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December 31, 2005
Happy New Year
I meant to do the "ten things that rocked in 2005" post today, but I slept late after playing cards all night and the morning's gotten away from me, and I have a ton to do before tonight's festivities at the MU Hoop residence. So, I'll just wish everyone a safe and happy New Year's celebration, and we'll catch up next year.
Snoogans.
Posted by Christopher at 10:39 AM | Comments (2)December 30, 2005
2005 In Review: Ten Things That Sucked This Year
I can't very well go by the persona of "Curmudgeon" without focusing at least a little on things that sucked over the course of the last year now, can I? Here's my list of the top ten things that represented the sludge of humanity and the scourge of the earth -- in other words, things that really sucked in 2005. (As always, read the top three here and click through for the next seven.)
3. Mother Nature. A tsunami that kills 275,000 people? Three Cat 5 hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico the year after four hurricane strikes on Florida in a seven week span? A major hurricane that wipes one of America's most colorful cities basically off the map? A devastating earthquake that kills 70,000 in the Indian subcontinent? Geez, Mother Nature's a total bitch, isn't she? And as much as I want to rail at the idiot in the White House for ignoring the blatant signs of global warming, I can't blame him for earthquakes and hurricanes and tsunamis; those are all on Gaia herself.
2. The response to Katrina. Whether due to sheer incompetence (Kathleen Blanco) or criminal negligence (Michael Brown), authorities at every level -- federal, state, and local -- failed the citizens of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The sight of thousands of American citizens laying around in fetid, stinking buildings with no food or water should haunt our country for years; it was inexcusable. Almost as inexcusable was George W. Bush's insistence in the early going that everything was going fine; who will ever forget "You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie?" At least Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin admitted to the fiasco as it happened, rather than re-living their drunken college days and complimenting those who'd royally screwed up. And if anyone ever believed George W. Bush's absurd claim that he can protect our country better than anyone else, his abominable performance during this disaster -- and that of the unqualified cronies he's placed in positions of authority all across his government -- thoroughly, laughably, and tragically exposed that utter lie.
1. The Democrats. What, you ask? A self-professed lefty such as myself not only saying that the Democrats sucked, but naming them the number one thing that sucked all year? You're damn right. We have a corrupt and vile president whose administration has engaged in systematic deception and violations of the law -- be it lying about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction that we knew did not exist, to deliberately leaking the name of a covert CIA agent simply to extract political revenge, to violating the Constitutional rights of American citizens and then defiantly insisting that he would continue to do so. His crony-filled administration horribly bungled the response to the worst natural disaster in US history, and frighteningly exposed the utter unpreparedness of our federal government to deal with large-scale disasters like the ones that are probably coming from another al Qaeda attack somewhere in the future (attacks made more likely by the fact that Zippy the Wonder Chimp got us all sidetracked and distracted in Iraq instead of finishing the fight with bin Laden and al Qaeda). Bush's approval ratings hover near 40% as the country realizes what an absolute liar and charlatan he really is. In this environment, not only should Democratic prospects for 2006 be soaring, but the country should frankly be clamoring for an impeachment of this criminal president.
That's not what's happening, and it's the fault of the Democrats. The party is bereft of leadership and seemingly bereft of ideas. And when all you have to offer the American people is, "We're not Bush," that's not going to be good enough, even when Bush is a treasonous criminal who should be on trial for crimes against the American people. For people to want to replace they devil they know, they have to actually have a sense that they're replacing him with something. And the Democrats, even in this highly fertile environment, come up with one huge vaccuum. There is no fresh idea; there is no idealistic leader standing up to defend his or her country against the crimes being perpetrated upon it; there is no will to actually do something meaningful or offer a real alternative. Nancy Pelosi is a veritable void in the House; Howard Dean, while I love what he says and the truths about Republicans he points out, is simply playing a polarizing figure who is all about the nyaah-nyaah and none about offering tangible policy alternatives. In the Senate, Harry Reid managed one moment of leadership all year in forcing closed session Senate hearings on Iraq intelligence, but other than that he's been uninspiring.
There's no excuse for polls that find Democratic chances in the House and Senate in 2006 to be even at best. The biggest criminal ever to hold the presidency now occupies the White House, and a veritable rogues gallery populates his administration. The American people should be calling for impeachment, should be demanding accountability, should be lining up in droves to force the blight from our highest offices. They're not doing it, and it's because of a colossal failure of leadership on the part of the Democrats. It's not just an opportunity to seize a political moment that is passing us by; it's a responsibility to uphold democracy itself -- and we're failing. Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, Harry Reid and the rest of the Democratic leadership have demonstrated a total absence of substance, and because of it, the greatest crimes ever perptrated by a president against the Constitution he swore to uphold will likely continue. For the Bush administration to commit those crimes is deplorable; but for the Democrats to allow them is reprehensible and inexcusable. Yes, the Democrats are the thing that sucked the worst in 2005.
4. Terrell Owens. This classless, boorish, me-first, clueless piece of human garbage is a perfect example of why I can barely stand the NFL anymore. Punks like this trash used to get kicked off of junior high teams for bad attitudes. Today, they're glorified, celebrated, rewarded, and turned into martyrs by others like them in the league (are you listening, Chad Johnson?). Owens is a petulent little child who shouldn't be working at a Burger King with his poor attitude, much less making millions. Anyone want to re-assess why he played in last year's Super Bowl on a bum ankle? Anyone really think it was about his team? Terrell Owens is a spoiled punk, and the only good thing about his shenanigans this year is that they guarantee that he'll make about half of what he thinks he's worth next year when some stupid team signs him.
5. Britney Spears still hasn't gotten nekkid in Playboy. Sure, she's trailer trash. That just bodes well for those of us who are waiting impatiently for the attempted career revival pictorial Britney is destined to do. However, if the gossip pages are to be believed, this talentless simpleton seems to believe that the solution to having married a useless, money-sucking leech is to have another child by him. Such stupidity can only mean two things: a) the career-revival attempt will only be more dire and necessary when she finally escapes the leech's clutches; and b) it's going to be delayed for at least one more year. I'll still be waiting, too -- like was once said about Kramer on Seinfeld, Britney is "a loathsome offensive brute, yet I can't take my eyes away."
6. Dick Cheney's heart still works. Four heart attacks, and they couldn't incapacitate this evil son of a bitch enough to get him out of the administration? That's proof alone that Cheney is the devil.
7. Bill O'Reilly didn't contract a scorching case of herpes and then give it to Ann Coulter. No explanation necessary.
8. Drew Rosenhaus. What's perhaps the only thing that's worse than an arrogant, cocky, smug, out-of-touch and totally useless slimeball athlete? That's right: an arrogant, pathetic, wannabe clinger-on to an arrogant, cocky, smug, out-of-touch and totally useless slimeball athlete. Rosenhaus' stint as Terrell Owens' agent is remarkable for the efficiency in which he destroyed his client's reputation and earning power. Nice job, Half-Pint.
9. No hockey. Sure, 80% of the country didn't care. But I grew up in hockey country, and for me the winter sport is played on ice, not a court. The NHL sacrificed a season to greed -- both the players' greed and the owners' greed -- and in the end the settlement that was reached screwed the players over worse than the one on the table when the lockout commenced. Die-hards like me will come back; it remains to be seen whether the sport's few casual fans will.
10. Larry the Cable Guy still has a career. The insipid "git-r-done" routine of Larry the Cable Guy revels in its lack of class, and celebrates lack of education, lack of manners, disrespect for others, and in some cases outright prejudice. That's the "anti-political correctness" movement at large, but ol' Larry personifies it -- and the fact that he's got a career out of it, not to mention that he was on fire in 2005, is a sad statement about not just his fans but our society in general, in that someone who glorifies ignorance can become a hero.
Posted by Christopher at 12:35 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBackDecember 29, 2005
Priorities
Good men buried their sons this week.
Tony Dungy, head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, is by all accounts one of the classiest men in the NFL, a true leader and role model not only for his players but for kids anywhere. The outpouring of grief and geuine sympathy for Dungy after the death of his 18 year old son James is indicative of the esteem in which Dungy is held by his peers and colleagues in football's fraternity. Dungy's eloquence and strength during his eulogy for his son at the funeral service was admirable and inspirational, and it's impossible not to cheer for the Colts to win the Super Bowl this year now, so deep is the respect and compassion that Dungy has earned from anyone who pays even passing attention to the NFL.
Master Sgt. Joseph Andres Jr. was a 34 year old communications officer assigned to Fort Bragg who was servving in Iraq. He was supposed to be home for New Year's Eve in his hometown of Cleveland, but he never made it home. His unit came under small arms fire in Baquoba on Saturday, and he died on Christmas Eve. His sister described the family's loss in simple terms. "It's devastation," she said.
Each death was tragic in its own way, and the only connection or comparison between the two is their shared sad conclusion this week. But we can learn a lot about someone else's priorities in the aftermath of their losses. A professional football coach's teenage son dies of an apparent suicide, just days before Christmas; an American soldier carrying out his duty in a combat zone is killed in an ambush on Christmas Eve, just a week before he was supposed to come home. Guess which family got a personal note from the Commander in Chief?
