That Didn't Take Long

As The Editors once said: "You know what's fun? Not blogging."

Inspiration is near, though. I can smell it. Smells like feet. Oh, wait, that is feet.

Random Genius

Miles Davis and his band recorded Kind of Blue in 1959... in two days. Shunning the traditional scale-based construction, Davis planned Kind of Blue as an experiment: he would use modes instead. (As a pop music point of reference, the distinctive sound of "Eleanor Rigby" comes largely by virtue of it being written in dorian mode instead of standard major/minor chords.)

Kind of Blue is my favorite jazz record. Just check out the band roster:

• • Miles Davis
• • John Coltrane
• • Cannonball Adderley
• • Bill Evans
• • Paul Chambers
• • Jimmy Cobb

What do you think?

"Civil Rights? I Got Your Civil Rights Right Here"

Above: Your Justice Department Walks to Work

Today, from the TPM Media Empire, we learn that Justice Department Douchebag Extraordinaire Brad Schlozman has spent his tenure in the Civil Rights Division "targeting minority women lawyers" appointed by Democrats and replacing them with "white, invariably Christian men," whom Schlozman summarizes as "good Americans."

I assume the minority women were not "good Americans." With brown skin and vaginas, how could they be?

The far right is engaged in a very risky gambit here. It's no secret that the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s re-emerged as the White Citizens' Council of the 1960s and the Conservative Citizens' Council today, but what's not spoken out loud is the role of fundamentalist Anglo churches in keeping the spirit of the Klan alive. Pat Robertson didn't found Regent University to spread the teachings of Jesus, about whom he has no interest anyway. This is about power, subjugation, intimidation and fear, the four major food groups of authoritarians everywhere. If you're not one of them, by definition you are not a good person.

Non-whites are welcome only insofar as they are useful in maintaining appearances, but these people mean to drive blacks and hispanics as far from power as they possibly can, be it in the Justice Department or the voting booth. The likes of Robertson, James Dobson and the late Jerry Falwell have turned "Christian" into a code word for "racist," and this will come back to haunt them for years when their schemes are finally laid bare. The damage they do their "cause" and legitimate Christianity will be greater than their imaginations. Their wallets will probably fare better. Karma just isn't effective enough sometimes.



UPDATE: I'd be remiss not to also mention the thread that binds fundamentalists all over the world, subjugation of women. It's not merely that these folks are racist, they also are patriarchal and contemptuous of women. Those women who do work for them? Well, they have issues of their own, don't they?

I'm Back

AT&T can bite my ass, but at least I'm finally back online now.

I have something to say about something or other. I'll post it soonish, promise.

Grand Unifying Elastic Sphincter Theory

Above: You figure it out.

I alluded earlier to the continuing dilation of the American sphincter at the, uh, hands of the Republican Party. I'm now three days into this blog so I guess I ought to elaborate.

Seems hard to remember now but 40 years ago, there was something of a liberal consensus in this country. Sure, there were sharp divisions about civil rights and Vietnam, but nobody in the political mainstream questioned progressive taxation, Social Security, the dangers of unchecked corporate power, etc. Voters still had vivid memories of the Great Depression and had no desire to roll back the protections of the New Deal.

Then the success of the civil rights movement provided the impetus for the Southern strategy, Nixon's election in 1968 signaled the beginning of an era of Republican dominance in presidential elections, and Depression kids started dying off.

Right away, Republicans under Nixon started exploring ways of consolidating power in the executive branch for the purpose of weakening political opponents. At the time, this was considered shocking. Too much penetration all at once, baby. Watergate forced them to back off, but six years later they were back with Ronnie Reagan and enough momentum to win the Senate.

Thus began a solid twelve years of mostly unrestrained appointment of right-wing prosecutors, federal judges and Supreme Court justices. Sure, most of the justices weren't wingnuts, but Supreme Court justices come from the farm system of federal judges who come from the farm system of federal prosecutors. At that time, longtime Democratic control of the appointment and confirmation process prevented many unapologetic nutcases to receive those appointments. Reagan and Bush 41 replenished the farm system but the list of wingnuts with experience was so short that they had to reach for Robert Bork, a douchebag so odious that even casual news watchers found him totally nuts.

Well, the wingnut farm system for crackpot judges is fully stocked now and we're paying the price with the likes of Sam Alito and John Roberts. Ow. More stretching.

Meanwhile, the Republicans have done what they always do: focus on sucking as much money into their own pockets as they possibly can. They made deregulation popular and then chuckled as they plundered savings and loans, banks, subprime borrowers, California electric customers, Iraqi oil fields, the public treasury, you name it. Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow. Ow!

And yet there's very little outrage about any of this. It's expected. Free enterprise is always right! And the news media? Fuhgeddabouddit. (Hat tip: Liz.) Bought out, whole, by the Republican establishment. Ow. Our information channels are polluted. Ow ow ow.

So, manufacturing is gone overseas, wage security has become a thing of the past, wage growth just another fatcat chuckle while record profits go into Republican pockets. All this unthinkable just forty years ago... today, it's no big deal. We're fully dilated while Bush the petulant manchild invades countries just to prove he can, destroys our rights in order to save them, has his thugs blow the cover of covert agents as political retaliation. We're numb. Get stretched out this far and pretty soon you don't even feel anything anymore.

That's right about the time the hemorrhaging starts. Don't think that the GOP is bothered about fucking us to death. That's the whole point. Once they get their permanent underclass, their cold lifeless bloody rectum populi, then the necrophilia party begins in earnest.

First one to say that Hillary's gonna put a stop to this gets the Astroglide taken away.

Colin Blow

Above: A sufficient metaphor for today's political needs

I just love it when someone who lent his name and reputation to criminally stupid and stupidly criminal activity decides, once the political wind changes direction, that now he'll take a courageous stand against the criminal stupidity:

Guantanamo has become a major, major problem for America’s perception as it’s seen, the way the world perceives America. And if it was up to me, I would close Guantanamo not tomorrow, but this afternoon. I’d close it. And I would not let any of those people go. I would simply move them to the United States and put them into our federal legal system. The concern was, “Well, then they’ll have access to lawyers, then they’ll have access to writs of habeas corpus.” So what? Let them. Isn’t that what our system’s all about?

Awfully shrill, General. Just terribly shrill. Not very centrist at all.

I guess I should welcome these defections, but, you know, how about a little accountability? "I am utterly opposed to the continued raping of your sister and would stop it immediately just like I failed to do when it was happening right in front of me five years ago if only I weren't an outsider now."

Yeah. Real courageous, Colin. Better late than never, sure, but don't dislocate your shoulder just yet.

Random Genius

I picked up a copy of I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon this weekend. If ever there was a guy too intelligent not to be nauseated by the world, Zevon was he. I miss his wit, his sensitivity, his outrage. He was the real deal.

The Dilation of the American Sphincter, Part 1

Digby explains how the Republican perversion of the American justice system will likely save Bush the trouble of pardoning Scooter Libby. It's about as blatant an expression of contempt for American democracy and rule of law as one could invent. But hey, at least they've been stretching us for this for the last 30 years. We should be grateful.

L'Affaire Paris is the Perfect American Storm

Is the Paris Hilton falling-in-and-out-of-jail-with-you scandalette the best example yet of how craven and inane our media have become, or is it the perfect microcosm of how the American justice system warps in the presence of money?

The answer, of course, is that it's both.

If the Taoists are right and love and hate are different sides of the same coin, then I have at least a roll of quarters about this story, even if mostly they come out tails. Seems appropriate for Paris, I guess.