Lies My President Told Me

One of the most outstanding developments in the USA throughout my life has been the coming forward of our most prestigious political figures as liars. Not so much bluffers anymore, as in poker. More like obsessive liars. Anyway, the present holder of office seems intent on a missile defense system in Europe to protect our European allies in Eastern Europe against attack by Iran. I seem to have forgotten when Europe was threatened by missile rattling mullahs, but it must have happened. Why the mullahs and ayatullahs would threaten Europe with atomic missiles when they are simultaneously denying any work on an atomic bomb is somewhat counter-intuitive. If our guys were smart, they would pick up on it. India has tested a missile capable of carrying an atomic warhead. This was within the past week. Thank goodness the only coutry threatened by Hindu warheads is Pakistan and not any of our European allies. At this point, one wonders if the development of this missile delivery system was included in the USA-India nuclear freebie pact. However, it seems India has been dragging its feet on the pact, anyway, so there India is: with a bomb and with a missile. The pact probably made demands upon the Indian government that it act responsibly. No wonder the pact is dying. Russia seems to think the missiles are directed against them merely because they will be located in neighboring countries. Not at first, President Putin. They will not be so directed...at first! We may always change the directional settings later, however. President Putin was talking about these missiles recently. He went through a list of negatives, then ended by saying no evil would come from all of this, because he and George Bush were such friends. BFFs, in fact. The sarcasm dripped cyrillic. When all is said and done, Iran is in the Middle East. The only enemy of Iran we can see is Israel. Iran has said a few impolitic remarks about Israel, while it hasn't said much at all about Europe. So this business about Iran is a procedure to ensure the continued dominance of the nuclear power of Israel in the Middle East. Of course, we all know this. It is talking about it that is forbidden. Haraam 'alayya, Folks!

The Road To Iran 2

The V.P., or the Notorious V.I.P. ( Vice Intensive President ), seems to see a good deal more to Pres. A. of Iran than I do. Pres. A. did not come off to well during his recent visit. Actually, nobody involved in that charade came off too well. As I said at the time, it is hard to build a case that somebody is a cunning and malevolent evil entity when said entity is acting like a dimwit. Yet the V.P. seems determined that this country Iran, a country which cannot control the distribution of gasoline to its citizens without having riots break out on every corner, is the source of all our woes.

To quote Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek:  
Stalin, Mao And … Ahmadinejad?

Conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers. Oct 29, 2007 Issue  
"Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?" 

... "We're on a path to irreversible confrontation with a country we know almost nothing about. The United States government has had no diplomats in Iran for almost 30 years. American officials have barely met with any senior Iranian politicians or officials. We have no contact with the country's vibrant civil society. Iran is a black hole to us—just as Iraq had become in 2003."

and finally  

"Last year, the Princeton scholar, Bernard Lewis, a close adviser to Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal predicting that on Aug. 22, 2006, President Ahmadinejad was going to end the world. The date, he explained, "is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the Prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to 'the farthest mosque,' usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back. This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world" (my emphasis). This would all be funny if it weren't so dangerous."

More wit and comedy from the Bush White House. Seriously, if indeed we are the wealthiest and the most powerful nation in the history of mankind, is this really the best we can do? George W. Bush? Richard Cheney? And President Amedinejad was really, really - literally - going to end the world?

Th-th-that's all, folks!

Comments: A Christmas Carol

I have received information that comments...1 or 2...are not being accepted.

Well, I do not know why. I've checked everything, even sending myself test comments, filled with unstinting praise- merely as an exercise to be sure- and everything seems to work. Odd. Maybe people assume that comments are not accepted because I take my own sweet time taking a gander at them and allowing them publication. This is very possible. They are so few and far between that the mere mention that there is a comment waiting upon me in the sitting room, top hat in his hand, puts me in a tizzy. I slowly descend the main staircase and peek through the carved balustrades, quite like a child on Christmas morning early. Then silently I continue my descent.

Standing outside the sitting room door, I practice harrumphing and saying things like "bushwah!" I recall comments from the past:
"How much shall we put you down for this year, Mr. Montag?"
"Harrrumph! How much? How much, indeed! Are the workhouses not open? And the treadmill...is it not in force?"
... and so on.

