Subscribers Feeds A to G
Former Cabinet Minister Jehangir Tareen, on Pervez Musharraf (via the NYTimes):
Musharraf tried to construct a modern enlightened state. But he proved you cannot do this on the structure of a patronage-riven and police-oriented political machine.
NTodd, who’s been joining CodePink actions lately, tries to jolt me out of my stuck place:
The point is not to win over the unwinnable people, nor is it even to convince the alleged fence-sitters who would’ve come over to our side if only we’d not worn fucking pink spandex and tiaras. The point is to use one or more of the 198 different goddamned methods of resistance, some of which are mere protest and others that escalate to interventions meant to disrupt the status quo and operations of government, economic and financial systems, etc. If you don’t like what Code Pink is doing, fine: do your own thing. Just do it and stop bitching about people who are stepping it up.
And yeah, lots of people have been doing things, but clearly we collectively have not done enough. So I’ve been asking, repetitively, annoyingly–to the point that people call me condescending, self-righteous, boring–what’s something else you can try? Go beyond the usual writing letters every once in a while or “lighting up the switchboard” at the Senate or whatever. Those are still rather passive actions that don’t have much psychological or physical impact on our elected employees or the citizenry at large. Go beyond your comfort zone a little just once, do one new thing, then something else, and another thing, then again, and again and again and again…it will get easier and you’ll find you have more courage and power than you thought before.
Not all of this stuff will work all the time. What ever does? What’s necessary now is we get out of our chairs, out of our homes and into the streets, trying new things instead of reliving college bull sessions, intellectualizing and agonizing about the perfect solution and refusing to engage until we find it.
I missed the Saddleback forum thingy, so was interested to read Paul Raushenbush at Progressive Revival’s take. For him, the most interesting question was about the nature of evil:
The most telling theological difference between the candidates was in response to the question of evil - does it exist and, if so, how do we confront it? John McCain said it existed and that we must defeat it. He immediately went on to identify evil as radical Islam and spoke of fighting it around the world until it has been vanquished. This brought to mind the last eight years of the George Bush presidency, the clarity with which he identified the Axis of Evil, and his divinely inspired call to combat it which led to the Iraq war.
Barack Obama also allowed that evil existed and that we had to fight against it every day. However, Obama went on to caution that we must be careful not to fall in the trap of failing to recognize that we can, if we are not vigilant, do evil in the name of doing good.
Darn Democrats and their nuance!
Her review of “Vicky Christina Barcelona” nails it in fewer than 25 words:
This is a film about how vapid and empty Americans are, and how fiery and passionately alive Europeans are.
That is all.
::curtsy:::
Thanks, PB, you saved me a sawbuck!
… when motivated by generosity and relieved of fear.
Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal
By Naomi Shihab Nye
After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
Please come to the gate immediately.
Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her
Problem? We told her the flight was going to be 4 hours late and she
Did this.
I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly.
Shu dow-a, shu-beduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick,
Sho bit se-wee?
The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used—
She stopped crying.
She thought our flight had been canceled entirely.
She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the
Following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late.
Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him.
We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and
Would ride next to her—Southwest.
She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of
It. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and
Found out of course they had ten shared friends.
Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian
Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours.
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering
Questions.
She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered
Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—
And was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California,
The lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same
Powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookies.
And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—
Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing,
With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always
Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought,
This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.
Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped
—has seemed apprehensive about any other person.
They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere.
Not everything is lost.
——————–
Via Jesus’ General.
I recently read (and very much enjoyed) The Night Men by Keith Snyder, which for some reason renewed my interest in Raymond Chandler. In a Chronology in the back of a Library of America omnibus edition of Chandler, I found the following:
1945: Begins writing original screenplay The Blue Dahlia for Paramount, which wants to make a film starring Alan Ladd before Ladd enters military service. Shooting begins before screenplay is finished; when Chandler falls seriously behind schedule, he proposed to producer John Houseman that he finish the script while drunk. Houseman agrees, and Chandler completes the screenplay in eight days, dictating to secretaries provided by the studio while receiving regular glucose injections from his doctor. [...] Chandler receives Academy Award nomination and Edgar award from Mystery Writers of America for his screenplay.
