Children's Pageants

I am going to make a larger comment about this. When the program came on last night, I couldn't focus on it. I'm going to watch it uninterrupted soon (hopefully tomorrow) and comment. Honestly, what I saw disturbed me. I can only imagine what the whole program will be like. It'll be like watching that show that Bravo had back in the day about Sports Kids Moms and Dads and Cheerleader Nation. Watching these shows made me feel kind of dirty.

Hip-Hop Friday

Maybe this will be the friday theme in lieu of random 10's, which is on sunday. I love hip-hop. I grew up with hip-hop, and it is a part of me. That's why I am sad to see it falling down the drain through the work of mainstream rap artists who are more concerned with making money than actually working to perfect their craft and be the best artists they can be. With that in mind, I'm am going to post pure hip-hop videos each friday. This week, it was spurred on by a conversation I had about the art of beatboxing.

I find beatboxing to be a good display of talent, but, essentially, worthless on its own. It never grabbed me as a form. I always preferred the use of the 1s and 2s aka the Turntables. These videos are just displays of what can be done with two turntables, and the true kaleidoscope of color that real hip-hop is. It's not just menacing scrawny Black dudes with bad fashion sense and questionable teeth. If you don't get this, you probably don't understand what hip-hop is really about, and you need to recognize...quick. The shit you hear on the radio isn't hip-hop. This is real hip-hop.

DJ Shortee Juggling "Watch Out Now" by the Beatnuts



Grand Master Q-Bert- The Greatest One Handed



Roc Raida Juggling "Push It"

The Beauty of Lip Synching

Milli Vanilli tried to make a career out of lip synching. Jennifer Lopez is doing it right now with her albums and a sham of an international tour a year or two ago. Neither of the two previously mentioned people can really sing at all. Rob and Fab tried to prove it with a second album, which is like having nails scratch across a chalkboard. Many mainstream pop artists don't bother to put on a real performance, cheating their audience of the money that they have paid for their show. If I go to a concert, I expect to hear the band play as this is a situation where a person is not forced to lip sync; the artist has made a conscious choice to do so.

If you are willing to play a live show, but the show has forced you to lip sync, why not fake it? This is what Blur did on Top of the Pops playing There's No Other Way. Pay attention to Graham Coxon's guitar solo in the middle of this song. Hilarious.



I'm still fixing with my schedule and waiting for some actual news to appear that I can blog about. I, unintentionally, decided to start blogging at the worst possible time ever.

What The Fuck?

Little Beauties: Ultimate Kiddie Queen Showdown. Are you fucking kidding me, VH1? This is offensive.

A Note on Sexism in Rap

Imus has been getting defended by people who say that rap music and Black culture says the word ho, so therefore Imus should be allowed to say the word ho.

To be fair, rap music does say ho. Quite a lot in fact. They also say bitch, slut, trick, skeezer, whore, and other offensive terms towards women. Snoop has tried to defend his use of the term ho, saying it was a woman who was never going to amount to anything. It also is a term used in the Black community a lot as well. But that makes my point even easier for me.

The term ho is unacceptable for anyone to use. The presence of hypermasculinity and misogyny in rap has been frequently campaigned against for years. Queen Latifah even wrote a song about it back in the mid-1990's:



As it was noted on Huffington Post, much of rap is controlled by white people. Black people have to watch out with their own language. We have to stop this negative language towards ourselves. Hip-hop's international and cross-cultural. What was once said amongst Blacks is now disseminated amongst millions of white, black, latino, asian, and african people. This has to be recognized and respected; the language has to get cleaned up because White America is not going to do it for us, as can clearly be seen by the release of the truly offensive Tip Drill by Nelly. I have posted the video below for demonstrative purposes.



Imus should be a wake-up to Black America that it is an influence and that it needs to clean up to keep up from looking like a bunch of shuckin'-n'-jivin' jiggaboos. Oh wait, it's too late for that. But, we were able to recover from minstrels. We can recover from inarticulateness as well.

We've Now Officially Fucked Up

There's tons of stuff that bothers me. The War, Misappropriated Taxes, Wasted Money, Missile Defense Systems that don't have awesome videos to go along with them. But, this has to top them all. America has decided to defend itself with DOLPHINS AND SEA LIONS!!!! I know this is for real because I read the first article a while ago when it was first suggested. My reaction was pretty much the same, only with about two minutes worth of expletives thrown in. I wouldn't feel bad in saying that this idea is bad as SDI during the Reagan Administration. And it's even worse because I don't get the cool SDI video.

