Friday Dec 31, 2004
Here we are at the bottom of the year. A crappy, disastrous year for many. Genocide in the Sudan. Imperial war in Iraq. Tsunami in Asia. It goes on. Add to that the personal crises in each of our lives and it's a wonder we all just don't hang it up right here and now. I keep reminding myself that every era and every person who's ever lived suffered trauma and tragedy of seemingly world ending proportions. So this, my friends, is life. We beat on and savour the moments of sweetness while enduring the periods of darkness.
I've written a new article for The Podium. It's pretty short, so I'll paste it in its entirety below. But you can also click on this link if you prefer.
See you in 2005.
Stingy Tsunami Relief
by Raywat DeonandanWhen Mr. Jan Egeland, the United Nations undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, called the West's contributions to the tsunami relief efforts "stingy", he was answered with a defensive cry from the United States. President Bush was recalled from vacationing in Texas and senior White House staff submitted their predictable sound bytes, all trumpeting the same refrain: "the United States is the single biggest contributor to humanitarian aid in the world."
This is true, depending on how you add the numbers. And to be fair, no nation is legally obligated to give aid to others, though the moral, political and economic arguments to the contrary are strong. The maintaining of alliances, global security and trade and power relations all depend on the remittances paid by rich nations to poorer ones. However it is the scope of such aid, especially in light of this unprecedented humanitarian tragedy, which is disappointing.
Canada has shown leadership in this matter, with our federal government pledging $40 million in aid, or about $1.23 for every citizen. The provinces have so far given over $18 million independently, while individual Canadians continue to give in heartwarming amounts. In addition, we have placed a moratorium on debt payments from stricken nations who owe us a total of $993.3 million.
The United States, however, initially announced a donation of only $US35 million. This is equivalent to 12 cents for every US citizen and is noticeably less than the $US40 million Bush has earmarked for his own inauguration ceremonies in the new year. Poorer Western nations like Spain and Sweden have pledged $US68 million and $US75 million respectively; Sweden's GDP is one seventh the size of the USA's.
These numbers get tossed around so much that they often lose meaning. Some perspective is helpful. The median salary of the New York Yankees in 2004 was $US3.1 million, the team's total payroll exceeding $US184 million. It is telling that the world's richest nation can only offer 5 million displaced and dying persons a fraction of the cost of maintaining a single major league baseball team for one year.
According to Slate Magazine, Mr. Bush himself has a net worth somewhere between US$9-26 million, while Paul Martin's fortune famously hovers about the $50 million mark. The amounts of tsunami aid pledged by these men are, in a sense, equivalent only to the net worth of a single wealthy individual, while working people throughout dig deep to give to the Red Cross.
The entire US foreign aid budget in 2004 was $US2.4 billion, loudly touted as the most generous aid budget in the world. Yet this is what the Bush administration spends in occupying Iraq every 10 days. Moreover, aid is rarely if ever strictly altruistic. The much touted $US3 billion/year of HIV/AIDs money ("Bush money" to field workers) is tainted: only nations which agree to receive imports of US genetically modified foods are eligible to receive it.
In light of such gamesmanship and political disingenuousness, the millions pledged so far to tsunami relief do indeed appear "stingy."
Thursday Dec 30, 2004
Canada has announced that our federal contribution to the tsunami relief efforts has been increased to $40 million which, at least when it was announced, was the highest amount offered by any country. The USA has announced a similar initial contribution, despite accusations by a certain Norwegian official that the West's donations have been "stingy."
No nation is under any obligation to give money to another nation; it's something one does out of goodness. Well, I'm not so naive. It's something one does out of goodness, to maintain certain strategic relationships and to nurture an image of beneficience. And while I am terribly grateful --and genuinely moved-- by the relief contributions of Western nations and individual citizens, there's a weighty argument that we owe this money to the less wealthy nations whose poverty has --whether we like it or not-- contributed to our wealth. Think about it: the conversion of Southern industries to cash crop agriculture, the linkage of foreign loans to imbalanced trade equations and the leveraging of deflated economies to allow near-slavery conditions in Third World factories which service Western consumer demands all contribute to the argument that we are in large part responsible for the depressed economic conditions of the South. And those conditions, which I discuss in my latest article, are at the root of this disaster.
Ironically, the single largest donor to date is the World Bank. Known to many do-gooders as the fortress of evil, the World Bank is in my opinion a more complicated beast. Its economic projects have been largely disastrous and disingenuous, but its health projects have been, for the most part, precisely on target. That's why it's warming to hear that a Bank official mirrored my own sentiments in an official statement, declaring that relief is not good enough; rather, we should be rebuilding the South Asian infrastructure from the ground up so that water quality, road quality and communications quality are at 21st century standards ---so that this never happens again.
Once again, a crisis has brought opportunity. As 9/11 brought a chance for the North and the South to put aside old hates and learn about each other, so does this crisis represent an opportunity to rebuild the world's relief and aid structure to the betterment of all. But the opportunity of 9/11 was ignored. I fear this one might be, as well.
Meanwhile, as I mentioned, relief efforts forge forwards, though I fear we will arrive too late for many. The Andaman Islands, owned by India, are populated by isolated and, in large part, quarantined neolithic tribes. The Indian government has protected these people for decades from contact with the polluting effects of the modern world, since history has shown that whenever an "advanced" culture contacts a "primitive" one, the latter always suffers, usually fatally so. However the Islands' isolation is working against them now, as refugees have been holed up there for days without rescue. I fear for everyone trapped there and especially for the tribes which may have been completely wiped out.
I am involved with a specific relief effort called the Canadian Committee for Relief to Eastern Province, which is geared toward providing emergency medical supplies to the eastern villages of Sri Lanka. We have a website which will hopefully have content soon: CanRelief.org. In coming days we will be trying to secure donations of cash and medical supplies (for example, antimalarials and antibiotics) for shipment to Sri Lanka where we have people on the ground who will handle distribution. If anyone would like to help, please do.
If you're in the Toronto area, a special party will be held with all proceeds going to our relief project. Please come if you can:
Date: Thursday Jan 13, 2005
Place: Supermarket (206 Augusta) & The Embassy (223 Augusta Ave)
Time: 9pm-2am
Price: $10-$50 (sliding scale; pay what you can)
What: Medalert!, an evening hosted by Nirmala with dancing by DJ Serious, Mike Tull, Denise Benson, Brenden Canning, Broken Social Scene, Abacus, DJ Nav, John Kong, Son of S.O.U.L., Dalia, Dj Nana, Jocelyn D, DJ Nav, John Kong, Noel Nanton, Kola, Chocolate, Sonar and DJ Amita
Sponsors: CKLN, Toronto Women's bookstore, Typotherapy & Design
Wednesday Dec 29, 2004
Thanks to everyone who has been inquiring, but I have lost no one due to the Tsunami in South Asia. However, someone very close to me has lost a large number of relatives, it seems. I am assisting her in putting together some kind of medial relief effort. I will post details here as they develop. In the mean time, if you'd like to give to the cause, go to redcross.ca.
Also, I've written a new article on the role played by poverty in this tragedy. I'll try to get it published somewhere, but it's really not a priority right now.
Wednesday Dec 22, 2004
A quick check of the hit stats for this site and for The Podium reveals some interesting things. First, my Download page gets a tone of hits for no reason I can fathom, except that google searches for Leo Delibes's "Flower Duet" and for Iomega software tends to lead surfers there. Never knew Delibes had so many fans. One of the most popular articles on my sites is Kevin Hilditch's Restaurant Etiquette, Part I, also as a result of a frequent google search for the phrase "restaurant etiquette."
Another interesting site is Googlewar.com, which compares the hit counts for two competing memes. Comparing "deonandan" with "vadum" gives a dramatic win to Vadum, presumably because it's also the name of a Danish town. Mmmmm....danish....
I've bitten the bullet and paid $12 (US) to Haloscan to retrieve all the old user comments on this site. Man, this website maintenance stuff is adding up!
The other news I have for you is that I've finally updated my Photos page. The new pics are in galleries 62-66. Still more to come!
Monday Dec 20, 2004
Congratulations to Neil K. and LB on the birth of their daughter Nicole late last week. Let's hope the kid gets her looks --or at least her hair-- from the mother and not the father. In honour of Neil, we begin with the following quote from Art Buchwald:
"Americans will accept the fact that a person can be an alcoholic or a dope fiend, but if a man doesn't drive, they think there must be something wrong with him."
Good thing neither Neil nor I no longer live in America. Now let's begin with today's real topic:
"What's the difference between the U.S. destroying the rebellious Iraqi city of Fallujah and Saddam destroying rebellious Halabja? What difference does it make if you're killed by poison gas, artillery or 2,000-pound bombs?" -Eric Margolis
How do the soldiers of the "Land of Free" get away with this? Same reason the retarded boy king was re-elected to a second term: xenophobia, barbarism, hate and petty feelings run deep in everyone, but especially among supposedly "free" societies who've learned to reject criticism at every turn, forcing our pathologies deeper with every national crisis. Some people demand to know why I hold the West to a "higher standard" than I do the rest of the world. I don't; I hold us to the same standard. What is barbaric for them is barbaric for us. Moreover, at least they never claimed to be "the heart of freedom" or "the land of liberty" or any other puke-inducing euphemism for "do what I say, not what I do." Is it any wonder the American population is increasingly more inclined to treat the rest of the world as something less than human? A recent study by Cor nell University spells out the true extent of such sentiments...
The survey found 44% favoured at least some restrictions on the civil liberties of Muslims in America, even those with citizenship. Twenty-seven percent supported requiring all Muslim-Americans to register where they lived with the federal government. Twenty-two percent favoured racial profiling to identify potential terrorist threats. And 29% thought undercover agents should infiltrate Muslim civic and volunteer organizations to keep tabs on their activities and fund-raising.
