Some readers might remember a post I made a while back after watching "The Weather Underground," a documentary on the radical group of the late 60s-early 70s. Yesterday, an anonymous reader sent this comment:



"If you weren't there you couldn't possibly understand. How bad were the Weathermen as compared to a coke snorting, draft dodging coward of a right wing president who in abject terror of attack had the superpatriot, anti-american, government snooping act made into law? Power to the people!"



Er, right on, anonymous. But what does our current Nincompoop-In-Chief have to do with the Weather Underground? Here's an answer: both W. and the WU were self-indulgent privileged clods unable to think of politics as anything but a stage for their narcissism. We all go through phases where we're self-absorbed and obnoxious, but only Baby Boomers demand that the whole world get dragged along for the ride. Don't blame Bush for The Patriot Act, man, he's just doing his own thing.



Remember last summer before the conventions when people on the left were terrified by the possibility of "another '68"? That is, images of street fighting suggesting that the country was falling apart--and needed a strong authoritarian at the top? You could make a case that it's been the bogus-but-carefully-stoked FEAR of hippie revolution which has guided the country steadily to the right over the last 36 years. The WU can't be blamed for that, but note nobody was fearing "another Martin Luther King." My problem with the WU isn't their desire for change, their utopianism, or even their anger; it's their use of violence, which belies at best a youthful impatience and at worst makes them no better than their adversaries. Using violence to stop violence is, to use a Sixties phrase, "like fucking for virginity."

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Hello again! Hope everybody had a nice Thanksgiving.



Through friend Dennis Perrin's brand-spankin'-new blog, I discovered a very interesting interview with writer/avatar of Hip Terry Southern.



Southern is probably best known for his work with Stanley Kubrick on "Dr. Strangelove," but he did a lot more than that--Easy Rider, the mega-selling dirty book "Candy," some excellent journalism and short stories, as well as a few baroque satirical novels that can feel a bit dated. Time is the scourge of the social satirist, and the pace of damage increases with the accuracy of the work in describing its original moment--as mores change, the work suffers. Still--Southern's well worth reading, especially if you dig the smart edgy side of the Sixties as much as I do.

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For $9.99, computer users can now download a video game based on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. However, the game’s makers warn, no matter what they score, nobody will believe it.

Or, “The best players will compete for a prize of $100,000 and a chance to be shot on live television.”



This week, real estate mogul Donald Trump’s casino empire filed for bankruptcy. It was the shortest such filing in history: “I’m fired.”



Twelve months after Janet Jackson scandalized the world during the Super Bowl halftime show, the NFL announced that this year’s show would star venerable icon Paul McCartney. It could've been a lot worse--they could've gotten Yoko Ono.



Monday, Israeli leaders said that they will do their utmost to allow Palestinian elections to take place. Then, after a brief pause, they shouted the Hebrew word for “Psych!”



Thanks to increasing levels of estrogen from birth control pills, fish with both male and female sex tissue have been discovered near wastewater treatment plants in Colorado. “I really think it’s a win/win situation,” a scientist said. “We get to have sex with each other, and the fish can have sex with themselves.”



A Great White Shark in California has set the new world’s record for time spent in captivity, seventeen days and counting. The Monterey Bay Aquarium celebrated the occasion by blasting the theme from Jaws until the neighbors complained.

Or, “…by dumping blood in the tank and standing around chanting ‘Fren-zy,’ ‘fren-zy’!”



For the second time in nine months, Britney Spears has gotten married. The ceremony, which took place in Los Angeles on Saturday evening, was over soon enough for Britney to hit the bars.

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To mark the 41st anniversary of his assassination, I thought I'd pass along a quote from JFK. It struck me when I read it, how similar the battle lines were, then and now.



"If by a ‘Liberal’ they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people—their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties—someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a ‘Liberal,’ then I’m proud to say I’m a ‘Liberal.’”



Quick! Get it on a T-shirt here.

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Kate's learning how to write jokes like the ones on SNL's "Weekend Update," and as a good husband (who used to write that kind of material), I agreed to comb the news and write what are called "set-ups," the news bits that set up the punchline. Rather predictably, the old compulsion returned. I read 'em to Jon, and he said they were blog-worthy. Hope you enjoy them!



Sunday, on “Meet the Press,” Arizona Senator John McCain said that while he was not currently considering a run for President in 2008, he refused to rule it out. Moments after McCain’s comments, the American people was heard to scream, “Oh Christ, it’s happening AGAIN…”



Sunday, it was announced that Iraq’s elections will be held on January 30. Or maybe even sooner, if President Bush can find the Post-It he wrote the winner's name on.



The head of Miami-Dade schools has asked police there to stop using tasers on elementary school children. We agree--kids today grow up too fast as it is.



This week, the world’s oldest man, Fred Hale, Sr., died less than two weeks short of his 114th birthday. I guess he was sick of hearing that song.



