McGovern Rips Cheney a New One...

One of the best developments on the national political stage since the November elections is that democratic office holders are finally coming to understand that the conventional beltway wisdom about Bush and Iraq has been faulty all along.

In cruder terms, people on our side of the aisle have, finally, grown a set. Harry Reid showed this new pattern today after being ripped by Darth Cheney, responding, "I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating."

Tomorrow, DCCC chair, Rahm Emanuel, will give a speech at the Brookings Institute, that seems like a preamble to articles of impeachment against both Bush and Cheney (I do like the sound of President Pelosi). Talking Points Memo has more, but this quote will give you a taste:

The implausible excuses are piling up, the explanations becoming harder and harder to believe and the truth more difficult to obscure. Americans now know that we are witnessing much more than just incompetent individuals at work. We are watching corruption in action... While we pursue these ideas -– and others -– to get politics and policy back into balance, ultimately we need leaders who see public service as a calling and not a profit center for themselves or their political allies. A Congress that takes its oversight responsibilities seriously is our best antidote to the unprecedented politicizing of government. Furthermore, the media must also continue to shine a bright light on government and keep our leaders honest and accountable. That vigorous oversight ought to extend to the next Administration, whether Democratic or Republican and Congress.

The saddest legacy of the Bush Administration’s six-year trail of cronyism and corruption is that it contributes to the public’s already cynical view of government. This makes it even more difficult for those of us who believe that the purpose of government is to secure a better future for our country and all of its people. Repairing this sorry legacy is the first challenge our next President will face.

Even better, 85 year old George McGovern is apparently still full of piss and vinegar, lashing out at Cheney in Tuesday's LA Times (reg. required, but worth it)

Here's a teaser:

VICE PRESIDENT Dick Cheney recently attacked my 1972 presidential platform and contended that today's Democratic Party has reverted to the views I advocated in 1972. In a sense, this is a compliment, both to me and the Democratic Party. Cheney intended no such compliment. Instead, he twisted my views and those of my party beyond recognition. The city where the vice president spoke, Chicago, is sometimes dubbed "the Windy City." Cheney converted the chilly wind of Chicago into hot air...

In the war of my youth, World War II, I volunteered for military service at the age of 19 and flew 35 combat missions, winning the Distinguished Flying Cross as the pilot of a B-24 bomber. By contrast, in the war of his youth, the Vietnam War, Cheney got five deferments and has never seen a day of combat — a record matched by President Bush...

The war in Iraq has greatly increased the terrorist danger. There was little or no terrorism, insurgency or civil war in Iraq before Bush and Cheney took us into war there five years ago. Now Iraq has become a breeding ground of terrorism, a bloody insurgency against our troops and a civil war.

Beyond the deaths of more than 3,100 young Americans and an estimated 600,000 Iraqis, we have spent nearly $500 billion on the war, which has dragged on longer than World War II...

It is my firm belief that the Cheney-Bush team has committed offenses that are worse than those that drove Nixon, Vice President Spiro Agnew and Atty. Gen. John Mitchell from office after 1972. Indeed, as their repeated violations of the Constitution and federal statutes, as well as their repudiation of international law, come under increased consideration, I expect to see Cheney and Bush forced to resign their offices before 2008 is over.

Aside from a growing list of impeachable offenses, the vice president has demonstrated his ignorance of foreign policy by attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for visiting Syria. Apparently he thinks it is wrong to visit important Middle East states that sometimes disagree with us. Isn't it generally agreed that Nixon's greatest achievement was talking to the Chinese Communist leaders, which opened the door to that nation? And wasn't President Reagan's greatest achievement talking with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev until the two men worked out an end to the Cold War? Does Cheney believe that it's better to go to war rather than talk with countries with which we have differences?

We, of course, already know that when Cheney endorses a war, he exempts himself from participation. On second thought, maybe it's wise to keep Cheney off the battlefield — he might end up shooting his comrades rather than the enemy... .

It's a bit late for those of us on the left to be patting ourselves on the back, but at least there's finally the realization that people have stopped drinking the Bush Kool Aid. And, at last, maybe the mainstream media is finally coming to the realization that, between D.C. cocktail parties, they've got a fucking job to do.

EDIT: Naomi Wolf, who seemed to have her moment of cultural resonance come and go during my undergraduate years, has a stunningly good essay on Bush and Co. in The Guardian. Lordy, I do miss me The Guardian from time to time.

