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The Belly Shelf
2008-04-15 22:07:00
?Belly , oh belly, from whence did you come?? Roger Shakespeare (Bill?s illegitimate cousin) Every so often in a man?s life, there is a moment when he must face with an aspect of himself that calls into question the very nature of his existence. For me, that moment came in the shower. The sheer size of the lardy mound that houses my stomach beggars belief. I stood there, contemplating the absence of my feet from my downward view, and, for that moment, was in utter awe of the transformation that my waistline has undergone. To put this in the proper perspective, I never had a six-pack that did not come in cans, but, during a few periods of my life, the slope of my belly has been decidedly more flat. In fact, it was not that long ago ? the summer before last, perhaps ? that my gut was merely paunchy. But those days are gone, and have left me with this, this, thing. To ...
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Fatherhood
2008-04-13 20:05:00
I love my father, and the older I get, the more like him I become. It would be no surprise to most men of my age to hear that this thought used to just plain piss me off. Time moves on however, and the influence of our genetics is, at some level at least; inescapable. This realization that I am not as different from my Dad as I used to imagine, was accompanied by a new respect for the man that gave me half of the chromosomes required for me to be born. Seeing the world through the eyes of my limited experience, shaded as they are by that of those who have gone before me; once vast chasms of difference have shrunk to cracks in the sidewalk. I have become able to empathize with the man my father was when he decided that the young wife and the seven year old son were a bit too much to handle. He has begun to teach me ? perhaps without even knowing it ? how it is to be a man with a wife and a child on the way. He has also taught m...
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Votes of Conscience
2008-02-09 21:09:00
Someone asked me this morning if I would vote for Hilary Clinton if she received the democratic nomination for president. I had to think about this for a few moments, as my feelings are clouded by my past decisions somewhat. I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. I do not apologize for so doing because he was right – there really was not that much difference between the two parties that year. Nor do I believe that my vote for Gore would have delivered him the White House – several thousand of those who did vote for Gore were told that their votes did not matter. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20. If I had it to do over again… I don’t know what I would do. I voted for Nader out of a sense of defiant idealism – he seemed to be the only candidate willing to address the big issues head on. Corporate influence on the electoral process? Check. Corporate influence on healthcare, the environment, world trade? Check, check, and ...
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The Characters Next Door
2008-01-16 22:08:00
Recently, when looking for some music to listen to, I came across an album by Sia. I started to play it, but something in me reacted strongly against this. Exploring this, I was shocked to find the source of the hesitation. A song from this album, ?Breathe Me?, had been featured in its entirety on the final episode of the television show Six Feet Under. The sequence on the show had been poignant. While the song played, the exploits and eventual endings of the show?s characters had been played out; down to the trademark ?r.i.p.? screen for each member of the cast. This had been a pretty powerful way to say goodbye to both the viewers and characters alike. It was almost a statement that there would be no more of any of them, as they were all dead. What the hell does this have to do with anything? Over the course of a couple of years, I had become somewhat attached to several characters on the show. Even more, I had become attac...
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Constitutional Review by Some Guy: Part Two
2008-01-10 14:35:00
Let us move on now to Article II, the much shorter piece that deals with the chief executive. The most important thing to note about this article ? in terms of current events at least, is the process by which our presidents are elected. The wool is off my eyes now, and I finally understand; my vote truly does not matter. The votes of the Electors (whoever they are), are what decides this race from start to finish. There is not one mention in this document ? the legal foundation of our republic - of the people choosing the president, not one. What is telling about this little discussed fact, is the effect that it has had on the vibrancy of our democracy over the last twenty or thirty years. In the popular mind, it is the election of the president that matters. Presidential candidates get even the most apathetic and jaded of us involved in the process to some extent. This has only been amplified by the new strides in citizen journalism o...