In an interview with “60 Minutes” last Sunday, actor Jim Carrey said that he is now “drug-free.” But who are you going to believe, him or your grandmother?



Last Sunday, NASA launched an unmanned space observatory that would scan the universe for evidence of violent explosions that herald the birth of black holes. Here’s a tip: follow the car alarms.

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This morning, I had a great thought: What if there was such a thing as an unarmy, formed and maintained by societies to do the exact opposite of making war--a vast unarmy outfitted with lavishness and care, that did its work with the same kind of ever-vaulting precision and dedication that armies do theirs? Think of it: massive groups of people in the fullness of their vigor, sent off to foreign countries to do good deeds and help other people out.



Back at home, there'd be whole regions whose economies depended on the Compassion Industrial Complex, the influence and scope of which was growing all the time. 'I don't know what we'd do without the free-glasses-for-poor-people factory.' The CEOs of the do-goodingest companies would receive rock-star treatment in the business press, and their shareholders would be endlessly enriched. Innovation would be constant, and while sometimes expensive, always worth it. "We help the Unarmy help you."



There'd be families with generations of members, all serving proudly; soldiers coming home, decorated for acts of brave and conspicuous kindness overseas. 'I'm in the 101st Airborne Coat Delivery--'the Smilin' Kid,' that's our symbol. It's on all our copters. Don't believe the movies, it's nothing like that...Being in an unwar--you can't describe it. My sis drives an unarmored personnel carrier--it's fulla therapists and socialworkers."



There would be highly trained and exotically equipped strike forces, dropped in by paraglider perhaps, to provide marriage counseling or shovel walks for the elderly. 'How'd you do that so fast?' 'Well, ma'am, it's this shovel. It can achieve Mach 4.3. Took a billion dollars to develop, but I think you'll agree, it was worth it." Frogmen in rubber boats would tirelessly sweep the oceans free of choking trash, camoflauged so as not to alarm the fish.



Kids would play anti-army, sneaking up on each other for triumphant small gestures of support. Every night on television the news would be full of acts of kindness, and documentaries would analyze history's good deeds, down to the last detail, paying special attention to the individuals whose genius for unwarfare made it all happen. "My favorite part was when Gandhi kissed that wounded soldier." Movies would whip audiences up into a patriotic fervor, causing those on their way home to buy blankets and mail them to cold climates, or just paint the houses of strangers. "There's a unwar on, you know. We all have to do our part."



Expensive and complicated machines on the cutting edge of science would be designed and tested in secret labs out in the desert, their ability to bring happiness analyzed and improved to its farthest degree. The technological might of entire nations would be focused on staying ahead of its fellows, in terms of how much compassion could be brought to bear at a moment's notice. "Today we announce the deployment of a new defense shield, more technologically advanced than any system prior...Thanks to the dedication and brilliance of our scientists, and the profound riches of our nation, a ring of satellites now hangs in low orbit, scanning day and night for people going through painful breakups. Once identified, their information is fed into our central computer, where a new match will be made within seven one thousandths of a second. Ladies and gentlemen, romantic suffering has plagued humanity for thousands of years, but today it is a thing of the past."



Plans would be hatched in secret for massive, coordinated do-gooding. Occasionally, either through espionage or carelessness, one of these plans would become known; the target would immediately launch a pre-emptive strike of affection. Soon, the entire world would be engulfed in anti-war, in a new type of kindness and mutual support Humanity has never known before. Mutually assured affection--a world perpetually on the brink of catastrophic paradise--wouldn't that be great?

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As usual Bobharris.com is on the case.



And for those of you interested in a cri de coeur regarding nice liberals, the wait is over.

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...Parker in that, if it's apt and slightly ascerbic, it's attributed to him. Bearing that in mind, I make no claims as to the provenance of this amusing quote, sent to me by friend Garry Goodrow:



"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner souls of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."



--H.L. Mencken (1880 -- 1956)

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...courtesy of this link, provided courtesy of friend Dennis Perrin (who, you should already know, wrote a great biography of the NatLamp and SNL writer called "Mr. Mike"). In this brief interview taped shortly before his death, MO'D pontificates on the environmental pickle we've gotten ourselves into...Not uplifting, but probably right...

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This Modern World has a good post about the Red State Vs. Blue State paradigm. Tom, like myself, apparently grew up in Red States and now lives and works in a Blue one (New Haven, if memory serves, and God love him for it). His post--an answer to all the Red State liberals that write him in anger whenever he (in their opinion) denies their existence--is sensible and well-reasoned. Nobody can deny that there are two worldviews clashing in the U.S.



BUT...