Really. I mean, how presumptious can you be? I actually received an e-mail from an entity yclept The Frog Dwarf who took me to task for my opposition to gambling. And my reply that shall be a posting soon to open at your local PC. Of course, given Blogic, that subsequent posting will actually precede this one in the reading area and nothing will make any sense at all...a situation which has been asserted by past commentors to be the case most of the time. Send them to the Commentors Treadmill and get some work out of 'em!

A Wall Of Silence

There are some photos of the walls built in Baghdad to separate neighborhoods. The ones at http://nonarab-arab.blogspot.com/index.html show the Sunni Dora being separated from surrounding Shi'a areas. One must go to the site in order to be able to see the enlarged images in which the walls are quite clearly seen. The violence has decreased by separating the warring peoples. Of course, this is hardly a political solution, rather a Mural Solution...or extra-mural...or trans-mural...or cis-mural ( our side) and trans-mural (their side). I am sure Ms. Rice can come up with some brainy description. What happens when the walls go away? There is also comment of the Great New Age of Wall Tech: walls in Baghdad, walls in Israel, walls along the borders, walls between Saudi Arabia and Iraq...the new walled community of the 21st C. I find it hard to believe that the USA p'd and moaned about the Berlin Wall for so long. Then, within 20 years of its downfall, the technology loudly touted by the US government is walling areas off from others. (There is a sense of destiny, however. In my youth, I had received the nickname "Walls". My friends were "Door", and "Lintel", among others. There was "Joist" and there was "Sanitary Hook-up"...all quite inscrutable.)

Rappers' Delight

The Notorious V.I.P.

To The Soldiers Returning Home

I'm the MC that rocks tha world. I’m the V.P. that shuts you down. I’m tha V.I.P. in home and in town! Somebody's gotta die Faluuuuu-ja! If I got, you gotta go. Somebody's gotta die Faluuuuu-ja! Let the gunshots blow. Somebody's gotta die and somebody's gotta lie; Nobody gotta know That I killed yo ass in the mist, kid

What Would The American Empire Look Like?

If there is to be an American empire, it would resemble the USA.

It would grow the way the US grew. In this process, the inhabitants of the USA will see similarities to their glorious past and thus conclude that the imperial present and the 1,000 future of the American Empire will be particularly blessed by God.
There will be interludes resembling the American Wars of Indian Extermination. There will be comical sketches based on a humbug understanding of new science that will resemble the Eugenics schemes of the early 2oth century. Please recall that the earliest scheme for a travelling extermination chamber to kill undesirables was in the USA, not Nazi Germany.
There will be the insidious belief in our own rectitude and alliance with the will of God, a bit of hybris we like to do 3 times before breakfast and which will lead the USA to a spiritual vacuum where the only thing they believe in is the perverted creations of their own puny intellects, rather like the schemes of Pastor John Haggee of San Antonio. Pastor Haggee is merely the precursor of the deception.

No empire is exactly like another. Many foolishly believe America will follow Rome,...or Byzantium. No empires exactly parallel each other. We are facing a serious loss of sense of Community. We prat and chatter about being a Christian country, yet we hold all men to be islands, complete unto themselves. Our commitment to the welfare of the community is vestigial. This commitment is what Christianity is about. This commitment is what Islam is about. This commitment is what Judeaism is about.

How can Community survive in the midst of Wars based on deception, whose very being is a scandal and whose support requires a cycnicism beyond anything we had hitherto dreamed of? A War for Oil...and everyone stands in foolish crowds and moans: what of the soldiers who died? did they die for naught? How do you make evil right? By what machinations will you pervert the perversion? The soldiers say: tell them at home we fought and died here, according to their command. Our command. Our responsibility. Our evil. When the sense of being a community dies, the community itself has died, and what is left is the hulk of Imperium and Compulsion and Power and Force.