"Land of the free" indeed. Is it okay now to make the obligatory Nazi Germany comparison? This is where fascism begins, children, with the uninformed consent of the unthinking majority to curtail the rights of a minority, the individual members of which have yet to be accused let alone charged with a crime. The 1930s were not that long ago and the world has not changed all that much; certainly people have not changed at all.
And we can expect no relief from the political Left. Want to know why supposed "progressive" groups have allowed the right wing to trundle all over North America, throwing aside decades of social progress? This discussion sheds some light on the situation: instead of debating the question at hand --in this case, why families with girl children are more likely to suffer divorce than are families with boy children-- the forum spends most of its time debating what to name the f@cking thread. Aieeee.
Meanwhile, thanks to Maggie W. for providing this link showing which corporations donated to which US political party. That's all I got. I gots no more.
Thursday Dec 16, 2004
I'm not one for quoting other people's entire blog entries, but this time Andrew Sullivan gets it right. Sullivan is a conservative journalist/blogger who often subscribes to the over-reactionary school of political thought. You know the type: terrorism is the scourage of our time and we need big daddy Prez to take care of us, even though every available statistic tells us we have more to fear from our next door neighbour than from any turban-clad Jihadist. Nevertheless, Sullivan gives us this pearl of perfect wisdom:
"Let's review. We have the horrors of Abu Ghraib; we have several murders and rapes of inmates in Iraq and in Afghanistan; we have separate abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib after the scandal broke; we have the use of electric shocks, beating to unconsciousness, scarring chemicals, one instance of 'water-boarding,' using dogs to terrorize and sometimes bite inmates, forced sodomy, and any number of bizarre pieces of sexual humiliation, designed specifically to abuse Arabs. Got all that? We have at least 130 convictions.
Now we have this: In Karbala in May 2003, one Marine held a 9mm pistol to the back of a bound detainee's head while another took a photograph. Two months later, in Diwaniyah, four Marines ordered teenage Iraqi looters to kneel alongside holes and then fired a pistol 'to conduct a mock execution.' In April of this year, shortly before the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal shook the U.S. military, three Marines in Mahmudiya shocked a detainee with an electric transformer, forcing him to 'dance' as the electricity hit him, according to a witness, one document states.
The ACLU also discovered a document containing a statement taken in October by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service in which a Navy corpsman who had been attached to the Marines in Iraq stated that it was routine to take a prisoner to an empty swimming pool, place cuffs on his hands and legs, put a burlap bag over his head, and then 'the EPW [enemy prisoner of war] would remain in the kneeling position for no longer than 24 hours while the EPW was awaiting interrogation.' It's also increasingly clear that these kinds of abuses - the use of nakedness, exposure to extreme heat and cold, hooding, sexual abuse, real and faked electric torture - are themes across these disparate acts. In other words, there seems to be an informal methodology for the abuse and humiliation of prisoners. Do we really believe that these common practices are the result of completely spontaneous imagination by soldiers with no idea of what they were doing and no culture of acceptance from their superiors? These were not just some untrained grunts, coping with Rumsfeld-engineered chaos. These were elite Navy SEALs and Special Forces. And we have no idea how many incidents have gone unreported or have been covered up."
So I ask you again: who are the good guys in the War On Terror?
Now, I'm a fiction writer and a great fan of screen adapted science-fiction. Being both has caused me much distress over the years as I've endured some of the most heart-breakingly bad adaptations of beloved novels and stories. SciFi's version of Farmer's Riverworld comes to mind. That book is an acknowledged masterpiece and I encourage all of you to read it. The television version was a steaming turd redeemed only for the final performance of the late Kevin Smith. Among the many atrocities wrought upon the text was the change in the story's main protagonist. In the book, the hero is the historical figure Sir Richard Francis Burton, one of the Victorian era's most dynamic men and one of my boyhood heroes. In fact, all of Riverworld's main characters are historical figures, including Alice Liddell Hargreaves and Hermann Goering. In the American TV version, Burton was replaced with --get this-- a fictitious American astronaut. And Goering was replaced with a 'roided up version of Emperor Nero. Weak, weak, weak.
Anyway, I bring this up because Ursula K. Le Guin, a legendary science fiction and fantasy writer, has just written this article in which she decries SciFi's distortion of her decades old masterpiece, the Earthsea books. I'm not a fan of her writing, but it bothers me that TV can't get it right. Time and again it's been shown that remaining true to a great novel's specifics guarantees a great visual product. The Lord Of The Rings movies are a perfect example of doing justice to a book. Why can't producers learn from such successes? Why must they dumb everything down and rob an entire generation of potentially glorious watching experiences?
Tuesday Dec 14, 2004
"A good start [to reducing global poverty and population] would be to stop selling armaments to governments. Armaments are a negative investment. They don't create wealth. If they are used, they destroy it. A million dollars sitting in a tank is a million dollars unavailable for food, medicine and education. A lot of poverty is a direct result of military expenditures and wars for power and loot." -Charley Reese
Once again the regime in Iran proves it's run by dumbasses, as they will soon execute a mentally handicapped teenaged girl for alleged prostitution. This is, of course, reprehensible and shameful national policy. But let us not forget the other countries in the world that execute retarded teenagers; those regimes, too, are worthy of our disdain. One such country is immediately south of Canada and run by an Evangelical man-chimp, according to whom, "freedom is on the march." Puke.
The man-chimp and his handlers are rapidly remaking their nation in the image of the Beverley Hillbillies, without the humour. This article is a must read for those of us fed up with the right wing insanity.
Here are some interesting stats. Know from where the USA receives most of its petroleum imports? Saudi Arabia? Iraq? Nope. According to the American Petroleum Institute, the top oil and petroleum product exporters to the USA are Canada, Mexico, Venezuela and Nigeria. Occasionally Saudi Arabia breaks into the top 4, but weirdly never surpasses Canada. (According to US Department of Energy, Saudi Arabia is higher up on the list, but still below Canada.) What does this mean? Well, while in no way does this fact diminish the thesis that Iraq was invaded to secure oil supplies for future years, it does mean that US interest in the Middle East has as much to do with political interests as with oil. One word: Israel.
And speaking of Israel, here is yet another report of poor behaviour on the part of Israeli soldiers. If the report is to be believed, the soldiers murdered a Palestinian teenager for fun.
On a lighter note, BushSpeech.org allows you to make the Shrub speak your own tailor made speech.
Here is a review of a fascinating history book which compares the way textbooks around the world protray US history. Definitely worth a browse.
Speaking of reviews, here is another review of Alexander, in case you're looking for a view contrary to mine. And while we're talking entertainment, here's something I learned from watching tonight's episode of The Amazing Race 6: peoples is stupid. Speaking of stupid, my cousin Ajay sends us this story about stoners reporting to the police the theft of their illegal drugs. Oh those crazy kids.
In furtherance of my eternal quest to get my dirty little hands on... well, you know... here's a great little link sent by Sarah. And while we all thank her for the mammaries, let's also thank Lord Vadum for the following:
Sunday Dec 12, 2004
Well, my favourite player --Chris-- won Survivor: Vanuatu. The lesson here is that I would make a crappy Survivor contestant. At every turn, I felt Chris made the wrong choices, and yet he emerged the grand winner. He did so by being a good judge of character and by being an excellent liar. Why am I talking about this? Because contrary to what a lot of stuck-up people think, there is wisdom to be found in some reality TV. Survivor in particular can be a learning experience. It is a near perfect laboratory for the measurement of human competitive nature, and allows each viewer to gauge his own moral certitude against the performances of our avatars on the island. Feel free to disagree... but you'd be wrong.
Thursday Dec 9, 2004
You may have noticed that since the US election the political content of this site has diminished. With the re-affirmation of the rule of dumb-asses in the world's most influential nation, I guess I just haven't got the heart to rant (as much) these days.
Speaking of dumb-asses, America's most prominent fascist, stick-figure Ann Coulter has finally, in no uncertain terms, shown her true nature. This video shows her advocating for the USA to "punish" Canada for our, um, disloyalty. The same clip shows Jon Stewart's favourite TV dick, Tucker Carlson, also complaining about us of the North. Other pro-Bush pundits have been bashing Canada of late, too. The message here is not that anti-intellectual mouth-breathers are anti-Canadian, but rather that, once again, the American Right has remarkably set upon a consistent, coherent, simultaneous and ubiquitous talking point. Now, one could argue that Canada is on their minds because The Shrub has recently put Canada back on the national agenda. But it's more intriguing to consider that this army of conservative pundits might receive its or der of "talking points" directly from the Republican Party.
This blog has done a clever thing by comparing Coulter's and Carlson's statements about Canada with Bush's own words during his recent speech in Halifax. Odd that this time, C&C seem out of step with the actions of their boy king. MediaMatters has the transcript of the C&C statements.
Speaking of the American Right, a regular visitor and friend to Deonandan.com, Rondi A. just had another appearance on Faux News, sandwiched between none other than RFK Jr. and Darth Rumsfeld himself. We might not approve of the company she keeps, but we nevertheless offer our genuine congratulations to Rondi for yet another media success. It means a lot more now that Fox News is available in Canada.
Speaking of Canada, Dawn L. sends us these Canada T-shirts, useful for Americans to disguise themselves when abroad.
Speaking of Canada and the American Right, Neil H. sends us this clip of a Stalin-esque statue of Bush The Younger being toppled in Vancouver. You know, demonstrators and demonstrations tend to be boring. But it's great when they get a little creative like this.
Neil also suggested that someone comment on the demise of the National Post's blog. I have nothing to say about it, but maybe one of you does.
But speaking of blogs, it seems CBS News is courting bloggers. Hey, I'll gladly whore out this space to the highest bidder. Any takers?
