Diffident Id

God's Boss

2010-06-02T20:29:00.000-07:00

Movie idea:
God's boss. God's kicking total ass over some group he hates, like gays or Democrats, and he gets a phone call, and has to put it aside. It turns out, it's God's boss, and he's not pleased with the caprice God is exercising. it turns out, God is a problem employee, he's been on probation, and if he doesn't get it right with Earth and the human race, he faces a fate literally worse than death (he has to read every issue of "O" or something).

Here you go, Jim:

2010-01-09T21:52:00.000-08:00

Another way of saying that everyone who is truly beautiful is profoundly goofy-looking in some way: "There is no excellent beauty, that hath not some strangeness in the proportion." Francis Bacon, Of Beauty

Suicide Haikus

2009-12-12T17:58:00.000-08:00

1.
I never believed
The taste of a revolver
Would be quite so sweet.

2.
If this is a sin
It should be held on a par
With euthanasia

3.
If God did not want
Us to commit suicide,
We would not have minds.

4.
Some walk to the edge
Gaze below, and back away;
While others must jump.

New haiku (not suicide related, but reality-based)

2009-10-02T15:01:00.000-07:00

Got to remember:
When farting with headphones on,
Others still can hear.

2009-08-11T22:17:00.000-07:00

From YouTube's blood385, commenting and the commercial (and philosophical as well, no doubt) legitimacy of the Segway Wheelchair: "Only thing that would make this complete is if it ran off of bald eagle heads and diamonds."

That's a mouthful, blood.

Suicide Haikus

2009-06-25T09:14:00.000-07:00

1.

Juan De Fuca Straits
Have very aggressive tides.
I doubt you'll find me.

2.

In three days I'll rise
And redeem humanity.
Oh wait! That's Jesus.

3.

Egomania
Is the sole motivator
For a note at all

4.

Self-immolation
Always seemed extreme to me.
Then I thought: why not?

5. (Not really a suicide haiku, but I like it anyway):

An owl and a snake
Fixate on a wounded mouse.
My money's on Owl.

Suicide Haiku

2009-05-23T09:13:00.000-07:00

The rest of my life
Will only be a burden
To the ones I love

Obituary haiku

2009-05-20T19:34:00.000-07:00

A Tacoma man
Removed his own appendix,
And then bled to death.

Suicide Haiku

2009-04-26T23:03:00.000-07:00

Take I-15 North,
Second exit past Barstow.
That's where you'll find me.

More on facebook

2009-04-05T11:24:00.001-07:00

Update: Here's a decidedly British take on the phenomenon as well. . . Thanks to MonkeySkull for the link.

There is something incredibly invasive about this whole "Web 2.0" stuff, isn't there? (Aside: Has "Web 2.0" already become a hoary, quaint reference to what's going on with the Web, akin to the "information superhighway" or "cyberspace"? It feels like it. . . )

Perhaps "invasive" is the wrong word, as it connotes an unwelcome intrusion. With the exception of a few embarrassing old pics posted by "friends" most of the information available Facebook, etc. was placed there by our own volition, and not the result of some overreaching third party digging up dirt on us. That this information occasionally amounts to an embarrassing or compromising disclosure is more a function of our inexperience with the forum--much like the regrettable "reply-all" email response, sending a snarky, petty or downright cruel comment to the very subject of our derision. I haven't made that error in a long time, not due to some change in technology, but because I have been chastened by prior indiscretions to do two things: one, be more thoughtful about what I say in email, and two: be more discreet about who's on the receiving end of my emails.

If our means of interacting social networking sites follows the same user arc as email, will we inevitably see a shift towards more circumspection and discretion on how far we open our virtual kimono in the future? I'm not sure what's left of the sites if we stop posting our public, multimedia, extemporized diaries online. Perhaps social networking is just enduring its initial novelty phase right now, much like answering machines did in their inception? Remember when telephone answering machines first hit the market, and a critical mass of persons had some clever ditty or schtick for their message, when now, you're hard pressed to find somebody who doesn't use some near-verbatim flavor of, "Hi, I'm not here, so leave a message" message? So which is it? Is facebook more like email, or more like the phone answering machine? Are we more interested in conveying information via facebook and twitter, or receiving information? Exactly what information are we trying to convey: how clever we can be (a la the early phone messages), or something that we'll ultimately deem to be more utilitarian? And just as important: what information are we trying to learn about our friends, loved ones, or coworkers when we use the sites? Are we scanning for scandal, or are we really that curious about the quotidian goings-on of everyone?

