Whiskey Fire

Rats and Snakes on Whiskey Ships

Over at Sadly No they once more read Mark Noonan. This particular post of Mr Noonan's is... arresting:

The Defeatists are Wrong

And Victor Davis Hanson explains why - I won't quote it; you critics will have to go read it yourselves.  If you have the courage to do so.

Right.

I must confess in all fairness that I often do lack the courage to read a Victor David Hanson essay. Similarly I confess to cowardice in the face of drinking a bottle of gin and sticking my head into a cathedral bell right before Mass.

Honestly. It really does take some courage to read a Victor David Hanson essay. Half his readers he gets from bar bets.

They Cling to the Cinema and Can't Find Security

The weird thing about the GOP v Wingnuttia meltdown over immigration is that I don't get the sense that most people in the Real World really give a shit about it as an issue.

Atrios has said, somewhere, that he's surprised at how liberal most Americans are on immigration as indicated in recent polls and so forth. I think that's a reflection of how little Americans really care about immigration (except of course in certain states & counties). You can look at the polling data. Americans are preoccupied with the war in Iraq. And then after that, healthcare. And then there is the terrorism thing. I mean, on immigration now the basic "liberal position" is "why are we worried about this crap  again?"...  and since there is no especially pressing reason to have this a Top National Priority... it resonates. Don't you know there's an especially stupid war on?

You know what it's like? We own a synthesizer/keyboard and it mostly used by the kids. Yesterday I was walking through the hall off the room where it resides, and I heard an ungodly noise. Three children were pushing down on all the keys at once, and of course they were screaming with laughter. Cacophony.

That's what's going on with immigration and Wingnuttia. Cacophony.

They are panicked and are whacking the keyboard with both hands, trying to push all the hot buttons at once, focusing first on the noises they themselves are most obsessed with. Like feral puppies drunk on Pop Rocks and wine coolers let loose in a recording studio.

Honestly, look at this Malkin dementia, where she is hitting Sam Fucking Brownback over the head with a clown hammer for being insufficiently crazy.

Cacophony.

The Last Thing That's Holding Me

Here's a fun phrase: "For some reason, this isn't front-page news. It should be." I advise you that whenever you hear these words strung together, you are hearing the sounds of an ax being ground, and you are Gawain and it is the Green Knight spinning the wheel.

In other words, heads up.

The person who said this is Andy Sullivan and he is referring to recent riots in Iran. As to these riots, Andy says, and I quote:

Know hope.

Oh fuck you, Obi-Wan. What the fuck is this, "know hope"? 

I submit that nobody really knows what the hell is going on in Iran, and that the last people to be trusted on this issue are those who have a cheerleading interest in a particular outcome: that is, the fairytale ending of a secular democracy whiskey sexy regime where it's all Hooters and Starbucks and TGIF and shit and everyone gets to fuck Santa. Because wheeeeeeeeee! That would mean that those who took Brave Stands on Blogs are Thoroughly Vindicated. Hot fucking dog.

What are these Tehran riots that have the inhabitants of Greater Wingnuttia walking uncomfortably until they can find some Kleenex? Well, let's follow one of Andy's links:

Angry Iranians set fire to a Tehran petrol station and chanted anti-government slogans in a north-west area of the capital in protest against fuel rationing introduced in OPEC's number two oil producer.

A witness said flames rose from the gasoline station in Pounak, a poorer area of the capital, with cars burning inside.

Some youths hurled stones and chanted, "Guns, fireworks, tanks, (President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad should be killed", the witness said.

Another witness said riot police had gathered near the gasoline station and sought to push the rioters back.

Before rationing was introduced, some media reported scuffles at petrol stations between drivers queuing to stock up.

State TV said on Tuesday rationing would start at midnight, prompting drivers to rush to fill up before the deadline.

The second witness cited reports of Iranians attacking another fuel station in Tehran, but gave no further details.

That report could not be independently confirmed.

In other words, nobody knows Jack Shit or even his cousin Johnny Bullcrap.

More, nobody is even listening to Plato's ghost whispering "what then"? What if all the "mullahs" died tomorrow of heart attacks? What would emerge to replace them? Another failed state nobody could control, like... Iraq? Hooray! Piss on a poodle! Joy unbounded!

My essential point is that I am resentful and disdainful of this attitude that there is some moral value in encouraging American citizens to look at the Middle East or anywhere fucking else like we watch sporting events. "Meet the Mets or Meet the Mullahs!" It's crazy. "Know hope"? Know that that's a fucked up thing to say if you're, like, a thinking adult.

Or it should be.