And speaking of Stalinism, check out this creepy billboard, put up in Florida by Clear Channel and sent to us by Lauren G. How about a brand new round of Bush-Hitler comparisons?
I'll leave you with a bit of egoism. Found a great French translation of the summary of my latst book. It makes me feel oh so global:
"Élevée à l'étranger, en Occident, Kalya revient dans son village ancestral, en Inde, où elle fait la connaissance d'un entomologiste grec canadien excentrique, venu étudier le blastophage, un insecte propre à l'écosystème du village. Cette histoire d'amour entre des amoureux fort différents explore le fossé entre la science et la religion, l'Est et l'Ouest, les hommes et les femmes, l'ancien et le moderne, et la mesure dans laquelle la perception définit la réalité. Raywat Deonandan est né dans une famille d'agriculteurs indiens installée en Guyana, et il a émigré au Canada alors qu'il était encore jeune. Il possède quatre diplômes d'universités canadiennes, notamment un doctorat en épidémiologie. Son premier livre, un recueil de nouvelles intitulé Sweet Like Saltwater, a été acclamé par la critique internationale et a obtenu un prix national en Guyana."
Monday Dec 6, 2004
"Evidence procured by torture is now sufficient to detain 'enemy combatants' at Gitmo. Prisoners 'have no constitutional rights enforceable in this court.' Slowly, we are beginning to piece together what the Bush administration has set up - with little public debate. The government can detain prisoners without naming them, it can use methods that are 'inhumane,' it can use evidence procured by torture, and anyone the government deems an 'enemy combatant' is beyond the recourse of constitutional protection. Some of this might be defensible, although I doubt whether I'd agree. But the lack of candor, the absence of real debate (neither Gitmo nor Abu Ghraib came up in any of the presidential debates), and the vagueness of many of the rules are surely worrying in the extreme." -Andrew Sullivan
And...
"The U.S. has been sending high-level anti-American suspects to Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and, reportedly, Pakistan, where it's alleged they are brutally tortured with violent electric shocks, savage beatings, drowning, acid baths, and blowtorching -- the same tortures, ironically, ascribed to Saddam Hussein." -Eric Margolis
Land of the free indeed. If history teaches us anything it's that the supposed "good guys" in a conflict are often as bastardly as the "bad guys" against whom they fight. Here is an unsurprising story about the Israeli military murdering a 13 year old girl then lying about it afterwards. Meanwhile, it is becoming clear that the US is using napalm in Iraq. Who's the evil power wantonly using chemical weapons again? Is Saddam now sitting in the White House?
Well, I came back from Philadelphia yesterday. The good folk at Tibotec proved an excellent and attentive audience for my talk about the global burden of HIV/AIDS. And Philadelphia was pleasantly much warmer than my current of Ottawa; must be the friction from all that brotherly love.
As anyone who has read my last book knows, I fancy myself a bit of an amateur expert on the life and deeds of Alexander the Great. Thus, it was my duty to watch the new Warner Brothers movie last night. What can I say? It was not as bad as WB's last sword-and-sandals crapfest, Troy, but was mostly laughable. And that's a shame because the subject matters (of both films) are colossal characters with epic stories. But Alexander, while by no means a good movie, was 100 times better than Troy.... which says more about how truly awful Troy was.
Alexander's character can only be guessed at, since his legacy is one of conflicting reports. But why Colin Farrel chose to play him as a confused boy with an Oedipal complex is unknown to me; nothing of the nature of history's greatest general came through. Farrel's Alexander lacks the crazy glint and charisma that a king of the world would necessarily possess. Hey, but at least they didn't cast Keannu Reeves or Ben Affleck. Moreover, the story of Alexander is one of a series of remarkable deeds and achievements over a decade-long march Eastward. Instead, Oliver Stone gave us a series of unremarkable conversations each of which went on well past the point of interest. Lastly, does Stone really believe the ancient world was in fact one gigantic queer paradise? Methinks Oliver has issues.
I leave you with this cute little website. It's an advice site in which 4 supposedly Polish guys each give an answer to your question: ITolYou.com.
Thursday Dec 2, 2004
"Without exhaustive debate, even heated debate, of ideas and programs, free government would weaken and wither. But if we allow ourselves to be persuaded that every individual or party that takes issue with our own convictions is necessarily wicked or treasonous, then, indeed, we are approaching the end of freedom's road." -Dwight D. Eisenhower
Ike also had this to say:
"If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They'll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government."
I leave it to you, Dear Reader, to see the relevance.
This is exceptionally cool. It's a "quilt" in which you can zoom infinitely.
Rondi A. sends us this news bit about blonde jokes being banned in Hungary. Who will ban Hungarian jokes in Sweden?
Neil H. sends us this analysis of "hate media" in the Ivory Coast. Sounds like a Third World sort of thing, but it bears an uncomfortable resemblance to Faux News.
Now, Karan has sent us this article by an American in Canada who's trying to convince her fellow Americans that Canada is not a place they'd like to live. I have no problem with this. You anti-Bush and yet anti-Canada Americans: stay in your own country and clean up your mess before you come here and whine about long hospital line-ups.
I'm off to Philadelphia in a couple of hours. I'll be speaking to employees of the Tibotec corporation about the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Yep, it's the Stephen Lewis speech at the low Ray Deonandan price.
Tuesday Nov 30, 2004
Well, George II came to Ottawa today. To my American friends, let me explain that this is a big deal to Canadians. Even though we hate the bastard, a visit by any American president is kind of like badly needed attention from an absentee parent. Sad, but accurate. The protestors came out, and for the first time in my life I went with them to see what I've been missing throughout my many years of armchair criticism.
First, let me say that there didn't seem to be anyone over 19. And while some of the signs were funny, most were predictable and tiresome. There was a dude with a huge "free beer" sign taped to his extended hockey stick, but he did not indicate in which country the liberty-deprived beverage had in fact been incarcerated. There was an interesting moment when we overheard a policeman say, "okay, get out the gas," and I was torn between seeking cover and getting out my camera. I chose the camera, since the wusses didn't actually gas anybody. Both CBC and CNN covered the action, and apparently there were some scuffles. Here are some pics from my trusty piece-of-crap camera:
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My favourite sign of the afternoon: "Buck Fush." |
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A glimpse of the gathering crowd. |
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The cops with their gas masks on, seemingly about to storm Starbucks, home of the latte-drinking anarchist horde. |
Last night, CBC-watching Canadians also chose our nation's "Greatest Canadian", which in the words of one columnist is tantamount to choosing the tallest midget. We chose Tommy Douglas, who is a fine choice, but whose name more than half of Canadians under 50 have never heard of. Douglas was the premier of Saskatchewan, first leader of the federal NDP and the father of great social programmes like medicare. While my heart was with Trudeau, I was convinced that Terry Fox would win. And in retrospect Fox should have won. He represents everything this country pretends to want to be: kind, modest, hard-working, generous and peaceful.
As well, last night I attended a function of the Writers' Union of Canada at the home of the eminent Margaret Atwood. My first impression: the Canadian literary scene seems populated exclusively by white people over 50. Seriously, the only other people of colour I encountered at this enormous gathering were Shyam Selvadurai and Lien Chao. And one of the only truly youthful persons there was an old friend from high school, Jennifer Duncan. Perhaps there were others, but I didn't meet them. I'm not sure what this means --maybe young and non-white authors don't know about the union, I dunno-- but it was a pretty weird feeling.
It seems writers don't have manners, either. Must be all that time spent alone at home with a typewriter and a damned cat. I was walking across a crowded room when a very large Eastern European woman arm-barred me and literally hurled me several paces backward... because someone was taking her photo and I was about to walk in front of him. Geez, lady, a simple "excuse me" would have sufficed.
Speaking of white Canadian authors over 50, they don't get much whiter than Pierre Berton, who unfortunately has just passed away.
Sunday Nov 29, 2004
So why shouldn't Iran have a nuclear programme? Can anyone give me a good reason? Everyone else in the region seems to have nuclear weapons, including a neighbour who has shown a readiness and will to act aggressively (Israel). Iran does have ties to terror organizations, but Pakistan has more of such ties and more nuclear weapons. So why pick on Iran? And why is Pakistan being so well rewarded by the West? By my understanding, the only legal restraint on the Persians is that they are a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty. But what if they pull out? With the US developing a new generation of battlefield nukes, Russia threatening to do the same, and both Pakistan and India expanding their nuclear arsenals, why should Iran feel compelled to remain disarmed?
So, after a couple of years of searching, I've finally located precious photocopies of letters I wrote to my first great love, Katie, from Asia back in 1992. (Katie is now a happily married woman.) See, I had sort of been thinking about re-packaging the letters into a romantic travelogue of some kind; Katie has givn me her consent. We tend to forget, but in 1992 there was no email and few mobile phones. Travelling to Asia back then was much more difficult and uncommon for North Americans; letters were enjoying their last days as the primary medium of interpersonal trans-continental communication. I'm no longer sure, though, that these letters are worthy of publication. Check out this excerpt from July 5, 1992, written at 5:AM in the youth hostel (YHA) in Bangkok, with some seriously shaky penmanship:
"I am drunker than I've ever been in my life, my darling. The locals who run the YHA took me out drinking and dancing. They are fine folk, but I cannot keep up with them. I miss you very much. I wish so much that you were here with me now. I think I am going to puke..."
See my point?
Thursday Nov 25, 2004
Sorry, updating this site has not been a priority of late. I'll get back on it once some business dies down.
