hemingway, bush, and really bad books

I was up late two nights ago, when to my surprise I started getting IM's. I should explain that it's a given that I don't get IM's; I'm over 30. No one instant messages me — or almost no one. It was a friend of mine from one of those places God Hath Forgot, one who has developed a razor wit and a great deal of artistic skill. For the sake of this transcript, I shall call her by her Indian name, Walks in the Rain

On New Orleans legacy of President Bush
Dave: Natasha's brother Kevin lives in New Orleans. He and his wife were told "Evacuate or have ID with you so we know whose body it is."
WitR: I guess they weren't taking any chances after Katrina
Dave: Can't blame them. That'll be an albatross around Bush's neck about as long as Iraq will be. Twin failures.
WitR: is there room for another albatross around his neck? he's got a flock already
Dave: It depends. How many arrows does he have in that damn crossbow of his anyway?
WitR: secretly Cheney is his living quiver. That's why he always looks so uncomfortable.
Dave: Ah. The old +5 Quiver of Cheney. Guaranteed to hit an albatross at every turn.
WitR: if not quail.
Dave: And I guess that makes the GOP the crew of dead souls manning the ship.
(Clearly Cheney has a cursed -5 shotgun of birding)

On Samuel Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," and other great literature
WitR: I have not read the poem since ninth grade and just barely remember that the crew is dead
Dave: For shame. I read the book just a few months ago to my kids.
WitR: well, i tend to forget things that i associate with ernest hemingway and my ex's music collection
Dave: You associate "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" with Hemingway!?
I think I'm going to be sick, just imagining how Hemingway would tell the story.
WitR: no, i associate everything i was forced to read for school with ernest hemingway
Dave: "The ancient mariner had been wounded in the war, and had never been able to have sex since."
It was assigned in freshman lit. I enjoyed it anyway.
"her hair was black, her lips were red, her skin was white as leprosy"
WitR: "There was a man. He shot a bird. Everyone died. The wind was cold."
you realize that i had more than one book assigned by hemingway, and yet we never got around to discussing his BLATANTLY obvious misogynistic issues
Dave: Well, you did go to a Christian high school. Misogyny is a fabrication of feminazis, don't you know.
WitR: no, really! we like women! we just don't think they should do anything that doesn't involve uteruses.
Dave: Unless their husbands or fathers tell them to.

On the coherency of the Inernet and those who write therein:
Dave: OK, I just read so-and-so's post. I can't tell if he's agreeing with you or dismissing your post as the first wave of analyseing (sic) Palin, or fluf. (sic)
His creative spelling doesn't make him easier to understand.
WitR: i can deal with creative spelling because my college roommate had a learning disability. It's the creative syntax and punctuation that throws me off.
Dave: If it were just creative spelling, I could manage. But he's got the syntax and punctuation too -- not to mention unclear and underdeveloped thoughts -- and the total leaves me at a loss.
WitR: I think he may just be a malfunctioning turing program
Dave: On the other hand, his "be-bop" post makes perfect sense.
WitR: maybe the closer he gets to agreeing with me, the better he writes
Dave: Doubtless that's true of us all.
The Buddha himself gained enlightenment, started agreeing with you, and wrote flawlessly.
WitR: i think if i'm the pinnacle of human development, someone is playing a serious prank on humanity
Dave: This is revelation to you?
WitR: merely stating the obvious for the elucidation of humankind
it's Zen
for my next trick i will clap one hand