There's a lot more than those two. Distilling all the attitudes that Americans have into a binary system--the media calls it Red Vs. Blue, but I'd agree with others that it's closer to Rural Vs. Urban--allows, perhaps even forces, voters into bogus choices like "Do I want the coutnry to be stand proud or do I want a job?" It plays into the idea of a larger cultural war that the Republicans have been pushing since Reagan. (Since, in other words, they jettisoned fiscal responsibility and needed another issue to crusade on.) Red Vs. Blue is a GOP strategy, it's not reality. There are plenty of homophobes in Blue states; and plenty of rural voters who DON'T hate gays; Red Vs. Blue denies the existence of both, to nobody's advantage but the GOP. It's undemocratic, and bogus, too.



WE have the dominant values; the narrow, hateful evangelicals are a minority--always have been, always will be--just like people who are anti-abortion, pro-assault rifle, et cetera, et cetera. It's only through conflating all these issues into a larger cultural war, and forcing a binary choice, can the GOP win. This strategy allows Americans who don't agree with the whole Blue slate pick an single, emotion-based issue and vote solely on that. It's the Red Vs. Blue paradigm that allowed enough people to say, "Well, I need a job and I'm against the war, but I'm anti-abortion, so I'm for Bush." Or, "I need health insurance and think that it's wrong to give rich people tax breaks at my expense, but I'm against gay marriage, so..." It's only within this binary system that the GOP's insistence on party conformity trumps the Dems' respect for diversity. It makes voting solely about who you are, not what the country needs, or what the candidate's gonna do.



Here's what I'm saying: Yes, there are differences between urban and rural culture, and the attitudes of the people who live in those places are expressed in voting patterns. But think about the various maps you've seen since the election: there are voting patterns based on IQ, but the media isn't trumpeting "Dumb Vs. Smart." There are voting patterns based on revenue, but you don't hear people talking about "Freeloaders Vs. Prosperous." Can you imagine Thomas Friedman writing about how the Dems need to "reach out to dumb people who can't hold down a job"?



By accepting the Red Vs. Blue paradigm, the dominant culture--the group that makes the money as well as the art and scientific discoveries and is that portion of America integrating into the rest of the world--grants the other side equal footing, when no measure I've seen suggests that this is appropriate. We have more money. We have more talent. We have more people. We even (and I'm guessing here, for obvious reasons) probably have less crime, fewer divorces, lower teen pregnancy.



There is no measure by which the so-called Red States deserve their outsized influence over our political system; but the GOP has found ways, legal and otherwise, to game the system. There will always be an urban/rural divide, but we in the dominant group--the group that clearly represents the future--should not acquiesce to a paradigm that pretends that we're equal, much less in the minority. 'Cause the fact is, most people want what we want--peace, prosperity, religious tolerance, a decent environment. But as long as we get stuck in the bogus rhetoric of the culture war ("Country music is more patriotic than Hip-Hop!") we're playing on the GOP's home turf. Nobody wants your squirrel rifle, Cletus, and nobody wants to make your daughter get an abortion, and nobody wants to move the Pentagon to France. It's all bogus--but long as we consent to their paradigm, we'll never be able to put forth our reality, which I'm convinced is much closer to the truth about America and Americans.



It doesn't help that so many of us--Tom and me, for example--found Red State culture toxic enough to decamp for the Blue. I despise hick-dom in all its forms, but that's a prejudice of mine; sure, it's based on plenty of unpleasant characters from my youth in Missouri, but chewin' tabaccy does not a bigot make--bigotry does. The more we can make this about values--real values--and not about cultural signifiers and media shorthand, the more I'm convinced that the actual majority opinions will reassume governance.

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...has a lovely blog going. This, from her most recent post, were she disses Strawberry Shortcake: "Hydrocephalic imps who smell like bad room freshener were not, in my personal universe, conducive to what the early development experts call 'imaginative play.'" Check Harriet out here.

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In this week's New Yorker, Anthony Lane misses the mark on "The Incredibles," only lukewarm about a movie that was thoroughly well-made, scrupulous about its comic logic, consistently inventive, and utterly enjoyable. Is it that he doesn't like computer animation, that it's not the "superheroes-trapped-in-reality" movie he would've made, or simply that he doesn't have a very whimsical mind? As usual, the critics at The New Yorker seem more interested in showing their fluency with language, rather than shedding much light on a subject. I find that EVERY time they critique something I myself know about, they're reliably superficial and show-offy; needlessly prim and conventional; occasionally they're even wrong.



I won't go so far as to say that in this case--Lane did seem to like the movie--but there's a kind of weariness in his review that puzzled me; as if animation itself was boring, or old hat, or too easy. Whatever didn't connect, you can tell Lane's at sea, because there's nothing about the look of the movie--mid-century America, muscley and triumphal, mirroring the characters. Nor is the movie's secret weapon, the hilarious Coco Chanel-esque supersuit designer, worthy of a mention. Yet Lane takes the time to call out Brad Bird's homage to "The Apartment"--besides burnishing Lane's film-history cred, what does this tell me about the movie? Nothin'--and yes, I've seen "The Apartment," and like it, and like Billy Wilder. That's like dragging "City Lights" into your review of any movie with factory workers in it--not incorrect, but needlessly film-geeky and indulgent. Calling all editors!