Chris C. sends us this GOP-style ad for why Jesus might be wrong for America. Speaking of messianic figures, the Shrub himself is coming to Ottawa next week. Apparently the motorcade is in direct view of the roof of my building, though I suspect it would not be the wisest thing to camp out up there with a telescope while dressed in my typical Ottawa Fall attire: black turtleneck, watchcap and face grease. I don't think I'm on any secret service watchlists, but you never know. If you don't hear from me after Tuesday.... call somebody.
Okay, I have a very creepy dream to relate to you all. I know, I know, everybody's dreams are boring; it's true. But mine has a phsyiological moral to it. Last night (morning) I went to bed at 4:AM, 'cause I work late these days. No sooner had my mind drifted to neverland when I sensed an evil presence in the room, and felt strong hands pinning me to the bed, holding my ankles and shoulders. I could see no faces and, most terrifying, I couldn't even speak! I kept trying to yell, "f@ck off!" but all that dribbled out of my mouth were incoherent mutterings. Some seconds later, I was okay again and wide awake. The clock read 4:20 AM, and the weirdest part of all was that my ankles and shoulders still tingled from where they had been held. It hadn't felt like a dream at all, but rather like a hazy drugged experience.
Now, the paranormal enthusiasts out there are immediately thinking of stories of "the Old Hag" or the incubus or succubus myths of the Middle Ages. Maybe even the precursor to alien abduction? Meanwhile, the pragmatists are thinking poor widdle Raywat had a bad dream and now he's awwww upset. But the truth is that I experienced something that is physiologically common but not well known or understood: Awareness during Sleep Paralysis, or ASP.
Sleep paralysis consists of a period of inability to perform voluntary movements either at sleep onset (called hypnogogic or predormital form) or upon awakening (called hypnopompic or postdormtal form). See, your body goes into paralysis just before REM sleep to prevent you from acting out your dreams. But sometimes it does so prematurely, or fails to come out of paralysis once you awake. The strange thing is that, almost universally, the experience is accompanied, as in my case, by a sense of presence of a "malevolent being" who is often suffocating you or sitting on your chest. It really is one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, and yet it is simply a --well-- brain fart.
So if your brain ever farts, don't call the paranormal police. Just mutter, "f@ck off!" and everything will be okay.
Monday Nov 22, 2004
National Security Advisor used to be a pretty important job, often filled by a towering amoral intellect like Henry Kissinger. However, the only time you're likely to see "towering intellect" and "Condoleeza Rice" in the same sentence is... well, you just read it.
It's not that she doesn't look good on paper. She spent 20 years working at Stanford in various positions, eventually rising to provost, and she worked as an advisor in various capacities to the first Bush administration.
But when you listen to her talk, it's impossible to avoid the flashbacks to sixth grade social studies, and the well-meaning but stultifying teacher who tried to explain world politics to you but f@cked it up so badly that you're still not sure what an electoral college is or why there was ever a wall in Berlin in the first place. (I think it had something to do with blocks?)
-from Rotten.com's bio of Condi Rice.
I've discovered the true value of the Harry Potter books: they are the ultimate escapist distraction in times of overwhelming stress and turmoil. Thank you, JK Rowling.
Remember The Hunger Site? By clicking on it, you actually feed hungry people. Now there's the Animal Rescue Site.
On a recent episode of Survivor: Vanuatu, competitors were rewarded with a coffee maker. Many viewers scratched their heads and asked themselves, "how are people surviving in bamboo tents on a beach managing to power a coffee maker?" Well, this photo tells all. The coffee maker sits atop a fake tree stump with an AC outlet. Yep, Survivor has officially jumped the shark.
Neil H. sends us this article about highschool students in New Zealand listing "pimping", "drug dealing" and "prostituion" among desirable careers. Of course the humourless school officials are perceiving a crisis of attitude among the teens. Idiots. It's a joke, get over it.
I highly, highly recommend you view this comedic news report from Iraq. Thanks to Good Ol' Nojjy Boy.
Ver uncomedic is this video still of a US marine murdering an unresisting Iraqi man lying on the ground. Video journalist Kevin Sites gives an eyewitness account of the event; read his Nov 21 entry.
Neil H. also sends us this bird's eye view of Fallujah. People have to remember that the place isn't a jungle filled with VC and tunnel-rats. Rather, it's a metropolis still populated by people who must yet get on with their lives, though the majority have already fled.
Congratulations to my friend Andrew K. Johnston for his new book, Earth From Space. Damn, is everybody an author now? What does a guy have to do to stand out?
Wednesday Nov 17, 2004
Colin Powell has retired/resigned. Fred Kaplan had this to say about him:
"Here is a man who enjoyed the most appealing life story in American politics. The son of Jamaican immigrants who pulled up his own boot straps in the Bronx; a Vietnam vet who rose through the Army's ranks to general, national security adviser, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and secretary of state; a proud black man who could have made a serious run for president under either party's banner-chewed up and spit out on the shard-strewn sidewalk of Losers' Boulevard."
He is to be replaced by Condi Rice who, it seemed to me, personified tokenism in her previous role as national security advisor. On the plus side, we know that everything that comes out of her mouth will be in sync with Bush's true attitudes and desires. The same could not be said of Powell, who clearly was an independent thinker. But he was ultimately weak and disappointing. Regardless of what you might think of Bush policies, I think everyone can agree that Powell did no one any favours by disagreeing with his boss yet refusing to resign. A shame, since before his ridiculous choice to become Secretary of State, Powell could have become an effective and beloved President.
Oh looky, it seems drilling in the Alaskan wildlife refuges is all but inevitable. Is anyone surprised?
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Neil H., clearly bored, sends in this tidbit about pillows made to look like a woman's lap. Yep. It's a sequel to the pillow that was made to look like a boyfriend's arm. Oh those wacky Japanese.
I leave you with the following erie 16th century prophecy from Maria Laach Monastery:
"The twentieth century will bring death and destruction, apostasy from the Church, discord in families, cities and governments; it will be the century of three great wars with intervals of a few decades. They will become ever more devastating and bloody and will lay in ruins not only Germany, but finally all countries of East and West."
"After a terrible defeat of Germany will follow the next great war. There will be no bread for people anymore and no fodder for animals. Poisonous clouds, manufactured by human hands, will sink down and exterminate everything. The human mind will be seized by insanity."
Saturday Nov 13, 2004
A very weird thing just happened. I suddenly realized that this blog was missing all entries prior to August! I have no idea how this happened, but luckily I was able to restore the missing entries from my 3 month old backups. Also missing are the user comments from before June. This is because my comment provider, Haloscan, doesn't allow comments older than 4 months to be seen unless I pay for a subscription... which I will do in due time.
I have a new article over at The Podium. It's a very brief review of a novella called The View From Tamischeira. You can read the review here. It's reprinted from the Prairie Fire website. Not the most inspiring article, I know, but I have way too much work to do to be spending brain energy on newspaper articles right now.
Speaking of The Podium, on-going renovations are in progress over there, and the page views have been accelerating steadily. One of these days I'll have to splurge for some good hit tracking services so I can find out who's reading this stuff.
And speaking of reading, I've finally got around to reading the Harry Potter novels. Now, I'm a bitter jealous man. In fact the "S" in "Raywat S. Deonandan" stands for schadenfreude. But surprisingly I do not reproach J.K. Rowling for any of her success. In fact, I hope she makes hundreds of millions more off her books. The idea that an author can be so successful is pretty heart warming. It's even more inspiring to find out that the books themselves are excellent and, in some small ways, profound. Better yet is the fact that Rowling does not appear greedy, shallow or humourless. We'll see if she breaks her word and exceeds the 7 novel limit she has set for herself, but something tells me she will be true to her word.
Americans reading this may not be aware that the first Harry Potter novel and movie are called Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone everywhere in the world except the USA, where it is called Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. It seems the American publisher (Scholastic) was afraid that a title with the name "philosopher" in it would turn off American children and confuse them. (Insert rolling eyes here.) Apparently millions of sales in other English-speaking countries weren't enough to convince them otherwise.
Now, if anyone had bothered to do his homework, he would have learned that the philosopher's stone is an actual myth about a rock capable of turning lead into gold and of creating elixirs of immortality. In fact, the alchemist who made the stone in the Potter story --Nicholas Flamel-- was a real historical figure of 15th century France. A sorceror's stone, on the other hand, has no basis in extant myth. Changing the name took some historical oomph from Rowling's story, in my opinion. In fact, for the movie, scenes in which the stone's name was mentioned had to be filmed twice, once for an American audience and again for everybody else.
See, contrary to popular opinion, Americans are not stupid. Some of the smartest people who have ever lived happen to be American. But American institutions keep underestimating their population and keep lowering the intellectual bar. This is not strictly an American trend, but one does seem to see it more often in that country.
Thursday Nov 11, 2004
Today is Remembrance Day in Canada. What does one say? Happy Remembrance Day? Doesn't quite work, does it? I'm not one for glorifying either wars or warriors. The notion of "noble military service" has never taken root in me. However, on this day I will mourn with everyone else the deaths, not only of the soldiers of human wars, but their civilian victims, too. If I have learned nothing else after 37 years of life on this plane of existence, I have learned this: that human civilization never really learns anything.
Want to know how big of a geek I really am? Not only have I just downloaded both the Japanese and Italian versions of the Star Blazers theme, but I've been listening to the live feed from the web's only 24 hour Star Trek radio station: Starbase 479. Deeply, deeply nerdy. I'm so ashamed. And the irony is not lost on me, that both Star Trek and Star Blazers depict the "noble military service" of soldiers in the far future.
So Yasser Arafat is dead, an unconventional soldier to be sure. I will leave it to history to evaluate his legacy and to dissect his worth as both a leader and a human being. I will say, however, that his death in 2004 will not have the devastating consequences it would have had in, say, 1994 or 1984 or even 1974. For the past few years, he has existed solely as a symbol, a "living Palestinian flag." In fact, I would argue that most young Palestinians see him mostly as an historical touchstone and not as a functioning leader. Will there be a power vacuum in the Palestinian Authority? I would argue that there's been a power vacuum in Palestinian society for some time; Arafat's death will not exacerbate the situation unduly.