Jihad And Revolution

If we ask whether Jihad is an integral part of Islam, are we being serious? I do not think so. We should first address something we are more familiar with: is revolution an integral part of Christianity? We might start of with the Magnificat: He casts the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly; He fills the starving with good things; sends the rich away empty. All the pundits out there, tell me. I cannot wait to hear what you have to say. If you diminish revolution in Christianity, why do you magnify jihad in Islam? Explain the one and then the other. I await.

Damien?

In Ha'Aretz: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/915701.html Rabin assassin's wife: Yigal Amir sacrificed himself for his people The pregnant wife of Yigal Amir, the jailed assassin of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, said Monday that she intended to tell Amir's future child that his father had "sacrificed himself for his people." ... and so it goes.

Politics

I caught the Republican debate at Mrs. Robinson's house last Sunday. I was impressed by them all. There was one whom I had never heard of before, a Mr. Hunter. He did not seem to be a real candidate and said a lot of non-sequiturs that seemed to be solely for the audience in Florida where the dabate took place. I assume he was the local US Rep or some other lowly life form. Ron Paul was not overwhelmingly popular. When Mr. Paul observed that 70% of the populace was opposed to the continuance of the war in Iraq, there was disbelief and displeasure expressed by the audience. Mr. Paul's observation that pursuing some ideal of an American Empire would bankrupt us financially and morally met a similar response. I really do not know quite what to make of the Republican Party. Other than kissing up to groups that label themselves "values voters" and purposely avoiding debates or symposia held by Black Americans...and making a rather large point of not mentioning George W. Bush by name, I do not understand them. I mean, once Roe vs. Wade is reversed, what are you going to do? You spend like drunken sailors, your conception of the world is on the level of trailer park trash, your works of charity are scripted by CPAs...you are a beautiful and wealthy corruption.

Then we turn to the Democrats. Tell me the names of the wealthy Armenian backers of Nancy Pelosi. There must be a couple who have an idee fixe about the Armenian Genocide. Nancy Pelosi did not come up with this on her own, although we had hoped that it would not have been beyond her faculties to perceive that it was not a good idea. What's wrong with a resolution condemning Armenian Genocide? I am reading a book titled Halsey's Typhoon. It takes place in World War II and features Admiral Halsey and General MacArthur. Now I am doing this from faulty memory, but I seem to recall that in giving a short bio of General MacArthur, there was a run through of the life of MacArthur's father. I seem to recall that the book stated that the senior MacArthur was in the US Army in the western part of the country in the late 19th century. Now at that time, since the Indian Extermination Campaign was coming to an end, he had to make a decision about his future. Indian Extermination Campaign??!! Well, I have not heard it called that in a while. Maybe never. That was the only reference to it in the book, as the book was focused on WWII. Ahhh...the panoply of pots and the treasure cache of kettles!...and the blackness thereof!

The Night Of Long Memories

The Notorious V.I.P. has rapped a rap Sunday past about Iran. "This same regime that approved of hostage-taking in 1979, that attacked Saudi and Kuwaiti shipping in the 1980s, that incited suicide bombings and jihadism in the 1990s and beyond, is now the world's most active state sponsor of terror" 1979?! Well.....I am down with Notorious V.I.P, but magis amicus veritatis: I am more a friend of truth. It sounds a lot like Marc Antony at Caesar's funeral. When all else fails, welcome Octavian!

Gambling

"If you give a man enough rope, then he will hang hisse'f (thereby saving the county the cost of incarceration)." Judge Roy Bean Gambling is neutral. It's all what you do with it. The hybrid of gambling and capitalism is abhorrent. The embrace of gambling by our state and local governments argues a spiritual and ethical vacuum of profound depth. There is NO Choice. Once gambling becomes big business, there is no choice. We pretend there is, but that's because we are all of us...essentially...idiots. Business has found that advertising will sell products, even things we have no need of. By the lure of sexuality or power or all the other appetites we are lead to consume and partake in the feast of 21st century capitalism. We pretend there is a choice. Even we who do not gamble say there is a choice: we choose not to gamble. No. It is merely not the correct vice for us. By our neutrality in not condemning gambling, we enable it to continue until there are only (1) Gamblers, or (2) Enablers. We have lost the choice of being neither !!!!!! Capitalism seeks to lure you with a feast of "choices". If these choices in no way improve the quality of your individual life nor the life of the community, then they are not choices, they are enticements to sate appetites which work against the social good. If I am grossly overweight and am presented with a groaning board of delectable sweets all high in trans and saturated fats and sugars, am I to choose for myself? Or am I to destroy myself? If all the "choices" are bad and I am very hungry, is it a choice? Or is it not the case that I have - all my life- been led down the garden path of obesity by Big Food business and become inordinately fond of certain combinations of fats and sweets and carbohydrates...all of which leads to my hubritic indulgence...NOT a choice! Which is it? When there is another gun crime, we hear that no one forces anyone to bear a gun: it is a choice. And we are all rational enough to make choices. We also hear that if you give a man enough rope, then he will hang himself. The latter maxim is not a choice. Popular wisdom as summed up in the above recognizes that there sometimes is choice and sometimes there is not. We had better wake up to the fact that many of our choices are forced and compelled.