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Constitutional Review by Some Guy: Part One
2008-01-09 16:52:00
I am rather ashamed to admit this, but here goes. I had never read the founding document of our nation all the way through until last night. Wait, where is the outrage? The righteous indignation, why do I not sense it pouring out of you through my monitor? Could it be because you have not read it either? No, surely not, but, just for the sake of argument, let us pretend that you have not taken the time to get to know your country?s legal soul, and take a look at it together. Do not be afraid, we?ll just cover some highlights ? the rest you can read on your own. This is not meant to be a definitive read of the document. I am not a legal expert, nor an historian of the Federalist Papers. I am simply a citizen, reading and interpreting the Constitution based on my own understanding of the world when it was written, and the world now. Article I. Section 1 All legislative Powers herein granted shall be ves...
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MSM Noticing the Elephant in the Room?
2008-01-07 21:58:00
If you have not yet heard of Free Press Media Reform, then please, and you care about democracy ? or just the flow of information ? please take a trip over there on your way out. I subscribe to their daily alerts and while I don?t read every single one, the reports that they highlight are disturbing to say the least. It was in yesterday?s email that I learned of the following piece. In the article, Samantha Levine outlines the issue of the recent rule changes passed by the FCC. The new rules place greater control of more slices of the media pie in the hands of fewer owners. Although they have not been implemented yet, that did not stop billionaires Sam Zell and Rupert Murdoch from celebrating the move. I highly recommend that you read the piece; it gives a much better overview of the events than I could hope to. What I find fascinating about this though, is that Levine writes for U.S. News and World Report ? a fairly mainstream outlet. Man...
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Top Ten Reasons to Impose Term Limits on Congress
2008-01-06 23:49:00
1. Campaign Costs - Every year, we surpass the previous year?s record for how much elected officials pay for their offices. While I am no Constitutional scholar, I am fairly certain that it was the intent of the framers of that document, that members of the Congress should be elected by the people ? not by the money that they could raise. 2. Motive to Pass Legislation Now ? As it stands at the present, fewer and fewer bills are passed with every session of the Congress. Many of those that do, are of a more ceremonial variety; the naming of a federal building for a departed member of the community or some such. Many of the more serious bills that are proposed are sent off to committee to be reviewed until the next holiday recess, after which, they are largely forgotten. By the time they might actually get around to voting on laws with some substance, the campaign season has begun, and m...
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At Least the Banks Have Someone to Look After Them!
2007-12-13 19:02:00
The Federal Reserve bank yesterday, in a move to bolster the consumer credit market, made 40 billion dollars worth of loans available to the banking industry. The Fed effort was coordinated with the central banks of Europe and Sweden in a huge influx of cash.Whether this will work or not remains to be seen, though many industry types are skeptical.What is certain though, is that it was a good day to be a banker yesterday - and a bad day to have taken out an ARM.Let me see if I've got this straight. The banks issued billions in loans to people with questionable credit histories.They did so with the understanding that they could raise the interest rates through the roof at any given time.The folks who took these loans out were told that everything was going to be fantastic with their new homes and, in many cases, that the interest rates were unlikely to go up anytime soon.Then the rates hit the stratosphere, forcing tens of thousands of people to default on their loans - and lose t...
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Scientists Discover That Tap Water is Clean, Cheap, and Locally Produced!
2007-12-12 19:41:00
But just try telling that to Coca-Cola or Pepsi.Critical mass has been building on this issue for some time now, will the old media ever get with the program, or are they too concerned about the backlash on their sponsors? Story number twenty on the Project Censored list of under-reported stories for the current year, paints a bleak picture of the situation. Perhaps this story would have stayed buried, had the issue not flared up so dramatically this fall.Three states in the south: Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, nearly came to legal fisticuffs over a severe water shortage. The tension was inflamed by one of the longest running droughts in recent memory. The vanishing water story even made its way into presidential campaign news. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, commenting on his states' lack of the blue stuff, suggested that large amounts be shipped in from Lake Michigan. Predictably, the governors of the Great Lake states were not amused at this prospect.This is sure to ge...
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Argh! The Pirate Have Been Invaded by the Networks! Avast!