Because of facebook and its ilk, we may see people become more comfortable knowing more about people's otherwise "secret" lives--the lives they lead when we may not be looking. If that's the case, then the social networking sites will have an enormous impact on society: getting people to relax their double-standards, and understand that we all have skeletons, thoughts, desires, alternative lives. Eventually, we'll learn that kinky, freaky, corny, tacky thoughts and actions don't detract from our professional and interpersonal competencies--on the contrary, they inform and enrich them. The predilections of the politician, the schoolteacher, the preacher, the middle manager, the stockbroker, previously looked down upon as perversions, will instead be seen as part of the amalgam that makes any of us competent at work, love, leisure, compassion. It's not that difficult to envision a future where our facebook profile is the "first" impression somebody creates of friends or workmates, rather than a supplement to our offline impression of a person. We'll see. In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing what facebook becomes after the "answering machine jingle" novelty of it wears off.

Crazy songs stuck in my head over the past 24 hours

2009-03-27T14:06:00.001-07:00

Some know me to have a mind capable of evoking idiosyncratic, cloying, and often just downright awful music without warning. The past few days have been particularly rife with bad music. Here they are, in [reverse chronological] order:

Some horrible song by the hair band "Fastway."
"I've got a brand new pair of roller skates," by Melanie Safka (I had to look that one up);
"Woman" by John Lennon, off of Double Fantasy (a gawdawful album if there ever was one)
"Silly Love Songs," By Paul McCartney (hmm, I'm noticing a theme of bad music composed by Beatles well past their prime. At least Lennon had enough grace to get murdered before he could really fall off the deep end of creative blight).
"Theme from Magnum PI"
"Sweet Gypsy Rose," by Tony Orlando and Dawn.

A lesser man would die from such thoughts.

Movies I want to see

2009-03-27T12:23:00.000-07:00

Goodbye, Solo (Life of a Senegalese cab driver in NC)
Wendy and Lucy (Woman and her dog lost in Oregon, en route to Alaska)
Cold Souls (Woody-Allenesque Giamatti vehicle. That's good enough for me right there)
Shall we Kiss? (lighthearted french romantic comedy)
The Education of Charlie Banks (coming-of-age film, directed by Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst)
I love you Man
Monsters vs. Aliens
Tokyo Sonata (Willie Loman-esque study of Japanese corporate culture, from what I can tell. . .)

New suicide haiku

2009-03-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

The riot of life
Is a mere outlier from
Equilibrium

New Haiku

2009-03-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

First came the ascent.
The fall was not far behind.
I embrace them both.

New suicide haiku

2009-03-21T00:37:00.001-07:00

I am not afraid
Because I have played this hand
As far as it goes

New suicide haiku

2009-03-10T21:26:00.000-07:00

I don't know that I
Understand what happy is,
But it isn't this.

Words we need

2009-02-06T20:49:00.001-08:00

We need a word for the guilt one feels when accepting someone as a "friend" on a social network even though we really don't like the person.

Suicide Haikus

2008-12-28T02:33:00.001-08:00

This will be an initial dump of insights I've already captured. More will inevitably proceed. These are written in chronological order, during the last two years.

1. One more stinking day
Listening to the faucet drip.
But not tomorrow

2. What words will you say
The first time that somebody
Tells you that I'm gone?

3. Maybe I'll come back
Next time, as somebody
I don't loathe so much

4. My wife has grown fat;
I barely think of fucking;
35 more years?

5. What becomes of us
After we take our last breath?
I want to find out.

6. If given the choice
Never to have been conceived
I'd have taken it.

7. Life's a currency
Not only squandered on youth,
But also on me.

8. Most are terrified
To encounter the Beyond.
I can hardly wait.

9. This is just an itch
That has, over time, become
Irresistible.

10. I know you'll want to
Conjure some melodrama
That just isn't there.

11. What's to talk about?
Any words only bring shame
To what I have done.

12. In the war between
Dread and curiosity,
Dread prevailed, hands-down.

13. One thing that I'll miss:
The gawky way a heron
Saunters overhead.

14. Sorry for the mess
But I wanted to be sure;
Unlike the last time

15. There are bananas
Just to the left of the fridge.
They should be ripe now.

16. We're all gonna die.
At least I'm able to choose
How and where and when

June 16, 2008:

17. First I slashed my wrists.
This time, I blew my brains out
To remove all doubt.

18. I step in the sea
The water overcomes me
The waves, continue

July 20, 2008

19. Oh, give me a break!
Don't you dare for one minute
Take credit for this

20. You'll learn: sometimes jail
Has nothing at all to do
With a prison cell

July 29, 2008

21. Didn't want to, but
overwhelming impulses
managed to prevail

22. We only deal with
People because we have to
I prefer alone.

23. Even though I thought
Life was excruciating
I still will miss it.

9/14/08

24. Some deem suicide
Nothing more than cowardice.
Who are they to judge?

25. I left this note, as
It will take substantial time
To find my remains.

26. It should take more than
Handfuls of barbiturates
To make this all stop.

27. You heard it here first:
Over time, evolution
Eliminates thought.

28. We were meant to die
Far before the time when we
Actually grow old.

29. I have taken all
Of my trained belligerence
Out upon myself.

30. At some point, life
Always ends up looking like
Just another corpse

31. It is arrogance
That seduces us to think
We won’t be extinct.

32. Life’s an accident
Which by definition means
Death’s random as well

12/27/08
33. This is a gambit:
To expect resurrection
But if not? OK

1/18/09
I'm at my wit's end
My head's full of cicadas
I must make it stop

1/29/09
It's hard, when you learn
That in the Grand Scheme of Things,
There is no grand scheme

Cool shot

2006-07-06T01:13:00.000-07:00

This image was taken from Voyager, nearly 30 years ago. Back then, just eight years after we had first walked on the moon, it seemed as though we'd be seeing pics of man walking on Mars by now. Things have really stalled in that department, though. It's hard to imagine looking back at earth from this vantage. I'm reminded of a road trip, where a landmark like Mt. Rainier fades from view behind you, and new landmarks emerge in front of you.

Dance for me, boy!

2005-12-17T11:16:00.000-08:00

There's a part of me that kind of feels sorry for McClellan, and the ridiculous positions of this White House that he's enjoined to defend. But that sentiment passes quickly, when I remember that he's just a shill, and he could leave on principle whenever the duplicity and lying become too much for him. But you have to love this exchange from yesterday's press conference:

Q Scott, the President told Brit Hume that he thought that Tom DeLay is not guilty, even though the prosecution is obviously ongoing. What does the President feel about Scooter Libby? Does he feel that Mr. Libby --

MR. McCLELLAN: A couple of things. First of all, the President was asked a question and he responded to that question in the interview yesterday, and made very clear what his views were. We don't typically tend to get into discussing legal matters of that nature, but in this instance, the President chose to respond to it. Our policy regarding the Fitzgerald investigation and ongoing legal proceeding is well-known and it remains unchanged. And so I'm just not going to have anything further to say. But we've had a policy in place for a long time regarding the Fitzgerald investigation.

Q Why would that not apply to the same type of prosecution involving Congressman DeLay?

MR. McCLELLAN: I just told you we had a policy in place regarding this investigation, and you've heard me say before that we're not going to talk about it further while it's ongoing.

Q Well, if it's prejudging the Fitzgerald investigation, isn't it prejudging the Texas investigation with regard to Congressman DeLay?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, I think I've answered your question.

Q Are you saying the policy doesn't apply?

Q Can I follow up on that? Is the President at all concerned that his opinion on this being expressed publicly could influence a potential jury pool, could influence public opinion on this in an improper way?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think that in this instance he was just responding to a question that was asked about Congressman DeLay, about Leader DeLay, and in terms of the issue that Peter brings up, I think that we've had a policy in place, going back to 2003, and that's a White House policy.