Peace Fasting And Poetry

New poem at http://peace-weaving.blogspot.com/ Very gingery...spicey...cumin and cardamon...exotic odors and a thick paste of love.

Give Democracy A Chance!

My favorite memory of the attacks of 9/11 was the President of the United States of America addressing the nation. It reminded me of past presidents. It brought to mind FDR addressing Congress after 12/7 (1941), "...a day which will live in infamy." George W. Bush told the American people to go shopping. I'm serious. Look it up. The entire populace was to go to the Mall and go shopping. This was our bit in the war on terror. We were not supposed to bother our dainty little minds with things like big, bad old Sammy B. Laden. We were to shop. Probably with the extra money from the tax cuts. In essence, leave the big work to the big guys: Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Mr. Wolfowitz, Ms. Rice...the entire rougues gallery together with their enablers in the Congress who also gave up any meaningful role and went shopping. Now look where we have gotten to. After six years we are not only in a much tougher situation, we ourselves have committed crimes on a scale that even Sammy Bin Laden never dreamed of. In a democracy, the sleep of the people that form the nation gives birth to monsters! Give Democracy a chance!

Why I Do Not Believe, Rather I Expect

Earlier I wrote that I do not believe in God. I do expect God, however. I expect Him to be around every corner and to fill every niche. This is what God is: that which is always expected and welcomed. Mankind has believed in God as long as we can tell. Mankind has not believed in some emotional nonsense, rather they have beheld the presence of God in the vestments of what we consider Good and Evil: that which overwhelms us with Love and that which overwhelms us with Fear. God cannot be trapped with words. Only silence. Some fear the silence of meditation, fearing that the mind empty of words and chatter will be filled by the tempting of the devil. It is possible that silence will be terrifying. God can be overwhelming. We must learn to deal with our Fear just as we do with our Love. God exists in between time space. He is the great fullness and the great emptiness; the plethora and the void. He is the great yawning gap between the Creation and the fullness of the moment. "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace."(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) The world swings between Love and Fear; building up and tearing down. It is not necessarily the way God is. Ecclesiastes does not attempt to describe the mind of God as being committed to the coincidence of opposites: it is how we understand things. Thus, by using the opposites, such as peace and war, we show that God covers the entire range of creation. Some have used the above to argue that God wants war. God does not WANT anything. Mankind wants war when it tires of peace, and it will continue to do so until it stops living in the allegories of its minds. When mankind tires of its logic and its paradigms, maybe they will be silent and listen once more, just as the great ones of old did. So...I do not believe. If I believed, you would insist that I tell you what I believe! What an inane question: what do you believe? I am living in God's presence. I expect God at any moment. I await my good and my bad, the love and the fear...even though I pray to be free from fear. I never say what God should be. I accept God's creation; I accept myself; I accept life. To believe in something allows that it may be false. God is not subject to the logic of what is true and what is false. To expect is neither true nor false, for expectations may be infinite in length.