If you guessed the military family, you guessed wrong.
George W. Bush, ever advertising his "man of faith"-ness, sent a personal note to the Dungy family to be delivered during the funeral. At one point, while testimonies were being read, an attendant hurried down the aisle carrying a piece of paper. A minister took it to the podium. It was a letter from President Bush, an announcement that brought a gasp from the congregation. Bush expressed his and his wife Laura's sadness and condolences to Tony Dungy and his wife, Lauren. "I pray for you," the president wrote. "May God keep you. May his light shine upon you."
Gee, George. It sure was swell of you to take the opportunity to show your compassion and faith in such an ostentatious fashion as a hand-delivered letter during the funeral service. You could have sent private condolences, I suppose, or phoned the family before or after the service, but then no one would have seen your display -- and what good would that have done you? A neutral observer might conclude that Bush's note was delivered not out of compassion but out of the desire to appear compassionate.
Meanwhile, there were no reports of the Andres family receiving a personal letter of condolence from George W. Bush, despite his role as commander in chief of the armed forces in which Joseph Andres served so admirably. No phone calls to a family who lost their son on Christmas Eve, for whom the holidays will never be the same. No presidential letters containing prayers or invoking God's blessing came for the Andres family during Joseph's funeral service. There was no acknowledgement at all by this president of Joseph Andres' death.
Actually, there have been no acknoweldgements by George W. Bush of any of the 2,172 American military deaths since he started the war in Iraq over what even he now admits were false pretenses. He has not attended one military funeral for a serviceman or woman killed in Iraq. There have been no personal notes of condolence delivered in the flashiest of fashions during funeral services for all the world to see, no individual prayers offered or wishes for God's light to shine on military families who've lost a loved one in George W. Bush's war.
A respected football coach tragically loses a son, and George W. Bush is all over it, in as public a fashion as possible. A military family tragically loses a son, and just like each time before it, George W. Bush is nowhere to be found. Bush's actions speak volumes about the man's priorities and sincerity.
I feel heartsick for the Dungy family, and I wish them peace and comfort during this terrible time; if they find it in their faith, then I am glad it brings them solace.. I also feel heartsick for the Andres family, and I wish them peace and comfort during this terrible time; I hope there is some solace for them in the pride and thanks of a grateful nation for their son's sacrifice. Neither man's death diminishes the shock and sadness of the loss of the other; each was heartbreaking for the families and loved ones left behind. I hope that there is a lesson to be learned in each man's death about compassion, about faith, and about what's really important in life.
"I urge you not to take your relations for granted," Dungy said. "Parents, hug your kids each chance you get. Tell them you love them each chance you get. You don't know when it's going to be the last time."
We promise, Coach.
Posted by Christopher at 07:56 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBackDecember 28, 2005
2005 In Review: 12 I'll Miss Most
I'm officially joining the end-of-year, let's-review-the-year that has just passed bandwagon, now that there are only three days left in the year. I'll start with the morbidity, and review those who died in the past 12 months. Don't get me wrong, every death is a sad thing and of course everybody will be missed by somebody... but these twelve were the ones I think I'll miss most of all. And for heaven's sake, I'm not value-judging anyone's contributions or saying what they gave is any better or more significant than anyone else... just that I'm going to miss them more, perhaps. (It's 12 because I lack the discipline to narrow it down to 10.) My top three are here on this page; for the other nine, click through below.
3. Peter Jennings. I was always an NBC guy myself. But Jennings was one of those voices and faces who seemed to always have been there, a voice of authority and yet commonality who talked us through some of the most dramatic moments of the last 35 years. Rather resigned and Brokaw retired; they were the lucky ones. Peter Jennings deserved better than he got. His death in August marked the passing of an era.
2. Richard Pryor It wasn't just that he was funny; there were other funny people before him. It was that he was fearless. Richard Pryor found the hysterical humor in the unfunniest moments and elements of our characters; he forced us to confront the things we were uncomfortable with by making us laugh at them. His impact on stand-up comedy was profound, and it was permanent. Many made us laugh before him, and many have made us laugh since him -- but no one made us laugh like him. He left us in December at 65.
1. Johnny Carson. Carson was never the funniest comedian in the business. But he never had to be. He was funny, certainly... but the reason we invited him into our homes, into our bedrooms every night for 30 years was because he was more than funny -- he was charming, and genuine, and real. He made us laugh when his jokes worked, but he made us laugh harder when they didn't. He was the epitome of making a bad situation good -- put him on national TV with a joke that tanked, and he could react in a way that was much funnier than the original joke. He was a gracious host, an entertaining personality, and generations of Americans watched him before going to sleep. His presence on late night television has never been replaced, and when he died it left a tangible void in our collective hearts. Johnny Carson died in January at 80. Good night, Johnny -- and thank you.
4. Rosa Parks She wasn't the first to take a stand against the racist bus policy in Montgomery, Alabama -- and she benefitted from having friends in high places who could make her a cause celebre. But Rosa Parks was the kind of woman who had the strength to stand -- or, more appropriately, sit -- as the face of civil rights resistance, to deal with the hatred that she faced, to set the dignified example she set... and to become the leader she became even after that first moment of defiance and justice. Rosa Parks was the kind of person we should all want to be. And when she died in October at 92, she left the world a much better place than when she came to it. That's saying something.
5. Arthur Miller "The Crucible" is a damning indictment of McCarthyism -- and someone ought to get the bright idea to re-do The Crucible as an allegory for what the Bush-Cheney-Rove-Coulter-DeLay crowd has tried to do to America and American society in the last five to six years. But Arthur Miller's magnum opus was "Death of a Salesman," which still stands as the ultimate expression, I think, of the reality of the American Dream: a sad mirage for most, yet nobility comes from its pursuit and not its attainment. The single best production I've ever seen on Broadway was the revival of "Salesman" in 1999 starring Brian Dennehy - the entire audience was moved to audible sobs. Miller, the greatest playwright of his generation, died in February at 89.
6. Paul Winchell Don't know him? Think again. Click here, and then tell me you never heard him. The Winnie The Pooh cartoons were my absolute favorite when I was a kid, and though I loved Eeyore the most (and still do), Tigger was irrepressible. No one will ever replace that original voice and the life he brought to the bouncy tiger. Winchell died in June at 82.
7, John Spencer Not only was he Leo McGarry, the wizened chief of staff for the president America wishes we'd had over the last five years, but Spencer played a pivotal role in "The Negotiator," which is on my list of top ten most underrated movies. Spencer died just two weeks ago of a heart attack; he was 58.
8. Sam Mills. A walking example to anyone who's ever been told they couldn't do something, Mills was supposed to be too small and too slow to play linebacker in the NFL. All he did was become a five time Pro Bowl linebacker and one of the best of his decade. You can't measure heart or guts on a chart, but somehow you always know who has it. Mills died in April after a long battle with intestinal cancer; he was only 45.
9. Simon Wiesenthal. The tireless champion of justice served taught us that neither time nor the desire to forget can absolve us from the need to do what is right. Adolf Eichmann and dozens of others were brought to justice through Wiesenthal's courageous efforts. I hope that I someday have a fraction of this man's dedication. Wiesenthal died in June at 96.
10. Ossie Davis. He wasn't just an extremely talented actor; he was a powerful and dignified voice for civil rights from the earliest days of the movement. Davis could bring gravitas and dignity to any role -- especially the one he played in life. His talent moved us, but his passion and beliefs changed us. Davis died in February at 87.
11. Anne Bancroft She was great in "The Miracle Worker," but of course everyone will remember Anne Bancroft for being Mrs. Robinson. And how can we not pay homage to the woman who set the standard for the older woman fantasy? (Of course, we all know my history goes in the other direction, but that's why they call it a fantasy.) Bancroft died in June at 73,
12. Don Adams. Not because of "Get Smart" -- I'm not at all a fan of Mel Brooks humor, I find it obvious and uncreative -- but because Don Adams was the voice of Tennessee Tuxedo, who was one of the staples in my cartoon diet as a kid in the 70s (UHF syndication rocked!). Adams died in September at 82.
Posted by Christopher at 04:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBackInfected
Somewhere along the line this morning, I appear to have picked up a piece of malware or spyware; my computer is infected worse than an 8th Avenue hooker during convention season. The culprit appears to be something called "Spy Axe," which masquerades as a spyware blocker, but is in fact spyware itself. Among the annoying elements is that it produces a perpetual bubble on my screen -- designed to look like a Windows warning -- that informs me that "dangerous malware infection" has been detected on my PC. Of course, the Spy Axe IS the malware; nice that it detected itself.