When Lane writes, "Only the baddie, the excitingly named Syndrome, disappoints; he’s nothing but a megalomaniac, when what we need here is minimanias—the fuzz and snag of ordinary feelings," one has to put the magazine down for fear of throwing it and injuring a cat. Syndrome's motivation isn't megalomania, it's revenge against a father-figure, payback for a youthful slight regardless of the costs to bystanders. Well, Mr. Lane, if it's good enough to motivate George W. Bush, it's good enough for "The Incredibles." Half as much wordplay and wit, please, and twice as much respect for a comedy which truly succeeds, and will wear well--probably, when all is said and done, better than "The Apartment," whose sexual milieu (the driver of its plot) was out-of-date less than ten years after its release...



Meanwhile, back in depressing reality, Bob Harris has posted the best bit of election-fraud bloggery I've read so far (my own thoughts eminently included). Here's a snip, helpful for those of you trying to interpret the whirring of your own Spidey-sense, or explain it to disdainful relatives at Thanksgiving:

"What jumped out," Bob writes, "at a lot of people on the night of the election was how the 'errors' in the exit polls consistently occured in the same direction.



The thing about genuine errors, extremes, and anomalies in results... is that they're random.



The chance that a flipped coin will land 'heads' four times in a row is only 1 in 16 -- but you're just as likely to see it land 'tails' four times in a row.  And if it's an honest coin, flipped fairly, over time, you will.  Very basic math will tell you exactly how likely a given outcome is.



But even without the math, we have a sense of this in our daily lives.  If you were betting another guy a dollar a flip, and the coin came up tails ten times in a row (about a 1 in 1000 chance) common sense would tell you the coin was weighted. 



And if somebody told you it wasn't -- that it was just an error or pure random chance, never mind, keep emptying your wallet -- you'd start to wonder about their motives.



Common sense.  Not a conspiracy theory.  Just what you're seeing, right in front of you."



Right on, Bob!



And by the way, Barry Trotter and the Dead Horse is chunking along in the UK; US readers should order it via Amazon.co.uk (I've put a link on the bar to the left). Did I mention that baby needs a new pair of shoes?

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Friend Col writes in the comments,

"Hey, it's Colleen. (didn't wanna go through the hassle of registering so 'scuse the anonymous post, or rather, ill-labeled post). Love ya, kid, but am glad you're setting the torch down on the conspiracy tip. And choosing to focus on election reform is clearly an intelligent middleground issue on which practical results can be registered."



Hi Col! Nice to hear from you! True enough, but I don't think my stance has shifted--I still think they stole it, because that's more logical to me than any of the half-baked, super-soft reasons I've heard for Kerry's sudden hemorrhaging of support. All the pundits' palaver boils down to the old Red vs. Blue paradigm that I think is fundamentally flawed; it's incredibly self-serving to elites on both the left and right for the election to turn on the supposed hatred of evangelicals (one alien, stereotyped group) for gays (another). That doesn't sound like reality to me, it sounds like kabuki--a simple story for people to watch while the real action goes on somewhere else.



But once one hollers "they stole it!" there's no place to go but election reform. It's like saying "maybe we shouldn't have open motorcades" after the President gets his head blown off. It's not the presence of conspiracy that bothers me--it's a constant in human affairs, like eczema or slush--but how disdain is used to prevent us from taking steps against it. The more unacceptable "conspiracy theory" becomes to the guardians of our society, the bigger a role I suspect it plays. Because a rigged game strikes at the very heart of those guardians' fitness to be elite. Why is Tom Wicker STILL insisting in the accuracy of the Warren Report? Is it because he really believes it, or because missing the scoop of the century suggests all sorts of uncomfortable questions about his biases, competence, and that of the New York Times? Maybe he's right, and maybe Bush won fairly, too--but I'd rather err on the side of paranoia and protection.



Politics IS conspiracy--people working together to achieve a result--the only question is how to restrain inappropriate conspiracy. And if you want to restrain it, you have to start by acknowledging that it exists. It's not loony to think that Bush and Co. stole it; if they didn't, it's because they couldn't, not because they didn't try or want to. I am perfectly content for people to think I'm a paranoid fool, in the hopes that my attitude makes it infintesimally more difficult for inappropriate conspiracies to thrive unchallenged. I really do believe in democracy, because my experience is that the average American is smart, not dumb. And reelecting Bush was simply dumb. There's got to be more to the story than what the NYT is willing to admit.

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As part of my ongoing efforts in the field of procrastination, this morning I wrote a little something for a kids' magazine. I don't know if it will ever see the light of day, but it amused me, so I thought I'd share it. It's a rough draft, so lay off.



"Five Sure Fire Self-Esteem Boosters



Sometimes, all the motivational posters in the world can’t make you feel good about yourself. You don’t want to “hang in there.” Nothing, in fact, would make you happier than to see that cute little kitten lose its grip and fall into the bucket of frothing acid or chamber of whirling knives or whatever it is that lurks below it. This is entirely natural; everyone feels this way sometimes.



