In consideration of the new efforts to “make Portland just feel safer” (or however it is Mayor Tom Potter put it) and the curfew of the South Park Blocks:

I’m walking through that area. Someone calls out to me, “Hey… wanna buy some weed?”

My answer is a stern “NO!”, and a continual walk without a change in stride.

He then hums a little jingle. “Might as well. Might as well.”

I’m puzzled here. Is that an effective sales technique. As in, do used car sales-people hum, during a bind “might as well, might as well.” (Though maybe for the clientelle of illegal narcotics it is perfect: we’re assuming a passive personality that decides to purchase the items through a process of osmosis.)

Um. Used car-salesperson? Here’s a tale. I was with my dad, I was maybe eleven years old, he pulled into a car dealership to look around. The car we were getting rid of was, at this point in time, falling apart and was in horrible condition. So, he’s chatting with the salesman. I’m in the car with the windows pulled down. And here’s the conversation.

Used Carsalesman: “Yeah, we can get you a good deal on this car.”
Dad: “NOT AS GOOD AS YOU THINK!”

It’s the example of when you say what you’re supposed to be thinking and thinking what you’re supposed to be saying, but… um… yeah.

Back to the drugs… I guess this is the “for” example of the anti-drug measures. At a later time, I may go into an anecdote that shows my personal “against” side. We’ll see.

I occasionally leaf through Mad Magazine. A good stable of cartoonists: Sam Henderson, Evan Dorkin, Ted Rall, Sergio Aargaones is still kicking around and seems to be shined on with a bit more a spotlight, Peter Kuper… Bill Wray, if you must.

Despite the fact that it is always Evan Dorkin, via his blog, that clues me in to take a quick look-see through the magazine, I never recall anything I see from him. Ted Rall’s pieces, however, stand out in my mind.

They are political cartoons that dwell back onto high school. A different target audience, but not dumbed down.

A boy is walking the halls in his school with a t-shirt that says “Britney Sucks”. A school administrator tells him that he needs to change the shirt. Why? Because it is too distracting to the school environment. He can express political opinions, though, so he shrugs, crosses out “Britney” and wears a t-shirt that says “Bush Sucks”.

The confused entanglement of school politics, and the interpretation of the First Amendment that you nervously allow any and all political speech (or risk a lawsuit by the ACLU), but can’t abide speech concerning frivolity (nobody is about to take up a suit against expressing hatred of Britney Spears).

Or… we have a discussion concerning the Homecoming Week. “Every year we have the same pointless game, and are sworn to pledge our school spirit. We cheer on our school. Swear hatred to the rival school. Hold huge bonfires and engage in the same ritual. The ridiculous thing is that it’s so arbitrary — if we lived across town, we’d be the other school cheering on the destruction of our rivals, this school.” And then we see the kids walk up to an Army Recruitment table.

It’s a common realization amongst adolescent miscreants, this strange drive toward “school spirit” and its parallel notion in larger society toward patriotism. In school and with our school’s annual football game against the team that is figured that they might actually somehow beat (football record during my stay at my high school: 5 wins, 31 losses), it is innocuous enough. Clyde Lewis noticed it, and he noticed it as being a white-wash of deeper and darker crimes of the school. As for myself, my last year of high school had this weird incidence where a teacher I had trusted and liked for my high school duration made the bizarre comment, “You’ve been resisting dressing up in school colors for four years now!” An odd comment… To resist means that there would have to be a force pushing me in that direction.

(Actually, come to think of it, the drive for “school spirit” was always considered a problem by the administration, and student body elected lackeys. I don’t really know why. A week or so ago, I overheard a teenager from “Deepest Suburbia” say to someone “At my school, even the preppiest of the preppies have piercings and tattoos.” I sort of doubt that, but it does suggest manipulation of teenage popularity toward something that does not exist.)

Via the Sunday Oregonian “quick quips” section of the Letters to the Editor thingamajing:

Liberals would send, without a separation of church scruple, the Revs. Martin Luthur King Jr., Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. — Louis Sargent, Northwest Portland.

Hrm. That’s a basic lineage of degression: King to Jackson — who fancied himself the next coming of King, and then Jackson to Sharpton — who fancies himself the next coming of Jackson. But nevermind. Right now Martin Luthur King Jr has been de-politicized to a point where we can kind of gloss over some of his more — um — socialistic inclinations — and we can presume that he satisfactorily accomplished his dream of full integration… so just about every politician can announce that, yes indeed, they’d like him as a Supreme Court Pick… since he’s dead and that’s not going to happen.

