Author: Curmudgette

I love that guy! He can really see the silver lining in any gray cloud.

If [Saddam] were still there today, we’d have a terrible situation.

Today, instead…

BLITZER:  But there is a terrible situation there.

CHENEY: No, there is not. There is not. There’s problems — ongoing problems — but we have, in fact, accomplished our objectives of getting rid of the old regime…

BLITZER:  And…

CHENEY: … and there is a new regime in place that’s been there for less than a year, far too soon for you guys to write them off. They have got a democratically written constitution, the first ever in that part of the world. They’ve had three national elections. So there’s been a lot of success.

Brilliant!
And there’s more. As he slaps down critics who can’t appreciate the “enormous successes” in Iraq; pantywaists like Jim Webb and Chuck Hagel. “Hogwash,” I tells ya.

Cheney’s bravura performance on Wolf Blitzer’s “Situation Room” got me to thinking about another magnificent bastard: Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Saha.  Or as he was better known, Comical Ali. Who could forget such classics as:

“There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!”

“My feelings – as usual – we will slaughter them all”

“Our initial assessment is that they will all die”

“God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of Iraqis.”

“We are not afraid of the Americans. Allah has condemned them. They are stupid. They are stupid… [dramatic pause] and they are condemned.”

Not many people can stare straight into the light of cold hard facts and still have the brass to say “No it isn’t.” It takes courage. It takes stunning bravado. It takes a glorious audacity with which God endows few men.

And I love the way he rocked Blitzer back on his heels when he tried to question him about White House allies Focus on the Family.

BLITZER: You know, we’re out of time, but a couple of issues I want to raise with you: your daughter, Mary. She’s pregnant. All of us are happy she’s going to have a baby. You’re going to have another grandchild. Some of the — some critics are suggesting — for example, a statement from someone representing Focus on the Family, “Mary Cheney’s pregnancy raises the question of what’s best for children. Just because it’s possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father doesn’t mean that it’s best for the child.” Do you want to respond to that?  

CHENEY: No.

BLITZER: She’s, obviously, a good daughter —

CHENEY: I’m delighted I’m about to have a sixth grandchild, Wolf.

And obviously I think the world of both my daughters and all of my grandchildren. And I think, frankly, you’re out of line with that question.

BLITZER: I think all of us appreciate —

CHENEY: I think you’re out of line.

BLITZER: We like your daughters. Believe me, I’m very sympathetic to Liz and to Mary. I like them both. That was a question that’s come up, and it’s a responsible, fair question.

CHENEY: I just fundamentally disagree with you.

BLITZER: I want to congratulate you on having another grandchild.

So what did I miss? Mary Cheney’s a komodo dragon?… Well, what’s wrong with that? Who cares if she reproduces by parthenogenesis? What business is that of Wolf Blitzer’s?! Thank god there are still men of steel who can look nosey parker reporters in the eye and say, “You’re out of line!”

Crossposted from The Blogging Curmudgeon.

Last night marked a unique event the history of the SOTU. The response was a real speech. Jim Webb spoke for the Democrats the way an opposition party should. But it was not just a counter-point to Bush’s policies. He stood as a sharp contrast to the man himself. He was a kind of anti-Bush.

Whatever the spinmeisters are making of this speech, it was far more than a military man stating clear opposition to the debacle in Iraq. It was a refutation of the entire Bush Presidency; and of the direction the country has been moving in for some time with bipartisan complicity. What none of the pundits seem to want to talk about is Jim Webb’s populism. He speaks like a man of the people and about the issues that effect all of us, with an empathy that comes from having lived the life of an average American.

When Jim Webb spoke about taking the picture of his active-duty father to bed with him every night, I don’t think there was a parent listening who didn’t feel a visceral pang. I know I did. I know my husband did. We thought of our own daughter staring mystified from her car seat as he boarded a plane to Iraq.
Said Webb:

I want to share with all of you a picture that I have carried with me for more than 50 years. This is my father, when he was a young Air Force captain, flying cargo planes during the Berlin Airlift. He sent us the picture from Germany, as we waited for him, back here at home. When I was a small boy, I used to take the picture to bed with me every night, because for more than three years my father was deployed, unable to live with us full-time, serving overseas or in bases where there was no family housing. I still keep it, to remind me of the sacrifices that my mother and others had to make, over and over again, as my father gladly served our country. I was proud to follow in his footsteps, serving as a Marine in Vietnam. My brother did as well, serving as a Marine helicopter pilot. My son has joined the tradition, now serving as an infantry Marine in Iraq.

But in Bush’s tiny little mind, Americans sacrifice when they see that icky, old war on television.

LEHRER: Let me ask you a bottom-line question, Mr. President. If it is as important as you’ve just said – and you’ve said it many times – as all of this is, particularly the struggle in Iraq, if it’s that important to all of us and to the future of our country, if not the world, why have you not, as president of the United States, asked more Americans and more American interests to sacrifice something? The people who are now sacrificing are, you know, the volunteer military – the Army and the U.S. Marines and their families. They’re the only people who are actually sacrificing anything at this point.

BUSH: Well, you know, I think a lot of people are in this fight. I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night. I mean, we’ve got a fantastic economy here in the United States, but yet, when you think about the psychology of the country, it is somewhat down because of this war.

Now, here in Washington when I say, “What do you mean by that?,” they say, “Well, why don’t you raise their taxes; that’ll cause there to be a sacrifice.” I strongly oppose that. If that’s the kind of sacrifice people are talking about, I’m not for it because raising taxes will hurt this growing economy. And one thing we want during this war on terror is for people to feel like their life’s moving on, that they’re able to make a living and send their kids to college and put more money on the table. And you know, I am interested and open-minded to the suggestion, but this is going to be –

LEHRER: Well –

BUSH: — this is like saying why don’t you make sacrifices in the Cold War? I mean, Iraq is only a part of a larger ideological struggle. But it’s a totally different kind of war, than ones we’re used to.