Cool SDI Video

I don't have a anti-dolphin agenda. I have a anti-dumb project agenda. Why don't we spend money to actually secure our borders in lieu of spending money on training dolphins to be eaten by orcas. I seriously don't have enough words to tell you how disappointed I am that I don't get at least a graphic to show the stupidity of this idea.

He's one Super Mad Dude

Lee Iacocca's Mad as Hell.

gwb43.com = Watergate?

For the last few months, there has been the unraveling controversy swirling around the Department of Justice firing eight seemingly loyal and extremely qualified US Attorneys. The Democrats, in their supervisory role as the legislative branch (yeah!!! checks and balances!!!), are trying to figure out what the hell exactly is going on. Unfortunately for them, the Bush White House is being unnecessarily obstructionist in their actions. Instead of turning over necessary documents and other such things, they are putting up a wall and being unhelpful instead of trying to get this out of the way.

For the uninitiated to this whole fiasco, you need to go to TPM Muckraker, who first picked up on this scandal through the firing of the first attorney out in California Carol Lam. There are so many detail things and legalese statements that it would literally take computer page after page to being to get to the underbelly of this whole thing. You would be confused, and I would have carpal tunnel.

So, from where we are now, there has been the realization that the Bush Administration is involved, not necessarily directly but definitely not indirectly. There has been impropriety, but no one knows where it is coming from. Bush tried to offer a compromise by offering both Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and former White House Counsel and failed Supreme Court Candidate (due to her lack of qualifications) Harriet Miers to the Senate Judiciary Committee, but not under oath and with no transcript. Essentially, they could lie and totally cover their asses. With the Democrats soundly refusing this "deal," the Democrats have now asked for the email records of the persons who are most likely involved in this whole scandal. Unfortunately, those records have disappeared.

Yes, that's right! In the face of all logic and actual law, the White House has managed to "misplace" 5 MILLION e-mails from a two-year period between March 2003 and October 2005. I have emails from 2005. It's not that hard to keep them around. They are the Federal Government. If their email boxes were getting packed, they needed to sign up for some gmail accounts or something. Get some ads and learn how to actually run the country or meet some surrogate parents or something. Now, if I showed these facts to a tweener who cared more about Sanjaya's hair (which was actually quite good) than politics, she would know that this is fishy.

I will go a step further. This is Bush's albatross, his Watergate. He and his cronies attempted to be too slick, circumventing the standard White House services to use RNC provided ones. But, that tactic, along with being illegal, came back to bite them in the rear as they are not protected by the overused grail of presidential politics: the executive privilege. These emails are the new 18 minute gap (if you don't understand, read all the president's men, a great and quick read). Additionally, this is becoming the new 18 minute gap due to the ways in which the Administration is trying to be secretive about its action. If you don't believe me, read these comments from today's White House press conference.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales meets the firing squad in the coming weeks. I hope he has prepared thoroughly because there have been more questions raised than people offended by Imus's comments. There is more on this issue at Firedoglake. But, seriously, if you are interested in how your country has been destroyed by the Bush Administration (this is post-partisanship; this is about being an American who believes in Democracy), you need to start watching C-SPAN next week as the House and Senate both go back into session and this gains more traction.

Kurt Vonnegut, Again

I sort of skimmed the obit last night when it came out. I didn't notice until listening to the ongoing tribute that NPR was doing today to him that Vonnegut died from a fall. I thought that old people falling was a joke hence me laughing constantly at the Medic Alert ads with the old Surgeon General C. Everett Koop talking about using one in his own house. I thought he just wanted people to notice that he had actually kicked the bucket. Apparently, that shit is serious. Don't let your seniors fall. You don't want to be that guy who goes out from complications from falling because you would suck. Vonnegut gets a pass because he was hilarious and an amazing writer. Honestly, he could have died however he wanted to.

Chainsaws: Frequently Fun, Frequently Dangerous

I'm not sure that I need to make a lot of comments here on this one. A woman killed another woman with a chainsaw. What can I say except, aside from the brutality of this crime, this is possibly one of the best quotes relating to a premeditated death I've ever read:

"This is not a game. This is real life. And Darlene VanderGiesen is really dead," State Attorney Dave Nelson said.