And it's proving excessively difficult to get rid of. I'm more than ready to commit several violent felonies on the goatsuckers that built this crap -- for real, I'm reporting them to the Better Business Bureau, and I'm looking on line for groups of people taking collective action against this bunch of elephant dung. I doubt that this company will do anything more than laugh at complaints from customers, but perhaps complaints from the BBB and maybe some state attorneys general or something will catch their attention. Either that or flamethrowers outside their homes. ;-)
In the meantime, while I plot violent and painful fantasy retribution against these bastards, if there's anyone out there who knows how to get this garbage off an infected system, I could really use the help.
Posted by Christopher at 11:43 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBackDecember 27, 2005
A Very Curmudgeon Christmas
After a few days' hiatus to visit friends and family for Christmas, I'm back for the dead week between Christmas and New Year's. I should enjoy it for what it is -- the first four months of 2006 are going to be intense, and I'm sure that by the time April's here I'll be longing for a week where nothing's going on. Anyway, about my Christmas... (Putting on my very best "Jay" from "Jay and Silent Bob" impression...) "I made out like a FAT cat for Christmas this year... snoogans."
First of all, I finally got an iPod, only 9 million days after the rest of the world. (I'm nothing if not cutting edge, kids.) I'd been planning on buying my own anyway, once the Xmas shopping season had faded and I didn't have to feel guilty about buying something for myself -- but knowing this, my parents went and basically got me a gift card that'll take care of the bulk of the iPod, and thus by week's end I will finally have one. (Since I have a couple thousand MP3s sitting on my hard drive, it's about damn tme I got an actual MP3 player so that I can listen to them away from the computer!) I got a few other things from them -- the Trans-Siberian Orchestra DVD, a good pair of leather gloves, the latest book from The Onion, and a bunch of paraphenalia from my favorite local microbrewery -- but the iPod was the biggie. Not that what you get is the main thing that matters, but it's usually the first conversation-making question we all ask each other, isn't it? All in all, a bunch of cool stuff and more than I should have gotten (again!).
Before seeing my family, I stopped over in suburban Philadelphia for a Christmas visit with the Doc and Mrs. Doc and the kids. And I have to say, they bookended the electronic Christmas perfectly; if the iPod represents the latest and coolest new electronic gadget that has caught on and gained mass appeal, the Docs' gift to me, in together with Tim & Mrs. Tim, represents one of the earliest. Yes kids, I am now the proud owner of a vintage, still-with-the-original-box, Intellivision! (eBay is an amazing thing, isn't it?!) It even has about 25 of the original games with it. I figure that both my retro-cool score and my total geekitude score just went up at least 100 points each in one single setting. This is the coolest thing -- I haven't seen one of these in more than 20 years. Screw PS3 and Xbox, man... give me dot-matrixed biplanes and odd looking blurbs of players tossing a square white football any day! Oh, and we watched movies that night, so now I have finally seen Sideways (loved it! now you know which DVD you can get me for my birthday).
The weekend was quiet, uneventful. I met up with my parents in downtown Philadelphia on Saturday -- my uncle, who is doing the post-retirement career switch thing and has become a flight attendant now (don't laugh, the dude is in his 60s and travels all across the US all the time now, and is having a ball!) had a flight that landed in Philadelphia for an overnight, and we all had the chance to get together. After meeting up mid-afternoon, we hung out at the Reading Terminal Market for a little while, then settled in for a lousy dinner (shoulda known better than to pick a hotel restaurant, but we were afraid very little else would be open on Christmas Eve). Oh well, at least the company was good.
Saturday night after returning to Delaware, we exchanged gifts (we're Christmas Eve gift people, always have been, dunno why) and pretty much fell asleep. My brother was with his wife's family this year, and the usual troop of DC area orphans we often host seemed to have all found "homes" this year... which made this the smallest (3 people) family Christmas gathering ever for the Curmudgeon family. We usually have four or six, with a couple of friends along for the ride... felt weird and oddly un-Christmas-y to have it be just us three. So Christmas Day was pretty much like a normal Sunday, with a dinner and football games on. Monday was nice to have off, I did a little wandering around Rehoboth, did some writing, and then at night we saw Syriana (really good, if a bit hard to follow... not so much a traditional story with a beginning an end so much as being just a window on a world we try not to think about too often).
Today, on the drive home, I got to see a dump truck overturned on the New Jersey Turnpike, spilling several inches of sand and dirt across two lanes of highway. Now there's something you don't see every day... Problem was, to see it I had to be stuck in the miles-long backup that it created. So my return home to NY was delayed quite a bit.
To sum up: iPod. Intellivision. Sideways. Philadelphia. Syriana. Dump truck. Merry Christmas.
Posted by Christopher at 10:58 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBackPriorities
There's troops in Iraq, which keeps turning into more of a quagmire every day. People inside the White House have been indicted for leaking the names of covert CIA employees to the press in retaliation for their politics. The White House has not only okayed the use of the NSA to violate the Constitution, but defiantly insists that it's going to continue. There's a far right wing extremist who's about to start confirmation hearings to the US Supreme Court. Osama bin Laden is still at large, as is Zarqawi. The housing bubble is in the process of bursting. Two thirds of the American public believes that the country is headed down the wrong track. With all these serious and important things to focus attention on, what are George W. Bush and his administration paying attention to?
A coked out, slurring embarrassment of a has-been celebrity.
Yep, the Bush administration can't be bothered to give you an honest answer about Iraq, and doesn't want to talk about its NSA spying policies... but the administration has deemed it a prudent use of its resources and time to get involved in Anna Nicole Smith's estate battle.
Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith has an unusual bedfellow in the Supreme Court fight over her late husband's fortune: the Bush administration. The administration's top Supreme Court lawyer filed arguments on Smith's behalf and wants to take part when the case is argued before the justices.
If you were president right now, isn't this where you'd place your priorities? This administration's as phony and plastic as Anna's most famous assets.
Posted by Christopher at 09:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBackDecember 23, 2005
2005 Year In Review: Mudge's World (or, an indulgent exercise in navel gazing)
There are a few years or extended moments in your life that stand definitively as markers or points at which your life changed for good, and you will always think of your entire life in terms of "before" and "after." Some of these are sort of pre-set for you simply by your age: the year you graduate high school, the year you finish college, the year you retire. Others are universal in that almost everyone eventually has them, but the timing differs by individual: the year you got married; the year you got divorced; the year you had your first baby. And then, there are those that are far more random and much more individual to each person: those moments that not everyone else will ever have, that are unique to your experience and stand out as plot points of one sort or another in the novel of your life.
2005 was definitely one of those years for me. It's impossible for me to reflect on the year that's just passed without thinking of its personal import to me. Yes, there were indeliable moments and defining experiences for the rest of the world (Katrina, the tsunami aftermath, the London bombings, and several others), but for the rest of my life I will mostly think of 2005 as a year of personal change. Our careers and professional lives shouldn't and don't define us, it's true. But they do have a deep influence in our lives -- and 2005 will always be the before-and-after year in my career, so dramatically so that it may well impact the rest of my life as well.
I started the year writing speeches for other people; I finished the year writing them for myself. I started the year watching other people speak my words; I finished it watching audiences listen as I speak them. I started my career as the guy who'd try to get his spokesperson in front of reporters; I finished this year being the guy reporters wanted to talk to. I may have -- I certainly hope I have -- many other successes ahead of me before I retire in about 25 years, but I will never again cross such a wide chasm between "up-and-coming" and "arrived."
It still feels weird. Communications people condition quickly in our careers. We know that it's never supposed to be our name that people see. We're the wizards behind the curtain. We create or influence stories behind the scenes, but our executives do the talking and the storylines are what we sell; speechwriters are paid to make someone else sound visionary or brilliant or inspiring. Anonymity is just part of the profession we chose (much to the chagrin of my mother!!) So to all of a sudden see my name,words, and even my photo in some business pages is really like being through the looking glass. (Especially since I figured that if I ever started getting press, it'd be for some creative or artistic endeavor, not business!) And I've learned that it's a hell of a lot easier to sit in an audience as the speechwriter and cringe at every time your speaker mangles one of your lines or delivers your key sound bite awkwardly, than it is to be the one standing in front of a hundred or more people and delivering those lines. There's also a big adjustment that you have to make mentally to being in the spotlight; it's more of an effort to stay humble than you might think. (This is especially a problem if you're like me, and were never really all that humble in the first place!)
I've worked my ass off in the last few years, and I can finally say it paid off. The financial rewards have started to kick in, and my worth in the job market jumped considerably in 2005. I'm proud of that, and I'm looking forward to taking full advantage of it in the years ahead. But what I'm proudest of is simply having made good on a promise to myself. After my personal life became such a mess two years ago, I promised myself that I would spend the next couple of years focusing my energy on my professional side, and trying to turn the negative emotion of a personal stumble into positive fuel for professional achievement. I think I can say I did that; whatever I felt I had to prove to myself, I think I've proven.