Never mind. I don’t know if Louis Sargent is in mind with this radical street preacher I had conversations with over the Internet, name of Eldon Orr, who insists that Marin Luthur King, Jr. got his training at a “Communist Training School”, but by the time we get to Al Sharpton… I don’t see any reason he should get onto the Supreme Court. In Sharpton’s defense and in Harriet Mier’s offense, I don’t know who Sharpton’d be a crony of.

It is not Harriet Miers passing out M & Ms that makes me cringe. It is Bill Kristol and his ilk assuming they get to pick the court. Miers needs to withdraw and think Bill is God — as he does. Myrna Alberthsen, Southeast Portland.

Hrm. Here, at long last, is the manifestation of that supposed difference between the Republican voter and the Republican elite that George Bush Administration is waving as a threat to the batch of Republican senators running for president. Should Miers think that Bill Kristol is God, it would be a simple change from the current state of being — where she thinks that George is God.

You know, I really haven’t the foggiest why I’ve posted a smattering of things on old Rush lyrics. As I’ve said: I don’t hate the band, though I don’t necessarily like the band. The only song I never want to hear again is “Tom Sawyer”. There was an amusing “mash-up” I heard with them a few weeks that I can’t find with any immediacy… And as bad as that proggiest of prog-rock songs you hear on “Rock Block Saturdays” is from the ultimate clunker of prog-rock pretensions, it’s amusingly bad.

But something struck me the other day while listening “Closer To The Heart” on classic rock radio. It’s the age old Rush questionThat’s all well and good, but what does this have to do with Ayn Rand?

And the men who hold high places
Must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart
The blacksmith and the artist
Reflect it in their art
They forge their creativity
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart

Philosophers and ploughmen
Each must know his part
To sow a new mentality
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart
You can be the captain
I will draw the chart
Sailing into destiny
Closer to the heart

So, here’s the problem. Isn’t this collectivist in nature, describing the place each individual (the artist and the blacksmith and the philosopher and ploughman) must put themselves into to have society a’working? Granted, the “You can be the captain” line suggests the individuality of Randism… but that’s about it.

(And don’t miss Rick Emerson describing Bon Jovi here, a few posts down.)

In 1992, investment banker Chuck Hagel, president of McCarthy & Co, became chairman of AIS. Hagel, who had been touted as a possible Senate candidate in 1993, was again on the list of likely GOP contenders heading into the 1996 contest. In January of 1995, while still chairman of ES&S, Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald that he would likely make a decision by mid-March of 1995. On March 15, according to a letter provided by Hagel’s Senate staff, he resigned from the AIS board, noting that he intended to announce his candidacy. A few days later, he did just that.

As might be expected, Hagel has been generously supported by his investment partners at McCarthy & Co. — since he first ran, Hagel has received about $15,000 in campaign contributions from McCarthy & Co. executives. And Hagel still owns more than $1 million in stock in McCarthy & Co., which still owns a quarter of ES&S.
……………………………………

In 1996, Hagel became the first elected Republican Nebraska senator in 24 years when he did surprisingly well in an election where the votes were verified by the company he served as chairman and maintained a financial investment. In both the 1996 and 2002 elections, Hagel’s ES&S counted an estimated 80% of his winning votes. Due to the contracting out of services, confidentiality agreements between the State of Nebraska and the company kept this matter out of the public eye. Hagel’s first election victory was described as a “stunning upset” by one Nebraska newspaper.
……………………..

Now I look back with the benefit of google’s cache of Usenet posts and find:

Having once held double-digit leads, Max Baucus now leads Dennis Rehberg by only 46-41 in a recent independent poll taken for the Senate race in Montana. In Nebraska, Gov. Nelson’s lead over Chuck Hagel has shrunk to two points, 49%-47%, also an independently conducted poll. (Both were done by newspapers.)

It appears that the election was trending Chuck Hagel’s way. If this was a conspiracy, it would have to follow through that Diebold or the Right-wing Cabal had influence on key polling institutes, to show a double digit lead for Nelson vanish and help legitimize the eventual quote-in-quote “vote” total. (This is what is alleged and speculated before hand with concern to Gallup circa 2004.) Further, Bill Clinton was pretty unpopular in Nebraska, and had to have had negative-coattails for Ben Nelson (who won the 1998 election, and is the most conservative Democrat in the Senate).

Read this month’s Mother Jones article for some odds and ends concerning Ohio 2004.