While I shepherded a gaggle of kids through a local amusement venue a couple of weeks ago, I noticed one couple several times. She carried a white cane and was lovingly guided by him. The stairwell was often crowded due to frequent elevator trouble, and at least once I saw kids jib around the couple (who were, as expected, taking the stairs at a cautious pace) as if they were obstacles. It distressed me enough that I asked my group later if they knew what a white cane signifies: none did.
That’s one reason why I was struck by Lower Manhattanite’s essay about his observations of crowds at Netroots Nation after being sensitized by his brother’s injury to the difficulties, obstacles, and rudenesses suffered by disabled people. He writes:
These events, my brother’s eye-opening injury, getting around with Maggie, and the dunder-headed diss on Jesse all happened within a couple of weeks of each other. And their coming so close together made me think about something that I, as a relatively fully able-bodied person in spite of my trying to be sensitive to people have tended to overlook—namely the way the greater society, those of us able to easily get from one place to another pain-and-disability free make this world an immensely harder place for our challenged fellow citizens. We are too often not patient, and treat these folks like annoying, inanimate speed bumps in our path between here and the places we want to get to. These are people—not potholes or barricades to be growled at and brushed past crudely.
Mom Pooch, who uses a cane and a walker, would almost certainly agree heartily.
“Rielle” is pronounced “Riley.”
Also, Edwards? You stink. As Dad Pooch might have said, “Just another goddamn politician.”
If you wanted to change ONE thing to get more pirates to buy games, scrapping DRM is it. These gamers are the low hanging fruit of this whole debate.
Talking To Pirates
Looks like at least one person in the game industry is listening. Hopefully he will inspire more to do the same.
After being out of work for five months, I suddenly had an embarrassment of riches: the giant search engine company grudgingly consented to rehire me for telecommuting QA work, and my kid’s elementary school suggested that I apply for a half-time position as an assistant to the district talented and gifted coordinator.
I was tempted by the latter, I admit: it seemed more like a “real” job, with colleagues and dressing for work and everything. On the other hand, it paid about 2/3 as much, and would have significantly reduced whatever schedule flexibility I have during the school year.
I feel some grief about the decision not to apply for the job. But the fact that I sat on the application for two months tells me that either (a) it wasn’t really a good fit, or (b) I’m too cowardly to submit to the interview process. Maybe both. I didn’t hear God’s voice or my own instincts encouraging me otherwise, or else I’m just too sunk in my own feelings of inadequacy to perceive them. In any case, the opportunity is past. I guess I can quit worrying about it now.
Back to school shopping is an experience I have dreaded more and more as my daughter ventures deeper into adolescence. Neither of us is gifted or even much interested in fashion, which can be an enormous social obstacle in middle school.
This year, I had the inspiration of inviting the charming and extremely fashion- (and budget-, bless her!) conscious teenage daughter of a friend to come along to help. Problem most emphatically solved! I could only stand back and watch in admiration as she worked the racks, deftly drawing out appropriate items; gently encouraged and advised my daughter; and arrived at the checkout stand with an armful of winners whose (most reasonable) tab I was only too happy to pay. What a relief! Next year I may just hand them my keys and a credit card with my blessing.
I’ve been a fan of Lynda Barry ever since I first ran across Ernie Pook’s Comeek in an alt-weekly in the late 1980s. I’ve often been astonished by her uncanny ability to invoke precise details of childhood and adolescence, and after reading her latest book, What It Is, I finally begin to get a little of how she does it.
Nominally a book about creative writing, this is so much more: the story of Barry’s development as an artist, a piece of art in itself (I had no idea she was such a talented collage artist), and a compelling invitation to explore your own inner spaces by inviting your images to find you, rather than trying to chase them down.
I imagine that my apprehension of most forms of art is pretty flawed, but I think I can perceive when an artist is pursuing his/her vision over time — developing, changing, and deepening their understanding — rather than falling victim to repetitiveness, ego, or despair. It’s one of the things that keeps me going, in fact, which is why I am so happy to have read this book.