A Contingency of Nasty People

by Molly Ivors

No, I'm not talking about the denizens of The Corner, who, are, after all, in Thers's column to abuse. I'm talking about the stunning revelations of the excellent series by Jo Becker and Barton Gellman in the Washington Post this week. Apparently, (Vice) President Cheney is even more batshit insane and power hungry than we thought.

The particular instance here is so evil and short-sighted as to be positively delusional.

Sitting through Cheney's task force meetings, Whitman had been stunned by what she viewed as an unquestioned belief that EPA's regulations were primarily to blame for keeping companies from building new power plants. "I was upset, mad, offended that there seemed to be so much head-nodding around the table," she said.

Whitman said she had to fight "tooth and nail" to prevent Cheney's task force from handing over the job of reforming the New Source Review to the Energy Department, a battle she said she won only after appealing to White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. This was an environmental issue with major implications for air quality and health, she believed, and it shouldn't be driven by a task force primarily concerned with increasing production.

Whitman agreed that the exception for routine maintenance and repair needed to be clarified, but not in a way that undercut the ongoing Clinton-era lawsuits -- many of which had merit, she said.

Cheney listened to her arguments, and as usual didn't say much. Whitman said she also met with the president to "explain my concerns" and to offer an alternative.

She wanted to work a political trade with industry -- eliminating the New Source Review in return for support of Bush's 2002 "Clear Skies" initiative, which outlined a market-based approach to reducing emissions over time. But Clear Skies went nowhere. "There was never any follow-up," Whitman said, and moreover, there was no reason for industry to embrace even a modest pollution control initiative when the vice president was pushing to change the rules for nothing.

Aside from the fact that this is the first inkling of the content of those energy task-force meetings, it's stunning for a number of reasons. This was all happening during the Grandma Millie summer, when Bush-Cheney donors Enron were yukking it up about shutting off the light in California just for the hell of it.  "Just cut 'em off. They're so fucked. They should just bring back fucking horses and carriages, fucking lamps, fucking kerosene lamps." Blaming a power shortage on environmentalism rather than their own unbridled greed was a logical step.

In the middle of all this, Whitman was trying to negotiate some sort of environmental giveback from industry, but the Oil Men weren't interested. They had already paid--in hefty campaign contributions--for the regulations to be gutted: why should they agree to even token concerns?

Whitman ended up stepping down over the loosening of regulations, when Bush was unswayed even by mountains of evidence about acid rain and arsenic in the water. And now, in 2007, she places the blame squarely on Cheney, who's just about due for a convenient Ken Lay-style massive coronary. Here on Liberal Mountain, our power comes from one of these nasty Eisenhower-era coal-burning plants, and it's gross. Father Ivors lives a few blocks from the power plant, and his house is permanently coated in a thin black grit that can't be good for the lungs. I can see why anyone would fight to protect the rights of people to spew that shit in the air.

But here's the problem: Whitman wants to be a heroine, that's clear. But it's too little, too late. She's coming forward with this now, when the wheels are off the bus and the war is going badly. Cheney even forgets to put on his "human" mask a good percentage of the time, just letting the world see his reptilian cyborg face. It's easy for Whitman to say , "See? I tried and I just couldn't do it!I have a conscience!"

Don't get me wrong: I'm glad she's coming forward now, but she is still One of Them. Plenty of people who marched at Nuremburg in the salad days should have been tried there later. And Whitman was there, on the dais. And she should hang with them.

If she wants to apply for readmission to the human race, she'd have to start by apologizing for telling people that the air was safe at Ground Zero. Then we can talk.

Out on a Lucky Streak

A prediction:

When all the hilarity finally dies down, the colossally incompetent spectacle of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism: A Very Serious Book, I Really Mean It You Big Dumb Meanies! will only be rivalled for sheer entertainment and snark value only by the Pajamas Media disaster.

I think I'm on fairly safe grounds with this prediction.

With Red Cheeks

I must confess that I am having some trouble focusing on politics in general, as cultural politics in specific have been affecting me directly lately. That is, my family has taken in a teenager who has been kicked out of her home because her parents, it seems, most immediately her mother, don't want her to be gay.

I say "seems" because, well, my source for all this mostly comes from the teens (the kicked-out one and my stepdaughter) themselves, and, well, I don't trust teens. But I'm sure the nut of the story is accurate, that the girl was tossed from home for expressing same-sex-desires.

I'm really not any sort of hero here, or I don't feel like one. To tell you the truth, this is kind of hard for me to take. I mean, it's my home. What I've done to build it, I've built it for my family. Opening that... space up all of a sudden is a bit of a wrench. Also it involves a lot of practical business, like room rearrangements and driving someone else to and from teenage work and other appointments. And I HATE having things rearranged. I want a calm homestead, or at least as calm as possible. We have a 1, a 2, & a 7 year old, you know. That's a tough row to hoe all by itself. And I have a job, a book to write, all sorts of other crap... oy.  Not to mention this blog, which provides joy to countless dozens of, um,  someone.

