Music of the Day: Pearl Jam, Garden

I spent some time visiting Dear Old Mom recently and during one slow evening, she settled on one of the mainstream media outlets on her TeeVee; being in the same house with Mom means listening to whatever Mom wants to listen to on the tube, regardless of one's location in the house relative to the television set. Mom doesn't hear well anymore, so the volume level for a person with near-normal hearing is a painful thing; this also means there's no escaping the program she's watching (not even with headphones on, in another room, listening to some music), so I had to hear the report about Mrs. Clinton campaigning in Iowa and her response to the evil and bad men who said not-nice things about her in one of the recent Dem-Pol debates.

Her response was apparently embodied in her new campaign slogan, which is the phrase you see above, to wit: Turn Up The Heat! I thought at first that her shrill followers were saying, in reply to her Baptist-style call-and-response plea for the slogan, "Where's the beef?" Hey, somebody else used that one, I thought, in a previous campaign--couldn't the Mrs. and her crack campaign staff and poll-takers come up with something new, something more "progressive?" And then I saw the hand-held signs reading "Turn Up The Heat!" Okay, I get it. She's turning up the heat. They ALL want to turn up the heat.

What, exactly, does this mean? Is she advocating turning up the heat on Islamic terrorist thugs here and abroad? Good, but not likely. Is she advocating turning up the heat on illegal immigrants? Good, but not likely. Is she advocating turning up the heat on Osama? Good, but not likely. Or is she merely saying she's going to turn up the heat on poor ol' George W. Bush, who last time I looked wasn't running for re-election? Or is she advocating turning up the heat on her not-nice male competitors for the Democratic nomination? This made me think that there's no real reason to turn up the heat on pool ol' Dennis Kucinich--he's already fried, probably from that close enounter and UFO visitation a while back.

Will Mrs. Clinton turn up the heat on Rudy Giuliani, if he gets the Republican nomination? Probably. Can Rudy take it? Probably. He may return the favor, so Mrs. Clinton might want to be a little careful there. . . .

But then it occurred to me that Mrs. Clinton is the front-runner in the party that claims the world is going to hell, literally, in a man-made hand basket, the party of boogah-boogah global warming, the party of Al Gore and his inconvenient scare-myth, and now she is actually calling for turning up the heat. Is this a coal-fired heat, a nuclear-fired heat, or a gas-fired heat? I think it's gas, and a lot of it, that's firing this particular heat. Where's the outrage from the so-called scientific community? What about the polar ice caps and the cute, drowning penguins and polar bears? What about flooded coastlines? Why is this woman calling for an increase in the environmental scourge that the Democrats have been trying to frighten us with for the past decade or so? Why hasn't someone in the media called her out on this "heat" issue?

Turn Up The Heat! is about the most vapid and meaningless political phrase that I have ever heard and it makes me long for the days when a campaign slogan actually had a shred of meaning. Here's one that makes sense: I Like Ike. Notice the lack of ambiguity, notice the pithiness.

Finally, turning up the heat is gonna' lose Mrs. Clinton the woman-over-40 vote--there's not a woman in that voter demographic who will utter those words, in any context, and really mean it. Bad slogan, Hillary. How 'bout this one: "Roll the window down, honey, it's hot in here."

AJ

Is that what has happened to Average Joe? Is he on strike, like the genius writers who produce all those wonderful television programs, such as Two and a Half Men and Just Shoot Me? No, Average Joe hasn't been on strike, he's just been too involved with other stuff, of late, to get around to writing here in the blog. And why is he writing about himself in the third person?

Sorry.

I have been doing a fair amount of reading lately, though, and that's a good thing; another good thing is that I've begun another more personal writing project that has recently taken some of my time and energy. Hell, I didn't even mark my one year anniversary of this blog, which happened at the end of October.

Next on my agenda is a visit to Dear Old Mom, which will happen in the next couple of days; perhaps after that I can get back to the business of writing an occasional post here.

