In an effort to assuage my own cynicism, I bring you this message of Hope.

This song has become one of my favorite “not strictly a Christmas song” Holiday tunes.

It’s the title track on Steve Earle’s fantastic Jerusalem CD. Do your self (and me) a favor, click the link, buy the cd.

Of Terrorism and the Culture of Fear

Thanks to the combined efforts of “the terrorists”, the news media, and the Bush administration, it appears that we are becoming a nation of trembling Chicken Littles frightened by our own shadows.

I just came across this AP news story by way of Boing Boing, which I will use to illustrate my point.

Basically, here’s what happened:

A Connecticut teacher thought she was alone in the school building. Two teenagers and a custodian, also thinking they were alone in the building began singing “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N’ Roses over the PA system. Upon hearing the lyric

You know where you are?
You’re in the jungle baby
You’re gonna die

the teacher loses her mind, and fearing for her life, barricades herself in a room then notifies the authorities. Six troopers and three police dogs show up and the kids are handcuffed until the “investigation” reveals that there was no threat or danger.

Now honestly, I can undestand how that would startle, even frighten a person, but come on! Surely most rational people would immediately recognize it for exactly what it was; kids goofing off.

Similarly, apparently all it takes is a “suspicious package” or an errant piece of pipe to fling an entire community into mass-hysteria. Recently our local news reported that a man had found what he thought might be a pipe-bomb in his garage. As you can imagine, the response was immediate and overwhelming. With the help of all manner and sorts of high tech equipment, the bomb squad determined that the “device” didn’t contain any explosives. But even after this discovery, they (the reporters and law enforcement) continued to refer to it as a “pipe bomb”.

Uh, excuse me, but isn’t it the addition of explosives that makes it a “pipe bomb”? Without something that goes “boom”, it seems to me that all you have is a pipe.

The sad thing is, as society becomes further indoctrinated into the culture of fear, this type of incident will become more commonplace and, I’m afraid, eventually accepted.

Kurt Vonnegut on The Daily Show

In my previous post I mentioned Kurt Vonnegut’s appearance on The Daily Show. Comedy Central has it available on their website. Click here to find it.
Trust me, it’s well worth your time.

And here is the list he speaks of, “Liberal Crap I Never Want to Hear Again”, a brilliant morsel of Vonnegut-style satire.

RIP Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 1922-2007

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., photo dated April 8, 1992.
Doug Elbinger, Elbinger Studios.
Another of the great ones has left us. Kurt Vonnegut has been a favorite (and hero) of mine since I first saw (but didn’t really understand) the movie “Slaughterhouse-Five” on late-night television as a kid. I’ve been reading and enjoying his books for over 25 years. I had resigned myself to the fact that there would be no “new” Vonnegut books back when he retired ~10 years ago. However, seeing him recently on The Daily Show (promoting a new book!) rekindled my hopes that there might yet be one more great Vonnegut masterpiece. Sadly that hope too is now gone.
The list of Mr. Vonnegut’s titles is a long one, here in no particular order (and by no means complete):

A Man without a Country (His latest, and one would presume, last)
Breakfast of Champions
Slaughterhouse-five
Cat’s Cradle
Deadeye Dick
Welcome to the Monkey House
Mother Night
Galapagos
God Bless You, Dr. Kervorkian
Fates Worse Than Death
Slapstick: Or Lonesome No More!
Player Piano
Jailbird
Bluebeard
Bagombo Snuff Box
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
Hocus Focus
Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons
Vonnegut Omnibus
Sun, Moon, Star
Timequake
The Sirens of Titan
Canary in a Cat House
This last one isn’t a Vonnegut book, per se, but a book about Mr. Vonnegut.
Kurt Vonnegut’s Crusade Or, How a Postmodern Harlequin Preached a New Kind of Humanism

I’ve read all but a couple of these. I suppose I need to fill in those blanks. Of course, several old favorites I don’t mind re-reading, time and again. Do us both a favor, click one of the links and buy the book from Amazon, thereby helping to feed my book/CD/DVD addiction while fueling your own.

Fare thee well, Mr. Vonnegut, fare thee well.

The Nightwatchman, part 2

The article I referenced before mentioned a few of the songs to be on the upcoming CD, but they didn’t mention “Home of the Brave”, which is a particular favorite of mine. I dare say that I was far from the only person at ‘The Vogue‘ in Indianapolis who had goose-bumps throughout his performance, but this song in particular really spoke to me.