No, Mr. Bush. Because in this particular “ideological struggle” men and women are being killed or maimed every day in open combat, while the majority of Americans shop, watch television, and demonstrate their patriotism by slapping yellow ribbons on their SUVs. This is what it looks like when a nation sacrifices for a war effort:

But it was not just the difference between a man who knows what it means to put your life on the line for your country and one who couldn’t be bothered to show up to a “Champagne” unit stateside, while his countrymen were sinking in the big muddy. Where Webb has really distinguished himself, not only from all things Bush, but from the trend of American politics in general, is that he is a true economic populist. Last night he took on the modern-day robber barons who are transferring the nation’s wealth into their pockets, with here-to-fore bipartisan support. Said Webb:

When one looks at the health of our economy, it’s almost as if we are living in two different countries.  Some say that things have never been better. The stock market is at an all-time high, and so are corporate profits. But these benefits are not being fairly shared. When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it’s nearly 400 times. In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day.

Wages and salaries for our workers are at all-time lows as a percentage of national wealth, even though the productivity of American workers is the highest in the world. Medical costs have skyrocketed. College tuition rates are off the charts. Our manufacturing base is being dismantled and sent overseas. Good American jobs are being sent along with them.

In short, the middle class of this country, our historic backbone and our best hope for a strong society in the future, is losing its place at the table. Our workers know this, through painful experience. Our white-collar professionals are beginning to understand it, as their jobs start disappearing also. And they expect, rightly, that in this age of globalization, their government has a duty to insist that their concerns be dealt with fairly in the international marketplace.

In the early days of our republic, President Andrew Jackson established an important principle of American-style democracy – that we should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base. Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street. We must recapture that spirit today.

Later in his speech he said:

Regarding the economic imbalance in our country, I am reminded of the situation President Theodore Roosevelt faced in the early days of the 20th century. America was then, as now, drifting apart along class lines. The so-called robber barons were unapologetically raking in a huge percentage of the national wealth. The dispossessed workers at the bottom were threatening revolt.

Roosevelt spoke strongly against these divisions.  He told his fellow Republicans that they must set themselves “as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other.” And he did something about it.

At some point, amidst the post SOTU blather, I heard Chris Matthews say something about how the three Presidents invoked by Webb were Republicans. I would point out that none of the three would likely have been comfortable in today’s GOP. Not Ike who warned so presciently of the dangers of the military-industrial complex, and certainly not Roosevelt, who was first and foremost a member of the Progressive Movement. Webb, who has been both a Republican and Democrat, appears to be first and foremost a progressive populist.

Webb spoke boldly about an economy that is not serving the majority of Americans, and hinted at an agenda of bold reform, while a sitting President promised to do nothing more than rob Peter to pay Paul; offering schemes like a health care plan that will raise taxes on some working Americans and offer tax breaks to people who can’t afford to take advantage of them.

Last night Jim Webb showed us the difference between a morally stunted elitist and a man who knows what life is like for people who work and serve and struggle. And he may just have shown us a glimpse of the way forward.

Tonight we are calling on this President to take similar action, in both areas.  If he does, we will join him.  If he does not, we will be showing him the way.

Crossposted from The Blogging Curmudgeon.

Last night I watched “Scarborough Country.” I don’t expect anything like unbiased reporting from the former Congressman turned “news man.” Sad enough that he is featured prominently on a “news” network. Sadder still to hear him lament the sad demise of esteemed broadcast journalist Barbara Walters’s reputation. Saddest of all to acknowledge that he is right.

SCARBOROUGH:  Matthew, explain to people, if you will, that only know her through “The View” and through those interviews that she does on ABC–I guess “20/20” she`s been doing for years–explain to people what a trailblazer Barbara Walters was and how hard she worked for her reputation, that Rosie O`Donnell tatters every time she does something like this.

FELLING:  Absolutely.  It has been a shock to me that she`s been putting up with this for this long.  She is the patron saint.  She is the woman that all female journalists since the `70s looked up to and said, “You know what?  She can do it; I`m going to do, too.”

She was perfection.  She was the gold standard with regards to female journalists through the `80s, into the `90s.  And now she`s doing this Faustian bargain, where she`s willing to put up with it, but only so far.  And I do really think that Rosie`s days are numbered.

I hate “The View.” I’ve never understood what the seasoned news woman thought she was doing when she launched this show. For the trail-blazer who broke through the glass ceiling and proved that a woman could deliver news with the same sense of gravitas and dignity of her male counterparts, to be associated with a format that sounds more like a coffee-clatch than a news show, has always struck me as the ultimate come-down. “The View” seems almost designed to prove that women are biologically determined to be gossipy, shallow, and unserious. And now the show has reached a new low. Rosie O’Donnell’s public feud with Donald Trump is playing out with all the dignity of professional wrestling.

Sadly this makes Rosie only slightly more ridiculous than the crop of talking heads scattered across the cable dial. Anchors no longer deliver news. They bloviate. From Bill O’Reilly’s projection about everyone else’s bias, to Tim Russert’s pandering/badgering intensity, to Chris Matthews bullying and obsequious “I agree with you” brown-nosing. And while the left has its intellectually satisfying Keith Olbermann diatribes, one could hardly confuse his pontificating with objectivity. Wisdom and surprising literacy, but not objectivity.

The whole of broadcast news, which once held promise as a medium for disseminating information, has devolved into self-parody. It’s a cheap carney side show which I half expect to start featuring geeks biting the heads off live chickens.

Fox News has gone through the looking glass with grammatically challenged spokesmodels, spouting McCarthyesque agitprop:

GRETCHEN CARLSON: You talk about the hostile enemy, obviously being Iraq, but hostile enemies right here on the home front. Yesterday Senator Ted Kennedy, proposing that any kind of a troop surge should mean there should be congressional approval of that. A lot of democrats not coming to his side on this. But obviously this is not going to be an easy sell on Capitol Hill, even if it’s not an easy sell to the American Public.

But tragically the rest of the industry has followed it through to the Red Queen’s court.