Yet the fact remains that one must get out of bed, eat, wash occasionally, and do all the other things that, taken together, make up a full-but-tedious life. Below are several sure-fire methods to help you keep going when true self-esteem is rarer than a double cheeseburger at fat camp.



1) Forget about cracks like the one I just wrote about fat camp. I wasn’t talking about you, and the joke wasn’t very funny anyway. Keep in mind that people who write humorous articles often have problems of their own. Big problems.

2) Give yourself credit for everything. Especially things you can do without trying, like blinking or breathing. “My heart beat 112,000 times yesterday and I didn’t even break a sweat! Go, me!”

3) Harness the power of ignorance. Denial is perhaps the greatest gift human beings have, and there’s usually no reason whatsoever to pay attention to something you’d rather ignore. People don’t like to admit this, but denial’s the only thing that keeps any of us going. If, for example, you realized all the ways you could die at this very moment, your head would explode. (Which renders the question quite academic.) In general, whatever it is, it’s probably best not to think about it.

4) Hang around with the biggest losers you can scrounge up. Not only will you look great by comparison, you’ll feel better, too. As the poet wrote, “I cried because I had no shoes/until I met a man who had no feet/Boy am I glad/I’m not that dude.” If you can’t find an actual footless person, substitute someone with extremely unsightly toenail fungus.

5) Think of all the problems you would have if you were incredibly famous, brilliant, attractive, and/or wealthy. Paparazzi are more annoying than you think.



Don't be fooled by people who say that the only way to truly feel good about yourself is through hard work and accomplishment--if your self-esteem isn't based on anything real, nothing real can make you lose it!"

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Forget values and security moms--turns out the election boiled down to raw, pulsing stupidity. I can see it now, right there on the Op-Ed page of the NYT: "Riding the Short Bus to the White House."



"We will remain the minority party unless we get much, much stupider," said new DLC Chairman P. Brain McPoopy-Pants. "Ow! I just hit my head again."

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Trolling the blogosphere poking about this election fraud issue, I'm struck by a yawning--and mostly false--division. On the one side, there are the people screaming "Kerry won!" On the other, there are the people saying, "Take off the tinfoil hat and help figure out how to win in 2006."



Here's a well-reasoned and thoughtful example of the former, courtesy of Bob Harris, and here's the same as regarding the latter, from This Modern World (via Atrios). On the one hand, I doubt we'll ever get a gun that smokes profusely enough to convince one GOP partisan. (As the PIPA survey showed, rational discourse doesn't cut much ice with them. We'd need a note from God.) On the other hand, if the GOP has really rigged it in the necessary states, all the strategizing in the world won't unseat them in 2006 or '08.



Truth is, it's not an either/or choice. In fact, I'd argue that election reform--making our elections the most transparent, squeaky-cleanest in the world--should be THE unifying issue for the Democrats. The goal is something the Deaniacs and the DLC could agree on, and it's appeal extends throughout the fractious spectrum of the Left; the smaller the constituency, the more they have to gain by fair, free elections. As far as the opposition is concerned, every piece of evidence, no matter how tiny, weakens Bush II's legitimacy. Reforming our election process makes the Democrats the party of rigor, responsibility, and reform (and fits in with their rationality fetish, too)! No politician or news outlet in their right mind could oppose it, if it were Democratic-encouraged but truly non-partisan. And best of all, it finally breaks the country out of this bogus Red/Blue b.s. that's done nothing but isolate and alienate one citizen from another.



Let's emphasize the best of our traditions, democracy and fair play, not the worst, regional and racial discord. Dem-led election reform would do both, whether you believe we wuz robbed or not. It's a forward-thinking issue, not treading the Grapes of Sourness (as many would have you believe).

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...or a role-playing version of Barry Trotter, at least. Check it out at Hogwarts By Night.



Kate and I saw two movies yesterday; there's a big multiplex near our house and once there, we like to double up--I may start agitating for a triple sometime. First we saw "The Incredibles" which was very, very enjoyable. First half struck me as kinda slow, but the second half was great. And as usual, the story and design was excellent. Unfortunately, the preview of Pixar's next feature, "Cars," made Kate and I both want to throw up repeatedly, with increasing power. The popularity of NASCAR is inexplicable enough--pro wrestling with pollution--but to have next year's Pixar movie hijacked by it adds one-time insult to ongoing injury. NASCAR's not my tribe.



We also saw "Shaun of the Dead," which was a very funny, very English send-up of zombie movies (I was half-tempted to write "zombie culture," but then I've already talked about NASCAR).