Who says shit like that? We all know she's dead. This happened over a year ago! She's not Tupac, whose chilling out in Michigan by the way, putting out a new album every other year. In terms of strange revenges on lovers, this is second to the permanent hilarity that is the diapered astronaut driving cross-country to kill her lover's actual girlfriend. Oh, that story makes me smile when I think of it. The same way thinking about Mommie Dearest does.

A Defense of Not Dancing

I listen to a lot of indie rock. Some might even call me a "hipster." I never would, but I have had the title leveled at me a few times. For some reason, this is entailed with being unemotional and detached from a show, unwilling to dance for a fear of not looking cool. For me, personally, this could be farther from the truth. I don't dance at shows or anywhere else except the confines of my own house because I'm not huge on dancing. I'd rather hang out or spin records than dance. I never found the allure of getting run into people and having booze spilled on me by someone trying to freak to the same songs I have been listening to since I was 15. Also, just because I'm not dancing doesn't mean that I'm at the show just to be seen. I only go to shows to experience new sounds and listen to bands practice their craft. It's more interesting to me to watch a band ply their craft actively with smoothness. Some are chaotic, some are relaxing, but as long as they are good, it's always fun even if we don't dance.

So, please dancing concertgoers and other dancers, please stop attacking me and my non-dancing brethren. We are just doing our thing. Let us do our thing without persecution. If someone is hesitant to go on the floor, stop and talk to them. They are probably pretty captivating and interesting to talk to for an hour or two. And dancing isn't a good indication for anything.

This post is all for today. Sorry for the thinness of posting. Not a lot is happening and I have been busy today doing stuff. I'll leave you with two videos for my non-dancers. They are Symphony by Experimental Aircraft and Tugboat by Galaxie 500

R.I.P.

Kirk Vonnegut. American Author. Died at age 84. He will be missed.

Yes!

Via Breezy Jesus (Props: Shakesville).

Last Thing About Imus

On the real, this whole controversy has covered up something that is in dire need of attention: THE RUTGERS BASKETBALL TEAM IS ONE OF THE BEST WOMEN'S TEAMS IN THE COUNTRY!!!!!! They may have lost the championship, but they whipped up on their opponents up to that time. Don Imus and his pointless comment has taken away from the accomplishments of this team and their coach C. Vivian Stringer (for the record: I knew her name before the scandal). They were a 4 seed in this year's tournament and took out some of the best teams in the Women's game. It's a tragedy that a racist comment had to bring attention to one of the most pure games in the sports world: women's college basketball.

Women's college basketball is better than the men's game for a number of reasons, the most of which is they don't pass as much. The college men have a tendency to make the extra pass in lieu of driving the lane, which the women do far more frequently. Additionally, their shot clock is only 30 seconds instead of the preposterous 35 seconds for the men. Women's college basketball is routinely slept on for no good reason. Hopefully, people will now start looking at it and recognizing that, while they may not be the prettiest girls ever, they are certainly just as talented as the boys.

Posing at the Rotunda

The American governmental system is one that is a good idea. Its principles of bicameralism and discussion are ones upon which other countries have based their governments on or had forced upon them. Some of its ideas are not very good (Electoral College), but, on the whole, it is a generally good system. For the system to work, there have to be people who are willing to play together in the sandbox of Washington, D.C. Today, The New York Times ran two articles on two specific issues that the government has been fighting over: election reform and the war in Iraq.

The Republicans and Democrats, on both of these issues, are engaged in a very, very innocuous game of Chicken. The Republicans are insisting that there are huge election fraud issues that need to be solved with things like the Read ID Act. There are not. There are issues of disenfranchisement, but those happen through ridiculous acts such as those of Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio in 2004 as Secretary of State mandating 120-lb index paper thereby disallowing the thousands of voter registration applications that were printed in state papers such as The Cleveland Plain Dealer and people being turned away at the ballot box due to their name being removed from the voter roll. For the record, Blackwell is a Republican. These issues do not ADD people to the voter roll as the Republicans suggest.

The War is one that has divided this country on multiple lines. What is right? What is wrong? What is right is supporting the troops. What is wrong is playing politics with their lives. Both parties are playing politics with the lives of the troops. Bush is unwilling to recognize the fact that Iraq is engaged in a civil war with Sunnis killing Shi'ites and Shi'ites killing Sunnis while the American troops sit in the middle and are killed as well. The Democrats are just as guilty of playing politics. While I do not disagree with their position, I do believe that the lives of troops is more important than making an ideological, "i told you so" stance to Bush. They need to give the money to the troops so they can assure that they don't get killed because they were improperly protected.

