My lunchbox hero today

Seth Godin's blog--the sethgodin.typepad.com edition, anyway--is one that I don't miss, despite the fact that I don't (yet) own a company. Other than his concept of permission-based marketing, nothing in particular tends to stick with me day to day. It's the kind of writing that gently infiltrates the mind like a gentle rain. (Rather like Marcus Aurelius' Meditations)

This post from over the weekend, however, is an exception. Godin, in his writing, comes off as a truly gentle soul, but you sense the righteous anger of someone who sees his values violated every time he has to fly.

I have to second--"second" as in waving a cigarette lighter in the air and hollering "Woooo! Preach it, brother!"-- that, given that not only do I voluntarily subsidize lowest common denominator thinking whenever I purchase a ticket, but that I am involuntarily complicit by dint of having taxable income.

So, go read Random Travel Thoughts. Well worth your time in the coin of thought-fodder.

Hats off to Margaret Cho

As Sarah Palin's shenanigans have been trickling into the public press, I've been unable to shake the notion that she's basically every office alpha-hen you've ever had to suffer with/under. Only on steroids.

But Margaret Cho, quoted by FireDogLake, absolutely nails it, IMO:

...she is the ultimate misogynist. She is a woman hater in the extreme. To force women to have children against their will, to deny abortion rights EVEN in cases of incest and rape is abominable. She is an insult to feminism, a sickening example what a woman will do to other women in order to please men and further her own career. Women do s**t like that to other women to keep them down – to make their achievement seem more extraordinary – to keep women out of their way, so they can enjoy all the power and the men themselves, and that stuff makes them worse than sexist men. It is worse to be a traitor than a perpetrator.

Just like Palin's Uncle Tom comrades (e.g. Phyllis Schlafly and Ann Coulter). Even Mareshal Petain would be embarassed by such disgusting pandering to a thugocracy.

Same $#!+, different country, Part II

As if 40+ of those polled supporting McCain in the U.S. isn't enough cognitive dissonance to make your head explode, it's the fact that Harper and his goons are within striking distance of a majority government in Canada.

After eight textbook case years of the scapegoating done by one of the most corrupt and morally, intellectually bankrupt political philosophies since modern Communism, you'd think that a few people would be able to spot another "us vs. them" demonizing attempt at distraction. Like this one: PM vows to name youth criminals. Just like the neocons/theocons in our country have demonized immigrants (illegal and non-), homosexuals, Muslims, and liberals.

The thing is, I consider Canada's penal system far too soft, and shamefully lax on consideration for the victims. But I could agree 100% with Harpers proposal's, but oppose them nonetheless. Why? Because the Tories are still the spiritual descendents of the "White Man's Burden" colonials. Playing the tribes off against each other, spreading guns and fire-water and smallpox-infected blankets around indiscriminately. More to the point, Harper waited until the middle of an election to trot out a divisive proposal, a proposal that has squat to do with actually curbing crime. In short, every once in a while, the messenger does matter. The Tories have proved--with forcing a re-vote on same-sex marriage, with immigration so-called "reform"--that they have photocopied whole chapters from the Karl Rove playbook.

And so, I just shake my head, wondering how so many Canadians can be as blind as their counterparts to the the damning verdict on the reactionary dogma that has made undermined the military, foreign policy, political discourse, and economic standing of the most powerful nation on earth. I realize that Stephane Dion is about as exciting as cold, canned cream of mushroom soup, but still... Is that any justification for letting a grasping thug like Harper drag a country down a road that has already been scorched and devastated by the neocons south of the border?

Another spin on the kowtow to the Religious Right?

From I Kings, 1:14:

King David was old and advanced in years; and although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm. So his servants said to him, "Let a young virgin be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait on the king, and be his attendant; let her lie in your bosom, so that the lord my king may be warm." So they searched for a beautiful girl throughout all the territory of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king. The girl was very beautiful. She became the king's attendant and served him, but the king did not know her sexually.

Sarah Palin in a political nutshell? As long as the GOP is so shamelessly sacrificing several centuries of progress to re-animate a Bronze Age world-view, I figure the metaphors might as well cut both ways. Pity that one won't perk up the ears of those who listen for Palin's Dominionist dog-whistles.

Then again, these are the same marks who actually believe that David and Abishag's relationship was actually platonic. Just like they believe that two gang-raped (erstwhile) virgins would think to seduce the father who handed them over to the gang in the first place. Or that the polygamy-rife Bible defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Or that handing your female servant over to your husband to bear the children you cannot isn't adultery or immoral.