On the latest attempts at the Great End-Times novel:
WitR: http://www.arrivaloftheprince.com <-- egads="" horrible.="" looks="" p="" this="">Dave: Wow. How on earth do you find these things?
WitR: facebook sidebar ad, actually. god only knows why it showed up for me, usually i get olivia cruises and photography classes
Dave: You realize I have to buy you a copy of the book for Christmas now. Along with "The Eye of Argon."
WitR: do it, and i'll send your daughters a starter beading kit
Davw: We'll add the beading kit to all the other beading kits they have. You'll have to do better than that to threaten me.
WitR: curses. foiled again. st. bernard puppy?
Dave: Evangeline's allergic to dogs. Sorry. "it was inconceivable, but it was becoming clear that the earth's rotation was inexplicably slowing down" It's that whole lost day with Joshua all over again! Thank God NASA already has it figured out. "What happens if it keeps slowing down?" asked the President.
WitR: i like how the Senate chaplain is now in high-level security briefings
Dave: Good to know that Bush is still at the helm when Armageddon comes. "Doctor Wang removed a pipe from his coat pocket and began to fumble with it. He could not conceal the fact that his hands were shaking" Oh, thank God, it;s just his hands shaking. For a moment I thought he was going to get footloose.
WitR: oh man. read the page on lucifer's DNA it involves Nephilim, naturally
Dave: Of course. I hadn't realized it, but that whole tradition has roots in the book of Enoch. Pullman drew on a lot of that for "His Dark Materials."
WitR: carey builds on a lot of angelology for the kushiel series, actually more of an alternate-universe setup there
Dave: Where's the page on Lucifer's DNA?
WitR: http://www.arrivaloftheprince.com/luciferDNA.htm
Dave: I have to say, so far it looks better than "Left Behind."
WitR: that's about like saying that Wendy's is better than McDonalds
Dave: I didn't say it was high praise.
WitR: honestly, reading the setup, it COULD be interesting, in THEORY, but sadly, the fact that the author is a Christian totally blows its chances of doing so
Dave: His explanation of the book and Uizhun-Tabriz actually is pretty interesting. Too bad he didn't write the book that well. I hate to agree, but you're right.
WitR: http://www.arrivaloftheprince.com/StoneTablets.htm
Dave: The only good writers in the Christian market are all dead.
WitR: that's because no living author with a sense of decency would be caught dead in the Christian market if they're any good at all they have a major market presence anyway
Dave: "The deciphered message of this tablet is: 14q43 215860406 215882973" My life has been transformed.
WitR: yes! now you know God's mastercard number.
Dave: Alas, they won't accept the cattle on a thousand hills down at the supermarket.
WitR: yeah, but think of the amazon bill you could run up with it
Dave: Adds a whole new meaning to "Forgive us our debts," doesn't it?
WitR: indeed, though you have to wonder what God's credit score would be satan's is obviously 666 so given numerology, that would make jesus' a respectable 777
Dave: In this economy, it's probably dropped. Although Satan probably qualifies for a Bush tax cut. Jesus, being working class, it SOOL, being as he's a shameless grifter and leech on the welfare state. I bet his credit rating is in tatters.
WitR: well, i'd imagine rather that he has little to no credit history, never having the wherewithal to apply for any
Dave: Where have you been the last twelve months? That's no impediment to getting financing.
WitR: yeah, but whenever he applies for a mortgage he keeps getting denied when he uses a house in Heaven as collateral >>#That Lucifer was a mortal—and therefore had DNA. This fact is also in the Bible.<< Of course! I totally learned about Lucifer's DNA in sunday school.
Dave: Sure. It's right before the passage that talks about the collapse of the vapor canopy sending all the animals into the first-ever hibernative state.
Surely you remember that.
WitR: unfortunately there actually was a vapor canopy entry in the world history / bible class i took in high school
Dave: Well of course there was. You didn't think I was writing that by accident, did you?

This is why I support Barack Obama (and why you should too)

I can't speak for anyone else and why she's so taken with Barack Obama, but here are a few of the things that I like:

1. He has a track record of working for the dispossessed in inner-city Chicago.
2. He has a proven history of working with people from both sides of the aisle. I've noticed that he hasn't engaged in any of the personal attacks that have come from the Republican corner. Character assassination becomes no one, and it is especially not desired in a president.
3. He actually listens to advisers when they tell him things contrary to what he thinks.
4. He realizes that our nation has lost a lot of international standing in the past eight years and that the old days are over. We can no longer get what we want because we're America.
5. It's true he opposed the surge in Iraq, which Sen. McCain supported and which apparently has quelled a lot of the unrest there. On the other hand, he also didn't support invading a sovereign nation without provocation, plunging an entire country into chaos, and destabilizing the entire region.*
6. Obama favors moving the United States to greater energy independence. This is a matter of national security, as well as environmental security, and industrial and economic well-being. Remember, he has called for developing a Green Belt here in America, developing sustainable industry to take the place of the Rust Belt that languished and fell apart under the efforts set up by the Reagan and subsequent administrations of "Let businesses go and they'll do what's best." (Which they did -- for the bottom line, which involved moving outside the U.S. and laying off thousands of workers.)
7. As thrilled as I am that the Republicans finally have nominated a woman for the vice presidency, let me point out that should anything happen to Obama, Biden has a strong political resume and presumably would make a viable replacement. Palin's resume is too thin to say the same should anything happen to McCain.