War is not the time to play politics. Bush needs to accept that we will have to end this war soon because it is going nowhere. The Dems need to understand that the way to play politics is not with the lives of young Americans. Hopefully, everyone can work on this and get it done.

Sad News

The Man in Black Johnny Cash and his lovely wife June Carter Cash died in 2003. But their house in Hendersonville, TN still stood, until now. I only could have wished for this house to become something of a country Graceland since I will never go to Elvis's Graceland because Elvis is racist and I will never support him in any meaningful way.

I Do Poorly With Vice Presidents

I haven't really posted today because I've been out on the town. I went to trivia night in Frederick. My team came in something other than 1st-3rd. We were going well until the end. We got jammed on a personality question about Justin Chambers of Grey's Anatomy, which is sad because four of the six people on our team ACTUALLY watch the show and should have known the answer. We were in first, but, due to our ineptness, we slipped to fourth. This was only a sign of things to come as the final question made us lose all but 20 points because we couldn't remember that Jack Kemp ran with Bob Dole in 1996. The conservative teams did. Anyway, that took up 6 hours of my time today. So, not too much posting on here. So, I will leave you with the video from now-defunct D.C. shoegaze band Alcian Blue. They were really something special.

It Must Be Hard to Be Rich

For those outside of the sports world, two football players, Adam "Pacman" Jones and Chris Henry, have been making quite a stir. Both have been arrested many times for their off-field antics. Most recently, Pacman started a fight in a strip club in Las Vegas after throwing 81,000 dollars in the air much to the displeasure of the other people in the club. This ended up with a security guard being permanently confined to a wheelchair. Henry has been arrested 4 times in the last 14 months, making him one of the 9 Bengals to be arrested in 9 months. Their actions have made their league look bad, and them look like children.

I have met and talked with football players (for my team, the Baltimore Ravens) and they are all stand-up guys. They know that they are paid to play a game. They take it seriously, but know that they are lucky and love what they do. Apparently, Jones and Henry didn't understand this. The NFL has helped them to realize that they are lucky by suspending Henry for eight games (the season's only 16) and Jones for the entire year.

I hope that this serves as a larger lesson for professional athletes. They should relish the fact that they are allowed to play a game for millions of dollars, and they should conduct themselves in the manner of a professional. You don't live on the street anymore (if you did at all). You're not a thug. You have no chip on your shoulder. The only focus you should have is being the best you can be at your profession. Additionally, you only work for 5-6 months out of the year! Someone, who is not me, looks up to them. They should grow up and act like they are professionals instead of spoiled children.

UPDATE: After watching some ESPN on this, this will be their last chance to salvage their careers. Also, my cousin went to school with these guys (they both went to West Virginia) and noted that they were pretty much like they have been portrayed in the media: irresponsible knuckleheads.

My Sole Comment on Don Imus

If you have been paying attention, Don Imus is in hot shit for calling the Rutgers Women's Basketball Team "nappy-headed hos." I'm not going to explain to you why this is a dumb comment. I'll leave that responsibility to one of the most talented Washington journalists in the game, and former Imus target, Gwen Ifill. This is the only thing I will say on this.

Take a Moon Dance

This is Pink Frost by the Chills. Honestly, this is one of the best songs ever written. I absolutely love this song. It is sweet, haunting, poetic, inventive, everything all at one time. The song is four minutes long, but when you look up, the song is over before you know it.



Bonus: England Made Me by Black Box Recorder

Another Reason to Hate Laguna Beach

While it was mildly enjoyable to me for about five minutes, watching Laguna Beach became more and more of a chore as the season went on, as I had to feign interest in the goings-on of high schoolers in super wealthy Orange County, CA. Disregarding the lush surroundings and superlative camera work, it was watching a group of civilly disengaged, self-absorbed, under-read teenagers with weak vocabularies struggle through the faux difficulty of being extremely privileged and having every boy/girl fawning over them. As you can tell, I was not a huge fan of the show in any meaningful way. Now, I have less reason to like the show.

