resulting in the abject theft of almost every headline on an otherwise non-descript President's Day.<br /><br />One of the most extraordinary aspects of the <em>Hunter is Gone</em> story has been the way that the mainstream press has handled his passing: Thompson was the black sheep of the family who drank a little too much and drove a little too fast and hung around with a too tough crowd, so the subtext of his death was more a form of resignation than anger, depression or outrage. What had begun at the Kentucky Derby in 1970, as one of the finest essays on the decadent and depraved American experiment, was soon surpassed, by then, into what is the most thoroughly and most horrifically revolutionary pieces of American literature since Henry Miller first hung out with Anais Nin in Paris. It was his signature work, <em>Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas</em>, a toxic combination of straight reporting and mystical storytelling which has pushed the envelope on outlaw journalism and inspired the counter-culture for more than 30 years. Surely, critics with a long standing grudge or revisionist motives or total misunderstanding have long maintained that his later years were "wasted" and "meaningless," but such is the way for authors who have accomplished so much at a young age - which the Good Doctor did in spades - and in many ways it seemed that he lived his life until it became joyless and still, once the cinders became too many to endure and the golden fire just burned out. <br /><br />"I would feel real trapped in this life if I didn't know I could commit suicide at any time," he once told Ralph Steadman, his creative collaborator, who was first paired up with Thompson for the <em>Scanlan's Monthly</em> article at the Kentucky Derby, and remained a lifelong friend.<br /><br />Nobody but his friends believed it, of course. High-powered media types immediately took to the airwaves to consider what had <em>really</em> went wrong with Thompson ... but the rest of us, no longer pimped by the right-wing media machine or the fast-approaching terror of another election cycle without a fair-and-balanced system to count the votes, all too simply shrugged at the news of his departure for the sweet hereafter and moved along to our own personal form of combat against the voices of the doomed and the damned. There was nothing unusual, it then seemed, about Dr. Gonzo finally calling it a lifetime before another law enforcement official banged on his door with a pink slip demanding his surrender to a treatment facility or a court-ordered psychiatric exam. And if the truth was worse than the image that he tried to sustain ... heck ... there would indeed be nothing earth-shattering there either, because Thompson simply knew it was time to go on, perhaps his final way of taking control of things before they got out of control or too messy to contain.<br /><br />"By any accepted standard, I have had more than nine lives. I counted them up once and there were 13 times I almost and maybe should have died," the Good Doctor once said, and who would have doubted him. Suicide was an act that seemed a fitting, if tragic, end to one enormously singular existence.<br /><br />His next release after <em>Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas</em> was <em>Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72</em> - perhaps his crowning achievement, and the one that will be read for generations to come - a vicious and down-low manifesto on the US presidential electoral process in which he wrote that "Nixon represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise". Thompson was right then, as he is now, about our current Child Preznut - as logical and ideological benefactor to the Nixonian style of addition-by-subtraction politics with a touch of Orwellian hyperbole and vile circumlocution - who has already transformed the concepts of security and freedom into fear and ignorance. At this intolerable rate of profound stupidity and separatist language not seen since the build up of live batteries at Fort Sumter, the AARP will be rounded up like a pack of Taliban anarchists and branded with a supporting-gay-marriage scar while the Rove dysinformation robots auto-fax talking points to the FOX News puppets about the choice Americans must make between body armor for the troops and grandma eating cat food stew while waiting in line all Soviet-like for toilet paper. <br /><br />All of this rages on while the Good Doctor is sitting beyond the horizon sucking limes at the bar between shots of Sauza and dips into his sack of blotter acid, taking it all in for sheer gallow's humor, along with Hemingway and Mencken and Faulkner and Miller, remarking how network news moguls are no longer hungry for stories involving lonely nights of investigation and minimal camera time for the newsgals with bleached teeth and tummy tucks - particularly at a time when almost every American is about to get taken for the final ride to the fiasco that will be Dubya's legacy. Both the networks and the print journalists are wrapped up in the deception now, and the "first teams" often involve former party insiders once the election cycle draws to a close with an almost sociopathic precision, beating the drums on September 11 minus the Homeland Security color chart every time they get painted into a corner now that the truth has become a commodity like talking head spin, campaign finance and message control. Everything that Dubya ever stood for - if we were to venture a guess as what <em>exactly</em> these things are beyond his ideological vassals and corporate cronies and God-is-a-Terrorist-unless-you-share-our-values crowd - is going up in flames right before our eyes. Like Richard Milhous Nixon before him, and the disturbing parallels are really not that extreme when you line up the players, The Chimperor has been largely successful for the same reasons that he will eventually be drawn and quartered in public. He could not keep himself from dividing, pushing, dividing, pulling, dividing, proding - and, eventually, he will push, pull, prod and divide all the wrong people, causing them to come for blood and a White House Girls With Air Force One Gone Wild video romp with the twins. This is the other end of the proclivity-spectrum that overtook me once I realized that Dr. Gonzo <em>won't</em> be rolling over in his grave, only because he spent so much of his time telling it just this way and we have been warned.<br /><br />The Good Doctor was a lot of things to many different people - making the Nixon Enemies of the State List, among other notable places - and he was also called a hero, a madman, an outlaw, the first blogger, absolutely deranged, a son-of-a-bitch, a degenerate gambler and a hopeless drug addict. He was all of these things and in the mylar atmosphere of American Journalism, Inc., it made him a hero, an icon, a reason to wake up and smell the coffee. My lasting memory of him was an appearance at the Somerville Theater during the <em>Generation of Swine</em> book tour in the late 1980s - and much to the audience's chagrin, he was about 90 minutes late that night, apologizing upon his arrival by offering a lame excuse that he was out looking for an ammunition-slash-liquor store. He spoke wildly about the corrupt Reagan (pronounced "Ray-gun") Revolution, Ed Meese, Daddy Bush and Pat Robertson and he topped off the evening by signing every hardcover copy ... only ... with a familiar quip on the inner sleeve, "Wise Up ... HST." Mine caught fire from a wave of his lighter and he shook it madly to put out the flame while puffing on his trademark Dunhill tucked neatly in a white cigarette holder.<br /><br />He was the first and last of his kind - because he enjoyed the role of libertarian dissident and living on the edge. Part Jack Kerouac and other parts H.L. Mencken, with the Book of Revelations thrown in for good measure and dramatic effect, he will outlive the Carl Bernstein's and Bob Woodward's of the cloth because he remained true to himself and never wavered, even at the bitter end when the lights went low.<br /><br />Thompson was the first journalist to clearly note that a story becomes more believable when the reporter takes the time to honestly chronicle his or her own failures, and how those idiosyncrasies become a refracting lens separating what is truth and what is schlock and spin. He changed the face of journalism - whether the right wing forces of doom want to accept it or not, or whether there exists a journalist in America these days who has the <em>cajones</em> to speak freely without a care about the consequences ... and I think not ... giving the next generation of political thinkers and satirists a foundation upon which the truth will be further dissected and revealed for all its utter insanity. After all, freedom is something that dies unless it's used harshly, repeatedly and shamelessly.<br /><br />"To hell with Fun. I shit on the chest of Fun. Look what it did to Charles Manson. He had too much fun - no doubt about that - so they put him away for life."<br /><br />Mahalo, Dr. Gonzo. <em>Res Ipsa Loquitur</em>dr. raoul speitzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11263581922273633858noreply@blogger.com0