But that leads to the challenge for 2006. I've chosen to spend the last two years focused on career; I've done that, but at the expense of the rest of me, including my personal life. (Although I did get to date a 21 year old for several months this year -- and then on and off after that -- and I think that goes down as a banner accomplishment for a 37 year dude in any year! [Insert lascivious grin here.] ) So I have two goals for 2006, both equally important:
1. Take care of my health. Winston Churchill once said that there is nothing more exhilarating that being shot at without result... hopefully I'll be able to one-up him and say that nothing's more exhilarating than coming off rounds of tests and being given a "you're okay" and a second shot at getting it right. No more "I don't have time." Part of the benefit of "arriving" should be being able to make time to do what I need to do. So 2006 is the year I get healthy again. Make time. No excuses. And don't doubt what I can do when I'm focused on it.
2. Adjust my focus to my social life. Spend more time with friends, develop more hobbies, you know. And yeah, probably date more realistically too -- not that I feel like I need to be all coupled up again, but I suppose it'd be smarter to put myself in situations where there's at least a realistic chance to last for a while rather than having things be doomed from the start and just not caring about that. Anyway, whatever I do, I need to be more well-rounded in the next year than I've been for the last couple.
So that's my self-indulgent look back at 2005. Next week, I'll get into some less me-me-me reviews of the year that was; 10 things that rocked, 10 things that sucked, 10 I'll miss the most, that sort of thing. For now, kids, if I don't see you... Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, have a sacred solstice, Happy Kwanzaa, and Happy Festivus (the holiday for the rest of us).
Posted by Christopher at 12:35 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBackDecember 22, 2005
Oh, Canada! Oh, Oh, Ohhhhhh, Yeaaaaaahhh Canada!
You know it's going to be a good day anytime you log onto your home news page and see a headline that reads, "Canada Okays Group Sex." I mean, like I wasn't gonna read that story? But as it turns out, it's a story that matters far beyond the titilation factor.
The Canadian Supreme Court heard the case, which centered around obscenity charges against the owner of a Montreal club called "L'Orage" (The Thunderstorm). L'Orage is a private club for swingers; its members meet behind the members-only doors and "swing" -- exchanging sexual partners and engaging in public sex. The club owner was charged with indecency and with running a "bawdy house" -- which is Canadian, apparently, for a brothel -- that represented a threat to Canadian society.
I'll be honest: I've never had group sex. (Maybe for my next birthday. Applicants should e-mail me with photos.) Never really even been something I much considered. But the point in this case isn't about the behavior involved, no matter how unorthodox it may seem. It's about the government's power to dictate to invidiual citizens what they can do of their own volition in the privacy of their own homes or clubs. The club was private; no children were involved, and there was no evidence that anyone was coerced into anything against their will. No, this was just a bunch of consenting adults doing whatever it was that they consented to, in a private setting. And a government having the power to tell me as a citizen what I can or cannot consent to... that impacts me whether I'm into "swinging" or not. Because frankly, what I do -- or what you do, or what your across-the-street neighbors do -- on our own time and in our own homes... well, it may not just be our own business, but it sure as hell isn't the government's business.
The Canadian Supreme Court agreed. "Criminal indecency or obscenity must rest on actual harm or a significant risk of harm to individuals or society. The Crown failed to establish this essential element of the offense. (Its) case must therefore fail," read the decision. And in a statement that I wish some American judges and politicians would read, the Canadian Court continued, "The causal link between images of sexuality and anti-social behavior cannot be assumed. Attitudes in themselves are not crimes, however deviant they may be or disgusting they may appear."
I'd love to have that line to roll out as precedent here in the States the next time some rabid conservatives have a town about to enact an anti-gay rights ordinance. So if supporting the right of individual citizens to consent to whatever they are inclined to privately consent to, without interference from the government, means that I by extension support Canadian group sex, then so be it. Say it loud, say it proud: I'm for Canadian group sex!
Posted by Christopher at 05:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBackIntelligent Defeat
As you know by now, a federal court ruled Tuesday that "intelligent design" cannot be taught as science in the Dover, Pennsylvania public schools, determining that ID is in fact little more than cloaked and disguised creationism, and was simply an attempt to inject religion into the public schools.
Not only did Judge John E. Jones (a Republican, mind you! and a churchgoer) hand the Christian Taliban a defeat in his ruling, he delivered uppn them a stinging, devastating, and wholly public rebuke. His 139-page decision thundered on the joke of a claim by ID backers that theirs is a scientific and not a religious agenda. "We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board’s real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom." And when a federal judge accuses them of "breathtaking inanity" in their arguments, you know it had to have gotten pretty thick inside that courtroom.
Judge Jones, in opting to issue the decision he did, using the language he chose, wasn't just settling a case. He was issuing a warning. He sounded a wake-up call to the American people about the Christian right's true theocratic agenda. The people have needed that call because George W. Bush and prominent Republican leaders have spent years endorsing the Christian sheep's clothing false agenda... and the media has become so cowed and intimidated over constant right wing whining about bias in the media that they've presented this pseudo-science as almost legitimate, never discussing what really lies behind it.
The judge effectively poured cold water over a dozing nation Tuesday, trying desperately to awaken us collectively to the reality of the Christian right's agenda -- a public unmasking, as it were. Judge Jones on Tuesday was our Fred from Scooby-Doo, a hero in black robes and not a white sweater and orange ascot; he was the one who grabbed Intelligent Design by the head, said, "Now let's see who you really are!" and revealed the true villian behind the mask. You could almost hear the Christian right grumbling, "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for that meddling judge!" as they were led away from the scene.
I agree with what the San Jose Mercury News said in an editorial Wednesday: Judge Jones did a tremendous service to our nation. We owe him our thanks -- and our continued vigilance.
Click below for some more golden nuggets penned by Judge Jones in his decision:
"The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."
"It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy."
Posted by Christopher at 04:55 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBackDecember 20, 2005
Strike One
Blar de blar de blar... yeah, there was some kinda transit thing happening in the city today. New York got to be all over the news -- first for the monumental disruption the strike caused (and it did really impact the city, the coverage hasn't been exaggerating it), then later for the self-loving, slobbering sex act kind of stories that New York loves to tell about itself, about how New Yorkers came together and rose above, everybody bonded, there were no riots, they helped each other out, aren't New Yorkers special, yada yada. (For the record, New York, this whole 'everybody helps each other out and deals with each other in times of crisis' thing happens everywhere else in the country too. It's just that no other city or state feels quite so self-congratulatory about it, nor feels such an acute need to tell the world how special it is. But I digress...)
My cynical response to the New York media's self-coverage aside, today was a highly disrupted day. No question. Even out in the burbs, where the Metro North folks hadn't yet decided to honor the strike, you could feel the messed-up-ness of it. It didn't impact me personally; actually, I spent much of the day in the Bronx being stabbed by needles... no, I wasn't at Hunt's Point with the junkies, I was hanging out at Montefiore Medical Center. (I'm fine... they're just running some blood tests to figure out why I'm so damn talented. They think it might be a genetic mutation. Seriously, I should be fine... not entirely "routine" stuff, but certainly nothing to worry about.) But the point is, I didn't get personally impacted by the strike. You can drive from Westchester to the Bronx without crossing a river, so I didn't have to deal with the HOV restrictions.
What do I think of the whole thing? In general, my sympathies almost always lie with unions in things like this; I grew up in a blue collar/union kind of area, and I cut my teeth in my first career as a political campaigner dude helping arrange for union endorsements and dealing with the union guys for my candidates. Generally, I like union guys, and I share their mistrust of management (even though I am now management... what an identity crisis it is when you don't trust yourself to do the right thing for yourself!). And when the MTA has a billion dollar surplus, it would seem to me that two things in order would be to a) reduce prices or give some of it back to commuters; and b) give some to the workers who help make it possible. But...
First of all, this strike's illegal. Even the TWU's parent union concedes that, and wants the local to go back to work. Bigger than that, though, I guess I have a real problem with the union's demands and the reason they went out on strike in the first place. First of all, they're all pissy because they're being asked to pick up some of their health care costs? What the hell? I don't know when the last time was that any of the heads of the transit workers union looked at anyone else's jobs... but just about everyone in America lucky enough to have health benefits has to pay some amount of co-pay or payroll deduction as part of the deal. The whole "entitled to free health care" attitude being displayed by the TWU isn't just arrogant, it's short-sighted -- go ahead guys, force MTA to keep up with skyrocketing costs and paying 100% of your health care... how long you figure that can last before they gotta start cutting jobs to recoup costs?
Worse still to me is the union's infuriating demand for an 8% raise annually. 8%? Guaranteed? Every year? No matter what your job performance or what economic conditions are? What the hell kind of reality are these guys living in? I'd love to get an 8% raise annually. Hell, I'd like to have any raise at all guaranteed to me. But that's not reality -- not in my job, and not in any other job I know. Demanding an 8% raise annually is almost like asking for bon-bons to be placed in every break room, and a day spa massage (happy ending optional) for every employee daily... anywhere else in reality, a guaranteed 8% raise annually would be an unbelievable luxury, yet our transit guys feel they're entitled to it? Boys, you're just not that special.