More later--thanks for your indulgence and continued readership.

AJ

Music of the Day: Sadao Watanabe, Sweet Deal

Two news stories on the internet caught my eye this week, one sublime, the other ridiculous.

First, the sublime story--the presentation of the Congressional Medal of Honor to the parents of Navy Lt. Michael Murphy for his actions in a firefight with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan; Murphy and two other SEAL team members were killed in this particular fight in 2005. As per usual, no mention in the main-stream media was made of the CMH presentation, unless I just missed it, which is always possible. But given the near total lack of media coverage of anything heroic accomplished by American troops in Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere else, this isn't all that surprising--see my earlier posting here entitlted "Fame, Thy Name is. . .Anna Nicole Smith," which concerns itself with the dearth of media coverage for two other CMH winners, both in Iraq, Jason Dunham and Paul Smith. Murphy joins these two valiant men in utter anonymity while having earned this nation's highest military honor. The AP news story about Murphy and the presentation appeared on Breitbart.com on Monday, October 22, 2007.

Second, the ridiculous story--this concerns the Democratic Congressman, and erstwhile Democratic Presidential nominee, from Ohio's Tenth Congressional District (and the planet Whackazoid) Dennis Kucinich (see my previous postings here on the Democratic extraterrestrial entitled "I Tried, I Really Tried," and "It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time"). It has been my opinion for some time that the Hon. D. Kucinich (Dem.) was from the planet Whackazoid, which is in a distant, lightless, clueless, humorless galaxy far from earth, but I was just guessing; actually, I was just making that stuff up--who knew that my suspicions would, more or less, be confirmed?!?! Today's story is about a new book by that scion of modern American literature, Shirley MacLaine, and her revelation that the Hon. D. Kucinich (Dem.) had a close encounter with a UFO at MacLaine's house in Graham, Washington. This book, to be released next month, will apparently reveal to the nine or ten people who will read it that the Hon. D. Kucinich (Dem.) encountered the UFO on the deck of MacLaine's house and that he saw "a gigantic triangular craft" which was "observing him" [Kucinich]. The piece goes on to quote MacLaine's book thusly, "It [the UFO] hovered, soundless, for ten minutes or so, and sped away with a speed that he [Hon. D. Kucinich, Dem.] couldn't comprehend. HE SAID HE FELT A CONNECTION IN HIS HEART AND HEARD DIRECTIONS IN HIS MIND" (emphasis added).

And there you have it, the thing that more completely explains the Hon. D. Kucinich (Dem.); he received "directions in his mind" from the UFO, which sped away, I'm guesing back to the lightless, clueless, humorless planet Whackazoid in the distant galaxy from which he emerged, to subsequently be re-elected time and again by his apparently other-worldly constituents in Cleveland, Ohio, home of the plucky but unfortunate Indians baseball team.

It all makes sense now, doesn't it? Shirley MacLaine, who "communicates" with trees, the Hon. D. Kucinich (Dem.), and the UFO giving him directions--this triumvirate of nut jobs make Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama, and Mr. Edwards the Hair Model, look positively sane and normal. Can't wait for the election. . . .

AJ

Music of the Day: Pat Metheny and Charlie Haden, Beyond the Missouri Sky

Something woke me up in the middle of the night; I wasn't able to determine what, exactly, it was other than a general angst, a foreboding, an apprehension of some kind, a weird sense that things were not exactly right, that the world had somehow come off its axis, and that we were spinning out of control, off into the void, unattached to reality, no longer subject to the laws of physics, headed straight out into nothingness, darkness, the everlasting cold, the deepest of the deep, where no light penetrates, where no sound is made or heard, where no human design matters, where all of our history ends and is shattered and its elements absorbed by the great, vast impersonal universal emptiness.