Those of you who are still concerned about the possible theft of Tuesday's election are encouraged to go to Blackboxvoting.org. I'm planning to make a donation, as a first step towards a cleaner 2006 and 2008. Also, there's a fascinating ongoing discussion about these issues on Democratic Underground. Something I didn't say last week was this: if you can convince a Democrat that something is the will of the American people, he/she will conform to that reality. This is a nice thing about Democrats, but it's not what we need right now. This country NEEDS Democrats and liberals and progressives (because they're three different groups, as Friend Anonymous' comment made abundantly clear) to come together and dispute the vision of reality that the GOP is pumping out so relentlessly. And as many, many people have said, we can't depend on the so-called liberal media to help us do this. They're already congealed into "sigh--the country is being run by the mob instead of smart people like you and I, reader". Not only is that incorrect, it does nothing but harden this bogus Red/Blue divide. People should be judged by what they do--vote for Bush--not for their cultural signifiers. When we speak against the war, or against Enron, or against privitizing Social Security, we're fighting for everybody, not just people in New York, Illinois and California. In other words, it's not just NASCAR or nothing: how about hybrid-powered NASCAR?

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[A reader of this blog was moved to take issue with my theory that the GOP stole the election. His/her comment is in the comments section under that post, but I thought my response to her/him might be of sufficient interest generally to merit front-pageness.]



I'd like to institute a rule on this blog: if you make a comment about something serious--something substantive--please sign your name to it. I have to sign my name to my opinions, and it's not fair to make me respond to a voice in the ether.



"This stole-the-election crap"

What makes it crap? They had the means, motive, and opportunity. This game isn't being played for chocolate kisses--you don't think there's enough money at stake for the right people to make sure the right result was returned? Friend, people get KILLED for whatever happens to be in the cash register--rigging an election to stay in power is nothing, especially if you've done what the Bush crew has done. They were fighting to stay out of jail; the sanctity of Democracy means less than nothing when those are the stakes.



It amazes me how some people can't acknowledge this kind of truth--it's like they're waiting for a memo that says, "You're right. We stole it." History is rife with rigged elections, and the more powerful a country, the more likely its processes will be subverted. Was Ohio stolen? Perhaps, perhaps not, but it's goddamn JOB #1 to look. I agree we shouldn't get obsessed about it, but it happened frigging TUESDAY. They're still counting votes! It's absolutely essential that we attack this issue, and attack it now--because it's not partisan crap. In a democracy, the integrity of the voting process is the bedrock on which everything else is built.



More from your mail:

"Look: if you're an undecided voter, you are presented with, yes, a heinous administration, but what is your alternative? A cold, shamefacedly opportunistic Northeastern liberal who voted in favor of the war and then against its funding?"



Arguing the merits of John Kerry IS truly useless, because there's no way to prove it one way or the other, and he's never running for President again. I think it's logical to assume that his waffling on the war deterred undecideds. But listen, any undecided who's against the war--as it seems you are--should've logically voted for Kerry--as you say you did. With all this evidence that Bush is bad for the country, why must it come down to Kerry's personality? I prefer to give my fellow voters more credit. If you don't, fair enough, but it's not really an arguable issue.



"[Kerry] was frankly not a candidate who could inspire passion or a belief in idealism and change. The popular vote proves this."



The popular vote that showed him getting more votes than any Democratic candidate in history, you mean? I'm not saying he's not flawed in precisely the way you say he is, but Christ, we're talking about a bona-fide war hero who's spent a life in public service running against an unquestionably irresponsible and overmatched President. Anybody who was undecided as of Nov. 2 is pro-Bush whether they admit it or not--they forgave him 2000, and the scandals, and 9/11, and Tora Bora, and Iraq, and Haliburton, and the economy, and and...At a certain point it becomes incumbent on the voter to recognize reality, whether or not John Kerry has a great personality or a lousy one.



You make some good points about how Kerry was complicit in his own defeat(?)--which are all completely besides the point. The integrity of the voting process is the first step, and that first step wasn't taken, by Kerry, Dean, or anybody else. Jesus Christ (D-Galilee) himself couldn't take the South if the GOP was counting the votes. That's a fact, friend Anonymous, and to think that the US is somehow above election-stealing (or that it happens here, sure, but not so much that we should pay attention to it) is at best naive and at worst delusional.

Until somebody explains to me how vast numbers of Americans were convinced to vote against their obvious self-interest, I think vote-stealing is the most likely explanation. You may disagree, but attributing it to something as fundamentally undefinable as Kerry's personality--or even his murky position on Iraq--is truly a fool's game. You can look for the perfect candidate all you want, but until the voting problem is fixed, it won't matter.

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For several days now, I have been bedeviled by several things. First, the sickening reversal of the early exit polls that had Kerry in the lead. Second, the Democrats' ridiculous self-laceration over not being able to gaybash as well as Karl Rove can. (Remember, he's had years of practice.) And third, the spurious notion that Bush's slim victory is somehow a "mandate."