A friend sends this mesmerizing website. It's a gallery of anti-Bush Americans expressing their profound apologies to the rest of the world.
Wednesday Nov 10, 2004
As everyone knows, I'm obsessed with reality TV. I particularly like shows that put arrogant shmucks in mortal danger, like Fear Factor (which should really be renamed Babe Factor). But the new Richard Branson show, The Rebel Billionaire is just nuts! The stunts both the contestants and Sir Richard must do are genuinely dangerous. This is the first TV show I've seen in which the stunts are too dangerous for me to even fantasize about taking part. If they do a couple more seasons, I'm sure someone will get killed.
My biggest concern is that contestants will be sent into outer space on board one of Virgin Galactic's new spaceships. Man, to wannabe astronauts like me that would be unfair. However, it seems unlikely that the ships will be ready before 2007. In short term, however, the show's biggest impact is to make Donald Trump look like a pompous wuss in comparison.
Tuesday Nov 9, 2004
Back to politics:
- Neil H. sends us this article on "why Americans hate Democrats".
- With the rush of anti-Bush Americans trying to emigrate from Jesusland to Canada, all kinds of resources have erupted to guide them in their choices. Here's an article listing 10 reasons for Americans not to flee to the true land of liberty.
- So why not move to China instead? Neil H. sends a light-hearted look at 10 things the Chinese do better than Canadians.
- New bitter T-shirts abound. Bob A. (the "frankest man in the world") sends us this one for showing your disdain to the rednecks who gave the world 4 more years of W.
- ...while this T-shirt exists for embarrassed Americans who must travel abroad.
- Neil H. also pointed us to this article about European Christian theocrats emboldened by the Bush victory. Remember my prediction about Turkey being rebuffed by the EU? The wheels are in motion.
- Meanwhile, as expected, creationism rears its ugly head anew in American schools.
- Albert H. points us toward an explanation for the distribution of red vs blue states. Apparently it has to do with IQ distribution, with red states having lower average IQs than blue states. Is this a hoax? Who knows. But I like it!
- Nick B. points us toward this treasure trove of Gwynne Dyer articles. Mr Dyer is a Canadian political/military commentator I've sometimes cited in this space.
Time to plug a friend's business. If anyone is looking to spend some time in Paris, France, and is thinking of renting a short-term apartment instead of a hotel, visit Let's Paris, a service run by my good friend Lauren Greenwald.
Sunday Nov 7, 2004
Man, it's 5:30AM and I'm still up working. No, I'm not that dedicated, I just started late.
As I work, I also procrastinate. I've been reading the various trivia notes on my favourite movies over at the Internet Movie Database and I've been trying to download both the first season of Star Blazers and the new U2 single "Vertigo."
...Which got me thinking of U2, who have been my favourite band since 1979. Yep, I'm that old. In grade 9, Bill Michalis asked me who my favourite guitarist was ('cause that's what stupid 14 year olds talk about) and I said, of course, "The Edge." Bill got mad at me because he had asked for a guitarist not a band. Back then, no one had heard of U2 or its pointy-faced guitarist. But today, who remembers that silly band "The Edge"? I can't even find a website for them.
My fondest U2 memory is of sneaking in to see them play 22 years ago with my Aryan buddy Nick Minde. We had bought scalped maintenance passes for $5 each; I think the venue was Massey Hall in Toronto. We pushed our way to the front row and were having a great time when Bono tossed an Irish flag into the audience. A couple of beered-up losers next to me started shoving over who got to keep the flag.
Now, this was back when all the cool 15 year olds wore Army surplus fatigues, and Nick and I were no exceptions. So Bono, mid-song, sees the disturbance at his feet, notices the two wide-eyed youths in army fatigues, puts 2 and 2 together and gets twelve. "We don't fight over flags here," he snarled directly to me. "That's what the song is about!" Actually, that wasn't what that particular song was about, but I gave the guy some slack; he was a foreigner, after all. Now, I don't know if it was intentional or not, but at that point a bolus of saliva left Bono's mouth and landed on my person. In all honesty, I can make no conclusions about whether that bolus was projected or directed, but I do like to tell people that Bono Vox spat upon me. And yes, I still use the "Vox" 'cause if you're gonna choose a pretentious stage name, it should stick to you like fresh dog poop.
Mr. Vox (b. Paul David Hewson, 1960) has gone on to become arguably the biggest rock star in the world and, more importantly, a crusader for African debt and AIDS relief. In his latter capacity, he humbles me daily with the extent of his work. Unlike most celebrities who simply lend their names to causes, he actively works in the furtherance of those causes, and amazingly manages to affect the actions of historic individuals, such as the Pope, Kofi Annan, Paul Martin and Bill Clinton. Look, if they can give Nobel Peace Prizes to the murderous likes of Yasser Arafat and Anwar Sadat, then I certainly wouldn't complain if someone were to nominate the hardworking Mr. Hewson.
Anyway, the new song reminds me a great deal of my angst-filled days in army fatigues. The band sounds youthful and energetic again, and something tells me the new album will be their masterpiece. Thus endeth Ray's early morning reflection.
Friday Nov 5, 2004
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Thursday Nov 4, 2004
"Essentially America is two nations living side by side. One of them resembles Iran and the other resembles Canada. And Iran won the election." -Gwynn Dyer, Studio 2, 11/3/2004
OK, here's what I'm going to try. It's a new administration. Sort of. I'm going to try to forgive everything they did in the past 4 years and see if they can move forward in a more sane direction starting....NOW. Maybe Bush is serious about mending the wound that rips across America's belly. I hope he is. But before I go entirely soft on these guys, I have to share with you the Give Bush A Brain Game. Thanks to Kevling for the link.
As I've already gone out on a limb and predicted that Al Gore will return to national prominence very soon, let's make a few more predictions for the next 4 years:
- Within the next 4 years, Hillary Clinton will lose considerable power in the Democratic Party, perhaps even losing her New York senate seat to, oh, let's say Giuliani.
- Within the next 2 years, probably sooner, the USA will give Israel the go-ahead to bomb Iran. They've already supplied the Israelis wtih 500 bunker-buster bombs and several long-range fighter-bombers. The US is in no position to invade Iran as things stand, so their best bet to continue neo-con foreign policy is to use Israel as a military proxy.
- Roe vs Wade will be challenged... successfully.
- The Democratic Party will continue to wither well past the midterm elections, and will finally re-emerge, branding itself the party of "individual liberties" or something gay like that. (To paraphrase Andrew Currie, "gay" is used here not in a homophobic sense, but in the sense that it pertains to gaylords.)
- Canada will join the USA in the useless (but more or less harmless) continental missile defence programme.
- A more militarized Europe will start to emerge, strengthened by the inclusion of Russia.
- Both China and India will join the new global arms race, to the consternation of both Pakistan and Iran.
- Turkey will fail in its bid to enter the European Union, as fear of Muslims reaches a global pitch.
- The clever Aaron Brown will finally get doofus Lou Dobbs's earlier slot on CNN, but both will be Anderson Cooper's bitches.
- Mark Steyn will retire, and no one will care.
- Another devastating terror attack will occur on US soil. There will be much horror, but we'll all get over it.
- John Edwards will never be heard from again.
- I will have written at least 2 more books, none of which will make me any money whatsoever.
There you have it. Ever notice how much Conrad Black's voice sounds like William Shatner's?
Wednesday Nov 3, 2004
It's 2:33AM and this is how it presently stands: Bush- 249, Kerry- 242. Of course, Ohio still remains the unknown. So if Bush takes Ohio's 20 electoral votes, the best Kerry can hope for is a tie, which puts the decision in the hands of the House of Representatives, which means that Bush wins. Kerry can can still win Ohio, but it's a legal longshot. But the Democrats have lost the popular vote. So, in my book, unless a clear Kerry victory results in Ohio (unlikely), George W. Bush has won re-election fair and square. (Of course, the morning may bring a different story.)
Stupid, stupid electorate. That's all I'm going to say. That and: I told you so.
I will remind you of a prediction made by The Amazing Kreskin more than four years ago: after George W. Bush, Al Gore will be President of the USA. So, based solely on Kreskin's spooky powers and on my own admiration of the former Vice President, I hereby officially predict a return of Al Gore to national politics sometime within the next 3 years.
That is all.
Tuesday Nov 2, 2004
"George W. Bush and John Kerry are ninth cousins twice removed and can each trace their lineage back to [Vlad the Impaler]." -NY Daily News
And so it has arrived, the day of reckoning. Deonandan.com readers, with a pathetic showing of 26 votes, predicted today's election this way:
Bush - 50%
Kerry - 38%
Nader - 0%
Other - 12%
Exactly who is this "Other"? Maybe a write-in campaign for Gore. Though, with the new screwed up computer balloting, there can no longer be a write-in phenomenon. Reports are already coming in about irregularities in Florida, specifically regarding the unreliable electronic voting machines. Oy.
Andrew Sullivan pointed out the following. "Fair and balanced" my ass:
October 30 - Fox poll shows Bush up by 2. Headline: "Fox Poll: Bush Up By Two Points Over Kerry".
November 1 - Fox poll shows Kerry up by 2. Headline: "Fox National Poll: Voters Split."
As you all know, I am not optimistic about today's election. While all signs currently point to a decisive Kerry victory, something inside me says the Forces of Darkness will yet prevail. Let's hope it was the gross Yorkshire pudding I had for lunch. Regardless of who wins, it is now clear that Global Warming has arrived. Let's see how the corporate apologists spin this one.