I should have gotten out of bed to record my thoughts at the time, but I didn't; I hunkered down in the warm, safe, soft confines of our bed, listening to MLB breathe in and out in her calm, deep sleep, with Max the Wonder Dog snoring up a storm on the floor next to the bed. Whatever it was that jolted me awake left me almost immediately--I fell back asleep until the alarm went off at 6:00am, and by then my late-night thoughts were gone, expunged by sweet dreams and comfort and fatigue and relaxation and contentment and security and safety. I cannot recall the remnants of my thoughts, nothing makes sense of them now, everything from that night is jumbled and disconnected and amorphous and shadowy and chimerical. Maybe something of the night's thoughts will return to me at some other time--maybe not.

This is easily the most bizarre of my blog posts, because it has no point, no rectitude, no neat conclusion. That's all there is. . . .

Does this ever happen to you?

AJ

Music of the Day: Spyrogyra, Rites of Summer

Normally, I'm a fairly quiet guy--you know, reserved, soft-spoken, calm, unflappable, etc. Conservative. Peaceful. Joyful. Pleasant. Not given to personal attacks.

Not today, not after this morning's news broadcast, no sir, not anymore, damnit, it's time to let out my inner attack dog. I have tried here in my blog to keep my senses about me, but today's reports about yesterday's comments by Jimmy Carter have just about pushed me over the edge. If I get edgy, I'm sorry, but I can't help myself.

On Wednesday, Carter said on CNN (imagine that, on CNN!) that the Bush administration tortures detainees in defiance of international law. Because I didn't see the whole interview with the sanctimonious, and increasingly desperate-appearing, old buzzard Carter, I didn't hear him say what Breitbart.com reported, to wit: "I don't think it, I KNOW IT, CERTAINLY," Carter told CNN television when asked if he believed the US administration allowed the use of torture [emphasis added]. Because I didn't see the interview, I can only surmise that the interviewer didn't ask the obvious follow-up question, which should have been, "What evidence do you have, Mr. Carter?" But remember, this is CNN, so no such follow-up question would be asked of a critic of the Bush administration. There is no mention of such a question in the written reports of the interview, nor is there any mention of Carter actually providing any evidence to back up his assertion that we are torturing detainees. Does he have photos? Medical reports? Videotapes? Audio-tapes of torture sessions? Has he personally seen detainees tortured? Does the former president have any EVIDENCE? Apparently not, but that obviously didn't prevent him from smearing his own country and implying that President Bush, and everyone in the American government and military, systematically lies about this subject.

SOMEBODY IN THE NATIONAL REPUBLICAN PARTY NEEDS TO STAND UP IN FRONT OF THE MICROPHONES AND DEMAND THAT CARTER PRODUCE EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT HIS ASSERTION--AND IF HE CAN'T DO THAT, SOMEBODY IN THE NATIONAL REPUBLICAN PARTY NEEDS TO STAND UP IN FRONT OF THE MICROPHONES AND TELL JIMMY CARTER TO SHUT THE HELL UP. Shutting the hell up is something that almost all previous presidents have done after leaving office; the two most obvious exceptions are Carter and the former Narcissist in Chief, Bill Clinton.

As Joshua Muravchik wrote in his February 2007 article, Our Worst Ex-President, in Commentary magazine, "In contravention of the elementary responsibilities of loyalty for one in his position, he has denigrated American policies and leaders in public and private discussions in foreign lands. He has undertaken personal diplomacy to thwart the policies of the men elected to succeed him. . .At home, Carter's criticisms of the policies of his successors are offered up with reckless abandon. For example, when the Patriot Act and related measures curtailed the rights of defendants accused of terrorism, Carter editorialized that 'in many nations, defenders of human rights were the first to feel the consequences.' The charge was simply a concoction, and not a single example was offered to substantiate it."

Clearly Carter is taking the same path here--offering scathing criticisms of the administration and the president, but offering NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, to substantiate those criticisms. That barking you hear in the background is my inner attack dog and here's what I think he's saying: Jimmy Carter, shut the hell up; if you have EVIDENCE, produce it. Otherwise, shut the hell up.

AJ