The whole thing doesn't smell right--the swing in the exit polls; the complete failure of all the conventional wisdom (that heavy turnout helps the Dems, that incumbents suffer when an electorate is largely undecided going into the booth); Bush's weak performance in the debates; the relentless downer of the war; the crappy economy...There's simply no way that Bush could've won--unless a vast chunk of the population is irrational, wild-eyed zealots that can't be reasoned with.



As unlikely as that is, the media has seized on it as the magic formula; people in the Red states are apparently insane. Suddenly, the fear of losing your job and/or getting your ass shot off in Iraq is completely overwhelmed by a fear of gay marriage. Would you act this way? Can homophobia alone swing an election? I'd say that's very unlikely. I've lived in Greenwich Village and I've lived in Jefferson City, Missouri and in my experience, people just aren't that different.



So I think that the GOP stole it again, and I've been waiting for somebody smarter than me to address this. Greg Palast, the journalist who wrote "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," is, and has. His verdict? The GOP stole it, again.



Here's a snip from an article called Kerry won. Here's the facts: "[GOP challenges at Ohio polls] apparently resulted in voters getting these funky "provisional" ballots—a kind of voting placebo—which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic. Count them up, add in the spoiled punch cards (easy to tally with the human eye in a recount), and the totals begin to match the exit polls; and, golly, you've got yourself a new president. Remember, Bush won by 136,483 votes in Ohio."



WTF? Reading this, it actually seems LIKELY that Kerry took Ohio--and thus the Presidency! Front-page news, right? But don't expect to find this in The New York Times. The people who run that consider themselves to be very worldly and smart, and the last thing that institution would admit is that they got hoodwinked AGAIN. Protecting our democracy is not as important as minimizing their embarrassment (see: Miller, Judith).



The notion of a GOP ass-whipping of the Democrats is the coastal elite's backhanded compliment to itself. Recognizing that a combination of spoiled ballots in minority areas, vote suppression, and unverifiable touch-screen voting--problems predicted well before the election and entirely preventable, had the GOP-controlled electioneers been held to reasonable standards of impartiality--cost the Democrats the White House is a no-win situation for the mainstream media. It angers the guy in the White House, whom they need access to--whether he's legitimate or not. It weakens the system that they are so heavily invested in. It opens them up to criticism as conspiracy theorists and liberal symps. And it makes them liable to be called unpatriotic--even in the name of something as nonpartisan as fair and free elections.







Put it this way: it's a lot easier for the self-appointed guardians of this country to put forward the bogus idea that people who (this is important) don't read The New York Times are a bunch of gay-hating troglodytes than to deal with the possibility that the US is in the hands of a bunch of amoral shysters. The more intolerant and irrational the Red states are, the more the Blue ones can pat themselves on the back. With power comes responsibility, and being the minority party gives you still a great deal of the spoils with almost none of the blame.



Of course, what things like this come down to is the world you want to live in--what strikes you as more likely, based on your experience. To me, it's much more likely that the GOP stole it (remember, they've done it before) than that millions of people suddenly hate gay marriage enough to vote counter to their clear self-interest. I can't prove I'm right--the Times and the Dems could, but they won't. But blaming Kerry's apparent defeat on the masses (who don't read the Times, so the Times isn't responsible to/for them) is much too convenient for me to swallow.



Face it, dear reader: you're extra depressed about Kerry because IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. Kerry's loss is like a mysterious death, and like a mysterious death, it raises questions. A lot of people will say "What's the use of finding out what happened? It won't bring him back." I don't happen to be one of those people who value peace more than truth. Are you?

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...the next movie from Bill Murray and Wes Anderson, Salon has a great article exploding this "reach out to the heartland" crap. My favorite line so far: "To me, the heartland of this country is anywhere that people work their asses off to make their lives better for their families."

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You know what made me link? When my friend wrote, "I need to know that the next presidential candidate I vote for will not listen to reason, will not even CONSIDER conceding the election until, at a minimum, he makes his mom cry on national television." Sing out, sister!



Read the rest here.

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"Kerry just conceded. I expected better from him. This whole election stinks.



Be optimistic, Dad--I know it's hard, it's hard for me, too. Their arguments change, but in the end, the GOP wants to stop the world from changing, and if there's one thing we know, it's that the world will change. Our country is getting more diverse, not less; more urban, not less; more global, not less. The GOP can rig elections and slice and dice the electorate all they want, but these are forces they can't control. This is why they're cozy with the end-of-the-worlders--they realize that their time is nearly over.



Bush may well be what he thinks he is--an instrument of God--but not in the way he believes. Wisdom--or if you like, God's grace--does not come without pain. We had to have a Civil War to have freedom; we had to have WWI to get votes for women; we had to have a Great Depression to get Social Security; we had to have WWII to have a UN. There is no Martin Luther King without Jim Crow. History shows this: our loving, accepting God is bigger than Bush's hating and punishing God.