None of this is news to blogosphere, I’m sure; which functions as one of the few watchdog venues for an industry which seems to have no adequate check or balance. But lately I find myself thinking back to the early days when a much missed Media Whores Online began its crusade to remind the Fourth Estate of its proud heritage. Watching Scarborough last night I came to the sad realization that the wreckage of Benjamin Franklin’s legacy has declined still further and shows little hope of regaining the high ground.

Americans across the political spectrum confuse what can only be described as self-righteous indignation with refreshing honesty. Who wants the dry, impartial reporting of a Walter Cronkite or a young Barbara Walters, when they can get their factoids from carnival barkers and blond chippies in push-up bras? I’m left waxing nostalgic for a time when the empty-headed Bill Boggs and the crass Morton Downey Jr. represented the lunatic fringe of a profession yearning to be taken seriously. Today their antics seem tame by comparison.

What accounts for broadcast journalism doesn’t belong on a “news” channel. It should be fought out in the Roman Coliseum, awaiting the thumbs up or thumbs down from Emperor Bush. Entertainment for the hoi poloi to distract them from our crumbling empire.

A tip of the hat to Chris Floyd for making my point and providing the proof. Anyone who thinks we are in Iraq for reasons other than oil isn’t paying attention.  While pundits scratch their heads; baffled by a President unconcerned with public opinion, rebellious generals, and defections in his own party, Bush and puppet-master Cheney just keep marching forward with their agenda. It’s a kind of anti-politics, which must sound to seasoned politicos like a whistle only dogs can hear.

It looks like political suicide but it’s simply the Bush Administration fulfilling the purpose for which it was installed, no matter what the peasantry thinks. Bush will have his “surge.” Tony Snow has made very clear that no political process can prevent him.

Snow held out hope that the Democrats would come to their senses about opposing this but admitted it could even be a battle royal. But what about calls for the Democrats to halt the build up by denying funding? Snow admitted congress had funding control but also pointed out that the president could ultimately do what he wants. “You know, Congress has the power of the purse,” Snow said, then added: “The President has the ability to exercise his own authority if he thinks Congress has voted the wrong way.”

The reason is not mysterious. It’s not just political tone-deafness, delusional thinking, or unbridled arrogance. It’s that America’s will is not invested in the ambitions of the oil barons at the helm. Floyd puts it into perspective.

The reason that George W. Bush insists that “victory” is achievable in Iraq is not because he is deluded or isolated or ignorant or detached from reality or ill-advised. No, it’s that his definition of “victory” is different from those bruited about in his own rhetoric and in the ever-earnest disquisitions of the chattering classes in print and on-line. For Bush, victory is indeed at hand. It could come at any moment now, could already have been achieved by the time you read this. And the driving force behind his planned “surge” of American troops is the need to preserve those fruits of victory that are now ripening in his hand.

At any time within the next few days, the Iraqi Council of Ministers is expected to approve a new “hydrocarbon law” essentially drawn up by the Bush Administration and its UK lackey, the Independent on Sunday reports.

As per the Independent, big oil, whose front men are still squatting in the White House, is about to achieve the objective for which this war was launched.

Iraq’s massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.                                              

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The Independent takes pains to point out that the warmongers have claimed from the beginning that this war was not being fought over oil.

Proposing the parliamentary motion for war in 2003, Tony Blair denied the “false claim” that “we want to seize” Iraq’s oil revenues. He said the money should be put into a trust fund, run by the UN, for the Iraqis, but the idea came to nothing. The same year Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, said: “It cost a great deal of money to prosecute this war. But the oil of the Iraqi people belongs to the Iraqi people; it is their wealth, it will be used for their benefit. So we did not do it for oil.”

Supporters say the provision allowing oil companies to take up to 75 per cent of the profits will last until they have recouped initial drilling costs. After that, they would collect about 20 per cent of all profits, according to industry sources in Iraq. But that is twice the industry average for such deals. [emphases added]

So now that country lies prostrate — war-torn, factionalized, economically crippled, with shattered infrastructure — it’s big oil to the rescue. They will help the fragile Iraqi government to harvest their oil, and for the favor they will take 3 quarters of the profit until they say they have recouped their costs. Such a deal!

I’m reminded of Tony Soprano explaining to his childhood friend why he’s gutted his business in order to extract payment for gambling debts. Like the scorpion who’s convinced the frog to take him across the river, he’s stung him to death before ever reaching the shore. “It’s my nature,” he explains. The fictive version of the Ramsey Outdoor Store is lost and so it appears is the real-world Iraq. But not without providing enrichment for a criminal enterprise.

Crossposted from The Blogging Curmudgeon.

Oh my God! I agree with Tony Snow. Saying that out loud makes me want to wash my mouth out with soap. But when he quipped that the DC press whores must be having a “slow news day,” for all their fascination with Laura Bush’s skin cancer lesion, I have to agree. Isn’t there anything else going on in the world? Here’s a little of the exchange, as reported in the New York Times Blog:

Q: Tony, can you tell us about Mrs. Bush’s skin cancer? How is she doing? And how was the decision reached not to disclose this publicly until questions were asked?

Mr. Snow: Yes, I talked to her a couple of minutes ago. She’s doing fine. And she said, “It’s no big deal, and we knew it was no big deal at the time.” Frankly I don’t think anybody thought it was the sort of thing that occasioned a need for a public disclosure. Furthermore, she’s got the same right to medical privacy that you do. She’s a private citizen; she’s not an elected official. So for that reason she didn’t disclose it. But she’s doing fine, and thank you for your concern.

Pressed as to whether Mrs. Bush would begin advocating for screening for skin cancers, Mr. Snow said:

“She’s also had colds, she’s had the flu, she’s had stomach aches -”

Q: But she could still — it could be a platform.

Mr. Snow: You guys are really stretching it. I mean, it is now officially a really slow news day.

Laura Bush’s health concerns, either serious, or, as in this case, un-serious, are not my business. I don’t want to know. I’m simply not afflicted with such voyeuristic tendencies.