Puzzling over the rumours circling around the entire Republican Party right now… which is to say that there are supposedly 22 individuals who are ready at any moment to be indicted, that Dick Cheney may well have to step down and be replaced by Condelleza Rice… that George W Bush’s approval rating has floated down below 40 percent and does not really seem to be in any position to rise above what is generally considered a floor of public approval… that the Republican Party can’t for the life of them recruit candidates for the 2006 mid-term elections… the amazing spectacle of a Supreme Court pick named Harriet Miers who turned in an incomplete preliminary questionaire…

In a parlimentary system, Bush would be sacked right about now. Well, I guess that depends on the parlimentary system in question. I’ll just say that in the British system, Bush would be sacked… the ruling Republican Party would replace their party leader with someone more palatable for the near-term fortunes of the party. (Note that Tony Blair is more or less assumed and assured of not completing his term.)

At this point in time, something has to give. The rumours have to fizzle out and prove to be unture (seriously: twenty – two indictment targets?) or… something strange has to happen within the Bush Administration. Or, some other piece of news has to throw us into a new news-cycle, completely unrelated to the Republican Season of Discontent. (We knew that second terms for presidents could be brutal… but how the hell did things fall apart so quickly for this guy?)

I now don’t believe Cheney will make it to the end of the term. I’m hard pressed to figure out George W Bush.

And I now believe the appropriate book for the moment is Carl Bernestein’s The Final Days.

……………………
Here it is. Tom Delay’s mug shot!

I also note that the Tom Delay Arrest Warrent used to be posted at http://www.democraticleader.house.gov/pdf/Delay.pdf , but in a show that the Democratic Party are wussies (or if there’s a different story to why it is no longer at this address, feel free to clue me in), it is no longer posted there.

CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY
MONEY LAUNDERING => $100,000

To any sheriff or peace officer of the state of Texas, greetings, you are hereby commanded to arrest Thomas Dale DeLay and him safely keep so that you have him before the 331st Judicial District Court of Travis County.

Imagine what would have happened in 1992 if instead of Ross Perot running for president as a third party candidate, somebody sane would have taken up the mantle.

Why, perhaps a third party candidate might have won the thing! Or maybe the whole Perot phenomenom rested a bit strongly on the eccentric’s ability to garner news coverage.

At any rate, 1992 looks a bit like what 2005 looks like: complete dissatisfaction with both parties. (Though, to be honest, that appears to be the norm in American history whether than the exception. Political partisanship amongst the electorate is DEAD — but it has always been dead, or is your reading of post-Reconstruction Party Machine Politics different from my reading of the subject?) Granted the Republican Party is falling apart at the seams, but the Democratic Party has already fallen apart at the seams.

It’s a curious consideration. John Anderson wound up with a fairly meager 6.6% of the vote, compared to Perot’s 19%. Both of them, at one time in the campaign, had poll numbers that suggested they could win the damned thing… before the inevitable “can’t waste the vote” thing came into play and people gravitated to the two parties.

I mention this because Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel is rumoured to be mulling an Independent bid at the White House. Liberal conspiracy theorists maintain that he won his first Senate election via Diebold-type vote manipulation, but… he is as good and decent a Republican as there is in Congress. He is conservative, despite the neo-conservative’s gnashing at him for feignt criticisms of Bush’s Iraq policy (witness the American Spectator piece on Hagel.) I would vote for him over Hillary Clinton, and certainly any of the Republican-oids that the Republican Party seems to be pushing right about now.

The basic problem, for me, is he is a Republican, and I want him noted as being one for the good of Republicanism… not “in the middle between the two”.

We’ll see.

I had a middle school English teacher who once provided the class with a weird meandering speech about how fear is good for us, and fear helps drive us. It was a response to the popular, and somewhat naseating t-shirt slogan/brand that had popped up on virtually every adolescent boy: the “No Fear” t-shirt.

The slogans tended to go over my head, and were simply nonsensical. I can’t remember if there was a “Would you like a little wine with your cheese?” shirt to riff off of the phrase “Would You like a little Cheese with your wine?”, though I remember my brother commenting that he would like such a shirt if not for the dagnabbed “No Fear” branding.

But one slogan struck me as … kind of fascist. And, in relation to the environment the t-shirt wearer was living in, plenty pathetic.

“If you’re not living life to the edge, you’re just taking up space!”

What does this even mean? How, exactly, do you “live life to the edge” while attending this small town middle school in Central Washington? How do you “live life to the edge” as an awkward 13 or 14 year old (or, for that matter, non-relatively non-awkward)?* Presumably this “No Fear” slogan is referring to unspecified athletic prowess… but that doesn’t fit this kid.

This was an affected attitude shift on this kid’s part, a mood change that undoubtedly troubled his parents. Imagine a confirmed bookworm who was always picked last on any PE team. (Yes, even after me… though, I managed to become a good soccer player and thus was moved upward in that line-up when we got around to soccer.)

And I wonder what are you supposed to do with everyone who is not “living their life to the edge” and thus is “taking up space”? Send them all to a Concentration Camp? What the hell are the marketing wizards of this t-shirt trying to tell the youth of America, exactly?