According to TMZ, pseudo-star of Laguna Beach Jason Wahler was arrested in Washington state this weekend. But this is not the outrage. The outrage is the hateful tirade that came upon being arrested:

Officer DePina, who wrote the report, says when Seattle PD arrived they found a "very intoxicated" Wahler passed out on the floor in a hallway on the third floor. When DePina tried to take Wahler into custody, the former reality star allegedly lashed out, calling the arresting officer "a nig**r, a fag**t, and a poor f**k." According to DePina, Wahler also stated, "that he was rich and would have my ass." Wahler, who was described as "belligerent and hostile," allegedy threated DePina a second time, saying, "Come down to L.A. county and get your ass kicked!"

Now, I don't necessarily like cops. I'd be the first person to go on record to say that. But! I would never contemplate swearing at a cop because that opens the door to getting my ass KICKED!

Regardless of this, Wahler should be ashamed of himself, but he does not need to make a public apology because his post-fact words don't mean shit to me. Honestly, I'm so sick of celebrities, regardless of their list status, making apologies for their language or actions. You do things. Bad shit happens. Unfortunately, it can be racist, homophobic, or sexist. While it might make a small group of people feel better and like the celebrity again, the hollow apologies make me feel the same as their original language: offended and disappointed. Any attempts to level with the public are only weak attempts to keep the money coming in and to not have people boycotting your performances. I would almost rather someone say, yea, I'm a homophobe and stand by it than issue a hollow apology. This would be disappointing for sure, but I would respect them more for standing on their laurels than trying to pull a bait and switch on me because I know that apology, no matter how many times they say it is sincere, is completely insincere.

Paying Attention to The Road

In Thailand, Buddhists are getting ready to celebrate their new year. In celebration of this, they are giving drivers super sour hard candy. The candies are intended to stop accidents on the roads following hard partying by the Thai people. According to the AP:

It's the most important holiday and biggest party time in Thailand, but also a time of carnage on the highways due to the heavy incidence of drunk driving.

While the Buddhists's hearts are in the right place, isn't this like putting a band-aid on an amputated leg? While it might make the doer feel better, it's missing the larger point at hand. Why doesn't Thailand take a cue from America on days that Americans get piss drunk: give drunk people free taxis home instead of letting them endanger themselves and innocent bystanders by getting behind the wheel intoxicated. But, I am only a lowly blogger. What does my voice really matter?

Hotness

Peep the Game at hand. Freestyle. A Capella. All Fire.

10 Political Commandments

Biggie Smalls is often quoted as saying, "never get high off your own supply." This is one of the 10 Crack Commandments. If Karl Rove wasn't so square, he and his buddies might have heeded Biggie's logic.

Note to the Media: Let Her Go!

If you are not an ardent politics nerd like I am, the politics world has been abuzz over a fairly useless issue.

With Congress on break, Nancy Pelosi decided to take a trip to Israel and Syria to open up lines of communication to stop terrorism. A GOP delegation went a week earlier to little fanfare and discussion. But, when Pelosi went, it became pandering to the Syrians, a big wet kiss to President Al-Assad. She has been called the Neville Chamberlain of our time. ICYDK, Chamberlain forfeited the Sudetenland to Hitler prior to WWII with the intention that it would stop him from going to war. As we all well know, this didn't work and Chamberlain became history's punchline. Don't pull a Chamberlain!

She has been attacked for not having standing even though she is second in line for the Presidency in case of emergency as well as dictating the issues that will be discussed on the floor of the House. No, not an inkling of standing.

She has been called a tool of propaganda by the right. In a search to attack her on any basis, the media attacked her on wearing a headscarf in Syria.

As you can tell, much of this has little to do with anything involving Pelosi's actual credibility, the fact that she delivered an accurate message from Israel to the Syrians about wanting to start the peace process, and bringing hope to the Middle East for a peaceful future. This was a slander on Pelosi, pure and simple. She's being questioned on her well-earned merits, as she sitting in a position that she was elected by her peers to hold. The White House is aiming to ruin her actual standing as a congresswoman, and that's pitiful. What does it say about the Bush Administration when they slander a person who is trying to make their job easier? Stew on that, and watch this video of David Gregory on Meet The Press.