2007-12-11 14:21:00
The Pirate s Won! I am referring to those who like to share their legally purchased movies and music with others via the internet.File sharing programs such as bit torrent, kazaa, and more, have become increasingly popular; despite the steady threat of legal actions from the RIAA, the MPAA, and the NAB.Granted that not everyone who downloads something from the net has purchased the source material - but someone has. A cottage community has developed over the last several years around this process. As one p2p tool has become obsolete, new ones have been developed, tested, and promoted. All of this has occurred in a truly organic, evolutionary way, some might say, democratic way. As a result of this pressure, the old media has been forced to change the way it does business - or risk being marginalized out of existence.While some of the larger groups are still pursuing the legal tack, the broadcasters have, in effect, thrown up the white flag. Three of the largest broadcasters now of...
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This is an Automated Response
2007-12-10 22:10:00
Just had to share this with you. They wonder why people are apathetic?Representative Yarmouth, This is an automated response to your thoughtfully written form letter of last week. Please do not respond to this message as this is now an un-monitored account when mail bears a .gov domain. While we here at the Smith household appreciate your appreciation of our concerns about the direction that the President and his administration have taken the country, that neither solves the problems nor addresses the deeper issues at the black heart of this, the most corrupt administration the nation has ever known. Thank you for taking the time to mention how you have looked into the sad events at the Walter Reed Army Hospital. Unfortunately, that has absolutely nothing to do with the issue that we contacted you about. As a hard working American like the rest of us hard working Americans with our hard working lives, you must have gotten your wires crossed. This happens frequently when on...
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Free Press News
2007-12-01 05:34:00
As enthusiastic as I am about the internet these days, I cannot help but be concerned about the future of the web. Confused? Well, sad to say that not all is well.Believe it or not, there are those who would like to nip Web 2.0 in the bud before it bears real fruit.The companies that have made billions of dollars over the last fifty years want their piece of the pie. No, that's not true - they want the whole damn thing.Fortunately, there are folks like those who run Free Press . If you have not heard of this fine organization, here is but a taste of their latest email newsletter.According to a story over at Fortune, despite its overtures at bidding on the coveted 700 mhz wireless spectrum next month, Google may not really be in it to win it - only to say that they tried. Ever heard of bit torrent? If you get your internet through ComCast you probably have. According to an article from Polyvibe (via Free Press ), the number 2 internet provider in the U.S. is the target of a class...
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Active Democracy - Or Evil Plot?
2007-11-26 01:35:00
There is bad news in Paris today as, for the second day, youths in the suburbs are rioting. According to the BBC, the apparently accidental deaths of two Algerian youths sparked a violent reaction from the young in several Parisian suburbs. This is a shame, and I hope that there is some resolution to this situation soon, but that is not what I would like to discuss today - let's call it a springboard. What this calls to mind, albeit an extreme example, is the vast difference between the French and American peoples. Specifically in how we act in response to perceived injustice on the part of the authorities.I've lived here all my life, I have never traveled to any part of Europe. Nor have I ever had the opportunity to get to know a French person. My information on the character of the French has come from the American media, extensive reading on the Crusades and an introductory French class. I have heard for years the anti-French rhetoric through the media. This sentiment is...
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Lest the X Be Forgotten
2007-11-20 05:22:00
I read a fascinating article over at The Nation this morning. As fate would have it, it seems that those of us formerly known - derisively - as the "x" generation, just might have done something with our lives after all. Don't mistake my tone as disdain for the article - it was great. No, my ire is reserved, as ever it has been, for the very notion that, because we (those born between the years of 1961 - 1976) refused to fit neatly into the package that the marketers wanted us to, we have essentially been ignored. Actually though, now that I think about it - that might have been a good thing. After all, many of us have been able to work under the radar of popular culture to, as Chaudry's piece indicates, get something done in our worlds. It was with a mixture of relief and slight resentment that I recall the Clinton campaign of 1992. Along with many of my peers, I was excited by the prospect of a change in the weather in D.C.At twenty years old, I had not yet voted, and was...