Finally, there's the matter of the economic impact on the city that this strike is taking. I don't mean the big businesses or the tourist industry or the fat cats; they'll survive just fine. But there were thousands of small businesses that couldn't open today because their workers couldn't get to work. There were hundreds of thousands of people who don't have the luxury of being on salary... if they don't get to work, they don't get paid -- and if they don't get paid, they can't take care of their families. The folks who get hurt with stuff like this aren't fat cats like me who can always just work from home or even miss a day or three and still get paid; it's the little guys who get hit hardest -- the very blue collar, working class folks that the TWU claims they are, and is trying to get sympathy from. The concept of trying to win sympathy from people by givin' them the old Zed from Pulp Fiction treatment is about as tactically sound as French defense tactics in any war since 1800.
Not to mention that today it was cold as Ann Coulter's, um, boob out today... making millions of people walk miles in below freezing weather is just an assholish thing to do. (And yes, my Minnesota friends, 20something IS cold out. We're near the ocean here, which means the air is more humid, which means it sinks into your bones faster and feels a hell of a lot colder a hell of a lot faster than lower temps do in the comparitively drier midwestern air. Given a choice between 20 degrees here or 2 degrees back in Minnesota, I'll start saying "you betcha" again and extending my Oooooos when I talk. 20 degrees in NYC is butt-ugly COLD.)
So... here I am, a labor guy at heart, a guy whose natural sympathies lie with unions and their members... and I'm finding myself solidly in the pro-MTA, anti-TWU court. While I try to figure out how that happened, you should try and count the number of slobbery self-loving stories the New York media produces until the strike ends.
Posted by Christopher at 09:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBackDecember 19, 2005
Splat!
Not much chance to write tonight; I have an early meeting tomorrow morning and need to get my beauty sleep. So there's just enough time to give you a link to a hysterical video.
One of the reasons I am glad I don't have kids right now is because I don't need to do any protective clucking or hand-wringing over stuff like this... no "oh my gosh, is he all right?" I have no kids to be protective of, so I can simply laugh my ass off at video clips like this one. Not your average high school basketball game... notice the figure running along the sideline as the clip begins? That's called foreshadowing, kids. I especially love the smack and bounce off the floor at the end... I mean, he bounces like the floor was made of flubber, doesn't he?
Priceless, priceless stuff.
Posted by Christopher at 08:50 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBackDecember 18, 2005
Blog Stew: Christmas Cookie Version
Yeah, yeah. Okay, fine -- it'd be hard to make stew out of cookies. I get it. Shut up. Anyway, here's a few of the things on my mind this weekend that didn't warrant a post of their own.
1. Greatest. Story. Ever. I know, I've said this before. Many times. But read the story of the Santarchy in New Zealand on Saturday, and tell me you don't think it's the most awesomest story ever?!
A group of 40 people dressed in Santa Claus outfits, many of them drunk, went on a rampage through Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, robbing stores, assaulting security guards and urinating from highway overpasses, police said Sunday... One man climbed the mooring line of a cruise ship before being ordered down by the captain. Other Santas, objecting when the man was arrested, attacked security staff, who were later treated by paramedics.... The remaining Santas entered another downtown convenience store and carried off beer and soft drinks.
Oh my. Pardon me, kids... I think I may have just had a laughing-related accident. Drunken Santas beating up security? Pissing off highway overpasses? Ho, ho, ho indeed -- it's the true spirit of Christmas, all right.
2. The DaVinci Code trailer is out. It doesn't matter whether you buy into the historical premise of the plot (I kinda do) or whether you think he's heretical... Brown's just told a great story. So I am psyched about the movie (despite the rather vanilla presence of Tom Hanks in the lead role), and I can't wait for it. And I don't care if you think I'm a trend-following, mass-consumption pop culture kind of guy for it, either. This week, the first trailer's been release -- SWEET! Check it out here.
3. John Spencer dies. I haven't watched "The West Wing" since Aaron Sorkin left the show; I like his writing style too much. (And yes, I know that style is a bit predictable and gimmicky. In fact, here's my impression of a Sorkin-penned dialogue on this subject:
Mudge: I like Sorkin. I like the way he writes.
Josh: You like the way he writes?
Mudge: I like the way he writes.
Josh: How can you like the way he writes? He just has characters repeat everything. How is that writing?
Mudge: (beat) Shut up.
That said, even though I haven't caught the show in a while, I still think fondly of it; The West Wing was the last show that I watched regularly. So I was saddened to hear of John Spencer's death on Friday. His Leo McGarry had gravitas, had wisdom, and definitely had vulnerability. He was the foundational center of one of the best dramas of the last 20 years - and he'll be missed.
4. Songs on my playlist right now include: "The Trick Is To Keep Breathing," Garbage;
"Bullet," Ellen Reid; "Dissolved Girl," Massive Attack; "Sexy Results," Death From Above 1979; "April Rain," Julius C; "Sinner's Prayer," Slaid Cleaves; "Little Bird," The White Stripes; "Hey, Mister," Custom; "Good Times," Edie Brickell
Virtual Scream
There are three things that you can rest assured will never, ever happen in this world. As in, bet the damn farm on it -- they will not ever occur in your lifetime or any other. One, I will never vote for a social conservative. I would sooner cut off my own appendages (yes, all of them!) one by one with a table saw or fishing twine. Secondly, I will never willingly attend anything involving NASCAR -- and if I am ever forced to go to a NASCAR thing, I will not at all enjoy it. In fact, I promise that in such unlikely circumstances, I will do nothing but look incredulously at the Darwinian residue surrounding me and wonder how on earth Karl Marx could have ever wanted to empower these people.
And three, I will never, ever understand women. Ever.
If you are the betting sort, I'd suggest that you put your money on the table for me wearing a Dobson button at the Talladega 500 before I ever get that third one hammered out. This past weekend, for example, I was helpfully informed that clairvoyance and telepathic capabilities are in fact traits that men are supposed to have developed as we travelled along our evolutionary path -- and the fact that we have in fact not developed it, and that when something is verbally conveyed to us, we're actually dumb enough to, you know, believe it or something crazy like that, rather than monitoring subliminal frequencies for shifts or mis-sent signals that we should just know were mis-sent -- makes us clueless idiots. Especially me personally, apparently. If you don't believe me, I suspect there's someone who would be all too happy to confirm for you.
That is all.
Posted by Christopher at 08:33 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBackImpeach. Now.
You know, when the rumor first broke about George W. Bush growling that the U.S. Constitution was "just a god-damned piece of paper,", I didn't really believe it. You might think that odd, coming from a guy who makes no secret of the fact that I think Bush is a treasonous snake and a criminal. But even I admit, we Bush-haters love to believe the worst about the sonuvabitch -- most of us would believe it and start blogging about it if we heard a rumor that the Bush family dined every night on freshly killed and grilled milk carton kids.
But I figured, no one who grew up in the United States of America (much less someone whose daddy was once president and whose father's lawyers managed to fraudulently install in the White House) could ever really think something like that, much less actually say it aloud. It's too obvious a thing to ascribe to Bush, I thought. Every American knows what the Constitution is and means, and even if we have varying opinions as to how it should be implemented in today's world, we all know its symbolic -- and its real -- meaning, and we all know it's so much more than a piece of paper; it's the very foundation of our identity as a self-governing people. No way Bush really said that, I thought.
Silly me.
First of all, it was a stupid supposition on my part, because if George W. Bush showed any respect for the Constitution today, it would be the first time in his miserable presidency that he'd have done so. But moreover, with the weekend's revelations that Bush personally ordered warrantless domestic spying on American citizens, in direct violation of our Constitutional rights (enumerated in at least two Amendments), it seems clear that Bush is perfectly willing to violate the Constitution he swore to uphold. Even worse, the treasonous snake is angrily defending his right to do so.
Bush said he had reauthorized the program more than 30 times since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and plans to continue doing so. "I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al-Qaida and related groups," he said.
And then, in tried and true conservative fashion, Bush defaulted to the same tired old whine that we always get from conservatives: it's the media's fault. Instead of apologizing to the American people for the crimes he's admitting to committing against us, Bush instead attacked the New York Times for publishing the story.
"As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have," he said. "The unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk."
Hmm... unauthorized disclosure of intelligence information damages national security and puts our citizens at risk, eh? Would that include the names of covert operatives whose husbands are public critics of your administration, you treasonous son of a bitch?
Amazingly, Bush is whining about the Times even though they inexplicably sat on the story for a year, and worked directly with the White House to strike some of the more sensitive information from the report. The Times bent over, grabbed its ankles, and squealed like a pig for the Bush Administration on this story, and he has the audacity to argue that it's the media endangering national security? Especially when his administration deliberately exaggerated or falsified intelligence information to justify the invasion of Iraq (which took our eye off of al Qaeda and actually destabilized Iraq and gave terrorists a new home to train in)?