One of my old college roommates used to quip that, “Every time the cat farts in the White House, it’s ‘news’.” This fascination with the daily comings and goings in the halls of power comes at the expense of coverage of things the public actually does need to know. There are two overlapping and interrelated problems that have led to the perception of the nation’s capital as the navel of the world. One is the very structure of news gathering. Gaye Tuchman used the term “news net” in her book “Making News: The Construction of Reality.” She explains that news gathering relies heavily on a system of beats and bureaus. You can only catch fish where you throw your net, and the nets are thrown at public institutions which are deemed newsworthy and credible. If a public figure says it, it’s a “fact” by virtue of conferred status. If a public figure does it, it’s news, even if it’s painfully boring and irrelevant to the lives of ordinary Americans.

The second half of the problem is the disappearance of those very beats and bureaus from all over the country. Thanks to the consolidation of mass media, local newspapers from across the nation have slipped quietly down the memory hole. Many have been bought out by competing papers and shut down. Others have been replaced by conglomerates which package tasty, little McNews bites and publish them under the mastheads of small “local” papers. The “Media Monopoly” as Ben Bagdikian calls it, now consists of 5 corporations which own the vast majority of newspapers, television outlets, radio, book publishing, and film. Five corporations own the entire info-tainment business. And their focus on the bottom-line has meant, among other things, that the beats covered by reporters have dwindled to a few major focal points. The result is a well-fed beltway press corps and metaphorical tumbleweeds blowing across the rest of the newsworthy world.

There is still another problem, exemplified by this type of reportage that I’m at pains to explain. That of the DC press corps itself, which elevates the trivial and minimizes the deadly serious, even in its given purview. Where was this aggressive questioning during the build-up to the Iraq war? Anyone with an ounce of sense could have driven a truck the gaps in logic provided by DC officials, in their ever-shifting rationales for bombing the hell out of a crippled nation. Where was it when a male prostitute was sitting among them, gaining unprecedented access to the aforementioned halls of power? Where was it when it fell to David Corn at the ever-vigilant Nation to point out that Bob Novack had no business knowing that Valarie Plame Wilson was in the CIA? Why does the press corps have to be clubbed over the head by the blogosphere to notice crimes and misdemeanors in their midst, but positively obsess over an in-office procedure, performed under local anesthetic. It would be funny if the net result for the public at large weren’t so serious.

Editors Note: Both Ben Bagdikian’s “New Media Monopoly” and Gaye Tuchman’s “Making News” are available in Curmudgette’s Reading Room although the latter is currently out of print and available only from resellers. Still, highly recommended.

Crossposted from The Blogging Curmudgeon.

Just when you thought it was safe to be an American again… You know I almost didn’t write this entry; being as it is a rumination on the decline of American civilization. I’ve been so heady since the election. We have turned a corner as a nation and perhaps put the brakes on our steady slide towards cultural entropy. Tuesday night I felt relief… even optimism. Then I read this:

As gas prices have plunged since topping $3 a gallon this summer, a startling shift is taking place in the car market. Hybrid sales are slowing and SUV sales are speeding up.

Come again?

That’s right: the megawatt popularity of hybrids is dimming and Americans are rediscovering their favorite automotive guilty pleasure, gas-guzzling SUVs.

Yes. Like a coop of chickens slipping into blissful slumber when their heads have been forced under their wings, Americans giddy on an artificial, transparently political, dip in gas prices, jump behind the wheels of those hideous, resource gobbling, behemoths. SUVs exemplify everything that is wrong and stupid in this country; the gluttony, the ignorance of history, the lack of foresight, the love of style over substance, the persistent belief that perception is reality… For instance, ask the average SUV driver “why?!” and he will usually say “safety.” But SUVs are not safer. They are more likely to roll over, they lack a number of the safety features of smaller vehicles, and they are far more dangerous to everyone else on the road. Could there be a more perfect symbol of the mentality that has pushed this country to the precipice? As long as I feel safe who cares if I actually am safe or if I pose a mortal threat to everyone else; how many little cars I crush or how many tiny nations are turned to rubble in my pursuit of an illusive sense of security.

I’ve been pondering “the dumbening” of America for some time, but particularly over the last couple of months. Throughout our search for a new home and a difficult move, it was glaringly apparent to me that we are a nation in decline. As the housing boom goes bust, the country is littered with prefab catastrophes waiting to be bought. We saw listing after listing of cosmetically adorable lemons. Not only are they made of particle board and spit, almost to house they are designed with air conditioning/forced air, gas heat units. Cheap for the builder, expensive and inefficient for the home owner. Heat Rises. Cold falls. Does anyone not know this? Having experienced the wonders of forced air in a couple of rentals — that delicious combination of dry, baked air, and the total lack of actual warmth — and paid the attendant energy bills, I turned my nose up at 99.9 percent of the listings. I explained to our baffled realtor that to buy a house with a forced air system, just as energy prices are going through the roof, is a little like saying, “Hey gas is $3 a gallon. Time to buy an SUV.” The joke fell flat and after reading Newsweek, it’s pretty clear why. People keep buying their cardboard  dream houses with the heating vents in the ceiling, and they keep buying SUVs.

We found our smart, efficient little bi-level. We love the house, but the move was horrifying. Why? The dumbening. Before moving we hit all the wickets, including setting up our new phone service. But even after two emails confirming that our phone would be turned on the day we moved in, it was not to be. So I called Verizon (on my cell, obviously) and was told that they had been unable to process our order. It took over half an hour and 3 different customer service people to arrive at the reason. They didn’t have our old phone number. Why they didn’t have it I still don’t know. Why they didn’t contact us to get the necessary information I still don’t know. I do know that even after providing it so they could process the order, they still could not turn on our phone for another 3 weeks. I received a number of mutually contradictory reasons for this, but my favorite was “the weather.” I guess it’s never rained in the North East before and they were just flummoxed by it.