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Thank You
2007-11-18 15:03:00
I am not a supporter of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.I am not a supporter of the Bush administration.I am not a supporter of the so-called "war on terror"I am a supporter of the troops.Thank you for all that you do- whatever the reasons may be, what ever motivates you, whatever hell it is that you have to go through, thank you.Whether you served in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, or the Persian Gulf, thank you.I don't expect this to mean much, coming from a peace-loving man like myself, but that doesn't change the sincerity of my gratitude.Nor does it dull the frustration I feel at how callously you have been treated by your superiors.But that is for another day, for now, I offer only thanks for your sacrifice, thanks for your willingness, thanks for your resolve, thanks for your determination, thanks for your selflessness.I pray that, when you make reach your destination, you find the peace and love within to sustain you for a happy life - you have earned it.
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Stumble Upon Rocks!
2007-11-17 07:03:00
From time to time, I actually like to talk about stuff that doesn't suck. I feel this is important so that you don't all think of me as some bitter old man hunched over a tear-stained keyboard, punching out the last of my days. Some examples of items I have gotten to add to this category over the past few months are:Pandora RadioThe Real NewsWatching America stumble upon All of these are great, but the most recent addition is Stumble Upon. I am new to the social bookmarking phenomena, but SU is fan-freaking-tastic! I've spent a little while over the last several nights just checking out random sites with it. The material I've come across has been funny, disturbing, thought-provoking, annoying, and more.It has given me a new definition for the expression , "surfing the web" - excellent stuff. I would also like to give a long overdue shout out of thanks and gratitude to Firefox.This browser has re-invented the way I interact with the web several times! Also a heaping helping o...
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Why Blackwater is only the beginning. How far down the hole should we go?
2007-11-16 19:21:00
The shootings in Nussor Square in Baghdad two months ago were terrible. It has now been determined that - as the Iraqis have said all along - the shootings were unjustified.Great, so what happens to Blackwater now, they lose a couple million in contracts?Regardless of what fate befalls the contractors who pulled the triggers, or the management that paid them to; there are broader issues to consider before this story vanishes down the memory hole.Leave it to the old media to avoid touching on these in more than a cursory way. First and foremost is what the hell were they doing over there in the first place? I attempted to address this one last month in Blackwater Blues, but really only scratched the surface.Blackwater is in Iraq because the State Department cannot afford to spare its own security personnel to guard its own operatives. This is the thumbnail view, of course, but it will suffice for the moment.The larger motivation behind Blackwater's participation in the country for...
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9/11 Revisited: Part Three
2007-11-15 18:54:00
World Trade Center building number seven. If ever there were a smoking gun, this would surely have to be it.Building seven was, by the standards of most cities, a huge building. But in New York, at forty-seven stories tall, it was dwarfed by its larger neighbors ? at least until the afternoon of 9/11/2001.The mystery of Seven?s collapse is the water that many skeptics dip their toes into initially. The implausibility of its collapse gives even the staunchest supporter of the official story of the day?s events pause. Here is a skyscraper that was not hit by a plane, sustained little structural damage ? relative to buildings five and six, and in which scant fires burned for only five or six hours. There is no clear indication of what caused it to plummet to the Earth that has been put forth. The photographic evidence, in this instance, is scant. There are fires visible in a few images, as well as a multi-story chunk taken out of the southwest corner, but nothing that would indic...
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Whose Congress Is This Anyway?
2007-11-14 22:23:00
The founders of this nation envisioned a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. They also had a strong desire to see that this new nation not become a fiefdom for a select few- a playground for the aristocracy. To that end, they devised a system of government in which the governed should have as much say ? through popularly elected representatives ? as judges, magistrates, and even presidents. They imagined that the most accessible of these ?branches? of the tree of governance, should be the House of Representatives, the larger body of Congress . They fully expected that, when these representatives returned home ? usually to harvest or plant their fields ? they would apprise their neighbors and constituents of all the goings-on in the capitol. And they all lived happily ever after? Suffice it to say, things haven?t gone exactly according to plan. Between campaigning incessantly, meeting with lobbyists, and living in the bubble that is Washington D.C., when d...