Monday Nov 1, 2004
Legend has it that when the Washington Redskins win their game on the last weekend of October, the incumbent wins the US Presidential election. This pattern has held true for the past seventeen US elections. I am happy to report that the Redskins lost to the Packers this weekend.
What a movie script world in which we live. Who would have expected that Osama bin Laden himself would have provided the long-awaited "October Surprise." Say what you will about him, the man has impeccable timing. By criticizing George Bush directly, however, he has set analysts a-flutter with speculation about his motivations. I lean toward those who think this is Osama's way of supporting Bush. The Shrub has given al Qaeda everything they wanted. Not only does Osama finally have his long-cherished "war of civilizations" between the USA and jihadists, but al Qaeda is now the nominal sole focus of US foreign policy. Moreover, he has succeeded in isolating the USA in world opinion, in revealing American military limitedness, in providing a tangible example of Western mistreatment of Muslims (Iraq) and in recruiting legions of new soldiers to his movement. In short, George Bush has unwittingly been Osama bin Laden's closest ally. Of course he wants Bush to re main in power, and of course he is clever enough to do so by attempting to use reverse psychology.
The truly sad part of this nasty saga --a part that will never be discussed in mainstream media, only whispered privately between friends or blogged on low-traffic websites like this one-- is that of all the major players in this sick global drama, only the mass murdering criminal fanatic (the Arab one, not the Texan) has told the truth. Only Osama has dared speak truthfully of the true motivation for Islamic terrorist actions against the USA: American support for Israel against Lebanon and the Palestinians, and American support for Islamic tyrants who suppress actual democracy in the name of maintaining oil flow. It has nothing to do with them "hating our freedoms", as the mouth-breathers insist. As Osama himself asks, "Let [Bush] explain why we did not strike -for example- Sweden."
(Let's just see how long it takes for some moron to accuse me of supporting Osama bin Laden.)
Will the bin Laden video affect the election? I don't think so. Most Americans won't view it. They'll only see a still shot from it and listen to both sides' spun versions of its content. So, on balance, its effect will be nil. The election remains too close to call, though many signs now point to a Kerry victory. Despite such portents, I'm still calling it for Bush. why? Because there is no justice in the world, and the wicked rarely get punished. Osama will remain at large and Bush will remain in power.
Friday Oct 29, 2004
"Yes, Kerry is liberal. But what's to fear from a liberal president? That he would run big deficits? That he would increase federal spending? That he would expand the power of the federal government over individuals' lives? Nothing Kerry could do could top what President Bush has already done in those realms." -Des Moines Register
Sorry for my delay in posting. I'm really stressed these days due to a number of issues I shan't discuss in this space. A shame, considering the Big Election is only 4 days away.
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Maybe you've already seen this. It's footage of Bush giving the finger. It's not a big deal, but it does show the big doofus is still a goof-off frat boy at heart. Not exactly the person you want with his finger on the button. |
So I still can't believe so many people still think the Iraq war was a response to Sep 11, and that it was a "last resort" thing. The evidence against this conclusion keeps piling up. Had something like the PNAC existed on the Democratic side, with platforms advocating for the invasion of Iraq going back 10 years, you'd better believe the world would be forced to know about it. But somehow the New Republicans keep getting away with it. Here we have evidence that the UK was given the invasion plans 5 months before the actual war:
"The revelation strengthened suspicions that Tony Blair gave his agreement to President George Bush to go to war while the diplomatic efforts to force Saddam Hussein to comply with UN resolutions were continuing."
And from a 1999 interview with a potential biographer, the Shrub himself said:
"If I have a chance to invade [Iraq] ...I'm not going to waste it."
All this macho talk of defending liberty is hoo-ha, and the world outside the US borders knows it. This is by all accounts a Potemkin president who needs hidden audio prompters and babysitting from the likes of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. Commiting mass murder on the flimsiest of pretexts is a crime of historic proportions; a new estimate has it that 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed so far in this war. A potentially bigger crime is governing without facts or evidence, as the Shrub has been doing from Day 1. Bush himself said:
"…a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your Commander in Chief."
In epidemiology news, plague has arrived in the USA. "Bring out your dead!"
And Neil H. sends us an informative article containing sex advice from diplomats.
I leave you with the following from the mighty Hunter S. Thompson:
"Every GOP administration since 1952 has let the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the nation into debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency. Richard Nixon comes quickly to mind, along with Ronald Reagan and his ridiculous 'trickle-down' theory of U.S. economic policy. If the Rich get Richer, the theory goes, before long their pots will overflow and somehow 'trickle down' to the poor, who would rather eat scraps off the Bush family plates than eat nothing at all. Republicans have never approved of democracy, and they never will."
Monday Oct 25, 2004
As readers of this website know, my favourite Republican president of the 2oth century was Eisenhower. In fact, I could make a compelling argument for him being the best US president of that century. It warms my heart to learn that Ike's son John, also a life long Republican, has cast his support for John Kerry. That's gotta make you think, no?
As I'm sure you've heard by now, the British newspaper The Guardian started a letter-writing campaign for Brits to encourage Americans in key states to vote against George Bush. As expected, the fuming set has come out with guns blaring, accusing the Europeans of "meddling" in the US election. While meddling is a strong word, there is no denying that the Brits are attempting to express their voices in the US election. What's so wrong with that? American Michael Moore influenced the Canadian federal elections by openly encouraging voters to choose against the Conservative party. And official American foreign policy involves regularly messing in other countries' elections, including invading them and choosing their candidates. (Linda McQuaig spells it out here.) Add to that the fact that, in this day and age, every single person on this planet has a huge stake in who wins the US federal election, and you see why the Guardian's project is not so unreasonable. Heck, people, it's only letters. Since when is the land of free speech afraid of some personal letters?
(To be fair, if Nazi Germany wanted to send letters through a time wormhole to encourage Americans to vote for Bush --'cause, really, who else would?-- I'd support their right to do so, as well.)
Now, it's largely believed that the Republican base tends to have more college graduates than does the Democratic base. And yet there is the widely held perception that Bush supporters are not as deep thinking as Bush detractors. (At least there's an accusation from the Right that the Left accuses the Right of being dumb, even though an army of conservative fire-breathers like Ann Coulter and Michele Malkin regularly, and juvenilely, deride the intelligence of "liberals".) That's why a couple of surveys from the non-partisan Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland are so very interesting...
The first survey, taken in August, looked at Americans' knowledge of the Iraq situation, irrespective of party affiliation. It found:
- Americans are accurate in the number of Americans killed
- Americans grossly underestimate number of Iraqi civilians killed
- Majority believes Iraq was giving substantial support to al Qaeda, and that experts also believe this
- Majority of Americans (88%) believe world opinion favours the US invasion of Iraq. (Where can they possible get this misconception?!!!)
That survey also found that 71% of Bush supporters held misconception #4, versus 25% of Kerry supporters. Similarly, 72% of Bush supporters believe Iraq was giving substantial support to al Qaeda (which it was not), versus 23% of Kerry supporters.
The second survey was conducted this month. It found that a majority of Bush supporters still hold the following misconceptions:
- 84% believe Bush favours including labour and environmental standards in trade agreements
- 69% believe Bush favours the US being part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
- 66% believe Bush supports the US joining the International Criminal Court
- 72% believe Bush favours the US joining the treating banning land mines
- 51% believe Bush supports the US joining the Kyoto Treaty on global warming
Remember these are Bush supporters we're talking about, people you'd think would know the most about the platform of their preferred candidate. The official survey results also say:
Kerry supporters were much more accurate in assessing their candidate’s positions on all these issues. Majorities knew that Kerry favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements (90%); the US being part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (77%); the International Criminal Court (59%); the land mines treaty (79%); and the Kyoto Treaty on climate change (74%). They also knew that he favors continuing research on missile defense without deploying a system now (68%), and wants the UN, not the US, to take the stronger role in developing Iraq’s new government (80%).
The truly sad part about these findings is that a majority of Bush supporters also claim to support policies that are actually held by Kerry, not Bush, but that they mistakenly attribute these policies to Bush. So let me say, with a convincing bit of evidence to support my case: the majority of Bush supporters are obviously a bunch of dumb-asses. I'm starting to think that voters should be made to pass a short quiz on candidates' platforms before they're allowed to vote.
Hawaii seems to have joined the Legion of Dumb-Asses. Electoral-vote.com shows that Hawaii, previously a Kerry stronghold, is now tied, giving Bush a lead of a single electoral vote.
Friday Oct 22, 2004
"If Bush loses, serious conservatives, with the possible exception of extreme social conservatives, will have to ask themselves what they gained from four years of unfettered power, and ten years of domination of American politics. Government is 'bigger' by every measure, and more intrusive. A pet idea, Social Security privatization, was actually discredited by their president's incompetence. Younger voters are increasingly turned off by the social conservatism, so the movement is not expanding its base. A huge new entitlement was created. The federal role in education expanded. And poor planning and dishonesty over Iraq weakened our defense, our credibility, and made it impossible to set a clear standard for when we would intervene and when not... All the tax cuts have done is to postpone the day we pay for these things. And if Bush wins, all this will still be true." -Mark Schmitt (copped from Andrew Sullivan)
Anyone else see Triumph the Insult Comic Dog behind the Debate scenes in Spin Alley? Funny stuff. (Link may not work due to overwrought bandwidth, so try this one.)
The joy over at Electoral-vote.com was short-lived. Polls now show a statistical tie between Kerry and Bush, which once more gives credence to Deonandan.com's reader prediction of a Shrub victory. Sigh.