Home of the Brave
Tom Morello

Fred Hampton went to heaven
On a mattress soaked in blood
At twenty-one his every word
Set fire to the neighborhood
On the bed he held her tightly
His bullet riddled wife
One hundred deadly bullets
In theory took his life

This house is haunted
With righteous souls
I saw them standing blindfolded
Against a brick wall in a row
Don’t ask me for nothing
I already gave
In the land of the free
And the home of the brave

Bobby Hutton went to heaven
Without his shirt on
He was scared and he was fearless
His eyes open on that morn
At seventeen his courage
Made those who saw think twice
One hundred deadly bullets
In theory took his life

This house is haunted
With righteous souls
I saw them standing blindfolded
Against a brick wall in a row
Don’t ask me for nothing
I already gave
In the land of the free
And the home of the brave

Huey Newton went to heaven
On a street corner in the rain
The general, the poet
The hero washed away
But his will shook the heavens
And put the ghetto’s soul on ice
One hundred deadly bullets
In theory took his life

This house is haunted
With righteous souls
I saw them standing blindfolded
Against a brick wall in a row
Don’t ask me for nothing
I already gave
In the land of the free
And the home of the brave

Here he is, via YouTube, performing it live.

I’d buy the album for this song alone, I hope it’s included. Even if it isn’t, the songs that were mentioned; “Union Song”, “Let Freedom Ring” and “Maximum Firepower” are well worth the price of admission.

Postscript:
Sadly, it looks like “Home of the Brave” won’t be on the album. Here’s the track listing from his website:

1. California’s Dark
2. One Man Revolution
3. Let Freedom Ring
4. The Road I Must Travel
5. The Garden of Gethsemane
6. House Gone Up In Flames
7. Flesh Shapes The Day
8. Battle Hymns
9. Maximum Firepower
10. Union Song
11. No One Left
12. The Dark Clouds
13. Until The End

Not a bad song in the bunch, I can’t wait for April 24th!

Thanksgiving Day Ride

So, today was Thanksgiving. I was, first and foremost, thankful for such a gorgeous day; 55 degrees, basically no wind… fabulous! I went out for a nice ~1 hour ride, there were so few cars that it was almost creepy at times. As I passed the location of yesterday’s dog incident there were no dogs, but there was a deer carcass, right where the one dog had appeared from, which goes a long way toward explaining his behavior.

As I turned onto my street, on my way home, I passed a man pushing an old pickup to the side of the road. I started to stop and help push, but realized that I wouldn’t be too much help slipping around on bike cleats. As I rolled into my yard, I asked if he needed any help.

“I could use a jump, if you have a car,” he replied.

No problem, I replied, just let me run inside. I ran in, put on some regular shoes and a jacket, and grabbed my car keys. Pulling my car around to his, I asked if he was sure that was all that was wrong. He assured me that it was, that his ignition switch (or something; still pumped from my ride, I wasn’t listening too closely) had gone bad, that he’d filed something down (again; not paying close attention) and had been using a screwdriver to turn the switch. He had left it on, thus draining the battery. I mention that he’s picked a bad day for car trouble as there’s no one around (apparently almost the entire population of Xenia spends Thanksgiving elsewhere). Laughing, he agrees.

I open my hood, he hooks up the cables, then asks if I’ll get in his truck and push in the clutch, he can handle the gas and the starter from there. No problemo. He gets it running pretty quickly and all is well.

As I’m closing my hood, he’s thanking me very graciously and has fished a wad of bills out of his pocket, wanting to give me some money “for my trouble”.

“Seriously, dude; all I did was pull my car around, don’t even worry about it,” I told him.

He thanks me again, saying that I’m a “lifesaver” and that “what comes around goes around” (an awkward turn of phrase, but I knew what he meant). He goes on his way, I park my car and go back inside.

It wasn’t until quite a bit later that it occurred to me that there might be a chance the truck was stolen (I really don’t think it was). I felt a small surge of… what? Not exactly pride, but something, realizing that; faced with a strange black man and a pickup that he has to start with a screwdriver, my first instinct was to help, not to automatically assume he’d stolen it. He seemed very genuine and the color of his skin had in no way colored my perception of him.

Now, if we, as a people, can just evolve to the point where we don’t give these things a second thought, then we’ll all have something to be truly thankful for.

Brilliant News Headline of the Day

Cheney Apparently Breaks Key Hunting Rule
By Nedra Pickler, Associated Press Writer

Ya think? Gee, I didn’t realize… apparently there’s some sort of rule against shooting your hunting companions in the face… who knew?

In all fairness, you can’t possibly expect anyone to remember all of the complicated and esoteric rules of hunting. And besides, details like have a valid license and don’t shoot people are really more like suggestions or guidelines than actual rules, aren’t they?

FU in the UK

From MSN, here’s further proof the world has gone mad:

According to a report in the U.K.’s Daily Mail, one school in the town of Wellingborough is allowing pupils to swear at teachers, providing they only do so no more than five times in a class.

“Within each lesson the teacher will initially tolerate (although not condone) the use of the f-word (or derivatives) five times and these will be tallied on the board so all students can see the running score,” the Daily Mail quoted White as writing in a letter. “Over this number the class will be spoken to by the teacher at the end of the lesson.”

Click here for full story

This has to be one of the stupidest things I’ve seen recently. When I was a kid, using the “f-word”, or any derivative, just once during class would earn you a quick trip to the principal’s office; where he would “speak to you”… right before he spanked your ass with a paddle! And you know what? We didn’t curse at our teachers, ever. Such a thing was incomprehensible; I can just imagine the shocked silence after a kid cursed at a teacher in more civilized times.