Philosophers Read Cal Thomas

I know one who does. This was the event that made me realize even Socrates may say something quite stupid. Ask Xanthippe if you do not believe me. Anyway, Cal Thomas has written an article called: The Same God? and I picked it up from a site called Townhall.com.
Now the article is embraced by a picture of Ann Coulter on the right side. She is looking alluringly sluttish as is usual. She is a regular Right-Wing incubus...or succubus...or Wraith. Quite the picture. Amazing, isn't it, that the Bush-type conservatives ( i.e., interventionism, the heck with fiscal responsibility in government, etc.) discovered that Truth may be subliminally associated with almost bared breasts.
There is a photo of another young girls chest, suitably covered with a T-shirt with some slogan that passes for witty. Beneath that, there is another young girl in some sort of office milieu wearing extrememly short shorts. The camera is at floor level and aimed upwards. Since the article itself is about God and whether the Christian God is the same as the Muslim God...( I have not gotten to the punch line yet.)...there is also a picture of Palestinian women demonstrating for Palestinian unity. They are dressed conservatively Muslim and do not seem to be saying anything about Allah, at least according to the description under the photo. More subliminal stuff: Christian God is frat boy, Allah is kill joy ? It really is worth a look.
Here's the url: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/CalThomas/2007/10/09/the_same_god?page=full&comments=true

Anyway, Cal Thomas starts:
 
"Whatever else his critics say of him, no one can fault President Bush for failing to go the extra mile in his efforts to show that neither he, nor the United States, is opposed to the Islamic faith, or to Muslim nations."

Yeah. Right. Right on, Cal. He differentiates between the "Gods" of the two religions:

"God calls himself "I Am" and says He is one, but with three personalities. Muslims believe God's name is Allah and reject the Trinity."

THREE personalities!!?? As if the Christian God were Sybil!?

"The president can be commended for sincerely reaching out to Muslims, but he should not be commended for watering down his beliefs and the doctrines of his professed faith in order to do so. That's universalism. There are "churches" that believe in universalism, his Methodist church does not. No Christian who believes the Bible believes in universalism. And No Muslim who believes the Koran does either. President Bush is wrong - dangerously wrong - in proclaiming that all religions worship the same God."

Here we have the observation that "watering down beliefs"= "universalism", and churches that believe in universalism must be churches that need to be spelled with quote marks= "churches". He depicts the admirable cognitive states existing is modern day Christians and Muslims as if (1) he were exhaustively familiar with them, and (2) these benighted souls were the paradigms of belief. A true buffoon is Mr. Thomas. Fit reading for any philosopher. Actually, he is quite fit and proper for the modern age of Neoconservatism.

The Road To War With Iran

It is not easy. President B wants war. President A. sez things like Jews should live in Canada and Alaska. It's hard to create a spectre of a terrible threat when the opponent acts rather childlike.

Vampire Economics 2

OpEd News has a piece on Vampire economies! Will species extinction be the scientific effect of elitist greed? http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/opedne_w__chris_071007_will_species_extinct.htm Yah! This reminded me on my post: Vampire Economics 101 http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2007/07/vampire-economics-101.html I would like to say that my genius feeds the fertile minds of other wits, but the notion of Vampire elites is much too obvious and, truth to tell, we are pretty much all aware of it. We grin and bear it, just like Mina's friend, Lucy...a rather ghastly grin, come to think of it.

Does Sarah Silverman Suck Lemons?

I saw the headline just as it is above, only I added the word "lemons" since they had obviously forgotten it.

When I was young, saying something "sucked" was not merely an abstract concept for "not up to snuff, mediocre" and the like. The article was in AlterNet and I forgot to get a link for you, so you are on your own. Ohh, wait. the link is below:  
Does Sarah Silverman Suck?
By Kera Bolonik,
TheNation.comPosted on October 6, 2007,
Printed on October 6, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/64563/  

"Is she or isn't she funny? Is she genuinely mean, or is she making a commentary about American ignorance? Any confusion I had over these questions was cleared up by her monologue at MTV's Video Music Awards, during which she unrelentingly reamed Britney Spears's God-awful performance and referred to Spears's two little boys as "the most adorable mistakes."