9/11 Revisited: Part Two
2007-11-12 22:09:00
For myself, I have now reached the conclusion that those who believe the official story of the events that transpired on 9/11 ? planes hit buildings, buildings caught fire, buildings fell down ? have either never actually seen any alternative explanations, or they are willfully complicit in the cover up. The ultimate example of the official story ? there have been several over the years ? comes from the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). According to a faq of sorts on its website, NIST offers a more nuanced, thoroughly researched and investigated version of events.NIST asserts that, when the jetliners hit the buildings, they dislodged much of the fire-suppression materials on the steel beams, thus weakening the steels ability to absorb heat. At the same time, the fuel from the jets was disbursed over several floors and ignited in the initial fireball upon impact; causing a multi-floor fire which burned the office contents of the buildings in its wake.All of th...
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9/11 Revisited Part One
2007-11-09 21:01:00
On September, 11 2001, something horrific happened in lower Manhattan, New York. Truly terrible events tend to create a rupture in the fabric of our lives; they leave a mark on our psyches and souls alike. We tend to look at these events as mile-markers on our journeys through life; some view them as points of no return, others see in them a chance for renewal and rebirth. However we view these events as individuals, one thing is certain; we never forget them. What happened on 9/11 was just such a catalyzing event; it shocked and overwhelmed the senses of so many who saw it, even if, like myself, we had never set foot on the ground around the Twin Towers. The problem with occurrences of such magnitude however, is that, due to the weight of their emotional impact; we struggle to look rationally at the details of the event itself. A great many of us choose to never look back at what happened on that day; relying instead on the memories of our visual representation of these horribl...
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Gratitude on Election Day
2007-11-06 19:28:00
As indcated by a couple of my past articles, namely, With Friends Like These... and Think We've Got It Bad Here?, I am profoundly glad to be an American. As such, I went with great excitement to the polls this morning to cast my votes for open offices here in the great Commonwealth of Kentucky. I am struck by the contrast; people being bodily beaten and worse for protesting the state of their government on the one hand, and myself and a couple dozen others casting our votes quietly, even cheerfully.Hell, the only awkward moment I experienced at all was noticing that one of the cars in the polling place's lot bore a Bush sticker. This is not to imply that we don't have substantial problems with our country (I wasn't brainwashed after all), we do. In a way, one could posit that the strain of cancer eating away at our cherished liberties is even more deadly than that which has been attacking Pakistan for so long. This is because the disease that eats at the fabric of our democ...
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With Friends Like These ...
2007-11-03 20:54:00
For some time now - years in fact - folks have been wondering why the Bushists have played so nice with that self-appointed president/General of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf. I think I've finally figured it out; Musharraf can do what Bush and Cheney can only fantasize about doing!For example: whereas Bush can only load our Supreme Court with conservative ideologues, Musharraf can declare a state of emergency in anticapation of a ruling that he might not like, from the Pakistani Supremes, like he has just done. Nor is this the first time this year that there has been serious tension under Musharraf's watch. As I discussed just a month ago, things can get pretty hairy around issues such as protesting the right of the king, I mean, the president to run for a second term. Did I mention that he seized his first term? This is perhaps another point of envy amongst the Bushists; George had to get his Daddy to muscle the Supreme court into giving him his first term. I'm sorry, why a...
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Waiting for the Sun
2007-11-02 19:26:00
How many times have we heard from the Bushists about the need for "respect for the rule of law"? A hundred? A thousand? A billion perhaps? What's so sad about this of course is that, when these assholes use this expression, they have a very limited definition of whose law should rule. Palestinians found this out the hard way when they overwhelmingly voted to give Hamas control of their parliament a couple of years ago. Suddenly the rhetoric from the Bush camp was shown to be exactly what it was; a steamy pile of a brown substance that rhymes with wit.They moved quickly to back up their lack of respect for the Palestinian people's variety of law by blocking millions of dollars of funding for what they called a terroristic organization. This made it exceedingly difficult for Hamas to do the will of their constituents, but went a long way toward legitimizing Mahmoud Abbas - at least in the eyes of the West.For a more recent example in this gap between stated respect for rule of la...