Q But that policy has been based in part, in the leak investigation and other things, on the idea that it is simply wrong for a President to prejudge a criminal matter, particularly when it's under indictment or trial stage. Why would he --

MR. McCLELLAN: And that's one -- this is an ongoing investigation regarding possible administration officials. So I think there are some differences here.

Q There are lots of times when you don't comment on any sort of legal --

MR. McCLELLAN: There are also legal matters that we have commented on, as well. And certainly there are legal matters when it goes to Saddam Hussein.

Q So the President is inconsistent?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, David, we put a policy in place regarding this investigation --

Q But it's hypocritical. You have a policy for some investigations and not others, when it's a political ally who you need to get work done?

MR. McCLELLAN: Call it presidential prerogative; he responded to that question. But the White House established a policy --

Q Doesn't it raise questions about his credibility that he's going to weigh in on some matters and not others, and we're just supposed to sit back and wait for him to decide what he wants to comment on and influence?

MR. McCLELLAN: Congressman DeLay's matter is an ongoing legal proceeding --

Q As is the Fitzgerald investigation --

MR. McCLELLAN: The Fitzgerald investigation is --

Q -- As you've told us ad nauseam from the podium.

MR. McCLELLAN: It's an ongoing investigation, as well.

Q How can you not -- how can you say there's differences between the two, and we're supposed to buy that? There's no differences. The President decided to weigh in on one, and not the other.

MR. McCLELLAN: There are differences.

Q And the public is supposed to accept the fact that he's got no comment on the conduct of senior officials of the White House, but when it's a political ally over on the Hill who's got to help him get work done, then he's happy to try to influence that legal process.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, not at all. Not at all. You can get all dramatic about it, but you know what our policy is.

ID is not creationism, but. . .

2005-11-12T09:30:00.000-08:00

. . .if you legislate against teaching it as science, God, er, I mean your Intelligent Designer, may go all Old Testament on your ass, at least according to--who else?--Pat Robertson. Geez, Pat. It seems you kind of showed your hole card there, no? Either ID is a "legitimate" scientific discussion, appropriate for public school, or it's a legitimate doctrine only within the construct of a religious worldview. After all, God wouldn't be deliberately picking off cities for electoral decisions unless he had some serious skin in the game, right?

When is this guy going to stop getting a national forum? He is on a par with the Holocaust Hoax wingnuts, yet he shows up in the MSM on a regular basis.

Vacuum-resistant lichen

2005-11-12T09:20:00.000-08:00

This sounds like the start of a terrible sci-fi horror movie: Lichen, exposed to the hard vacuum and punishing radiation of space, return to earth, apparently unaltered, only to morph into this! (Thanks to HuffingtonPost for the link).

Paul Harvey is a Fucker

2005-11-08T22:37:00.000-08:00

Apparently, Paul Harvey's home-spun, "aw shucks, if everyone would just pull themselves up by their bootstraps like when I was a boy, America wouldn't be in such a world of hurt" approach to broadcast journalism has won him the favor of Disney. Take note of these comments Harvey shared with his listeners earlier this year, as related in FAIR's online journal:

We didn't come this far because we're made of sugar candy. Once upon a time, we elbowed our way onto and across this continent by giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans. That was biological warfare. And we used every other weapon we could get our hands on to grab this land from whomever.

And we grew prosperous. And yes, we greased the skids with the sweat of slaves. So it goes with most great nation-states, which--feeling guilty about their savage pasts--eventually civilize themselves out of business and wind up invaded and ultimately dominated by the lean, hungry up-and-coming who are not made of sugar candy.

As FAIR pointed out: keep in mind that this award is being bestowed by the same Disney Corp. that found Fahrenheit 9/11 too inimical to Disney's family-friendly brand to allow its subsidiary, Miramax, to release it. Genocide, pre-emptive nuclear war and slavery are not similarly encumbered apparently.

You know, I take a lot of shit from my friends for being a real stick-in-the-mud when it comes to my disdain for Disney. I find their business model--focus your marketing efforts on children 10 and younger, cross-market your product with the help of junk food outlets like McDonalds--morally deplorable. They may be no more perverse or depraved than any other corporation, but because they so unabashedly prey upon the impressionable young, their approach really sticks in my craw. So hearing that they're cool with giving Paul fucking Harvey an award, while censoring their own subsidiary company's ability to distribute a timely, politically-charged documentary that happens to take a contrary position to that of the board, well, I feel pretty good about shunning Disney at every opportunity I get.