When I rented my first solo apartment over 15 years ago, a single phone call had my account set up and my phone turned on the day I moved in. During those three weeks while I parceled out my anytime minutes like canteen water in a desert, I had plenty of time to contemplate how it could possibly be that in the “age of communication” getting phone service has gone from nearly effortless to an herculean feat. I had no phone, no internet… and no television. My Sony lies in pieces in our new garage. Why? The dumbening. How else to explain professional movers so idiotic that they piled my husband’s weights on top of it. More remarkable, they apparently delivered it into storage as a crushed pile of rubble and left it there without comment, signing off on the shipment like everything was cool. The loss and damage of this move was the worst I’ve experienced, and thanks to the wonders of bureaucracy it will be years before I see even partial recompense, but that I guess is not a terribly new phenomenon.

What is new, and I why I think America is dumbening is that no one seems to notice or care anymore that everything works like crap. What amazed me more than anything about my laborious conversations with Verizon was the seeming astonishment of the customer service reps that I was, how say, dissatisfied, at being forced to wait for 3 weeks for phone service through no fault of my own. Gone are the days when the customer was always right and sales people cared about your business. Today’s service industries are typified by a prevailing sense that they are entitled to your money and a customer’s unhappiness with either product or service is his problem.

It almost doesn’t surprise me that Verizon reps seemed shocked by my lack of complacency. Complacency has become the hallmark of  American culture. Now, I’m as thrilled as anyone that Dems have taken back both houses of Congress and it truly gives me hope, but look at just how bad things had to get for the tide to turn. Torture scandals, the loss of habeas corpus, unauthorized wiretaps, open cronyism, an illegal war; this litany of criminal offenses goes on. But what finally turned public opinion en masse? The lesson for today is that if you want to create massive political shift in this country, a President publicly shredding the Constitution is not enough. What you really need are some good sex scandals. Not just any sex scandals either. They have to be GAY sex scandals.

We have pulled ourselves back from the precipice and I have hope again. Hope that the self-loathing-gay-Republican-led zeitgeist will translate into a broader reawakening of an American populace grown far too comfortable in an environment of utter wrongness. For against this backdrop of unprecedented government excess and criminality, what I see ambling about town is a people whose biggest concern is which $2,500, flat panel television to dig themselves deeper into debt with. Because as credit card interest surpasses usury rates, you surely cannot have enough debt. (I’m not kidding. Since that beacon of Democratic ethics Joe Biden green-lighted bankruptcy reform, I’m waiting for the revised customer agreement notice that tells me that they can break my legs if I’m a day late on payment.) It’s worth it because every American home should have a Fahrenheit 451-style “wall.” And if cable rates are rising several times the rate of inflation, so be it. What’s important is that we all know what’s happening on American Idol.

So, yes, I’m optimistic. But with a Democratic Party that seems hell bent on snatching defeat from the jaws of an historic victory, I still have… concerns. I worry that we are a nation grown fat and happy on a literal and metaphorical diet of empty calories. Couch potatoes staring dumbly at ever larger, more crisply defined, images of pundits telling us what we think and feel, until our critical thinking muscles have gone utterly flaccid. Last Tuesday was a reminder of what can happen when the public flexes. We have a choice now between continued vigilance and a consumer culture more intoxicating than the waters of Lethe.

Also posted on The Blogging Curmudgeon.

I have stayed out of the Duke Lacrosse rape story. I have no capacity for journalistic dispassion on this issue for reasons that should become clear as of this writing. My associate the Blogging Curmudgeon emailed me this CNN story this morning and I found myself staring at the smug visage of Reade Seligmann for several uncomfortable moments: handsome, entitled, determined, all-American, boy-next-door. Suddenly, I was hurled back in time to my own high school days; days I prefer to think of as long ago and far away.

In my case it was the star of our high school basketball team who I knew better as an altar boy at my church. He was handsome, poised, intelligent, and we all knew, destined for greatness. When I first heard, through the rumor mill, that a girl had accused him of date rape, I simply did not believe it. No one did. We all sounded much like the good reverend quoted by CNN:

“Knowing Reade Seligmann as well as we do here at Delbarton, I believe him innocent of the charges,” said the Rev. Luke L. Travers, headmaster at Seligmann’s $22,500-a-year high school.

It was unimaginable, simply unimaginable. I was not a stupid girl, by any stretch. Even then, I was feminist enough to know how unlikely it was that a girl would subject herself to the consequences of a rape allegation if it were untrue. But I didn’t know this girl. I knew Mike and fairly well. So, like the rest of our humble congregation, I dismissed the allegations even before the courts did.

A few months after the whole thing had blown over, Mike and I took a drive one night after a youth group meeting. I had scored a little pot and we decided to sneak off to a secluded spot in the woods to smoke a joint. And Mike made a pass. I was incredibly flattered. I was an awkward girl, woefully inexperienced with boys, and I did not think of myself as terribly pretty. Mike was a golden boy, the kind of kid I felt fortunate even wanted to be my friend, let alone kiss me.

As suddenly as it started, it all went horribly wrong. He tore at my clothes and pinned my arms to the ground. In a split second, he became someone I did not recognize; a young man possessed by rage and brutal determination. Never in a million years could I have imagined that such violent depravity resided underneath that cool exterior.

He left me in front of my house, bruised, grass stained, and bleeding. Mostly I felt numb. I suppose that was partly due to the fact that I was still pretty high. In a strange way, I have always been grateful that I had smoked so much dope that night. In truth, I had been on something of a bender in the days leading up to that evening, so I was really pretty wasted. I was looking at the world through waxed paper, and maybe, just maybe, that lessened the impact of both the assault and the disillusionment.

I never reported the incident to the police. I am embarrassed to admit that, in part, I still considered Mike a friend and didn’t want to get him into any more trouble. We actually did remain friends and he later apologized for what he knew was inappropriate behavior, but in the course of the apology, he made yet another attempt to rip my pants off. A knee to the groin stopped him that time, but it also ended the friendship.