On those things that may concern others:

1. He is not a Muslim. Even if he were, that is neither cause for alarm, nor even for concern. If this is a concern, please get over it.
2. Yes, he is black. That is an asset. Our past 43 presidents have all come from positions of power, wealth, influence and uncounted privilege, and to some extent that's had to affect foreign policy. Obama has had to deal with the downside of America. He's been subject to racism, he's had to prove his worth time and again, and he's done it. In fact, he just recently paid off his college loans. Do you really think that a man who's had to prove himself so many times is just going to assume that the world will do what we wants, should he become president?
3. Also true, his experience at the national level is limited. The issue here isn't experience as much as it is wisdom and willingness to listen to qualified advisers. Obama has plenty of experience at organizing people, building consensus, and getting things done in an above-board manner.
   
   Are people that different at the world stage? Small-minded people remain small-minded whether they work at the city clerk's office, the foreign consulate, or the Grand Assembly. Obama knows how to connect with people, just like George W, Bush doesn't and Ronald Reagan did. Bush also has had great advisers, like Colin Powell, but he doesn't know how to connect with people, and he's ignored advisers when he disagrees with them. Look how that's turned out.
4. Yes, he's "liberal." I wish I knew what people meant by that these days, though, because it seems to an empty pejorative any more. Bush is billed as a conservative, even though he's gone on runaway spending sprees without a plan on how to pay for them, and he's engaged in nation-building of the worst possible sort.
   
   And my mother, God bless her, criticizes Obama for being liberal and yet she's voiced support in the past for abortion and physician-assisted suicide while laying claim to being a conservative. (On the former, at least, she agrees with Obama's stated position, if not McCain's, and Obama's position anyway is "We all want fewer of them, so let's work together.")

* Edited to add: Actually, he voted against funding for the troop when there was no timeline set for their withdrawal. McCain also voted against funding, when there was a timeline attached. Therefore it is just as accurate to say that McCain voted against the surge. And in any event, the real successes there seem to have flowed from the Sunni tribal leaders who have broken with the insurgency and with al Qaeda in Iraq, and not from any increase in U.S. troops.

A few predictions about where gas is taking us

With gas at nearly $4 a gallon in most parts of the country and topping $5 in some states, I'd like to make a few predictions about the next few years.

1. Big Oil is going to be as popular as President Bush. There's going to be some serious pushback against oil companies for making record profits while the rest of are forking over $60 or more to fill up our gas tanks. Right now it's just congressional hearings. I'll be surprised if we don't see some sort of regulatory controls put in place, and soon, to rein in the energy speculators who are driving oil costs up so high, so quickly.

That's soon as is in "under the next presidential administration." Bush is solidly in the Republican camp that holds that government regulation of corporations and business is fundamentally bad for America. Whoever our next president is, we're likely to see a different policy take root, one that allows greater regulation of commodities such as oil, such as we had before the Reagan administration began dismantling regulation.

2. People are going to drive a lot less. Forget canceled or scaled-down vacations, basic day-to-day travel is going to take a hit. We're seeing some of that already, as commuter trains are becoming more popular in areas where they exist, as more businesses encourage carpooling, and so on.

Speaking for myself, I've made a tremendous effort to combine trips, even if it means delaying getting something for a few days. I've gone without milk for three days rather than make a trip to the supermarket before I take Rachel to gymnastics on Thursday, right next to the supermarket. We also walk a lot more. I walk Evangeline to school every day now, and back from school when I can, and I expect on Sunday that we will walk to church as well.

We're likely to see changes in the way people attend church or other houses of worship, for that matter. People who have been driving 20 minutes or more to attend worship services somewhere else probably are going to stop. Many of them will just stop going, and others who don't stop going will at least look for a place closer to home.