Creepy

I am not going to comment on this in any way. I am not a dad nor am I someone's daughter curently. All I am is someone who is creeped out by this. Totally regular observer. If you want an idea of what you are getting into before you start, read this:

The older girls at the Broadmoor tonight are themselves curvaceous and sexy in backless dresses and artful makeup; next to their fathers, some look disconcertingly like wives. In fact, in the parlance of the purity ball folks, one-on-one time with dad is a “date,” and the only sanctioned one a girl can have until she is “courted” by a man. The roles are clear: Dad is the only man in a girl’s life until her husband arrives, a lifestyle straight out of biblical times. “In patriarchy, a father owns a girl’s sexuality,” notes psychologist and feminist author Carol Gilligan, Ph.D. “And like any other property, he guards it, protects it, even loves it.”

Don't say you haven't been warned. The Full Article.

For the record, if I had a daughter, I would never do this to them...ever. Women have the right to explore their sexuality. If anything, it makes life easier. With re: sex, let's face it: most guys are going to have a good time regardless. It's more about the woman in sex, and them knowing what they want. While the woman has been made into the object in sex, in reality, the male is the object in sex. The woman has to use the male to achieve her ends. Male ends are pretty easily achievable. If the woman doesn't know what she wants and how to get it, the whole process is pretty much useless. The only responsibility we have is to teach them how to explore themselves safely and responsibly, not instill a fear of sex within them because no one wins when that happens.

MSNBC: A Passionate Appeal

I have been watching MSNBC for the last few weeks, primarily because I was bored with watching CNN all of the time. This was one of the worst times ever to make such a decision. Why? Three words: Anna Nicole Smith. For some unknown reason, MSNBC is obsessed with this case. As I type right now, Contessa Brewer is talking to her correspondent in Nassau, Bahamas who has been there for weeks now since Rita Cosby was taken out behind the shed and shot like a dog by MSNBC for no apparent reason other than that they didn't like her. But, I digress. Since Ms. Smith's death, MSNBC has covered every aspect of this case. Even as the baby's father is determined to the interest of very few, MSNBC is all over it. Some would call this thoroughness. I would call this beating a dead horse.

With this as a base, I have a few things to ask of MSNBC.

MSNBC: There are larger issues that you need to talk about than a C-List celebrity dying. For example, why is your morning wake up show done by a flaming, irrelevant racist? Why can't any of your anchors hold down the chair for more than an hour? Norah's pregnant; she can't really go anywhere. Why does Contessa Brewer frequently looked confused during breaking news? Whatever happened to Buchanan and Press? I'd rather watch batshit crazy Buchanan for an hour than Tucker Carlson. Also, why not hook up Mike Barnicle with some programming time other than subbing on Hardball? Speaking of which, tell Chris Matthews he doesn't have to yell. He's killing the treble in my TV speakers.

Amusing

Read this article from Firedoglake about our ever-so-brave Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Dead in Motion?

An article from the Telegraph (UK) suggests that Bush has been deserted by the conservatives that bolstered the first six years of his administration. The article is slanderous in a couple of ways, taking cheap shots at the Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her much ballyhooed trip to Israel and Syria. The exact terms were that she is "trespassing on territory usually reserved for the president." Seeing as Bush has done little with regards to actual, meaningful diplomacy as he sends Condi Rice to do all of it for him, I don't really have a problem with someone actually going to talk to the Israelis and Syrians, especially the Syrians as suggested to both the Madame Speaker and the President by the Iraq Study Group (you know, that bipartisan group with the ideas about how to end this whole fiasco. Yea, they never talk about it anymore, as if it's not important or anything).

While this is one major complaint, the larger complaint is the reason that they gave for why Bush is now a lame duck. Former Bush Speechwriter David Frum said:

The root cause of his weakness is the Democrats' seizure of both the Senate and House of Representatives in November's mid-term elections. Without sufficient support to push legislation through Congress, the president was finished, said Mr Frum. "There's no domestic agenda," he said. "There's no possibility at all of the president advancing anything that is acceptable to both the Republicans and Democrats."

There is only one correct comment in this statement: that Bush has no domestic policy. What, besides tax cuts, No Child Left Behind, and the USA PATRIOT (that's how you're supposed to write it as the whole thing is an acronym. Pet Peeve, sorry.) Act, can you say is Bush's Domestic policy? As I type this now, I struggle to think of what else there is aside from Iraq. Bush's downfall isn't his idiocy, over-reliance on others, pandering to special interests, or any of the other corrupt practices of his administration. His failure is that he didn't think big.