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From the Mouths of Dems, Comes Neo-con Catchphrases
2007-10-27 16:27:00
News/political junkies like me will have heard interviews with linguists on NPR or such since the dark days of King George began. These segments, for those of you unfamiliar with them, focus on the use, or mis-use of language by Bushists and their supporters. Somwhere along the way, while pining over the heroic figure of Big Brother in their well-worn copies of 1984, Rove, Cheney and Rumsfeld discovered that, by changing the words people use to think about the issues, they could change the people's feelings about those issues. This type of callous manipulation of the truth (the black and white truth of the dictionary, for the record), is exactly why neo-cons are so damn dangerous. Love is hate, hate is love. One of the most effective, and mis-leading, examples of this bait and switch technique is to substitute a similar sounding word into a common phrase. The new phrase will tend to have a substantially different meaning than it did before hand but, because the masses are busy ...

Email the FCC, Unless You Want One Channel
2007-10-26 04:55:00
This is ridculous. Kevin Martin, chairman of the FCC, wants to ram home the rule changes that would pave the way for even more media consolidation. Not only that, but he just announced the date of the final hearing to address concerns of how such an easing of rules would affect localism in media choices. Martin announced last night that the final hearing would be held on October, 31. Sound a little hurried to you? You're not alone, the two demomcratic members of the committee; Michael J. Copps and Jonathan S. Adelstein have issued a joint statement questioning the timing of the decision. FreePress This is exactly the reason that I questioned the need for the current FCC configuration, Martin is clearly trying to keep the public out of the loop, when the business at hand is ostensibly a public service.A week's notice? Really? Who the hell does this man think he is? Oh wait, that's right, he's a Bush appointee, which means that he's answerable to none.Fortunately, there are ...
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Wheel in Bin Laden's Corpse and Boot up the Computer
2007-10-25 04:04:00
As the title of this post might subtly imply, I am not one of those who feels that Bin Laden , the great Satan of latter-day American mythology, is still among the living. I don't claim to know how or when he died, though this page does offers some tantalizing possibilities. Nevertheless, I have long suspected that he went the way of the dodo, and that, every so often, the powers that be bring out some phony or another to keep all us kids scared into submission.What's interesting about this time around though, is the inconsistency with which the media has handled the missive from beyond the grave.What follows on the next page is boring, bland, analysis of what jerk-asses some media organizations are, so please, for the love of all that's holy, don't go past this point! I did try to warn you, didn't I?I looked at the online coverage of the message from "Bin Laden" on several different websites (the links to all of which will follow, for you intrepid skeptics out there). I would ...
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Survey Says; U.S. and Iran, Sit Down and Shut Up!
2007-10-24 22:01:00
And people think that the rest of the world is crazy, hmmph!A new poll of 57,000 people from 52 countries by Gallup International finds that, contrary to what might have been the case before the Iraq war; the U.S. is not the most loved and respected nation on the planet. The links below point to the story covering the poll, and the website of its sponsors. You have to know that the Bushies hate to be compared to Iran in any way, this alone makes me smile. Reuters European Council on Foreign Relations
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God Bless Kansas!
2007-10-23 20:36:00
Let me just start off by disclaiming that I have never in my life set foot in the state of Kansas , but I'm happy for good news wherever it comes from. It would seem that the Kansas Department of Health and the Environment just said no to coal. Roderick L. Bremby declined to issue a permit for the coal-fired plant on the basis that, "it would be irresponsible to ignore emerging information about the contribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to climate change and the potential to harm our environment and health if we do nothing." Strong words for a state level public servant, an even stronger statement given the clout that the energy industry wields in this country. This kind of thing tends to, if given the appropriate coverage, jar the memories of us regular folks. We get so caught up in all the hoopla in D.C., or Iraq, or anywhere else but here, that we tend to forget that every state (or Commonwealth) still has the right to set its own rules in the face of cor...
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