Predictably, this disgusting slimeball retreated to his traditional position tonight; whenever there's trouble, fall back on Iraq and try and link it to the war on terror. But we shouldn't let him get away with it. George W. Bush has shown a willingness to violate the Constitution and the oath he swore to uphold it. He's defiantly proud of having done so. Not even RIchard Nixon ever violated the sanctity of the office of the presidency, or his responsibility to the citizens of the United States, so egregiously. George W. Bush is a criminal; he has not only committed treason against the United States Constitution, but he's said openly that he's going to do it again. He needs to be impeached, and then tried for his crimes against our people and our nation.
I really am loathe to suggest that anyone holding a particular set of political beliefs is somehow "un-American" -- because I find it uniquely disgraceful and disgusting when the uber-conservative brownshirts try to argue that liberalism is unpatriotic. But with the revelations of Bush's actions this weekend -- and his stubborn, defiant refusal to refrain from committing any more Constitutional crimes -- continued support for this man and his presidency begins to walk dangerously close to support for the continued trashing of the Constitution. Anyone still supporting George W. Bush is saying they're okay with a president who willfully ignores the very foundations of our democracy and the oath he swore to uphold them. Anyone still supporting George W. Bush is saying that they're okay with the erosion -- not gradual, but sudden and dramatic -- of the privacies and rights that we have taken for granted for 220 years now.
I don't think it's okay, and I don't believe that even most Republicans think it's okay. The only ones left supporting this criminal are the theocracists and the power-mad neoconservatives, neither of whose agendas have ever really represented democracy anyway. It's time, America. It's time for the House Judiciary Committee to begin impeachment hearings designed to remove this criminal from office -- and then once he's out, he must be tried for his crimes. If a lie about oral sex warrants it, then deliberate and defiant violation of the Constitution most certainly warrants impeachment. If you believe in democracy, America... it's time.
Impeach. Bush. Now.
Posted by Christopher at 08:21 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBackWalking Funny, America?
... looks like once again, ol' Tennessee Bill's been giving us the whole Frist.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's AIDS charity paid nearly a half-million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle, according to tax returns providing the first financial accounting of the presidential hopeful's nonprofit. The returns for World of Hope Inc., obtained by The Associated Press, also show the charity raised the lion's share of its $4.4 million from just 18 sources. They gave between $97,950 and $267,735 each to help fund Frist's efforts to fight AIDS.
You see what's going on here, right? From the outside, a cynic might say that Frist is using the cover of the global AIDS epidemic to enrich his friends and solicit contributions in exchange for influence. One might wonder if the charity even does any real work, wouldn't you say? Even if you're inclined to believe the absolute best about someone (even when evidence runs thoroughly to the contrary), the most benign explanation for this situation is this: Senator Bill Frist set up a charity that seems to get the overwhelming majority of its funding from fat cat Friends of Bill -- who are then rewarded with juicy consulting contracts to run the charity. In a way, it's uber-weatlhy Republicans using charitable donations to enrich their political operatives. Let's look a little closer, shall we?
The donors included several corporations with frequent business before Congress, such as insurer Blue Cross/Blue Shield, manufacturer 3M, drug maker Eli Lilly and the Goldman Sachs investment firm.
Ah... now we're starting to see the rewards structure. Now it's even more clear.
World of Hope gave $3 million it raised to charitable AIDS causes, such as Africare and evangelical Christian groups with ties to Republicans _ Franklin Graham's Samaritan Purse and the Rev. Luis Cortes' Esperanza USA, for example. The rest of the money went to overhead. That included $456,125 in consulting fees to two firms run by Frist's longtime political fundraiser, Linus Catignani. One is jointly run by Linda Bond, the wife of Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo.
So, under the guise of pretending to be compassionate and concerned about AIDS in Africa, Frist set up a charity that looks to me an awful lot like a dummy... and then forked over some of the money raised to "faith-based" organizations whose impact on the AIDS crisis is neglible at best (somehow, I doubt that ol' Franklin Graham or Luis Cortes are saying a whole lot about condoms, don't you?)... and funneled the rest off to his political machine as "overhead." All while claiming to be doing charity? How ironic that Frist's friends are getting jucily paid because Frist is screwing people over a disease you get from screwing people.
America's not getting fleeced... we're getting Fristed. Take a warm bath and remind yourself that it's a good ache, kids.
Posted by Christopher at 07:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBackBreast Cancer Awareness
I've been a supporter of breast cancer charities for a while. I try to give to the Susan G. Komen foundation at least once a year, and I even supported (and posted about) the BoobieThon this past October. (Of course, I contributed out of the goodness of my heart, and it had nothing to do with contributors getting access to the uncensored pictures.) My juvenile, typical male bantering about appreciating breasts aside, my support for breast cancer charities has been rooted in simple respect and love for the women in my life -- friends, lovers, family members, co-workers, and every combination thereof. I didn't need to have known anyone personally affected; it was just a cause I wanted to give to on principle.
Little did I know that eventually it would impact me personally.
As my cousin (and frequent Mudge commenter) "Cuzin Jose" mentioned in a comment over the weekend, his mother -- my aunt -- has just been diagnosed, and is about to begin her battle against the disease. (Jose, I did know before you mentioned it... just wasn't gonna say anything, because family business is usually private on this site; I'm posting because you mentioned it first.) She's a tough Irish lady and I've no doubt that she's gonna kick its ass, but every little bit of additional karma helps.
So -- whether you pray, meditate, send good vibes, rub crystals together, or whatever... if you wouldn't mind sending a few thoughts in the direction of Cuzin Jose's mom, I'd appreciate it. And please do consider the Komen foundation or a similar organization as one of your charities when you give. (This goes especially out to the men out there... guys, don't think it couldn't happen to one of the women in your world; give for your wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, and friends.)
December 16, 2005
Protect Marriage and Decency
The Chronic Curmudgeon has never shied from speaking the truth, even when it could offend some of the less savory elements of society. Today's no different. The fact is, there is a group of deviants who represent a direct threat to the institution of marriage and the American family, and who violate the sense of decency of moral Americans everywhere. These disgusting people must be stopped, and I'm hoping that you share my sense of outrage at the immorality and perversion they represent.
I'm talking, of course, about heterosexuals.
First of all, heterosexuals clearly intend on making a mockery of the institution of marriage. Celebrity heterosexuals treat marriage as little more than a license to perform sexual acts; marriages are little more to them than a convenient phase or publicity stunt. But it's not just celebrity "straights" (as they apparently prefer to be called) who mock the sacred institution of marriage; among "straights" in America, four in ten marriages end in divorce -- four in ten! That's almost half!
But worse than what the het-ros do to marriage is what they do to our children. They'll deny it, of course -- they know America would reject their vile and perverted agenda -- but straights prey on children, trying to recruit them into their perverted lifestyles. And even though they don't want us to talk about that, I am going to -- because I have proof.
-- In Florida, a straight 25 year old female teacher just avoided going to trial for having sex with one of her 14 year old male students. The boy's mother sought to avoid trial to protect her son from further trauma.
-- In Georgia, a 37 year old woman actually had sex with and then married a 15 year old boy who was friends with her son. This woman then blamed the boy for the urges she'd convinced him to give in to, actually alleging that he'd pursued her.
-- In Nebraska, a 22 year old male who'd "had sex" with his 13 year old female "girlfriend" and then married her just pled guilty to sexual assault for consumating his marriage. He faces 50 years in prison. If you ask me, the damn heterosexual lobby in Kansas bear some of the responsibility here; they're so lenient and dismissively liberal about marriage that the state has no minimum age for marriage.
Heck, if the straight activists in Kansas had their way, a 3 year old boy could marry a two year old girl. That's how sick and perverse that het-ro activist crowd is... and you're just naive if you're telling me that such an argument is an unfathomable or irresponsible stretch of logic. That's what these people are really all about. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the next thing het-ros want to do is legalize marriage between a man and his dog.
There's really only one solution (in two parts) to protect Americans from the threat to decency and morality that heterosexuals represent. FIrst of all, heterosexuals should be legally prohibited from marrying. If the Constitution has loopholes that might allow it, or even if the marriage laws forbid it anyway but with language that isn't hateful and discriminatory enough, we should amend our constitutions to explicitly forbid straight marriage.
Secondly, to protect our kids, heterosexuals must be prohibited from adopting children; they should be legally banned from ever becoming teachers or serving in any job where they'd have access to children. The het-ro agenda is to recruit children to their lifestyle; by keeping them out of the classroom we can stand up and say, "Not in our town!"
I'm sure the heterosexual lobby will do everything they can to discredit me; they'll call me a bigot and accuse me of "hate speech" (which is always their first defense when someone points out their disgusting tendencies), and they'll tell you that I take selected cases that aren't representative of the entire heterosexual community and then sensationalize them to support my hateful agenda. Let 'em talk; I'm not afraid of them. I speak the truth -- my credibility's rock solid. As someone who has given in to his heterosexual tendencies repeatedly in my life, I'm "straight" -- I know the agenda better than anyone.
(Yeah, I think it's a stupid argument too -- as stupid as when the "Family" brownshirts use it in the other direction.)