The hoo-haw over torture

2005-11-08T22:13:00.000-08:00

From today's WaPo, reporting Bush's comments on how the War on Turr requires us to be free from legislation preventing torture so that we can continue not torturing our enemies (apparently Bush has no compunctions against torturing rhetoric):

Q Mr. President, there has been a bit of an international outcry over reports of secret U.S. prisons in Europe for terrorism suspects. Will you let the Red Cross have access to them? And do you agree with Vice President Cheney that the CIA should be exempt from legislation to ban torture?

"PRESIDENT BUSH: Our country is at war, and our government has the obligation to protect the American people. The executive branch has the obligation to protect the American people; the legislative branch has the obligation to protect the American people. And we are aggressively doing that. We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do to that effort, to that end, in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture.

Bush is dancing around the issue of torture, threatening to veto any legislation explicity banning it, but claiming that we don't torture in the first place. If we don't torture, then where's the harm in codifying the fact?

The idea here is that some people are so bad and so dangerous that we have to retain the right to fuck with their minds and bodies to extract information to the safety of the American public.

If that's the case, fine. Many would assert that certain people need torturin', because they're so dangerous, and because they harbor such incendiary information that will be unearthed by no less drastic means. But why not force our government to prove it? To hold officials to a very high standard before torture could be countenanced would not categorically preclude "appropriate" torture. In fact, it may actually create the only climate where we can have some reasonable safeguards against an overzealous exercise of toture.

Consider the concept of a self-defense rejoinder to a charge of murder. Killing is wrong, but you are allowed to present an affirmative defense to a committed homicide that you were acting inself-defense. It's a post-hoc analysis of whether you had a reasonable apprehension that you were going to suffer serious bodily injury or death at the hand of another, had you not exacted deadly force on your assailant. And the burden is on the accused to raise it and prove it.

What prevents us from treating the prosecution of torture similarly? That is: forbid torture by law. Prosecute those who break the law and torture others. Should the
prosecutor succeed in proving beyond a reasonable doubt that you tortured another person, you're guilty, unless you can put forth an affirmative defense of a reasonable belief in exigent circumstances, which left you with torture as your only reasonable recourse for extracting the information you sought.

Thus, the presumption going into any torture situation is: If I am caught, I will be prosecuted. And if I'm not damn-well sure that (a)there is overwhelming evidence that I have a bad guy (b) with specific knowledge of a plot to kill or maim other people and (c) that there is a reasonable likelihood that the plot can be overcome (d) with information the bad guy possesses, then I'm screwed, because there sure as hell going to be able to prove torture. Why can't we have something like
that? If you pre-emptively allow torture under certain circumstances, and inoculate the perpetrator from prosecution, you're going to have people manufacturing evidence, creating the pretext that warrants the torture in the first place. If you keep it as a criminal act, which can only be averted with a very specific affirmative defense, you'll go a long way into effecting the end that most people have in mind when they hesitate to endorse a categoric ban on torture, because, however unpalatable, there are occasions when it is the only recourse available to protect innocent lives.

Dead dog

2005-10-11T21:56:00.000-07:00

I saw a dog die today. I was leaving work early, feeling pretty good, chatting with my girlfriend, when she shouted, "oh no!" I looked up to see a white object, like a windblown plastic grocery bag, swirl through the air. It was immediately apparent that it was not a bag, but a white dog--a whippet-like thing. The car that had hit it just kept on driving. My girlfriend stopped the car, and we went to see if there was anything we could do to help. The dog's mouth opened and shut a couple of times, then copious amounts of blood started to flow from its mouth and nose. Within 5 seconds, a deep, red pool the size of a frisbee had formed under its head. He still had a leash attached to his collar. His back leg twitched as if someone was rubbing him in just the right place. It was clear that he was dying or dead. With the exception of the profuse bleeding from its nose and mouth, the dog showed no other signs of trauma.