We will win, because it's not about winning. It's about being our best selves, and our actions during this election were in harmony with that. The others will come around--the world is working on them, too. Our job is to be firm, clear, and above all, still here to show a more hopeful alternative. Sooner or later, it will fall to people like us to point the way up and out, and when it does, we need to be ready."

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Any election is an inherently depressing process, because it shows precisely what percentage of your fellow citizens are morons. More on that later.



As usual, Bush wants to declare victory before the job's done--and as usual, the mass media is all too eager to help. Votes are still being counted. Nobody's won, nobody's lost. This may take a while--eleven days at least, for the Ohio provisional ballots--and we just have to be patient.



About Bush's apparent victory in the popular vote: everybody has been squawking about touch-screen voting and voter suppression for years, precisely because they would give us a false result in the popular vote! ONE-THIRD of the country was using touch-screen voting. Stories of voter suppression have been coming out for weeks. Ohio's now filled with stray boxes of paper ballots and GOP operatives. I don't care what the numbers say; if sufficient care wasn't taken to ensure that they would be fair and accurate, you shouldn't give them any authority. If somebody's cheating you, only a fool helps them do it!



Nicholas Kristof unwittingly puts his finger on it with his column in the Times today talking about how the Democrats need to reattract the heartland. No, people in the heartland need to stop living in the fantasy they've been indulging in since Ronald Reagan. No part of the US has gotten cheated worse over the last 25 years than the heartland. If somebody's cheating you, only a fool helps them do it!



In the article, Kristof quotes Oregon's Democratic governor, Ted Kulongoski: "[The Republicans have] created ... these social issues [read: guns, Gays, god] to get the public to stop looking at what's happening to them economically. What we once thought - that people would vote in their economic self-interest - is not true, and we Democrats haven't figured out how to deal with that."



Well, shit on fire, as they say in the heartland. If voters aren't acting in their own self-interest--economic or otherwise--the problem goes much deeper than the Democrats or the results of this election. Voting one's self-interest is the basic motivation for a democratic system. If the game has become who can fool the countryfolk better--who can play to their worst impulses, and we all know what they are--then the problem is with the citizens, not with the Democratic party. Kristof's column is more liberal Eastern Establishment inside baseball--how liberals love analysis! Would Kristof write, "What the Social Democrats need to do is stop being such elitists and start hating Jews better than the Nazis!" I say unto thee again, if somebody's cheating you, only a fool helps them do it!



Continuing with my Thirties theme, reelecting Bush in 2004 would be like reelecting Hoover in 1932. The war couldn't be going any more poorly. The economy is terrible. The country is divided and angry. That's on the one side. On the other: He talks about God a lot. No liberal I know--and certainly no Democrat--is disdainful of religion. What they're disdainful of is using it. That's not disrespectful, that's MORE respectful. The question raised by Kristof's column isn't "what does the Eastern liberal establishment need to do to convince people to vote their own self-interest?" but "how much pain and suffering does this country need to undergo before certain segments return to reality?" If the heartland wants to vote GOP because they think it believes in God, then maybe the heartland needs a draft to wake it up. Turning it into an economic wasteland hasn't been enough.



Irritation aside, I'm confident that there's a lot of story to be written yet, and Kerry may still pull it off. But if there's going to be four more years of Bush, this country will suffer greatly. Our job may be to be ready to pick up the pieces when it finally cries "Enough!" But I'd sooner lose every election than try to out-hate the GOP. If that's what winning means, winning isn't worth a damn.

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I have never been so psyched to vote. After voting for Kerry ten times each--an old Chicago tradition--we high-fived and went out for lunch. There's nothing like four years of corrupt blood-drenched right-wing insanity to make it clear what a gift voting is.



Early returns are looking good for Kerry. If you haven't gone out to vote for him, do so now. I'll be here when you get back.

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If so, ah well.



In an effort to make sure my US readers have enough energy to go to the polls and vote the bums out tomorrow, I supply below a lovely recipe for Beef Stew. Kate and I just bought a WONDERFUL new electric skillet which is about a foot-and-a-half wide and five inches deep. So, dinner at Mike and Kate's house!



OLD TYME BEEF STEW

2 lbs of beef chuck, cut into 1 1/2 in cubes (stew meat)

1 tsp Worcestershire

1 clove garlic

1 medium onion, sliced

1 or 2 bay leafs

1 tablespoon salt

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp of pepper

1/2 tsp of paprika

dash of ground allspice or cloves

6 carrots, pared and quartered

4 red potatoes, pared and quartered

1 pound of small white onions



In a dutch oven, brown meat in 2 tablespoons of olive/vegetable oil. Add two cups of hot water and the next nine ingredients (Worcest, garlic, onion, bayleafs, salt, sugar, pepper, paprika, allspice/cloves). Cover, simmer for an hour and a half, stirring occasionally to keep from sticking.

After, remove bay leafs and garlic; add vegetables. Cover and cook 30-45 minutes or until vegetables are tender. (If you're smart, you'll let it cook long enough to carmelize everything. Yum!)

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