In time shock gave way to bitter hatred. I despised Mike. He knew it and he knew why. Yet he always exuded that same sense of calm, smooth detachment. I secretly marveled at his ability to project such an air moral superiority, knowing, as I did, the monster that remained so well hidden.

Some time later I confessed the whole thing to his then girlfriend. Monica was a lovely girl from a good family with her whole life ahead of her. Word was they were considering marriage. So I took her aside her and told her that the allegations of date rape – they were starting to pile up – were true, and that I knew this because I was one of his victims. Then I knew, at last, what it felt like to be that anonymous girl who I myself had dismissed as a disgruntled liar not so long before.

The names in this story have been changed to protect the guilty.

Crossposted from The Blogging Curmudgeon.

So many times I have opined like Morticia in “Adams Family Values”:

I’m just like every modern woman trying to have it all. A loving husband, a family. I only wish I had more time to seek out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade.

In other words I want to be Caitlin Flanagan. I want to be the kind of stay-at-home mom who has  a full staff, so that I have more time for idle pursuits like being published in prestigious magazines and locking down book deals. If I don’t get a nanny soon to take my daughter to the park and bandage her scraped knees, I’m not sure I can even give this little blog my all.
For example I’ve been trying to write this entry for three days but the laundry was piling up, the kitchen counters needed a good bleaching, and don’t even get me started on the Sisyphean effort of loading and unloading the dishwasher. All that and my child actually requires meals on occasion. No really. She does. The demands of motherhood are manifold.

I was going to chuck the idea and gaffe off the furor surrounding Flanagan’s newest collection of essays, “To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife.” But then I saw her on the “Colbert Report” last night. What can I say except, OH MY GOD! I LOVED HER SHOES!! A delicious little pair of fuck-me pumps that reminded me, once again, of the important things in life. Things like nurturing children, supervising the baking of cookies, and giving my loving breadwinner a proper schtupping.

My husband makes a decent living and I don’t have to consider a “real” job. Being a woman of letters isn’t real work, of course, but it is a little time consuming. To properly undertake such leisurely pursuits does require a support system of some kind.

Caitlin Flanagan has renewed my hope and inspiration. There’s just no reason any relatively attractive woman can’t have it all: a wealthy husband, a lovely home, a maid, a nanny, a little writing hobby, a contributing editorship, and the opportunity to flirt shamelessly with Stephen Colbert on national television. The rewards of traditional values are more than worth the sacrifices.

There are those, like Joan Walsh of Salon, who claim Flanagan is a tad hypocritical and manipulative.

Everyone knows Caitlin Flanagan isn’t a stay-at-home mother, she’s an accomplished writer who plays a stay-at-home mom in magazines and on TV. Right? Part of why I’ve never gotten upset about Flanagan’s pro-hearth and home shtick is that I’ve seen it as just that, shtick. I’d read enough to know she had a full-time nanny when her twin sons were infants and she was trying to be a novelist; then she wrote about modern womanhood and family life for the Atlantic Monthly after they hit preschool; now, with her boys in grade school, she’s got a great gig at the New Yorker. So how is she not a career woman who’s also a mom?

I’ve been too busy to figure it out, since I am a career woman who’s also a mom. I haven’t always found time to read Flanagan’s glossy essays, although I know I should, since she drives some feminist writers I admire to fits. Not me, I always said, with (dare I confess?) a semi-secret, Flanagan-like flash of self-satisfaction: I would never judge those women who are driven nuts by Flanagan, but maybe I’m just a little wiser, a little more secure in my choices, just a bit harder to rattle than they are, the poor dears.

Then I picked up Flanagan’s new book, “To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife,” and I lost my equanimity. It’s mostly a lightly reworked compilation of her New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly essays from the last few years, but dressed up with a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger introduction blaming feminism for causing women “heartache,” and a truly below-the-belt conclusion, on how surviving breast cancer confirmed Flanagan’s conviction that traditional marriage and motherhood is best. I put the book aside for almost two months because even though I’m tough, I’m not tough enough to kick someone with cancer, and Flanagan deserves a kick for the dishonest and divisive gloss these new essays give the book, and her whole career. But I guess I learned something new about myself in this process: Apparently I am tough enough to kick someone with cancer, but only after feeling bad about it for a while.

One bitter feminazi even went so far as to insist that the lovely Flanagan is pulling off an even more massive deception:

Sorry to be a spoiler – and, really, that woman they hired for the author photo is gorgeous – but I finally get it: Caitlin Flanagan is actually a man! She had me going there for a while with the whole “woe is men” thing: Surely they should suffer less nagging about lunch and laundry and enjoy more conjugal hokey-pokey, right?

A profile in Elle makes her look vicious:

Driving to meet Flanagan, I call home to Brooklyn and learn that our gerbil has just died. My elder girl is a little sad, my babysitter tells me, but doing okay. My younger, barely two, doesn’t know the difference. I feel a twinge of guilt for not being there, and it’s the first thing I mention once Flanagan and I settle in to talk in the sunroom of her large, gracious home in L.A.’s affluent Hancock Park. What will she say, this woman who insists that children suffer if their mother works at all, who loved teaching high school English but wouldn’t think of returning until her twin boys, eight years old, are in college “because I would never be away from my kids”?

“She’ll grow from it,” Flanagan says winningly. “Your daughter will grow from her gerbil dying while you’re not there.” There isn’t a hint of disingenuousness in her voice; indeed, she’s so earnest I worry that I’ve exaggerated “Gerby’s” place in our hearts. Maybe she’s different in person than on paper….

Midway through the interview in her home, I say that I noticed she removed the most searing line from her revised “Serfdom” essay: “When a mother works, something is lost.” So, I ask her, do you stand by that line? “Yeah,” Flanagan says, her voice now soft, serious. “The gerbil’s dead, and you’re here.”