So after yesterday's little mention of the CBC's Greatest Canadian silliness, and of my support for Trudeau, it seems CBC producer Andrew Yates found my online essay about when I'd met Trudeau as a boy, and is encouraging me to join the campaign to get people to vote for P.E.T. in the Greatest Canadian finale. I'm not big on campaigning for silly things like this, so I'll pass. But I will show the campaign's official poster, so you can make up your own mind. Click on the image for a larger version:
Sorry, that's all I gots for ya today.
Thursday Oct 21, 2004
"[George W. Bush] couldn't testify before the 9/11 commission without having a man by his side. I'll bet when they have lunch, Cheney orders for him. And then he just eats the salad." -Bill Maher
There's been some talk about what Pat Robertson claims the Shrub told him just prior to the Iraq war:
"And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr.President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.' [And the President told me]: 'Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties.'"
Is Robertson mistaken? Possibly, though he has told that story before. If it's true, it confirms the growing perception of Bush as, how do you say, nuts.
So nuts, in fact, that his re-election bid is being endorsed by Iran. Oh, that's funny. Apparently the Iranian hardliners feel the Democrats treat them poorly with their annoying human rights demands, while the Republicans let them torture in peace. What, no official response from the Death Star?
Here's an interesting statistic. It seems the number of abortions in America increased under Bush's watch. Why is that, you ask? Because, as is clear to anyone who isn't a knee-jerk anti-intellectual, preaching and legislating morality do nothing to affect actual behaviour; economics affects behaviour. The poor have become poorer in Bush's America. And, cultural forces aside, a poor pregnant woman is less likely than a wealthy pregnant woman to want another mouth to feed. You want to reduce the rate of abortion, O Holy Shrub? You make life easier for those at the bottom.
Electoral-Vote.com still has Kerry in the lead, which gives me hope. But the October surprise is coming. I think it might be something as banal as that propandist Kerry-smearing film Sinclair broadcasting is planning to blast the American public with the night before the election. It may well work. And if it does, the American people deserve who they get as President.
Did anyone else catch that ridiculous "greatest Canadian" show on CBC? What an embarrassment. Just goes to show why direct democracy does not work: the masses aren't capable of informed voting. Shania Twain was the highest ranked woman on the list. Shania Twain! What is Jim Carrey doing on that list? People tend to conflate "great" with "famous" or "rich." Of the final 10, they all belong there except David Suzuki and Don Cherry. I really hope Trudeau wins it, just to piss off the whiny oilmen. (Oh you know who I'm talking about.) But my money is on Terry Fox. A strong possible winner is Wayne Gretzky. Though if a hockey player is voted the greatest Canadian of all time, I'm going to hit someone.
Well, I've been up all night finishing up a couple of grant proposals. Must.... sleep...but...can't...so...will...walk about like a zombie...and... overuse ellipses.
Monday Oct 18, 2004
"What is the difference between Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland and Bush's invasion of Iraq? There is no difference. Both were unprovoked attacks in violation of international law. Both were blatant attempts to achieve political objectives by force – in Hitler's case, the annexation of Poland; in Bush's case, regime change. Morally, there is not a thread's difference between the bombing of Warsaw and the bombing of Baghdad." -Charley Reese
There. He said it.
While the US government continues to deny it has plans for a new draft, here is a story about a little known clause in the No Child Left Behind Act which gives the military legal access to the personal information of all students in a given school. Creeeepy.
Meanwhile, Iraq continues to be bled dry. Did you know the Iraqis are still paying reparations to Kuwait, even though Saddam has been deposed? More than that, much of the reparation money is going not to Kuwait, but to US corporations, of course Halliburton among them. In the words of Jon stewart, my American friends, do you feel like the government just sh!t on your chest?
Tom Tomorrow has it all figured out here.
Okay, I was taking my daily peek at Electoral-Vote.com, and as usual I working my little monkey brain trying to figure out how many more electoral votes John Kerry needs to unseat the Shrub. But for some reason, my math just wasn't working out.... until I stopped squinting and realized that for the first time, the site has Kerry in the lead. And by a healthy 10 electoral votes, too!
Whoa. Add to this the sense that the polls informing these results typically oversample Republicans, do not include those (like me) who don't own land-lines, and in no way represent the millions of new voters who will exercise their franchise for the first time this year. And add to that the fact that, on election day, undecideds tend to lean toward the challenger, not the incumbent. The result is that, according to these numbers, John Kerry will win by a wide margin.
Now, these numbers are flawed, partly because they are patched together from unrelated polls. And anything can happen over the next two weeks, including the much dreaded "October Surprise." (Anyone else foresee George W. parachuting naked into Falujah to bolster his macho image?) Heck, maybe it's time for Cheney to defrost the head of Osama bin Laden, which they've had in storage in a White House basement fridge for several months now.
So I'm torn on what to predict. My brain says Kerry. But my gut still says Bush. Please, please, please let that feeling in my gut just be indigestion.
Sunday Oct 17, 2004
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative." - John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
During the last Presidential "debate", John Kerry referenced Dick Cheney's daughter Mary as a lesbian who knows her lifestyle wasn't by choice. The Republican spin-meisters have turned this reference into a character slam against Kerry, since apparently speaking respectfully about an outed lesbian who happens to be a public figure whose name was mentioned in the VP debates is a moral outrage. As gay conservative journalist Andrew Sullivan points out, it's only an outrage if you consider homosexuality to be a shameful thing; so this episode speaks more about the innate homophobia of the Republican base than it does of Kerry's alleged underhanded tactics.
Here's what Lynn Cheney said at a post-debate rally:
"The only thing I could conclude is that [Kerry] is not a good man. This is not a good man. And, of course, I'm speaking as a mom. And a pretty indignant one. This is not a good man. What a cheap and tawdry political trick."
Yet members of the Republican party have gone on record directly insulting Mary Cheney. Alan Keyes agreed that Mary Cheney, by virtue of her lesbianism, is "a selfish hedonist." The Cheneys were completely silent on that count, as they have been whenever members of their own party attack their daughter's lifestyle.
Lynn Cheney: silent when Republicans attacks her daughter, outraged when a Democrat speaks of her respectfully. Some parent.
William Saletan, who wasn't that thrilled with Kerry's 2nd debate performance, considers the third to have been a "grand slam" in his favour.
Now, during the VP debates Dick Cheney told everyone to visit FactCheck.com (instead of FactCheck.org) for the truth about Halliburton. As everyone now knows, the first site is redirected to George Soros's anti-Bush site. The common assumption was that Soros was smart enough to quickly buy out the domain name and redirect traffic to his own site.
I did a little bit of digging and discovered that FactCheck.com is owned by a company called Name Admin, Inc., which is based in the Grand Cayman Islands. They're essentially one of those annoying companies that buys endless domain names and advertises on them. The company claims to have instituted the redirection all on their own, for fear of overloading their servers. Their official statement on the matter is here. Do you buy this explanation? Or is George Soros part owner of Name Admin, Inc? Hmm, maybe here's some fodder for a loony right wing conspiracy.
Now this I love. Minor deity of political comedy Mr. Jon Stewart of The Daily Show appeared on CNN's Crossfire, one of those annoying pointlessly confrontational "debate" shows, and gave 'em hell. You can read the transcript here and Wonkette has the video feed here. Essentially, Stewart finally punked out that bow-tied weasel Tucker Carlson. Yeah!
Stewart puts his finger on the disservice the American media is presently doing the public. In a fine example, he asked the Crossfire hosts, "After the debates, where do you go?" The answer: "Spin Alley," that room the networks switch to where the parties massage the facts to fit their agendas. Stewart: "Don't you think that, for people watching at home, that's kind of a drag, that you're literally walking to a place called deception lane?" Amen, brother.
You know, the debates made me a bit mad because the lame-ass moderators pulled too many punches. Here are some of the questions I would have asked the candidates:
For President Bush:
1. "Why was Halliburton awarded a no-bid contract?"
2. "Prisoner abuse and torture has now been reported in US military prisons all across Iraq, Afghanistan and in Guantanamo Bay. To what do you attribute this phenomenon?"
3. "Senior members of your administration have been advocating for the invasion of Iraq long before 9/11, as part of the group called People for a New American Century. Given that fact, why should we believe that the decision to invade was based solely on fighting terrorism?"
4. "Why must people take a loyalty oath to your party before they can attend one of your rallies? Are you afraid of those who might not agree with you?"
5. "Why did you not let the UN weapons inspectors finish their work in the March of 2003?"
6. "Since the US armed Saddam in the first place, knowing full well he was a dictator and tyrant, to what extent are we responsible for the atrocities he then committed?"
7. "If, as you say, democracy is the key to international security, why do we enjoy warm relations with the dictators of Uzbekistan --who is a known torturer on the level of Saddam-- and Turkmenistan, and with de facto dictators in Egypt and Pakistan?"
8. "Why do you insist that Osama bin Laden attacked us because, as you say, 'he hates our freedoms', when many Middle East experts, and bin Laden himself, claim that the attacks are in response to US support for Israel, US troops in Saudi Arabia and Western military presence on the Arabian peninsula?"
For Senator Kerry:
1. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
For those of you in Ottawa, I've giving two big talks tomorrow and Tuesday on CSIH's public health project in Guyana. Note on the appearances page that the venue has changed.
I leave you with this: a movie showing chicks bellydancing to Ozzy Osbourne.
Wednesday Oct 13, 2004 --update
I'll try to keep opinions about the veracity of debate content out of my analysis. Having said that, here's how I saw it:
Style
Bush was trounced. Not by Kerry, but by himself. Giggling at inappropriate times, openly deriding his opponent in a way that transcended mere criticism of Kerry's voting record, and of course that halting way of speaking all contributed to projecting an image of a nervous man struggling to keep his composure.
He screwed up big time when Kerry accused him of once saying that he didn't worry about Osama bin Laden and Bush responded with something to the effect that he never claimed such a thing. Here's what he actually said in March of 2002:
Q: Do you believe the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead of alive?