There is no Britney Spears. That's what Sarah is pointing out to us had we but the intellect to understand. There is actually one blonde girl who drinks a lot and does drugs and she is hired on to "play" Britney, Lindsey, and Paris. Impossible? Please note that never but never have these 3 been in the news as a main attraction at the very same time!!!! Paris goes to jail...Paris gets out...not a peep from the other 2. Then, when Paris is below the horizon, Lindsey kicks ass. Lindsey becomes yesterday's news and Britney goes to jail. They have never shared the main spotlight.  

"If comedy means pissing people off and loving that about oneself, appearing more self-entitled than self-aware and spearheading an even more discomforting subgenre of comedy -- then Mazel Tov, dahlink! "

Actually, that is what comedy is.
The fact that people are offended and hurt deals more with what the people are than what Sarah is. If you are offended by being photographed drunk driving, then you have a number of options available to yourself. Take them.

Lily Tomlin once said something to the effect that the more cycnical she became, she always was less cycnical than warranted by society's foibles. Sarah Silverman is not only funny, she is quite stunning, appearance-wise. I think she is rather beautiful, but I also think Ms. Spears is rather commonplace. I am at odds with the rest of you.

--

Peace Fasting and Poem October 5, 2007

The poem for the week is up at my other site: http://peace-weaving.blogspot.com/ This should also be the first link in the link column.

Ann Coulter Talks, But...

...I started to read it, then did not. All the newspapers that have been filled with all the nonsense Ann Coulter speaks would wrap a lot of Fish and Chips.

SCHIP

Mr. Bush vetoed the SCHIP bill because it was fiscally irresponsible!!!??? Who is kidding whom, Mr. Bush?

We refer to an earlier post here, relying on the site Jewschool: http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2007/07/thrifty-george-w-bush.html Mr. Bush, we may have eaten this particular plate full of offal from your White House kitchen 6 years ago, but not now. The rest of your term will be interesting, estranged even from your own party on important issues. Very interesting. note: William Kristol of The Weekly Standard , one of the great intellects behind the Iraq Crime, thought the veto was good for a laugh and proceeded to joke about it on national television. I guess the viewing public gets what it deserves. Since Mr. Kristol was influential in starting a long term war that will cost trillions based on disinformation and distortion and laughs at a pittance for children's health care, we offer a jolly paraphrase:

Billy Kristol:

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The SCHIP is broken on the rack, the prize we sought is won;

The Great Wonders Of The American Empire (3): Deputy Assistant Undersecretary Debra Cagan

Deputy Undersecretary Debra Cagan

It is unusual for one of the wonders of the civilized world to be a human being, but some entities are so strange and the stories so compelling that the usual methods of selection must be held in abeyance and our overwhelming sense of awe and amazement just lead us to give the treasured place on the list of wonders to a human being...but not just a mere human being. As far as I can tell, all this is true and the pictures were not taken at a fun house. Ladies and Gentlemen, we present the seventh wonder of the world: Debra Cagan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to Defence Secretary Robert Gates.




Daily Mail I hate all Iranians, US aide tells MPs
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=484762&in_page_id=1770
"Britsh MPs visiting the Pentagon to discuss America's stance on Iran and Iraq were shocked to be told by one of President Bush's senior women officials: "I hate all Iranians." " "The MPs say that at one point she said: "In any case, I hate all Iranians. Although it was an aside, it was not out of keeping with her general demeanour. "

The picture above was taken at a gathering covered by several blog reports: Sadly, No! http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/7354.html

We met...this crazy woman in a leatherette tunic, she gave us her business card, and was drinking heavily and dancing like a dervish. She tried to befriend us, but as she is obviously insane, and SCARIER IN PERSON THAN IN PHOTOS, we kind of slipped away. We thought from her rambling discussion that she was an arms dealer, she had just returned from what sounded like a sex junket to our fighting boys in Iraq. She was telling us how sexy the front line guys were, and the whole live for today ethos that prevails in the Green Zone. A truly, truly mad woman, and now Gates’ right hand man (she really looks like a bondage dude). and "...could the Republican party be a bigger freak show ...?"

Cagan in Iraq

--

 

ps.

Wearing her cross in the first photo, she unfortunately resembles someone from World War II.