That will hold true for other things as well. I imagine that we're going to see a rise in the number of people who live near where they work. They'll either get new jobs, or they'll move. A 40- or 60-minute commute by car just isn't going to be feasible anymore.

3. Cars are going to change as well. Remember how upset Detroit was at the thought of tough new mileage standards that were still weaker than anything else in the world?

We're going to see how fast Detroit can design more efficient cars. Cars made in America are going to be smaller and lighter, and they're going to get a heck of a lot better than 24 mpg. Two-seaters like the Fortwo will become more standard for singles, married couples without children, and commuters; and even family cars will change. We're going to see a lot fewer sport utility vehicles and no Hummers, and a lot more hybrids.

New York and Los Angeles already are running some experiments with fuel-cell cars. If any politicians out there are smart and have an eye to the future, they're going to make it a priority to buy those cars for city and state-owned fleets.

That will drive down the price of the cars, for starters, but it also will lay the foundation for a distribution infrastructure for hydrogen fuel, making widespread use more feasible.

4. People are going to continue to buy less. Who can afford to spend $40 taking a family of four out to eat at a restaurant when you can feed that same family for less than $8 with a homemade meal?

And with food and fuel costing so much more, and with fuel driving up the cost of everything it's used to transport, who's got the money for frivolous purchases? Expect less expensive Christmases and birthdays, more hand-me-down clothing, and more of an effort to salvage things we once would have thrown away without a second thought.

5. People with yards are going to realize that there are better things to grow on their land than grass. If you pay $2 for a pound of tomatoes, but can buy an entire tomato plant for that same $2 at a nursery, where are you going to spend your money?

You may buy tomatoes until yours are ripe enough to eat, but we're going to see a lot more people having a go at gardening. I've already saved a bundle on the lettuce we grow in our garden, and I hope to save more on beans, tomatoes, yellow squash and zucchini. Maybe even some spices and some cucumbers. We'll have to see.

Just about everyone can grow some sort of vegetable. Even apartment-dwellers typically have a porch where they could put a tomato plant in a ten-gallon pot, or a windowbox where they can grow lettuce cheaply. A smart politician, or at least one with a sense of leadership, is going to make "liberty gardens" into a matter of patriotism, as FDR did with victory gardens during World War II.

It wouldn't take much effort to turn vacant lots into community gardens, to keep people from going hungry, nor would it take much sacrifice for corporations with huge and useless lawns to convert some of that space over to community agriculture, saving themselves the cost of maintaining their lawns and banking themselves some serious goodwill in the public eye.

how low can you go?

According to an article in Newsweek, Republicans are doing so badly in the court of public opinion that if elections were held today, the Democrats would regain control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Bush's approval rating stands at 33 percent, only one quarter of Americans are satisfied with the direction of the country and more than half believe House Speaker Dennis Hastert was aware of former congressman Mark Foley's peccadilloes and tried to cover them up to avoid scandal. On Iraq, 58 Americans out of every 100 believe that the administration deliberately misled voters in the leadup to the war, 64 percent believe we are losing the war, two in three believe it has put as at greater risk of terror attacks, and 53 percent believe the entire war was a mistake.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, incidentally, has a lower approval rating than Bush, at only 33 percent, with nearly half of all Americans believing he should resign.

As Newsweek puts it:

Democrats now outdistance Republicans on every single issue that could decide voters’' choices come Nov. 7. In addition to winning— for the first time in the Newsweek poll— on the question of which party is more trusted to fight the war on terror (44 to 37 percent) and moral values (42 percent to 36 percent), the Democrats now inspire more trust than the GOP on handling Iraq (47 to 34); the economy (53 to 31); health care (57 to 24); federal spending and the deficit (53 to 29); gas and oil prices (56 to 23); and immigration (43 to 34).

It's so bad that France has become Bush's closest ally.

Read the entire story.


Copyright © 2006 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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If only foresight were 20/20 as well

Following North Korea's announcement of a test nuclear detonation, President Bush declared that their announcement, let alone any actual tests, constitutes a grave threat to the stability of Southeast Asia and requires an immediate response.

Well, thank God the United States isn't involved in any protracted wars elsewhere in the world over stoked-up concerns about threats that proved to be nonexistent and stemming from a policy based on personal conviction rather than fact.