I started toward the dog, to at least move him from the middle of the road. I wasn't intending to pick him up, and I was trying to determine whether I would reach around his body to move him, or whether I would just grab his leash. I decided I'd at least reach around his body; pulling on the leash seemed macabre. I thought about the long smear of blood that would run from the place he lay, to the side of the road where I would drag him to. No sooner had I started toward the dog when I saw a woman come running around the corner, somewhat distraught, asking if we had seen a dog run by. There were three or four of us on the curb at this point: my girlfriend and I, and a couple of people who had seen the whole thing go down from the sidewalk. We all looked in unison toward the street. I think I might have pointed. The woman cried, "no!" and ran to her fallen pet in the middle of the street. "No!" she said again, and scooped the dog into her arms. She made the whole decision of how to move the dog look terribly easy. As she picked it up, its his head dangled at the end of its neck, with a thread of blood that dripped from its mouth into the puddle in the street.

Up until this point, the scene was little more than sad--I felt very bad for the dog's bad luck--but the grieving lady made it all too real. This wasn't just a dead animal; it was going to be profoundly missed.

Almost on cue, a sheriff's cruiser pulled up to investigate the commotion. The woman sat on the sidewalk, leaning against the drugstore, weeping, clutching her dead dog, and the sheriff started asking people questions. My girlfriend and I decided there was nothing more we could do, so we hopped back in her car, and we left.

I know I'm a little more susceptible to sentimentality in such scenes, seeing as I nearly died in the middle of the street after being hit by a car, but I was still surprised at how much this whole thing had jarred me. The levity of a moment earlier was entirely erased. I felt much like I did that day I had been hit: acutely aware of the abrupt change in one's reality that occurs when flesh meets a speeding mass of metal.

I think it was the leash that really got to me, though. I figure that the woman must have let go of the leash, just for a moment, and the whippet-like dog was off like a flash. I didn't see the actual collision, but according to my girlfriend, the dog was running like a bat out of hell, and the driver had no chance to stop. I can only imagine the second-guessing the dog's owner is going through tonight, as she ponders: "if only I had paid just a little more attention. If only I hadn't tried to open my car door with both hands full," or the inevitable litany of scenarios she's playing through her head that end prosaically, with her pet intact, instead of dead.

Conspicuously absent from this sad scene? The driver of the car. I never saw the car, only the immediate aftermath, but I couldn't imagine hitting someone's pet, and driving off without even an investigation into the animal's well being. Like it or not, you've got a responsibility to the animal and to the fellow human being whose pet you just killed--however unavoidably--to pay your respects. That's the way I see it, anyway.

Um, maybe you'd be pissed too

2005-10-10T15:53:00.000-07:00

This Mother Jones article includes what has to be the best humongously long sentence I've come across in a while, offering a series of explanations as to why the insurgency seems a bit more motivated than the official Iraqi army to innovate and take the initiative:

What if we invaded a country under false pretenses; occupied it;, began building huge, permanent military bases on its territory; let its capital and provincial cities be looted; disbanded its military; provided no services essential to modern life; couldn't even produce oil for gas tanks in an oil-rich land; bombed some of its cities, destroyed parts or all of others; put tens of thousands of its inhabitants in U.S. military-controlled jails (where prisoners would be subjected to barbaric tortures and humiliations); provided next to no jobs; opened the economy to every kind of depredation; set foreign corporations to loot the country; invited in tens of thousands of private "security contractors," heavily armed and under no legal constraints; and then asked large numbers of Iraqis, desperate for jobs that could be found nowhere else, to join a new "Iraqi" military force meant to defend a "government" that could hardly leave an American fortified enclave in its own capital.

Bush abandons "Axis"

2005-09-21T14:52:00.000-07:00

September 21, 2005

AP: Citing inherent constraints with the term, President Bush has replaced his controversial "Axis of Evil" label with the more comprehensive term, "shit list."

"This term is easier for people to understand," Press Secretary Scott McClellan explained in a morning briefing. "Our research has shown that very few Americans know what an 'axis' is, and those who do know were unable to tell us what an evil one would look like, or how it would behave." In contrast, the term "shit list" tested "very high" in such categories as term recognition, comprehensibility and clarity of message, across a wide range of demographics.