That sounds weird doesn't it? He launched a pre-emptive war against an "innocent" country (iraq had saddam, but they were innocent of the charges leveled against it to justify this war), but he didn't think big? Yes, that's exactly right. Bush put all of his eggs in one basket: the war against terrorism. I have larger problems with this "war," as it is like the war on drugs but I won't get into that right now. Bush, after 9/11 (an event that is degraded every time someone uses it for political effect), became the war president, unable to focus on developing the home front and dealing with the many major issues that were directly in front of him as president. Instead, he decided to work on justifying and launching a war that has yet to justify itself and launched Iraq into prolonged civil war while having Afghanistan on the brink of falling back into Taliban rule. Presidents have had bad wars on their hands.

Truman had the fiercely unpopular Korean War during his second term. LBJ fought in Vietnam. Both were able to redeem themselves in the face of history because they did actually useful things during their administration. Truman helped rebuild post-war Europe with the Marshall Plan and was one of the first presidents to acknowledge the need for civil rights in the South, much to the displeasure of the Dixiecrats. LBJ created Medicare and Medicaid, two systems on the brink of destruction by Bush currently, and the Great Society, giving voting rights to Blacks in the South who used to be subjected to poll exams and physical intimidation for wanting to use the rights granted to them by the Constitution.

Unlike Truman and Johnson, Bush does not have this bailout. He has passed tax cuts which are saddling the next generation of Americans (my generation and younger) with higher debts to be paid off and less money coming into the government. No Child Left Behind is a sham, one that schools can't meet and is putting money into his own brother's pocket. All this while the USA PATRIOT Act gives the government the right to look through your personal records if they believe that you are a terrorist, whatever that word may mean since the "terrorists" in Guantanamo Bay have not been named as such or tried as such. He wanted to reform old standards of American government such as Medicare and Social Security. So far, he has been unable to touch Social Security and Medicare saddles Seniors with exorbitantly high prescription drug costs due to the "doughnut hole" in Medicare Plan D.

Bush abandoned his domestic policy with the intent of making himself the war president. Negotiating a plan that actually helps America's children, moves the tax burden off the middle class, and getting Seniors the prescriptions they need to be happy and successful are all things that can be agreed with and need to be done. Bush did not bother to set out an actual policy on these issues, but, instead, pandered to special interests and bad fiscal policy (I guess I shouldn't expect anything less from a man who ran oil companies into the ground), that is when he wasn't going for the photo op. Such an agenda requires Bush to ram things through Congress and complain when someone stops, asks reasonable questions, and then says no because the plan and its components do not make sense. His inability to negotiate and work within the system of democracy has made him an alienating figure in Washington and a figure who draws much ire from both sides of the aisle as his staggeringly low approval ratings show.

Bush is not a lame duck because of Congress, as Frum would suggest. Bush is a lame duck because of Bush. And like most lame ducks, he will have to be put down. Luckily, he won't get a bullet to the head. Unfortunately, he will go to his grave being known as one of the worst presidents of all-time, worse that James Buchanan, Millard Fillmore, and Richard Nixon.

Sunday Night Jams Which Never Come Out Cool

I read a lot of blogs that post lists of random songs. I'm going to start that here. They usually do their's on fridays. Not this guy, we're going with the Sunday Night posts. These things are always strange to me because it either shows that you have amazing taste or you're just kind of spacy and sort of lame. It tends to be the latter for me, but that's why it's random. Put yours in the comments. The posted video est super chouette!



My Fifteen-

Oscillate Wildly- The Smiths
I Believe in You- Kylie Minogue
Almost- OMD
Pink Frost- The Chills
A Better Version- King Tubby w/ The Aggrovators
My Own Private Revolution- PJ Harvey
Dear John- Au Pairs
Young Offender- New Order
Automatic Lover- Dee D. Jackson
Crushed- The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Velvet Water- Stereolab
Ease Jimi- Nightmares on Wax
A Violent Yet Flammable World- Au Revoir Simone
Get Innocuous- LCD Soundsystem
Die, All Right!- The Hives

The New Wave

IMG_0951
Originally uploaded by speedboywonder.

There, that's the face of this personal revolution.

The Start of Nothing in Particular

This is the first blog post. I don't know what this blog's voice will be, but I do hope to maintain it regularly, frequently, and amusingly. Read my profile if you need to know anything about me. I'm out!