Welcome to the age of diminished civility, increased hostility, and lowered expectations.

You know there will be at least one little smart-ass who will save up and drop all 5 “F-bombs” right at the end of class.

Fuck yeah they will, the fucked up little fuckers.

Greatest American Finale (or; ‘The Problem with Democracy’)

So, tonight was the final installment of Discovery’s “Greatest American”. Let me just cut to the chase; Ronald Reagan (the winner) is not a “greater” American than Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, or Benjamin Franklin. To assert otherwise is surely the product of idiocy, ignorance, lunacy, or some delusional form of jackassery.

I did enjoy Ron Jr.’s comments, particularly when the field had been narrowed to Lincoln and Reagan. He said (mind you, I’m paraphrasing here) that if his dad were alive today, he would vote for Lincoln. He was very gracious and polite, but I got the sense that he was very cognizant of, and a bit embarrassed by, the foolishness of the whole thing.

Which brings us to the central point of this rant. The American people are, by and large, idiots. During the broadcast a term that kept coming up was “cultural amnesia”, which is a bit kinder and more generous than my diagnosis of “rampant jackassery”. This really served to highlight one of the problems with the democratic process; that the vote of an ill-informed (or totally uninformed) moron counts just as much as the vote of a person with some rudimentary understanding of the issues and the “big picture”.

The sad thing is, you can’t cure stupid. If a person is dead set on remaining ignorant (as so many seem to be) there is nothing you can do to educate them.

Oh well, at least Oprah or Elvis didn’t win.

Just a quick postscript: I work with adults with MR/DD, Monday morning I asked one gentleman (who happens to love Ronald Reagan) which of the five finalists he thought was the greatest American, ever, and after a thoughtful pause he said “Lincoln”.

‘Greatest American’ Part II

So, I tuned in to the Discovery Channel’s Greatest American tonight, about 15-20 minutes after it started. I was immediately relieved to see that my greatest fear (in this context) hadn’t been actualized; the five finalists weren’t Oprah, Elvis, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, and Ronald Reagan. I was somewhat dissappointed that Reagan made the cut, although one could mount a convincing argument for his inclusion (as one could for his exclusion).

At first blush it seemed that the entire program had devolved into a popularity contest, pep-rally, jackass-athon, but, as I continued to watch, I was impressed (overall) with the level of dialogue; although I was a little puzzled that the panel onstage included Randy “Yo, dog; I used to be the bass player for Journey” Jackson… am I missing something here? (I get the American Idol connection, but still, how does his ’skill’ at judging third-rate ‘musicians’ translate to this?)

The interesting thing is this, of the four (in my opinion) legitimate candidates, I’m having a heck of time deciding. Martin Luther King? Abe Lincoln? Ben Franklin? George Washington? I’m going to have to put some further thought into this. As I pointed out in my previous post on this subject, you can vote here.

My faith in the American population renewed, I’m anxiously awaiting next week’s announcement of the “Greatest American”; and, as long as it’s not Ronald Reagan, I will be satisfied with the choice.

And yes, I do realize that this is basically a geeky version of “American Idol”, but, in my defense, a hundred years from now people will still know (and care) who George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr. were.

Greatest American?

So, on the Discovery Channel Sunday night they have this show “Greatest American”. One thing that I found unsettling was some of the people they chose to comment and lend their insight. For example: JC Chasez, Howie Mandel, Lance Bass, Clay Aiken, Randy Jackson, Sharon Osbourne… why on Earth would I care what any of these people think about anything?

The other truly troubling thing is that the top 25, from which the “Greatest American” will be selected, (unfortunately by the same idiotic American public that thinks Brett Favre, Dr. Phil, Tom Cruise and Michael Jackson are among the top 100 Greatest Americans) included Elvis, Oprah, GW Bush and Bill Clinton.

Muhammad Ali, Lance Armstrong, Neil Armstrong, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Benjamin Franklin, Bill Gates, Billy Graham, Bob Hope, Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks, Ronald Reagan, Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Washington, The Wright Brothers… and those four? What the Hell is wrong with people?

You can vote for your pick at aol.com/greatestamerican, but do me a favor, if you think Elvis, Oprah, George W. Bush, or Bill (a BJ doesn’t count as “sex”) Clinton is the “Greatest American” ever, keep your ill-informed, culturally illiterate opinion to yourself and don’t ever come back here again.

Criminy, if one of them wins, I may have to move to France or something… ok, maybe not France, maybe Italy. I would say Canada, but if I’m renouncing my citizenship (over a stupid TV show), I might as well go somewhere the climate suits my clothes (not to mention my constitution).

An observation re: racism

Have you ever noticed that whenever someone prefaces what they are about to say with (something along the lines of) “Now, I don’t want to sound like a racist, but…” that you can (almost always) delete whatever gleaming nugget of wisdom follows and substitute “I am”.