Posted by Christopher at 07:50 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBackDecember 14, 2005
Time Magazine's Person Of The Year: Mudge's Nominee
It's about that time of year again - when Time magazine announces its Person of the Year. We were talking at lunch the other day at the office about who it might be for 2005. (I could have sworn I'd already seen Time's Man of the Year cover... but then I realized it was just Ann Coulter.)
Anyway, as the discussion progressed, at least one end of the table quickly came to something of a consensus. So I'm not being entirely original in my nomination here -- to those Mudge readers who were at the table, don't go gettin' all uppity and snarking that I stole your idea, because I'm giving credit now that it's not entirely my thought (though I did come up with the original idea that led to our consensus). But in my mind, there's only one real choice for Time's Person of the Year for 2005:
Mother Nature.
The overwhelming thread that ties the biggest news stories of 2005 together is natural disasters. We began the year reeling from the impact of a devastating earthquake and the resulting tsunami in the Indian Ocean. More than 200,000 lost their lives, and we may never know exactly how many died. In late August, Hurricane Katrina -- one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico -- wiped a major American city of half a million people virtually completely off the map; New Orleans may never recover, and the US Gulf Coast along Mississippi and Alabama has been similarly devastated. A few weeks later, the fourth largest city in America, Houston (with a metropolitan area of about 4 million people), was virtually entirely evacuated in anticipation of similarly powerful Hurricane Rita. And in late October, a massive earthquake leveled areas of Pakistan and India, with estimates suggestion more than 100,000 lives lost.
One year. Millions of lives ended or forever changed. Four of the biggest stories of the entire decade. All related to weather or nature. Yeah, Mother Nature had herself quite a 2005. If the Person of the Year award goes to the individual who, for well or ill, impacted the news the most in the course of the preceding year, then Time has no choice but to designate Mother Nature as the 2005 "Person" of the Year.
Posted by Christopher at 07:04 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBackDecember 12, 2005
Stupid Columnist Tricks
Okay, before I begin this post, let me just say this: the most tired bunch of old-time whiners in all of professional sports are the 1972 Miami Dolphins. I've grown particularly sick of their childish little crybaby routine every time an NFL team wins about 9 or 10 games in a row, the insecure whining about their legacy and the "champagne toast" that Nick Buonicanti and his former teammates engage in whenever the last unbeaten team in the NFL gets beaten each year. It's a classless, boorish ritual from a classless, insecure group of little men. No other record in no other sport is held by a player or team that so blatantly roots against its ever being matched or broken.
Every other record I've seen broken, the previous record holder gallantly congratulates the new king of the mountain, and basks in the reflected glow of their own achievement (look at how Lou Gehrig was celebrated when Cal Ripken played game 2,131, for example). But the way the 1972 Dolphins have behaved, if any other NFL team does go unbeaten, football fans will take pleasure in being able to shove those overrated Dolphins aside. (And they are vastly overrated... in that 14-0 season, they played only two games against teams that finished with records above 8-6...give the Indianapolis Colts 14 games against the Ravens, Lions, Titans and Texans, and I'm pretty sure they finish unbeaten too.)
That all aside... I saw the stupidest sports column I have seen in quite some time today on ESPN.com. In it, Gene Wojciechowski argues that the Indianapolis Colts -- currently 13-0 -- should endanger their quest for a Super Bowl in order to try and go 16-0, matching the '72 Dolphins as the only unbeaten teams in NFL history. Because after all, Wojo argues, it's more important to have an immortal regular season than do anything crazy like, you know, win a championship.
This is the difference between history and a legacy. The Indianapolis Colts are making history, but will coach Tony Dungy and team president Bill Polian allow them to create a legacy of their own? Will they let the Colts chase down those champagne-chugging Dolphins on equal terms or curl up in the fetal position as the regular season comes to a close, willing to trade a chance at perfection for a chance, nothing more, at complete health as the playoffs arrive?
That really does have to be the stupidest thing I've seen a columnist write this side of Jason Whitlock in at least a decade. Absolutely the stupidest, most selfish thing I've seen. And in case Mr. Wojciechowski ever does a vanity search on Google and comes upon my little blog, let me say it again: that was the stupidest thing I've seen a columnist write in ages.
The last time I checked, football is played to win championships. That's why you play: to win. To be the best. To surpass all others. In the NFL, that honor comes from winning the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is played in February, after 22 weeks of intense, brutal competition that leaves bodies battered, bruised, and sore. To win it, your best players have to be at their best. So if your team clinches home field advantage throughout the playoffs 13 games into the season, as the Colts have, thus rendering the rest of their games essentially meaningless, which the Colts' games are... then a smart football team trying to reach its goal of a Super Bowl championship would rest its stars and do its best to make sure all key players are healthy for the playoff run.
Instead, Wojciechowski would have the Colts risk their stars' health, and risk the hopes and dreams of everyone connected to the organization, just to pursue a silly distinction that, while impressive, is little more than symbolic and clearly means more to the old men who hold it now than it does to football history.
Why settle for a Super Bowl run when you can also make a run at 19-0 and the Dolphins?
Why? Because you play football to win the Super Bowl, numbskull. Think Peyton Manning would be a happy 54 year old looking back on his career and thinking that, "we went 16-0 in 2005, but I got hurt in the last game and my team lost in the playoffs because of it, and I never won a Super Bowl as a result?" Wojciechowski's column indicates a fascination with bright, shiny objects... and a lack of focus on or understanding of what really matters in football. Based on this column, one might conclude that if you wanted to escape from Mr. Wojciechowski, all you'd have to do is say, "Is that a UFO?" and point behind him; he'd turn to see the shiny thing, and you could make your escape.
I'm rooting for the Colts to go 16-0; I like Manning, my father has been a Colts fan since boyhood and I'd like to see them win it all in historic fashion just for the joy it'd bring him, and most of all because their doing so would shut up those whiny, insecure, classless '72 Dolphins. But if they have a choice between pursuing 16-0 or getting healthy for the playoffs, only an organization run by fools would pursue "perfection." Tony Dungy, Bill Polian, and the rest of the Colts organization are not fools, I don't think. This is a good thing. Bet on the Colts to go 14-2 and then win the Super Bowl.
Posted by Christopher at 10:58 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBackWhich Face Should We Believe?
Hmmm... this two-faced administration sure can be hard to figure out, don't you think? I mean, out of one of its faces -- I guess the "good cop" face -- Bush says that the US (under his administration) rejects torture.
Responding to a question from Williams on whether the United States can "be definitively against torture," Bush was adamant in his opposition to the practice. “We are, and we will be at home and abroad," Bush said.
On the other hand, the other face of the administration -- the "bad cop" version -- Dick Cheney (the most evil man ever to hold public office) has been lobbying Republican lawmakers to oppose legislation proposed by John McCain banning torture by American forces.
Despite his best wishes, Zippy the Wonder Chimp can't have it both ways. Either this administration rejects torture, or it supports it. One or the other. The administration can't talk out of both faces on this one as it usually does. They have a choice to make.
Say... a regime in power under highly questionable circumstances, unpopular with its own people, guilty of abuse of power, possessing weapons of mass destruction, and supporting the use of torture? By the George W. Bush standard, the US could be invaded by an outside country in order to deliver freedom and democracy to the American people.
Posted by Christopher at 10:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBackDecember 11, 2005
Conspiracy Theories
Recently in a social situation, I was having a conversation with a woman who seemed from all appearances and indications to be completely "normal." She was witty, funny, interesting to talk to, and I was enjoying the conversation. Somehow -- and I honestly don't remember how now, because the tangent that followed was so bizarre -- the conversation got into freedom and democracy in America. (I think that in response to something she expressed disapproval of, I might have said something to the effect that, "It's a free country, right?" It was honestly that innocent and random a conversation starter.)
Suddenly, this to-all-other-appearances normal woman began launching into a veritable Canterbury Tales of conspiracies against freedom in this country. I mean, she got them all in there: how the U.N. is evil and was set up specifically to oppose the US Constitution, how a cabal of "bankers" (we all know where she was going with that, even if she didn't say it) through some Banking Manifesto thing control money and power in this country, how 9-11 was an inside job carried out by the government (in order to preserve the power structure set up by the bankers, don'tcha see?), how the government hides global warming, and how in fact "they" are so powerful that they can control the weather -- Katrina was deliberately steered toward New Orleans, y'see, in order to create a crisis and mess that would require large government contracts to fix (contracts that would be given to powerful defense and oil interests, which are in turn controlled by the bankers). As she continued her magnum opus, I started looking more intently at her. I was trying to figure out whether she had a little tinfoil hat hidden somewhere on her person that would block the radio waves. But until that conversation, the woman seemed totally normal -- we'd had a couple of hours' conversation at that point, and she'd carried it off without any indication that she believed that a giant "They" were out to get her.
