October: Fall Foliage, German Beer, Indictments Galore

I'm having a pretty good day today. Better than Lewis Libby,
I'm guessing. Didn't get indicted on five felony charges and
subsequently had to resign from my job.

Lets not let another interesting GOP indictment story slip
through the Delay/Libby cracks, here:

In my good ol' home state of Ohia, Thomas W. Noe has been indicted
by a grand jury in Toledo for illegally funneling $45,400 to
W's re-election campaign. Remember that election? Ohio's
decisive electoral votes went to Bush, while Ohio's Secretary of
State Ken Blackwell was pulling dirty tricks including disallowing
voter registration cards which were not submitted on hard stock;
the Diabold machines in one precinct were awarding W thousands
more votes than there were voters; African Americans voters in
Cuyahoga County were waiting upwards of 10 hours to cast a vote.
That someone has been indicted for illegally funneling money
into Bush's relection coffers makes me feel much better about
that whole affair.

One last thought, and then I'll get off the politics-kick:

I don't think the war in Iraq, as a matter of policy, does anything
to make the US safer from the threat of terrorism. On some level, I
believe it raises the long-term risks. So too does Bloomberg's
recent break with federal agencies on the threat of a terrorist
attack within NYC's subway system-- and the leak of this intelligence
from federal employees to well connected individuals in NYC--
signal a complete failure in the righting our pre 9/11 mistakes
in the administration of homeland security. Off course abroad
and off course at home. High time for a new political leadership.

Alright. Enough. Next week: all pop-culture all the time.
Have a great weekend.

Post Redux

Huh. On the heels of numerous posts on Gulf War II and war
in general-- including a plug for Apocalypse Now-- there appears
in this month's Harper's Magazine an article by Lawrence
Weschler which argues that 'anti-war' movies are problemmatic
because most end up serving as pro-war inspiration for young
soldiers heading into battle. The article focuses on Gulf War Vet.
Anthony Swofford's book Jarhead as well as Apolcalypse. Interesting
piece, but I'm not sure I agree with the thesis... and now I'm
doubly weary of Jarhead the movie: trailer looks like a ripoff
of Full Metal Jacket and Three Kings bereft of important messages
about the current conflict. And if part of this film, featuring
Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx and directed by the guy responsible
for American Beauty, spends some portion rehashing Apolcalypse,
well, this could qualify as cinematic blasphemy. But I'll withhold
final judgement until I've seen the film...

Iraq and Vietnam

New York Times Magazine, October 23, 2005:

In most of the 20th century's guerrilla wars, the armies of
the countries battling the insurgents have suffered serious
breakdowns in discipline. This was true of the Americans in
Vietnam, the French in Algeria and the Soviets in Afghanistan.
Martin van Creveld, a historian at Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, says that soldiers in the dominant army often
became demoralized by the frustrations of trying to defeat
guerrillas. Nearly every major counterinsurgency in the
20th century failed. "The soldiers fighting the insurgents
became demoralized because because they were the strong
fighting the weak," van Creveld says. "Everything they did
seemed to be wrong. If they let the weaker amry kill them,
they were idiots. If they attacked the smaller army, they
were seen as killers. The effect, in nearly every case, is
demoralization and breakdowns in discipline."

Over 50,000 names are listed on the Vietnam memorial.
The number of deaths of US soldiers in Iraq will soon reach 2,000.
While this number is far less than Vietnam, I fear the lasting
psychological damage on the tens of thousands of young men
and women who have served or will serve in Iraq will be
similarly widespread, and will leave a lasting mark on my generation,
as the Vietnam war did on my parents generation. Such is one legacy
of the misguided and corrupt regime... or cabal... of Bush, Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, Rove, Cheney, et. al.. May history remember their
arrogence, their folly, and their failure to learn a critical
lesson in foreign policy and humanity taken from their own past.

Feeling Down? No worries. Try getting indicted on a Felony Money Laundering charge.

Looks to have pepped up Tom "The Hammer" Delay.
(see Tom's mugshot below, if you haven't already)

Just heard a rumor that Dick Cheney is going to resign.
Maybe its a health thing. Maybe its a Valerie Plame thing.
Maybe its a "OK, now my boss has run off and nominated a
totally unqualified croney to the SC, which has Bill Kristol,
George Will and even Ann Coulter screaming bloody murder.
I can see my sage advice is no longer appreciated in this
office. Screw this, I'd be happier duck hunting" thing.

Things just keep looking up for the GOP. Not that I disdain
everyone in the party. I might vote for Bloomberg next
month. I think Arlen Specter has been very even handed
with the judicial nominations. I believe that John McCain
or Chuck Hagel could make for pretty good Chief Executives.
But this current Administration and House Leadership are
simply rotten to the core and need to go. Too bad that the
Dems aren't offering the American people a sound alternative,
but I'll take some internal collapse born of the weight of
folly, hubris, and corruption that drives Bush, Delay, et. al.
I don't know what more the Republicans could offer the Dems
to build a populist movement to retake the Congress: this
week alone we saw the Republicans nix a rise to the paltry
minimum wage, and the passage of bills granting immunity to
gun manufacturers and the fast food industry. The current
power structure in Washington does not have in interests of
the American people in mind: they do the bidding of the
corporate interests that fill their coffers. This message is
not too tough to understand or communicate. Please, Dems,
find some folks with charisma and public speaking skills for
2006/2008, and hand them the microphone.

You Can Do It!



Hey Kids! Crime might not pay, but hell'if it won't put a
smarmy smile on your face!

Odds and Ends

Word. Its been a while. No major over-arching themes here.
Just ramblins. Like it was a live journal thing. But its
blogspot.