BUSH: As I say, we hadn't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, you know, again, I don't know where he is. I'll repeat what I said: I truly am not that concerned about him.
On the other hand, Kerry was the picture of calmness and confidence. One blog has already described him as "the Zen Master". I was blown away by his ability to stay on message while drawing upon encyclopaedic knowledge of budgetary numbers and American political history. I was particularly impressed by his ability to slip in his experience as a law enforcement officer. I think he scored major points that way.
While Bush closed strongly with his response to the softball question about his wife, and even came across as charming to this dyed-in-the-wool Shrub-hater, Kerry one-upped him again with a poignant story about his dying mother. Great joke about marrying a billionaire, but ultimately dying mother stories trump meeting-your-wife stories any day.
Substance
Here's where it's a bit closer. Bush got the answer "righter" a couple of times, in terms of saleability and pertinence. In particular, for the question about how to relieve US troops in Iraq, he gave a great answer (with which you may or may not agree), that the best way to reduce troop deployment is to train Iraqi troops. Kerry's answer was meandering.
However, on almost every other topic, Kerry parried with great deftness. I think he scored great blows with his comments on raising the minimum wage instead of giving tax breaks to the wealthy.
Decision
While Bush gave a much better presentation this time around than the first time, I don't think this one was as close as the 2nd debate. Kerry wins, marginally but undoubtedly.
.....
2:AM update. I'm bewildered by the various right-wing blogs who saw this as a clear Bush victory. I don't think this is spin; I think these opinions are genuine. I really can't see how they can possibly see it that way. It's a clear indication of the gaping ideological crevasse that separates the poles of modern (North) American political discourse. In my defence, every poll and almost every media outlet (including Andrew Sullivan's conservative blog) agrees with my analysis:
CBS poll: "Who won the debate?"
Kerry - 39%, Bush - 25%
CNN/USA Today/Gallup: "Who won the debate?"
Kerry - 52%, Bush - 39%
MSNBC online poll: "Who won the debate?"
Kerry - 75%, Bush - 25%
ABC Poll: "Who won the debate?"
Kerry - 42%, Bush - 41%Among Democrats – Kerry: 81%
Among Republicans – Bush: 73%
Note that all the polls attempted to sample Republicans and Democrats evenly, but most (in particular ABC) oversampled Republicans, suggesting that Kerry's victory is by an even greater margin, as perceived by the general population.
Wednesday Oct 13, 2004
Psalm 23 (via my sister-in-law)
Bush is my shepherd, I shall be in want.
He maketh me lie down on park benches.
He leadeth me beside the still factories,
He restores my doubts about the Republican Party.
He leadeth me into the paths of unemployment for his cronies' sake.
Yea, though no weapons of mass destruction have been found, he maketh me continue to fear evil.
His tax cuts for the rich and his deficit spending discomfit me.
He anointeth me with never-ending debt.
Verily my days of savings and assets are kaput.
Surely poverty and hard living shall follow me all the days of his administration,
And my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever.
To start us off today, here's a link to an event the whole family can enjoy!
And in preparation for tonight's third and final Presidential "debate", here's a rare look at Bush's actual notes from the first debate!
So, an anti-torture bill was introduced and passed in the US senate. Anti-torture bill. Anti-torture bill. This is what it's come to? In the supposed "heart of freedom", a law needs to be passed in the 21st century banning torture?! Oy.
The NY Times ombudsman has gone on record as saying in this year's Presidential campaign the Left has been more vile in its attacks than the Right. I have no data to dispell this assertion. But Salon's Mark Follman attempts to do so here.
Okay, apparently Sean Penn is angry at the South Park guys for saying "no shame in not voting ...if you don't know what you're talking about." He wrote them this nasty letter. While I admire Penn's dedication, courage and passion, he really needs to lighten up, take a step back and stop taking himself so seriously.
First off, these are the South Park guys we're talking about. Second, their position isn't so unreasonable. I've heard it repeated mostly by conservative pundits, like Tucker Carlson (who, while often funny, is also the same goombah that once said, "there's something subversive and un-American about soccer.") To be blunt: what is wrong with requiring a degree of awareness among voters? What is wrong with discouraging uninformed inviduals from going to the polls?
Clearly this reasoning smacks of elitism (which is ironically the charge often laid by the Right on the Left). It's not quite as bad the original intended provision in the US constitution, which was meant to reflect Athenian thought by holding that only property owners could participate in the electoral process. (The rationale was that ownership impelled meaningful interest). But it's somewhat similar in that it places an expectation on citizens to achieve or acquire something more than age of majority before they can exercise their franchise.
More importantly, if there is to be an educational expectation among voters, what level of awareness are we talking about here? I don't think it's unreasonable to expect voters to be able to identify the candidates and both sides of several key issues. But it's important that any such talk steer clear of any discussion of formal academic accomplishment, i.e. restricting voting to college grads or high school grads, etc. Mind you, in America, I gather that fewer registered Democrats identify themselves as college grads than do registered Republicans. (Not surprising since those who are very poor are typically uneducated and are less likely to support a party perceived to be promoting the interests of big business.) Yet the common Rightist view is that American universities are bastions of liberal thought, hence grads tend to be indoctrinated. That position certainly is debatable, since anecdotal evidence, at least in Canada, shows a strong streak of conservatism among faculties in History, Economics, Business and Political Science. As for those of us in the maths and sciences, I don't see how my professors' political biases could have been extended to me via calculus lectures, unless they were embedding their famous coded messages back then, too!
As always, however, the plural of anecdote is not data, so I'll refrain from making any conclusions. I'm sure there's a study out there somewhere.
Monday Oct 11, 2004
Here's a marvelous quote from a wonderfully bitchy article about the Republicans taking over New York City:
"In Vichy Paris they still had croissants and coffee, baguettes and nightlife, but it wasn’t the same there either." - Philip Weiss
Okay, many of us were left scratching our heads after the debate on Friday when Chimpy Boy, in response to a question about his criteria for choosing Supreme Court Judges, made a reference to Dred Scott. Huh? Is slavery now an issue for the 2004 election? But no, it now appears that this reference was a coded message to his ultra-conservative base, suggesting that in a 2nd term Bush would attempt to repeal Roe vs Wade, since the reasoning behind the Dredd Scott case and the rationale for opposing Roe vs Wade appear to be identical. Something about human beings having a 5th amendment right to life, liberty and cable TV.
(As an aside, while I am ultimately pro-abortion, I do have many moral qualms about the practice. However, don't you find it incredible that the very same people to rant and wail about fetuses' rights to life are the same folks who have no qualms about executing thousands of convicts or dropping bombs on innocents? Just try arguing with these people --I have. The illogic that spews from their orifices is truly bewildering.)
After the VP debates 2 weeks ago, my very bright girlfriend exclaimed in frustration, "I hated Cheney's foreign policy. And Edwards's wasn't much different." Too true. I tried to defend the Kerry-Edwards stance by claiming that in order to win the election, they must move further to the Right, to which she responded, "Yes, but then they tend to stay there."
Hers is a valid point that makes me very uncomfortable. As the campaign progresses, I see fewer and fewer differences between the Republican and Democratic camps, especially on foreign policy. This saddens me greatly, since it means American discourse has permanently shifted to the Right yet again. Compared to Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter was Che Guevara without the beard. And compared to both, John Kerry may as well be Ronald Reagan without the astrologer. Of course, to remain to the Right of the Democrats, this means that the entire Republican party has goose-stepped further down the Orwellian lane.
It makes me laugh when they accuse Kerry of being ultra-liberal. By Canadian standards, he may as well be a fascist. So why do I support Kerry, even though I think he's a weenie? Simply because a smart weenie is better than a retarded chimp any day.
So it seems Michael Jackson is bidding on Ebay to buy an Irish ghost in a bottle. This has some resonance with me, since the first story in my first book is about a ghost trapped in a bottle. Of course, I meant it as a metaphor, not as a device for someone to bilk hundreds of dollars from a demented man-child by selling bottled farts. Of course, the sale has spawned scores of imitators. Wish I'd thought of it.
RIP Christopher Reeve (1952-2004), aka Superdude.
Saturday Oct 9, 2004
"Q:How many Bush officials does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None. There's nothing wrong with that light bulb. It has served us honorably. When you say it's burned out, you're giving encouragement to the forces of darkness. Once we install a light bulb, we never, ever change it. Real men don't need artificial light."- Steve Chapman
Item 1: Did Bush cheat in the first debate? this website suggests that he did. Look at the photos they present and you'll see a suspicious rectangular bulge on the Shrub's back. An electronic audio device perhaps? Salon discusses these allegations in greater depth.
Item 2: In the words of the Shrub, You Forgot Poland.
Item 3: Presidential debates on the whole have become less meaningful and more exclusive. This site tells us why the modern debates suck.
Item 4: The remainder of this post will be about the 2nd debate, which was held last night. But first, Haroon Siddiqui has this to say about the first debate:
"It is a measure of the sad state of American public discourse - in which the media play stenographers to those in power and politicians do not deviate much from their financiers' scripts - that anyone putting up the feeblest of challenges to presidential assertions, as Kerry did Thursday, is hailed a hero."
Okay, on to the last debate. I take back my comments about how I don't like the Town Hall format. This incarnation of the format was much more exciting than I'd expected. And it prevented the cheating that I linked to above. Celebrity blogger Atrios gives the following preview:
"Coming into debate 2, Bush hasn't got anything. He can't hide behind his 'compassionate conservatism face' which he used in 2000 - that was tossed in the garbage. He can't hide behind 'war president face' because last week we all saw what a joke that is. All he's got left is the real face - sulky fratboy/petulant child."
The Commander In Chimp wa