It’s not surprising that Flanagan pushes buttons. Even I winced just a little at her enthusiastic agreement with Colbert’s nostalgic reference to the good old days when women who declined sex with their husbands were labeled crazy and lobotomized. But I’m sure she was just being her playful, kittenish self. And I did love her shoes.

Crossposted from The Blogging Curmudgeon.

Soj, you are a character! I mean that literally. It seems that your identity and the particulars of your life and career came under a bit of scrutiny on both the Daily Kos and Booman Tribune. As if that weren’t bad enough, the findings of these discussions found their way into the hands of your nemeses the Super Patriots. Now I find that you have penned the most bizarre mea culpa it has ever been my displeasure to read. Unfortunately, that writing raises far more questions than it answers. Soj of March 2006  writes:

The truth is that I have not always been “me”, that is to say “Soj”. I use a pseudonymn and protect my own privacy for a number of reasons, but how I became “Soj” involves someone who was very close to me and the idiot Super Patriots have managed to re-open that wound.

The person they say I am is “SE Reames”. Just about everyone who knew him called him “Eddy” however and he was a very good friend of mine, someone I’ve known for over 20 years. He’s not here anymore, which is why it hurts, and these bozos got their laughs off of me like they wanted to.

I don’t know how Eddy had been using the internet, but I know for a long time his nickname (or “handle” as they used to call it) was Sojosoniq. That was what he called his “DJ name” because he used to spin records when he lived in Des Moines, Iowa. He never made any professional records or anything, but he used to upload his mixes onto the internet and “Sojosoniq” was his DJ name…. At some point while at my house, he showed me this DailyKos website (which by the way is the first time I’d ever heard of the word “blog”), logging on as “Soj”. Why it wasn’t Sojosoniq, I don’t know, maybe because it was a political website and he wanted a more “serious” name. I don’t know and frankly I don’t care.

Soj of June 2005 wrote:

I’ve never done this before but I think now is as good as time as any to explain the name “soj”.

First, it is most definitely inspired by the feminist Sojourner Truth, who spoke with incredible courage at a time when she was a double non-entity – both black and a woman.  Her speeches and statements are online and if you look at the date she spoke them, it just amazes me that anyone could speak “truth to power” at a time when the mentality was so different.. and so hostile to what she had to say.  That’s real courage and it inspires me daily to stand up for and to say what’s right.

Secondly, I like the second part of her name, which is “truth”.  And that’s something that inspires me every day, to speak the truth on the issues I feel are important.

Third, the word “sojourner” comes from an old Latin root, which means someone who “sojourns”, or to be a “temporary traveler”.  Since I’ve traveled all my life and been a temporary resident everywhere I’ve lived, I am indeed a living sojourner.  It’s also a semi-synonymn with the word “pilgrim” and I often feel like my entire life has been a pilgrimage.

Fourth, “The Sojourner” by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, is one of the most profound and moving books I’ve ever read in my life.  I regret to say my copy of this book is in a box in the USA now, but I’ve read it dozens and dozens of times and the story is in my heart if not on my bookshelf.

So were you lying then or are you lying now?

Now when you say that your long lost friend Eddy introduced you to blogs when he showed you Daily Kos — you know, the first time you’d heard the word “blog” — was that before or after your pursuit of Tom Tomorrow led you to the same  discovery.

Seven or eight years ago I used to read a free newspaper in a midwestern city, which had what I thought was a local comic strip of biting political satire.  It turns out that comic was This Modern World, distributed nationally, written by a genius who calls himself  Tom Tomorrow.

Approximately three years ago, in a late-night web surfing session, I re-discovered that comic strip online and there on his site was a “blog”.  One thing led to another and I was soon visiting others, including DailyKos, and joined up.

So Eddy let you borrow his password and post under his name. What a guy.

So perhaps a half dozen times in 2003, if you find some ancient old comment on there under “Soj”, that was me. But the vast majority of them were him. It was a fairly small website at that time and neither he nor I had any idea of what would come in the future.

The first soj diary currently listed in the Daily Kos data base, a diary entitled “What’s Going on in Russia” is dated 11/1/03. I count 73 diaries in 2003, mostly on foreign affairs, and strangely, including several of the  World Updates that you do to this day, under the name PDB. Is that an idea you took from the late Eddy Reames — God rest his soul — along with his identity?

The first  comment in the data base is dated 10/14/03. I count 438 comments in 2003 under the nickname soj. I’ve read a number of them. The writing style is awfully similar to yours. A lot of them are in the area you take such pride in, foreign affairs. And many of them are in the threads for World Updates by soj.

And while we’re on the subject of World Updates, another important point suggests itself. Your first World Update appears on Daily Kos on  11/8/03. On  11/12/03 another World Update becomes the first post on a blog then called “Flogging the Simian” now called “An American in Romania.” It is the blog of someone called soj, but it appears in November of 2003; a time when you claim to have only contributed a half a dozen posts under your friend’s moniker. Someone started this blog. Was it the late, great Eddy Reames, or was it you?

In an entry dated 12/31/04 you say, “I started my blog in November of 2003, covering the revolution in the Republic of Georgia.” You thank the many people who helped you with Flogging the Simian.

My humble and eternal gratitude goes to: PB, BC, HH, SS, BL, RC, PF, EF, SM, CT, GB, MB, SM, EB, KC, EA, JK-S, TH-J, JG, SH, DT, VR, RYP, JT, BS, DM and last but not least, Debra Bennett. I sure hope I haven’t forgotten anyone 🙂

You’ve forgotten SER, Samuel Edward Reames, your dear departed friend, who gave you your entre into the blogosphere. That’s quite an oversight.

And now, according to you,  you’ve co-opted not only the ideas, but the identity of a dead man, so you could feel close to him. That’s a little creepy.

So to answer your question, at some point after his death, I was on the internet and on the DailyKos site. And partly to honor his memory and feel like a piece of him was “still there”, and partly just due to laziness, I continued to use his nickname.

I’m also a little confused about this.