What I'm Listening To, One Day Early

I've been missing home and my friends these last few weeks. Sometimes I find them on the stereo. Good friends, good drink, the weight of dreams...

Major Matt Mason, USA

Krooklyn.

Mr. Softee

Rockstar

Anti-folk from before Bright Eyes entered puberty, guitar tuned down to D, drunken nights at the Sidewalk, Kermit the Frog on crack.

Everytime I get to fourth down/I punt. Indeed.

Bionic Finger, "Texas", This track more recently revisited, better, by Pantsuit

Bionic Finger, "Starfish"

Riott Grrrls with melody driven hearts.

Schwervon! "One of These Days"

Schwervon! "Dinner"

The White Stripes, if their initial press was real and they didn't suck.

I'm headed north at the end of the week. Barely a visit. I get in early on Saturday and head straight to a memorial service for someone pivotal in my life who left far too soon and depart at the crack of dawn on Monday. Most of my time will be spent in Jersey. Don't take it personally if I don't seek you out; this is a trip I need to make, not one I'm feeling happy about.

Speechless

I'm actually stunned. Stunned that it took the right wing Jesus kooks in the American Family Association a week to get this video produced.

You can buy it for five bucks here, but because they're scumbags who would use their alleged faith to blame, oh everyone but themselves, for school shootings, I figure I'll pass it on to you for free.



If I didn't know better, I'd think this was a Saturday Night Live sketch, but if this was a joke, it would be the kind of funny that hasn't visited SNL since the late 70s.

Game On Mr. Weasel

Starting things off in your yard. Given that the Yankees are starting Andy and then two guys just out of Little League, I like your chances.

But, of course, A Rod is on pace to belt 116 homers, with 301 RBIs, so who knows?

Hooligans at Fenway...

Now, this would never happen in the Bronx.

In The Case of The Flying Slice, the evidence shows that the fan, sporting a Sox hat, may have prevented an Angles outfielder from recording an out on a Sox hitter before another (presumably, based on his Pats jacket) Sox fan hurls a perfectly good slice of ballpark pizza at the cap sporting gentleman.

Why? On a ball into foul territory in Yankee stadium, fans would be delighted to see a Yankee fan prevent an opposing fielder from making a play. They'd probably even replace the beer that met an early demise during the play.

But, in the reverse situation, if a Yankee fan prevented a Yankee player from recording a put out, that fan could expect a face full of Double AA batteries, tossed with one hand while the pizza was eaten with the other.

What I'm Listening To Wed.

The ipod hit on two tracks by late 90s, Bay Area alt-twang outfit Whitey Gomez today. Both are songs I've long loved, by a band that had everything Whiskeytown had except the relentless self-promotion/ego of Ryan Adams. There's nothing ground breaking here, just solid playing, nice harmonies, good guitar work of both the traditional and steel variety, and lyrics centered around love, whisky, the open road and loss.

First, here's "Stolen", an ode to a lost love that includes the oh so clichéd, yet satisfying notion:

Longing makes a powerful sound tonight/Drinking so much whisky I might drown tonight/And some other girl I've borrowed/telling her there's no tomorrow/Pretending that it's love we found tonight

And second, "Once Around Again", an up-tempo number with lyrical bitterness tempered by musical optimism, the urban cowboy narrator opening:

Tough angled turns/But I take it for the worst/In the Spanish part of town/Waiting for you/Girls holding babies/They're safe from emptiness/Like mine, empty for you"

before concluding:

Stuck on the D Line/Looking for signs of life/There's no one here but beggars, butchers and thieves/Nothing to hold to/But memories of dark days/Grey cold winters/And my weak and shallow ways

In full disclosure mode, the lead guitar parts on both tracks were played by a woman I consider a friend and she wrote "Once Around Again," but this is just solid, barroom alt.country, and it’s shame more people didn’t get the chance to hear it.

Fuck Off Mr. President

While the details about just what happened at Virginia Tech today are still murky, the story was driven home when I arrived on campus at Big Burnt Orange University to teach this evening and the campus was surrounded by news crews, using the Tower as a backdrop for grim reporting, that perch from which Charles Whitman murdered 16 people back in 1966.