The sun is shining through the skylight. Prior to this happening,
it was raining for 7 days. Constantly. Nonstop. Not kidding.
It was a real hoot. I was watching a movie earlier in the week,
and peered up at one point to see a small portion of the skylight
underwater. Kind of a cool effect, but rather troubling. Found
a way up on the roof, and discovered about two feet of standing
water in one area. Could have stocked it with Carp. Strange.

I have a job. Woo hoo. Good stuff. Doing policy and inter-
governmental affairs. Right up my alley (though I'm still waiting
for that NBA/NFL GM call).. However, as I'm rapping with Mayors,
Mayor Wannabees, Councilmembers, Commissioners, etc., we're
gonna stick with Weintraub from Dallas for a while.

So I don't have cable, and my DVD watching has gone up accordingly.
I own about 10 DVDs. One is the extended version of Apocalypse
Now, which I watched again this week. Holy Crap, what an amazing
piece of work. I know as the 27 year old white dude from USA I'm
not beating any stereotypes loving that film, but its just such
a priceless thing. Coppola is totally on top of his game, although
I guess the project nearly drove him nuts. Read on the internet that
this extended version still left about an hour of footage on the
cutting room floor. I dunno... when a director has all the right
supporting cast and is on a roll, I have a lot of patience for longer
length films. I think I could happily watch a 7 hour long
Apocalypse Now. One of the most moving and captivating scenes in
the film for me is the scene where Sheen's character is passing
through the last US military outpost heading upriver to Cambodia,
and asks, for the final time, if a soldier knows who the CO is,
and the guy turns to him and says, "Yeah." I swear, its the most
dramatic one-word line delivered in any movie I know of.
Speaks volumes. If you have not seen this film, you must.

Fantasy football team: Sucks. But I pulled off the most improbable
win last week over the grand daddy grump of our league, Todd S.
That made me feel a bit better as a human being.

Oh, yeah... not attending the college 5 year. Sorry, E-ham class
of two-thou, I'll make it up to you, at some point.

Later peeps.

Is It Wrong To Miss Class Reunions??

My grad school roommate watched Michelle and Romi's High School
Reunion about 10 times last academic year ... for which I'll
never forgive her.

So, uh, I've already missed my 5-year HS Reunion, and am now
trying to decide whether to attend or blow off the college 5 year.
The decision on the HS reunion was fairly easy: I have no
interest in catching up with most of those folks, on any cosmic
timeline. My HS class was uncanny in its utter worthlessness.
The class before and after mine had about 11 Rhodes and National
Merit Scholars, and the GPA cutoff to take advantage of the state
concurrent HS/College enrollment thing was, like, 3.6. My class
laid a big goose egg on the scholarships, and the GPA cutoff for
college classes was on the order of 2.34. Not that good grades
make the man, or woman. But my class was also waaaay too into life
projects such as football, Beavis & Butthead, Oasis, and, most
important, behaving as if HS was the highlight of their life.
For many, it was. I think the Bureau of Justice Statistics keeps
a separate file on the AHS class of 96'. OK... so I'm being
pretty harsh. But I'm also from a small town that has a
moderate-collective-leaning towards the drink, and with the
clustering of bars uptown, the time uptown around
Christmas/New Years serves pretty effectively as reunion-time
with anyone you might care to see, whether you grew up with them
or not.

The college 5-year is a tougher nut to crack. Gut feeling tells
me I should go, but I can also think of a dozen reasons and
incentives not to go. First, you have to understand, I went to
a small school that was all about 'intentional community'. So,
while I didn't take a blood oath or anything, I guess the idea is
that I should remain vigilant in keeping up with the community
post-grad-uation. But, ugg.. a few of the reasons not to go are
fairly compelling. 1) I keep in touch with a lot of my best
buddies from college, and others have informed me they can't make
it out 2) This college is not located in Vegas. Or Annapolis
or Ithaca... or Athens, for that matter. Its just not an uber-fun
place to get fired up about spending $300 to get to. But I know
and love a number of folks who live there, including a cousin,
so I won't harp on this too long 3) Unlike HS, I actually had
girlfriends in college, and while I am stupendously happy with
the EC woman I ended up with for the long haul, I harbor immense
feelings of regret and trepidation toward all the others and
reconnecting with any of them would be about as much fun as going
under the knife for hernia surgery again...

Lastly: call me a goof, but my favorite holidays are
July 4, New Years, and Halloween, with Halloween at the top of
the list. I really hate missing Halloween. If I went out to the
alma mater, instead of attending one or two swell costume parties
or events, I'd be holed up in some crappy smoke filled bar, or at
a Sinbad performance (memo to college: ol' S-bad burned out on the
new material back in 98'). Human life and social organization can
be, on the whole, pretty banal and disappointing and feckless.
I find a well attended, with high rates of attendee-participation
Halloween party an absolutely priceless thing. Its good to see
so many people let loose and let go of their everyday identities--
its also a heck of a lot of fun to discuss, say, Supreme Court
Nominee Mier with Richard Nixon, Napoleon, a Grateful Dead bear,
and a lifesize container of Palmolive.

Luckily..... if I do go, I still have an opportunity to do the
costume thing the weekend before at the 5th Annual Lebowski Fest
NYC. For those of you who are not familiar, Lebowski fest is a theme
party based off the Greatest Movie In Cinematic History, The Big
Lebowski. Check it out at:

http://www.lebowskifest.com/newyork2005.asp

So maybe I'll see you at Lebowski Fest. Or my college 5-year. Or
my HS 10-year. Somewhere down the road. The dude abides.