Idema always claims to have contacts in military intelligence.  Let me tell you what a damned lie that is, because the  real military intelligence contacted me two years ago asking me (in confidence) if I was Eddy Reames, etc. I had a courteous discussion with that officer and she and I have had a productive relationship ever since, but then again she is a real officer and not a blowhard show-off like Idema and the “anti-sex trafficker” crew.

Two things: 1) What exactly is the “real” military intelligence? There are 4 branches of the US military: Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. Each has its own intelligence division. The Coast Guard has yet another. Who contacted you? Naval Intelligence? Coast Guard Intelligence? How does your contact with this one officer give you such insight into Idema’s alleged contacts? Did this officer speak for every military intelligence agency? Did they tell you that Idema had no contact with any of those agencies? 2) Being an “anti sex trafficker” is a bad thing? Who on earth do you know who is “pro sex trafficking?”

You tell us that Eddy was a pretty simple guy, and never did the exciting things that you imply you have done.

He never had anything but civilian, unclassified jobs at ordinary places of employment like a hardware store.

The outrageous nature of your career claims have been well covered elsewhere. Are you now attempting to throw a little sand in our eyes and obscure your job record once again? Is this you or the late Eddy Reames describing menial work on  12/4/03?

As for being “distracted” by a menial job, I rather find that menial jobs pay me a little but don’t ask me to think too much.  I use that time to think and read and research and just generally learn things that otherwise I’d never have time to do.  I might get paid only X dollars per hour, but in a sense, the City of Macon (and so many other jobs before it) are paying me to:

Read the news, learn Romanian, build complicated charts and datasets in Excel,   read internal Homeland Security documents, learn how to file/write grants to federal agencies, meet criminals and the victims of crime and hang out with all kinds of lower-income people  I’d never otherwise meet, etc, etc.

I only ask because it strikes me that, if it’s Eddy, you two had a lot in common: an interest in Romania, working for the Macon PD and Homeland Security… Yet this post describes it as menial work. Whereas this more recent  post makes it sound much more exciting and important.

A few years ago I was unemployed and through a moderately strange series of flukes, I ended up working in law enforcement.  I should mention here I’ve been a lifelong pacifist.  I was “promoted” straight to the Detective Bureau and worked murders, rapes, armed robberies and child molestations.

Eventually 9/11 happened and the creation of Homeland Security and because of my skills, I ended up working with the federales for a while.  I got far enough inside the alphabet soups that I knew that this was not the right career path for me.  In fact, I was strongly disillusioned by the sheer lack of understanding on the part of those who should be better informed and knowledgeable.

I quit all my positions in June 2004 after wrapping up a terrorist case and finalizing the preparations for the G-8 summit in Sea Island.

Then, of course there’s this from the blog of… someone called soj, which again describes the job as pretty mundane. It’s from 3/19/04, a few months before you claimed in the previous post to have been retiring from law enforcement. At what point did your illustrious law enforcement career really take off?

A lot of people already know this, so it’s not like I’m giving away state secrets or anything, but in case you didn’t already know, I work for the police.

Let me just clarify this issue right up front, because I know a lot of the people who visit this odd little corner of the universe come from countries with different kinds of police. Let me clarify this: I am talking about the police in my town only. I can’t speak for all police. I am only going to speak about my police.

Also let me say before there’s any confusion: I am not a police officer. I do not carry a gun. I have never arrested anyone. I have never put anyone in jail. I do not drive a police car. My job is to interview people….

For the record: I work in a “normal” office. I sit behind a desk. I have a computer and a printer. There are no bright lights. There are no “1-way” mirrors. There are no videocameras or recorders of any kind.

My job is essentially to be the invisible third person in the room besides the detective and the suspect/witness/victim. When they’re talking, I type down everything they say. When I say “everything”, I mean everything.

Where I come from, that’s called stenography.

One more thing:

I’m an intensely private person and I’ve been keeping my personal life to myself since I was 13, when I tricked a person who lied to me when giving me an “assessment” test. I should tell you all about that sometime, about how a certain very prestigious university was trying to recruit pre-teens for a special program over the summer, but that’s neither here nor there today.

Now you’re just giving me a headache.

Crossposted from The Blogging Curmudgeon and Flogging the Simian.

Just give ’em a hummer. Thus spake Sharon Stone.

Young people talk to me about what to do if they’re being pressed for sex. I tell them (what I believe): Oral sex is a hundred times safer than vaginal or anal sex. ‘If you’re in a situation where you cannot get out of sex, offer a blow job.’ I’m not embarrassed to tell them.

Well I’m mortified to read it.
My contempt for Sharon Stone was well established with the first “Basic Instinct” movie.  Her gleeful participation in a depiction of lesbian and bisexual women that was at equal turns derivative and demonizing; her endless revelry in the tasteless beaver shot that made her career… Must she enjoy turning female sexuality into a cheap sideshow so very much?

With the release of the stunningly unnecessary “Basic Instinct 2,” Stone has been turned loose on an unsuspecting public once again. Her statements, compiled here by Salon, are worth the price of admission.

Stone’s Madonna/whore dichotomy divides the world into women who show their boobies and women who can be taken seriously. As ever, she revels in her role of trivialized sex pot.

People just are sitting there going, like, ‘I don’t care what she’s saying, I don’t care what she’s saying, I just want to know, does she get naked in that movie? Is she naked? Nude? Nude? Naked? Do I see her boobies? I don’t care what she’s saying, I don’t care, I don’t care, is she naked?’ So let’s just get through to that … YES!

Hillary, however, who has never shown her naked boobies in public, to my knowledge, is still just too sexual to have any real gravitas.

Hillary Clinton is fantastic. But I think it is too soon for her to run. This may sound odd, but a woman should be past her sexuality when she runs. Hillary still has sexual power and I don’t think people will accept that. It is too threatening…

Perhaps the Senator from New York should go back to her cookie recipes and leave all the politicking to the hopelessly unattractive.

Note to Miss Stone: It’s harder with you around.

Crossposted from The Blogging Curmudgeon.