I guess Consumer culture is even more brutually exploitive and destructive on the young adolescent and post-adolescent Female Psyche. (I basically saw through it.)

* The basic emotional grounding of this time of at least my life is summed up in these lyrics:

I ain’t happy, I’m feeling glad
I got sunshine, in a bag
I’m useless, but not for long
The future is coming on
It’s coming on
It’s coming on
It’s coming on

The key to “I’m useless” is that you are useless to society in general, and there’s nothing you can do to change that fact. Thus “living life to the edge” is not an option.

“My job isn’t to assess the government’s information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of The New York Times what the government thought about Iraq’s arsenal.” — Judith Miller

“There’s a story in the New York Times this morning — this is, and I want to attribute to the Times. I don’t want to talk about, obviously, specific intelligence sources — but it’s now public that in fact he has been seeking to acquire, and we have been able to intercept and prevent him from acquiring, through this particular channel, the kinds of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge.” — Vice President Dick Cheney

This juxtaposition reminds me of a science fiction plot device (and I suppose theoretical physics conundrum). It’s the classic time travel paradox. Suppose a person travels to a time before she was born and breaks a causal chain that led to the traveler’s birth. This problem has been commonly explored by asking ‘What if you killed your own grandmother before she first conceived?’ (Curiously the problem is never expressed in terms of killing your own mother). The apparent paradox is then of a logical sort: P entails NOT P and NOT P entails P. If you kill your grandmother then you would not be born, which in turn would bring it about that you not travel into the past, thus you would not kill your grandmother, thus you would be born causing you to again travel into the past to kill your grandmother…. ad infinitum.

But hold on a second. Take a look at the scenario from a sort of third-person limited perspective. Look down upon it, and what you see is a strange man killing the old woman. Now here’s the mystery to this person: WHO IS THIS STRANGE MAN and WHERE DID HE COME FROM and WHY DOES HE NOT EXIST ANYMORE? He simply has no history, and no relation to any point in time and space.

Judith Miller lays out the government’s case for war with Iraq. Dick Cheney then cites Judith Miller, and he wants to attribute it to the Times (not the government, which is what Judith Miller has told us she is writing from). Something existed in between the two, connecting the two, but… it no longer exists in time or space because reality has been subverted by this time travel paradox. Nature abhors a vaccum, so someone somewhere is just going to have to invent something out of whole cloth to act as the placeholder.

I read at the time that the first few weeks of the XFL broadcasts were packed with shots of cheerleaders who seemed to come straight out of the strip club, who answered the hosts’ questions with double entendres. So, someone scores a touchdown, the stripper / cheerleader smiles and says “He really knows how to score!”

So, um… with that in mind… I guess… The Minnesota Vikings… really know how to score?

Or do they? I think they pretty much bought the services of everyone they screwed on those little party boats of theirs.

The big news in the NFL this week was allegations that 17 Minnesota Vikings players chartered a pair of yachts, stocked it with call girls and strippers and had a sex party on Lake Minnetonka until the boats’ disgusted, fearful crews returned to shore early.

Crew members have said they had to step around people having sex and that they felt intimidated by football players demanding that the alcohol flow more quickly. Female crew members say they were propositioned aggressively. There are also charges that some of the players urinated on a nearby lawn.

Further reports indicate that the crew members have photographic proof… so look forward to that, I guess.

The NFL has a weird problem that they inflicted upon themselves when they divided their teams into 8 divisions (instead of the prior 6). The possibility of a losing team making the play-off increases, with the chances that there might be a poor division. With two weeks to go in the regular season last year, an Arizona Cardinals fan waved a sign saying “Do The Math! We’re Still In It!” for his 4-9 turned 5-9 team, as the team defeated either the Saint Louis Rams or the Seattle Seahawks.

With that in mind, a look at the standings for the NFC North, and a further obsevation:

Chicago 2 wins 3 losses
Detroit 2 wins 3 losses
Green Bay 1 win 4 losses
Minnesota 1 win 4 losses

If Minnesota were going into a “chip on our shoulders, me against the world” type mode, they would have won last week… as it is, the team’s owner is reportedly waiting around to figure out how he can fire everyone on the team. I dare say that I like Green Bay in this pathetic race. After losing their first four games and becoming the joke of the league, they are now coming off a 52 to 3 victory, and thus have more momentum than anyone else in this division. Which is comical, as Brett Farve became the dumping ground of criticism. It’s all ultimately meaningless, but I hope Green Bay wins the division with a 7 and 9 record.

The theme song for the Minnesota Vikings, as per The Dead Milkmen.