Desmond Tutu Among The Vultures

The Catholic University of St. Thomas in Minnesota has dis-invited Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu to appear and speak. The University adminsistration seems to have pressured by persons unknown. Bishop Tutu was held to have said Israel=Hitler or some such fantasy equation of fools. We shall give you some background and you can make up your own minds. First, the report from the Minneapolis-St.Paul newspaper: The Star Tribune http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1463394.html From Tikun Olam: Tikun Olam-תקון עולם http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2007/10/03/university-disinvites-tutu-for-allegedly-likening-israel-to-hitler/ and http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2007/10/04/jta-publishes-zoa-fraudulent-tutu-quote/ We give the original 2002 report from the BBC: http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2007/10/04/jta-publishes-zoa-fraudulent-tutu-quote/ We have been an admirer of Israel forever. We have spoken of the fact that Israel is not perfect, nor necessarily the closest thing to perfection: Israel is a nation of human beings just like any other nation. After President Ahmindinejad first uttered his views on whether the Holocaust took place or not, there was a good deal of discussion. We have found a growing understanding among the people we have talked with that the Holocaust is historically accurate, but the importance of the Holocaust varies from intense to nothing; President A. probably meant to say that Iran has had its own slaughtered millions and the Holocaust of the West is nothing to Iran, except as far as you keep shoving it down our throats. Exerting pressure is AIPAC's game. They are big boys. If people start to get tired of them, they will try something else. I love Israel, but I love other nations, too. I do not love fairy tales being foisted on adults. I do not love being pressured. I do not love having my arm twisted by another Big Brother. I have lived long enough to see my native country turned into an object of scorn because of a government of people who believe smoke and mirrors to be true and fairy tales to be real McCoy and intelligence to be a matter of uninformed opinion. They have even created their own disingenuous fairy tales for a credulous populace, meanwhile undermining every good and noble institution of the land. I shall not accept the distortions of fools any longer. The University of St. Thomas could at least have pulled a Lee Bollinger and act the role of Tom the Fool from King Lear, dancing while some else pulls their strings and the voice of the Ministry of Truth provides their voice.

The Second Visit To The Empress

She-who-must-be-obeyed dragged me to a Chinese Opera on Sunday. What fiendishness! You know, if memory serves, this is the same pillar of society who demurrs attendance at Opera because it is too-o-o-o long! Well, if The Barber of Seville is too long, what does one expect from The Second Visit? (I don't recall whether I mentioned we saw the New York Metropolitan Opera production of Barber last fall? It was so good that I almost cried at the end of the first act. Then, if memory serves, just recently I saw a Simpson's episode where Homer sings the role of Dr. Bartolo! ) I absolutely loved the Chinese Opera. Now I have to find where there is more. Chinese Opera takes about 12 minutes of getting used to. Then the story goes as effortlessly as the flight of cranes. Duke Xu and General Yang, we loved you.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas: The Next Chapter

Clarence Thomas has published his memoirs. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/30/AR2007093001509.html?hpid=moreheadlines&sid=ST2007092900506 If any doubted that Mr. Thomas floats on an even keel, doubt on, for he decidedly does NOT. Mr. Clarence Thomas is a man who inhabits a fantasy realm - a hyperreality - he has cunningly created. I may remember public figures who spoke at length about their indebtedness to the influences of many heroic figures, real and fictional, but I can only think of a few that see themselves as fictional heroes writ large upon the stage of history. Fictional heroes, by definition, are greater than life. The are immortal symbols. And here Clarence Thomas sees himself fitting into the realms eternal by his Iconic Participation with figures of Black Literature: Tom Robinson of To Kill a Mockingbird and Bigger Thomas of Native Son. Please recall that when Justice Scalia was asked to distinguish between his conssrvative philosophy of jurisprudence and that of Clarence Thomas, Justice Scalia ended his remarks by saying that his philosophy was very conservative, but he (Justice Scalia) was not " a nut". What Justive Scalia meant to imply by this is up to the reader.

Clarence Thomas intends to be the biggest domestic problem for the next 20 years. It will be a long row to hoe, and a heavy chiffereau to heft. Plans should be made accordingly. I have a feeling this is going to be one of those "I told you so" things.