This wasn't my first exposure to conspiracy theories; after having spent three years on the staff of a board that investigated the Kennedy Assassination, I've seen or heard almost every conspiracy theory you could ever dream up -- in fact, if you were to invent one right now, I've probably spent at least 10 minutes on the phone with someone who already believes it. But while some conspiracy theories are way out there and stretch the bounds of sanity (for example, some folks in New Orleans apparently actually believe that the levees there were bombed by the US goverment in an act of attempted ethnic cleansing against black Americans... and no less a public figure than Spike Lee has endorsed the theory), there are plenty of others that millions of sane, normal, otherwise intelligent Americans believe in.
For some, it's the persistent belief that JFK was murdered by factions within the government. For others, it involves aliens and Roswell. In the 50s it was the "Red Menace" and the belief that Communists had infiltrated the pillars of the US government. Today, some choose to believe the liberal media myth. Some believe that homosexuals are out to recruit their children. Others buy that the UN is an agent of "one-world government" and is designed to subvert the sovereignty of the United States. But whoever you are, it's a stone cold lead pipe lock that you believe in at least one conspiracy theory. That doesn't make you insane -- it makes you normal in this country.
For example, I believe with every ounce of my being that Big Oil met with Dick Cheney as early as February, 2001 (meetings Cheney has sued to keep secret, btw), and that the subject of those meetings was discussing the dividing up the spoils of Iraqi oil after a US invasion of Iraq. I believe that Cheney came to power intending to invade Iraq for the oil profits, and that had 9-11 not happened or UN inspections had definitively revealed no WMDs in Iraq, Cheney and Bush would have found another justification for an invasion. To some, it might sound incredible or even crazy to suggest that a US administration came to power specifically intending and desiring to start a war for oil profits... but I believe it as much as I believe my name is Christopher, and there is nothing that anyone could ever say to convince me otherwise. I readily concede that it's a subjective belief, rooted in my own world view, but it's what I believe.
But that's the whole point: that whatever our world views and subjective outlooks, there is something that drives most of us to believe in conspiracies. And it just makes me wonder what it is that's lacking in our own lives that drives us to believe that malevolent forces amass against us, somehow always remaining just on the periphery of our view. I suppose that humanity's desire to project control of our lives and fates onto a power greater than our own and just beyond our ability to prove it shouldn't surprise me; that's sort of the nature of religion, isn't it? But at least religion presupposes a benevolent power that tries to guide us or steer us toward good. (In theory, anyway. What human beings do with the concept is another story.)
But for some reason, so many of us if not all of us feel a subconscious need to believe in a collection of forces amassed against us, conspiracies designed to keep us from learning something, achieveing something, or freeing ourselves from something. Why is that? We are a nation founded on the image (if not the reality) that anyone can do anything, a nation where the core of the quintessential "American Dream" is that even those born into nothing can, through hard work and perserverance, move up to become the wealthiest citizen in town. Whether it was the Horatio Alger stories of fiction, or the lionizing/romanticizing of stories like Cornelius Vanderbilt building an empire from his start ferrying people across rivers, or Bill Gates dropping out of Harvard to start Microsoft, or even of Sergey Brin and Larry Page starting the colossus that became Google in a garage in Menlo Park. We venerate the individual's ability to rise above in our culture. So why do so many of use choose to believe in organized actions that prevent us from doing so?
I guess it's easier to blame a faceless "They" for things we're unhappy with -- or to ascribe more sinister and evil intent to those we don't like than perhaps is really there. Facing an ugly reality is easier if there's someone or something to blame for it. Which brings to mind this idea: if I were a sociology student going for his Ph.D., I might do my dissertation on the nature and spread of urban legend and conspiracy theory through American society over history. I'm willing to bet that during difficult or frightening times, new conspiracy theories have sprouted like dandelions on a sumer lawn -- and belief in conspiracy theories becomes far more pervasive.
Then again, as the old saying goes, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you." It could be, I suppose. The world might really be as oligarchichal and sinister as our popular belief make it out to be. But failing proof of that, it would seem that conspiracy theories stand as sort of the anti-religion -- the stimulant of the masses.
Posted by Christopher at 03:11 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBackDecember 10, 2005
Goodbye
"There's a fine line between laugh with and laugh at." -- Richard Pryor
Thanks for helping us do both, man.
1940-2005
Posted by Christopher at 06:19 PM | Comments (1)Blog Stew: Egg Nog Version
Since t'is the season and all that, this weekend's blog stew is holiday themed... it's the EGGNOG version of Blog Stew. A few things in my head that aren't worthy of an entire post by themselves:
1. The Bulls retire Scottie Pippen's number. So the sporting world's equivalent of Andrew Ridgeley has been placed among the pantheon of Chicago Bulls' greats. Pardon me while I yawn and shake the hand of Pippen's PR guy for doing a great snow job on the world. If the Bulls really wanted to commemorate Scottie Pippen and everything he stood for, they'd have raised the number 1.8 to the rafters.
2. Life In Surreal County The other day I saw a TV commercial for a local business here, and I actually had to look them up on the Web to be sure that I hadn't seen a parody commercial from Saturday Night Live or something. But lo and behold, it's real. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you the Scarsdale Dental Spa -- where you can be pampered in luxury while the dentist puts sharp things in your mouth. Aromatherapy with your root canal? Windham Hill with your wisdom teeth? And I'll bet you that none of its patients find this the least bit indulgent or over-the-top. Rich people kinda suck.
3. CEO Idiocy, 2005 Following along the theme about rich people sucking, here's a great list from Fortune of the weirdest CEO moments of 2005. (Yes, I am Mr. Corporate America these days, but don't think that I've gained any patience for the uber-wealthy or overly powerful. I still love seeing them get comeuppance, as often as possible in fact.) My favorites? a. The CEO who argued that a Dark Lord of the Sith was responsible for his company's stock decline; b. The CEO whose wife burst into a board meeting to accuse him of having an affair - while the rsulting investigation revealed no affair, it did reveal financial wrongdoing and shadow retirement accounts.
4. The Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Not that I'm into anything Christmas-y, but I'm starting to kind of dig the theatrics of these guys. The video for "Christmas Eve" is pretty cool.
Posted by Christopher at 12:09 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBackDecember 09, 2005
Pass Me The Blunt
Thanks to Saturday Night Live, I got exposed to a new-to-me artist this weekend. And true to form for me, when I hear something I really like for the first time, I listen to it obsessively until there are grooves in my CDs or computer. So I've been listening to about a half dozen of this guy's songs over and over again all week. (And lord am I bracing for the hell I know I am going to take from the Beav for this on the blog, since she's been letting me have it on IM since I confessed, since I now apparently share musical tastes with her teenage sister.) Does it detract from my masculinity that I really am digging a soft-rock folkie with an ethereal sound and introspective, emotional lyrics? (Do I need to go crank up some SliPKnoT or Avenged Sevenfold to get my testosterone back?)
James Blunt, formerly of the British Army, played Saturday Night Live this past weekend. He's a pianist and folkie, and his songs (at least the ones he played Saturday night) are slower, pretty melodies with sometimes haunting lyrics... he reminds me a bit of Jeff Buckley, actually. Apparently he's quite the rising superstar in the UK, from what I can read, and he is getting a foothold in the States now. (His lead single is #12 on iTunes today.)
If Blunt's song "Goodbye My Lover" had been around a couple of years ago, I might never have gotten out of bed again... the way he delivers the line "And I still hold your hand in mine... in mine when I'm asleep," whispering high notes that make him climb to the limits of his register, the vulnerability is palpable. When he's wailing "I'm so hollow" at the end of the song, it takes you back to every painful breakup you've gone through. In fact, I think this song may become the official national anthem of sad divorces and breakups. (The video -- co-starring Mischa Barton from "The O.C." -- is available about halfway down the MTV page here.)
The lead single, "You're Beautiful," is perfect for New York -- where pretty much every subway ride guarantees that you'll see at least one woman per trip who stops time with her beauty... and you've already started thinking about what you're going to name your children until she gets off two stops before you'd worked up the line you were going to approach her with, and now you'll never see your would-be wife again. (That's actually a germ of a short story, inspired by real-life train musings, that I have bouncing in my head that I'll probably never flesh out or write.)
Yeah, she caught my eye, as we walked on by... And I don't think that I'll see her again, but we shared a moment that will last till the end... You're beautiful., you're beautiful; You're beautiful, it's true... I saw your face in a crowded place, and I don't know what to do.. cause I'll never be with you.
Yeah. Happens every time I'm on the train. Anyway... as you can tell, I am on a James Blunt high right now (heh heh... I'm, like, witty and stuff). If you're secure enough in your own manliness (even female readers), I recommend checking him out. (Hell, guys... play your cards right, this guy's songs can probably get you a really good night, provided you make breakfast the next morning.)
Posted by Christopher at 07:39 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBackTravel Lint
The title of this post refers to my knowledge that posts like these represent some level of navel gazing (and what else is there to find in one's navel?), and an arrogant belief that anyone out there cares a spit about Christopher's Travel Stories (as opposed to my only slightly less arrogant belief that you care about my political opinions, or my spiffy take on sports or pop culture). But, as I just came off a we