Until today that was the worst University massacre in American history, but it's eclipsed by George Jo Hennard crashing his pickup truck through the window of a Luby’s cafeteria in Killeen, TX before shooting 22 people dead and wounding at least 20 others in 1991.

So what do Texas and Virginia have in common here? Gun laws (or the lack thereof) backed by the President and his party, by their paymasters in the NRA. In Virginia, anyone can walk into a gun show and purchase a handgun without background checks or a waiting period. Virginia law says that anyone who has bought a gun from a dealer can be issued a concealed carry permit. It has no requirements for licensing or training when buying a hand gun. Early reports suggest that the shooter may have been using extended clips, clips that had been banned by the Assault Weapons ban that President Bush let lapse.

So, pardon me Mr. President, but when you claim, "I told them that my administration would do everything possible to assist with the investigation and that I pledged that we would stand ready to help local law enforcement and the local community in any way we can during this time of sorrow," I call bullshit.

A handgun has one purpose, one thing it can do well: Injure, maim or kill people. It is not an effective hunting tool; it has no other function. There is no reason, Constitutional or Rational, to allow unfettered sale of handguns.

There is also speculation that the shooter may have been a foreign national. While that should have no bearing on the situation, really, it's relevant, because if true, he'd have been unable to purchase his weapons in a place with sane gun laws, even if you buy the NRA bullshit that the 2nd Amendment requires unfettered commerce in firearms for citizens.

I feel slightly dirty, as if I’m trying to score political points on the backs of victims of a terrible tragedy, but this tragedy could not, would not, have happened in a place where guns were not readily available to anyone who felt the whim to own one.

RIP Kurt Vonnegut

As an adult, I've never been much of a fan; like hair metal and Dungeons and Dragons, Vonnegut is someone you should outgrow at roughly the same time you lose your virginity. Still, he's been influential and he was always true to his own warped world view.

While I've read more bad student fiction by young men suffering from Vonnegut Worship than I care to remember and can't help but hold him partly responsible for the literary abortion that is Tom Robbins, I can't help but also remember how much the 10th Grade Me loved Breakfast of Champions and Slaughterhouse-Five.

I hope the tanner's son from Indianapolis rests quietly.*

*Or so he claimed, many times. In reality he was born to an architect and brewery heiress

My Visual DNA

Via Jess-Nut

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Um, Is It Any Good?

A couple of weeks back, I had a long chat with my friend J. Frank Parnell about the state of book reviews in the popular media. Well, that was part of the chat, we also discussed the Yankees, record distribution and sundry other things.

But we both agreed that the average newspaper review of fiction in particular was quite lacking, relying on summary instead of focusing on the quality of the book at, or in, hand.

Which brings me to today; It was a solitary and idle Easter Sunday which had me perusing The Times over pints and a reasonable facsimile of the Ploughman’s Lunch. Since decamping for Tejas, I’ve spent relatively little time indulging in the delights of the Sunday papers, the Book Review in particular. I’ve been reading a lot of neglected classics and back catalogues, and I was, mostly, content in my disengagement with the current state of letters. But during the above mentioned phone call, I realized that I’d missed the release of a new novel by Richard Powers and that, simply, is unacceptable.

So back to the Book Review I went. I was delighted when the Table of Contents revealed that Madison Smart Bell was reviewing a first novel by Erica Wagner. Wagner is unknown to me. But Bell (Smart Bell?) is, for my money, one of the most consistently interesting American writers, and I eagerly flipped to his review, figuring it would be the work of a good mind engaging a book and letting me know if it was worth reading.

Except I’ve now read the review three or four times and can’t decide if he liked the book or not. I suspect not. Reading between the lines, it seems that Wagner is messing with point of view in a way that might be interesting but that Bell (Smart Bell?) found lacking. Except I’m not sure because Bell (Smart Bell?) or his editors lacked the genitals to actually say, “Sorry, nice try, but this isn’t really all that good.”

This might be because Wagner is the literary editor of The Times of London and Bell (Smart Bell?) is afraid of starting a feud that will impact his livelihood down the road, but still, what I really want to know is simple: Is the book any good?