I dunno. I love my stepdaughter and so this needs to happen. And I am genuinely horrified at the bigotry, and I am seriously committed to the hospitality thing. But why the fuck is it never ever easy?

Yeah, I'm just bitching. Trust me, the kid is welcome, and what I'm writing is the Other Side of the Face. I'm just... saying, is all. This knowing right from wrong shit is a bitch. Peace.   

The Chicks Are Back

We were able to see a movie the other night -- a rare occurrence. Parents of small children have difficulty getting free to go to the cinema. (While I was in Kentucky I did see Mr. Brooks, though, the movie where Kevin Costner does some vile, unspeakable things, like standing in front of the camera and collecting a paycheck. The less said about that, the better. I'd thought it was a musical biopic of the NYT columnist and all-around dumbass. No such luck.)

But a harmonic convergence of disparate factors procured for us unbegrudged babysitting from The Teen, and we took swift advantage. 

The fillum in question was Knocked Up, selected by Molly I. She liked it more than I did. Not that I hated it. There were laughs. There was humor. There was... Wisdom. Of a sort.

But there was also something that really bugged me about the flick, and it wasn't until I sat down with the Little Ones to watch the SpongeBob SquarePants Movie for the 1007th time that I could pin it down.

The SpongeBob movie is essentially the same movie as Knocked Up. They have what amounts to the same plot: someone is living their life as a "kid," and they come to appreciate the limitations of that world and the need to transcend it. Both are filled with pop cultural references, both are comedies, both feature a large cast filled with amusing ancillary characters. Both feature at their core a homosocial male pairing that provides the real center of the narrative. Both are basically cartoons.

But there is a key distinction. SpongeBob is in the end unrepentant about the fact that he is a "kid." Indeed, it his conscious choice of a "Goofy Goober" identity that ultimately allows him to defeat Plankton and save Mr Krabs. There is much to admire in his decision, and much to learn -- the film is an epistemological triumph. On the other hand, in Knocked Up the stoner dude has his apotheosis when he successfully dick-waves to his bitchy sister-in-law and a snotty upstart Asian.

The SpongeBob Movie is ultimately far more about individual freedom than is Knocked Up. It's the superior artistic accomplishment.

The Cartoon Bubble Explodes

I have never been more proud: one of my analogies has inspired a comic strip.

I hope to someday write a limerick that will be turned into a major motion picture. About politics, appliances, and, uh, horrible things happening to genitals.

Age Rules with Reason

From the Whiskey Fire Historical Documents Archive. The following is the text of an actual letter written in 1863. As best we can determine, the author was either a cinderblock or a dead hamster. Either way this is a remarkable achievement.

--To my beloved mother and father, and especially to my father and mother and sisters who are photogenic in their suffering, as depicted in voiceovers read by Morgan Freeman.

This may be the last message I am able to send to you. I hope the documentary film crew caught the sepia tones of our humble kitchen at least as well as the faux King-James intonations of my biblical prose which humbly disguise the fact that I am as dumb as a fire hydrant with half the sexual morality. I do so curse the swamps of Antietam, my dear Virginia!

Hmm.

At least THAT faucet still works.

I had to test this because a certain someone is threatening, via email, a FLAMEWAR! That someone would be this person, Kevin Sullivan.

I'm going to repost certain of the more public portions of the conversations Kevin & I have been having, so that you all know the kind of crap I sometimes have to put up with. Why should I be the only one who suffers? (Nothing I'm posting now is unavailable in the public record.)

Thus, please to enjoy (and yes, all dialogue is, basically, real, henceforth, unfortunately -- I'm not half gifted enough to make this shit up):

KEVIN: Was rebuilding Europe easier than rebuilding Iraq? Why so?

ME: Because there wasn't an insurgency. For openers.

KEVIN: There were also Communist insurgents in South Korea following the end of the Korean War, so you might want to revisit your history books and get back to me.

ME: "Korea" is not in "Europe."

And that's our show.

WEED KING!!!!!

Office of Hearts

An interesting question-- and by "interesting" I mean "tedious":  how much paper do you use now as opposed to 5 years ago?

As an English comp instructor who is a Liberal Weenie, I've always felt bad about the sheer bulk of dead tree I've been responsible for producing. I read drafts, so if you've ever loved a specific Sequoia, well, I probably killed it.

But no more! In the past year I've gone paperless pretty successfully.  I grade all papers  and comment on all drafts via the magic of the Internets.

In fact, nowadays, if it's on paper, I'll lose it.

The only drawback I see to the electronic form is that you can't roll it up and smoke it.