On second thought, never mind. Lost cause. @#$%&*-up sexual mores are @#$%*&-up sexual mores. Forget I mentioned it.

A thought on the McCain/Palin (Palin/McCain?) campaign

From IMDB's (http://www.imdb.com) quotes section of "A Fish Called Wanda":

Otto: Don't call me stupid.
Wanda: Oh, right! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I've known sheep that could outwit you. I've worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?
Otto: Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not "Every man for himself." And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.

This, peeps, is precisely how I feel when I have to deal with McCain--or, more aptly, (Sarah) Palin--groupies.

I am just so effin' sick of the blatant lies. And sicker yet of a populace that enables them. And from sheer intellectual couch-potato flabbiness, allows itself to be numbed and dumbed-down even further.

So here's a little channeling of Wanda Gershwitz:

• "Reformers" do NOT support a "Bridge to Nowhere" before turning against it (much less spend the earmarked funds elsewhere).
  
• Campaign finance reformers, in particular, do NOT appoint lobbyists to the top positions of their campaigns.
  
• "Beltway outsiders" do NOT pay lobbyists for $27 million in earmarks for a town of 9000 people. Nor do they appoint (ahem!) "uncredentialed" friends (whose qualifications for Ag. Administration include a childhood "love of cows") to lucrative government positions.
• "Historic women" do NOT appoint police chiefs who charge rape victims for the medical exams used as evidence against the perps. They also do NOT attempt to roll back a century's worth of progress by being blatantly anti-choice and opposing sex education that includes information on contraception. Why? Because a woman is more than a uterus with legs, regardless of demographic.
  
• Talking smack about other governments--particularly those which have The Bomb--is NOT an acceptable substitute for foreign policy. It is a demonstrable evidence of a lack of foreign policy (or understanding thereof). Particularly at a time when most of our fighting forces are pinned down in a sandy quagmire of our own misguided making.
  
• Conversely: Talking smack about governments who don't have The Bomb is NOT an incentive to make them stop wanting one. Especially when you talk about bombing them first.
  
• Linking the late Saddam Hussein with 9/11 does NOT enhance your qualifications for leading the War! On!! Terror!!! Why? Because connecting Dot 1 and Dot 427 does not make a good picture. Twit.
  
• Gas prices are high as the result of speculation, NOT a lack of offshore--much less ANWAR--drilling. If drilling were the the silver bullet, maybe oil companies would already being doing that on 40 million godd--n acres. Got that? 40 million acres of public land they can already drill. But don't.
  
• A flyboy who sat out 5 1/2 years of Vietnam does NOT "know how to win wars." In case you missed it, Senator, the North Vietnamese and the VC won. Despite our superior technology and firepower. And 58K+ dead. And if you can't recognize that that simple fact of history, you have absolutely no @#$%ing business being CoC for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Where the Humvee vs. IED battle isn't doing so well. Why? Because we're making the mistakes of your generation over and over again. Dumb@$$.
• God is NOT running for President of the United States. Stop acting like He is. If He were running, he would have filed with the FEC, like a good Deity. If God wanted George W. Bush to go to war with Iraq, mightn't He at least have pointed out the location of the WMDs? Except that there weren't any. Similarly, if God wanted an Alaskan pipeline, He would be more than capable of putting one wherever He d--ned well felt like putting it.
• People who have been in Congress for over 30 years are NOT agents of "change." Stop it. Just stop. You're getting moron cooties all over the rest of us.
  

Grrrrrr. I could go on (and on). Except that I hear the callings of this "elitist" thing called education. Namely a stats class, plus studying toward a work-related certification. But even in this anti-science, anti-intellectual age--wherein anyone who can spell their name without referring to their belt buckle is an effete "elitist"--that's just how I roll.

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Addendum. Let's add this to my "To Do" list once I'm El Supremo Presidente Dictator for Life: International curriculum for any school child will include a minimum of three years of logic, two of rhetoric, the equivalent of three semesters of statistics, four years of another language, and lots and lots of math and science. No driver's license nor diploma will granted until those requirements are met. Period. The criterion of "who you'd rather have a beer with" is will no longer be a valid qualification for public office, from the county dog-catcher on up. Enough is enough. We're not electing the Homecoming Queen, for @#$%^'s sake. This is the real world, with real people whose real lives are affected in real dollar terms. If your thinking is still in terms of the high school pecking-order, you don't deserve to vote. End of discussion.

And if, ultimately, my (benevolent) dictatorship is overthrown, I at least want the comfort that the coup will be executed by people who are adequately educated (and hopefully rational human beings). Seriously, I'll face a firing squad with a smile with that knowledge.