So, for aspiring book reviewers, here’s two example of reviews that let me know how you really feel about the book you’ve been assigned to write about. The first is Rick Bass, writing in the Dallas Morning News about Tim O’Brien’s terrific The Things They Carried:

“I’ve got to make you read this book… A certain panic arises in me. In trying to review a book as precious as The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, there is the nightmare fear of saying the wrong thing – of not getting the book’s wonder across to you fairly – and of sounding merely zealous, fanatical, and hence to be dismissed. If I can’t get you to go out and buy this book, then I’ve failed you… In a world filled too often with numbness, or shifting values, these stories shine in a strange and opposite direction, moving against the flow, illuminating life’s wonder, life’s tenuousness, life’s importance.”

Now, for a negative take, previously excerpted in these very pages, we have Harry Siegel in The New York Press tackling the odious Jonathan Safran Foer with gleeful venom.

>Having "read" Foer's latest—if that's what one does to this cut-and-paste assemblage of words, pictures, blank pages and pages where the text runs together and becomes illegible—it's time for bad form.

Foer isn't just a bad author, he's a vile one…

To be fair, such neglect might be in Foer's best interests, since the book is an Oprah-etic paean to innocence and verbosity as embodied by Foer's latest saintly stand-in (there was a character named Jonathan Safran Foer in Everything Is Illuminated), nine-year-old Oskar Schell, who has a business card, speaks French, walks the city at odd hours by himself, writes letters to Stephen Hawking and other luminaries, knows more facts than any of the adults he speaks with, flirts with women, is a vegan, an atheist and otherwise equal parts unbelievable and unbearable. Foer, I should note, is a Jewish atheist, wrote letters to Susan Sontag when he was nine, and otherwise sounds like he'd make unbearable company, though perhaps not as much as the obnoxiously precocious, overeducated brat Schell. If Foer is beginning to sound like a minor Saul Bellow character (think the masturbating uncle in Mr. Sammler's Planet), he has only himself to blame…

Foer is indeed a sampler, throwing in Sebald (the illustrations and Dresden), Borges (the grandparents divide their apartment into something and nothing), Calvino (a tale about the sixth borough that floated off, ripped off wholesale from Cosmicomics), Auster (in the whole city-of-symbols shtick), Night of the Hunter (the grandfather has Yes and No tattooed on his hands) and damn near every other author, technique, reference and symbol he can lay his hands on, as though referencing were the same as meaning.

And with the same easy spirit in which he pillages other authors' techniques, stripping them of their context and using them merely for show, he snatches 9/11 to invest his conceit with gravitas, thus crossing the line that separates the risible from the villainous. The book's themes—the sense of connection we all feel when the coffee or acid hits and everything is illuminated, the brain-gurble and twitch and self-pity we all know better than to write about—have nothing to do with the attack on the towers, or with Dresden or Hiroshima, which Foer tosses in just to make sure we understand what a big and important book we're dealing with.

There are a lot of things that can be said for (and against) Dale Peck, but when he was reviewing for The New Republic a few years back, he at least had the guts to write exactly what he felt, even if it did carry the faint scent of self promotion. I don’t need every reviewer to opine, "Rick Moody is the worst writer of his generation," as Peck did (wrongly) in TNR, but is it too much to ask of a reviewer to, someplace, let me know if they found the damn book compelling?

Service Industry Adventures

So, for the last two years, two or three times a week, this nice, balding gentleman in a flowered shirt has popped in to my place of employ and knocked back a quick espresso. He seemed a pleasant gentleman; I knew him as "Terry."

Occasionally he'd have a meal or a drink with someone and it always appeared to be business.

When I wandered in today for a meeting and wine tasting, he was lunching with Natalie P*rtman, and I suddenly realized that "Terry's" last name is Malick.

Natalie is tiny and radiant, but demurred when I suggested a run to Vegas and a quickie wedding.

A Fine Day Indeed

What can one say?

The Yankees, starting Carl "I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up" Pavano dispatch the pathetic D. Rays despite some Bad News Bears like fielding mistakes and the Sox, starting Curt "The Blogger" Schilling get smoked by the pathetic Royals.

Pitching lines like the below make me happy indeed.

C Schilling (L, 0-1)4 innings, 5 runs, 5 earned runs, 2BB, 5 SO, 11.25 ERA

Ah, it's good to be back.

Play Ball!

In about five minutes, I'll be tuning into the first Yankee game of the season. I would like to wax poetic, but I have a huge stack of papers to grade and, alas, can not.

Baseball is back. And that's alliterative and poetic enough.