"At this point, all sense of thrift has fallen away. We grew up in a tightened house, where there was no allowance, where asking for $5 from our father elicited the heaviest of sighs, required detailed plans for repayment. Our mother was far worse -- would not even shop in Lake Forest, where everything was overpriced, would instead drive ten, twenty, thirty miles to Marshalls, to T.J. Maxx, for bargains, for bulk. Once a year we would all pile into the Pinto and would drive to a place on the west side of Chicago, Sinofsky's, where for $4, $5 each we'd buy dozens of slightly flawed rugby shirts, holes here and there, extra buttons, collars ruined by bleach, pink bleeding into white. We grew up with a weird kind of cognitive dissonance; we knew we lived in a nice town -- our cousins out East often made that point to us -- but then, if this was true, why was our mother always fretting aloud about not having the money to buy staples? "How will I even buy milk tomorrow?" she would yell at him from the kitchen. Our father, who was out of work a year here, a year there, never seemed impressed with her worry; he seemed to have it all worked out. Still, we were ready for and expected sudden indigence, to be forced out of the house in the middle of the night, and into one of the apartments on the highway, at the edge of town. To become one of those kids.
"It never happened, of course, and now, though we are not rich, and there is very little money actually coming in, Beth and I have tossed away the guilt associated with spending it. When it's a matter of expense versus convenience, the choice is not a choice. While my mother would have driven forty miles for a half-priced tomato, I'll pay $10 for it if it means I don't have to get in the car. It's a matter of exhaustion, mostly. Fatigue loosens my wallet, Beth's even more, loosens the checkbook tied to Toph's account. We are done sacrificing, Beth and I have decided -- at least when it's unnecessary, when it involves money, which, for the time being at least, we have." (>>)
"I think it’s high time we got this whole thing out in the open." ( >>)
So says Josh Marshall:
Should we find ourselves in the situation where the Russians want to reassert their sway in Eastern Europe, we would have some very serious and consequential decisions to make. But this just is not that. The key is that McCain, both in terms of policy and temperament, wants to court that result.
It’s sort of funny when he’s just an unhinged senator. But think for a moment where we’d be if this man were president right now, as he may well be in six months. This man takes the counsel of the people who got us into the Iraq War. On foreign policy, he is in league with the people who were so extreme they’ve now largely been kicked out of the Bush administration. People like John Bolton and others like him.
It’s beyond Obama or political strategy or dinging McCain on this or that policy.
This man is simply too dangerous and unstable to be president. People need to wake up and get a look of the preview he’s giving us of a McCain presidency.
Great post on the subject of hell at Real Live Preacher:
If you ask me, a person would have to be pretty sure of himself before he would tell people they were going to hell. If you say that hell exists, and it is for non-Christians, and it is fire, and it is forever, you better be sure of yourself. Because I can’t imagine a worse blasphemy if it’s not true. That would really make God angry, wouldn’t you think? You running around and ruining God’s reputation like that.
It’s funny - hell Christians always act like we who don’t think everyone is going to burn in hell are the ones taking a chance. “Uh oh, you’re getting liberal. Aren’t you afraid God is going to be really mad at you for not believing in hell?” Well, maybe … But if you’re wrong, you and people like you have trashed God’s reputation for 2,000 years.
I think I’ll take my chances with the liberals.
Me too.
OK, this is just funny. From Blender via NPR.
John McCain’s Top Ten Songs
1. Dancing Queen — ABBA
2. Blue Bayou — Roy Orbison
3. Take a Chance On Me — ABBA
4. If We Make It Through December — Merle Haggard
5. As Time Goes By — Dooley Wilson
6. Good Vibrations — The Beach Boys
7. What A Wonderful World — Louis Armstrong
8. I’ve Got You Under My Skin — Frank Sinatra
9. Sweet Caroline — Neil Diamond
10. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes — The Platters
Barack Obama’s Top Ten Songs
1. Ready or Not — Fugees
2. What’s Going On — Marvin Gaye
3. I’m On Fire — Bruce Spingsteen
4. Gimme Shelter — Rolling Stones
5. Sinnerman — Nina Simone
6. Touch the Sky — Kanye West
7. You’d Be So Easy to Love — Frank Sinatra
8. Think — Aretha Franklin
9. City of Blinding Lights — U2
10. Yes We Can — will.i.am
And I was just telling someone the other day how much I hate[d] ABBA!
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