"Everyone has a 'shit list,'" McClellan continued. "The penetration of the term into the nation's vocabulary makes the President's list much easier to understand. When the President says, 'you're in my axis of evil,' people tend to scratch their heads. But when the President says, 'Iran, you keep developing nucular [sic] energy, and you're going on my shit list,' everyone knows what that means."

McClellan predicted that America will be hearing "a lot more" about the President's list in the coming weeks, and recent public appearances by the President and his inner circle would bear that out. In a speaking engagement at the Shrapnel Manufacturers Convention in Nashville, Tennessee on Tuesday, President Bush also cited the "flexibility" of a shit list, as opposed to an axis. "What if I want to add a country? How about a person? I can't rightly do that with an 'axis.'"

Showing her now-famous facility for the one-liner, First Lady Laura Bush, while not mentioning the shit list directly, did couch the term "axis of evil" in somewhat disparaging terms during her Wednesday address to a female-circumcision survivors' luncheon in Arlington, VA.

"I'm not sure if there are any clear rules on the matter, but I think most people agree that an axis should only have 2 or 3 things on it. Any more than that, and it's not an axis any more, but more like a pretzel. And America can't have a pretzel of evil--well, except for that one George choked on over the holidays a few years back. If there ever was a 'pretzel of evil' [laughing] that was it!"

Sources close to the President were coy to discuss particulars about the list's precise makeup, but were able to confirm that the President's shit list would include Michael Moore, Ted Kennedy, Al Franken, France, and--somewhat mysteriously--Angela Lansbury and the small Pacific Island kingdom of Tonga.

According to McClellan, Mr. Bush will read the contents of his shit list in its entirety during a prime-time address on Saturday. Mr. Bush's shit list will be available online immediately following the address at www.whitehouse.gov/shitlist.

N'awlins

2005-08-29T17:47:00.000-07:00

I know it's ghoulish, but for some reason I became very attached to the idea that New Orleans was going to get the absolute shit kicked out of it by Katrina. The more I heard about the depth and breadth of destruction that was about to be unleashed upon the Crescent City, the more concerned I was becoming that something might intervene to spare it from a catastrophe of biblical proportions.

Mind you, this lust for carnage is not borne from a deep-seated hatred for New Orleans, or from some metaphysical need for the city to get its kharmic comeuppance; rather, it comes from a desire for something truly horrific to happen, where we're completely powerless to do anything about it. And it's not good enough for it to happen anywhere; it has to happen in a place where the people have the means and the technology to brace for the hit, but still get their asses totally kicked just the same. For some reason, these hurricanes always seem to give their worst to countries that are already jacked, like Haiti, or Honduras--was it Dennis a few years ago that spun over Honduras for about 5 days, and put nearly everything shy of Tecuhigalpa's altitude under a fetid almagam of carrion, sewage, rain, sea and squalor, killing some 20,000 or so? It's not exactly a feeling of vindication when the First World gets hit by calamity, but when it does happen, it certainly brings home the point that some things out there are still really big, and out of our control, and all we can do is flee or perish.

9/11 evoked some of that same, ghoulish magnetism, but that was so out of the blue (an unfortunate pun) that it was more of a slap in the face--or, more accurately, a slap on the forehead, as in "Oh, Shit! I left the oven on!" kind of way. I mean, if you dig down really deep--hell, you don't have to go that deep at all--was there anything all that surprising about 9/11? I remember my first thought was "I can't believe it took this long for something like this to happen." My second thought, by the way, was "W is one lucky bastard. This has just salvaged his moribund presidency."

Nature has a way of always cutting us Americans a little bit of a break. We get it bad from time to time, but never as bad as other places that can't really afford to have it so bad. Maybe that's just the way it is. Maybe that's why America is richer and stronger than its neighbors: the bad shit always hits the neighbors, and not us.

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Update: Um,never mind. Seems like New Orleans wasn't spared after all, and now that it's happened, it's not nearly as exciting as it is horrifying. But there's still something seductive about the enormity of the tragedy. I'm not proud of being wired that way, but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. It's the same impulse you have to look at a terrible car accident, and the letdown--however fleeting--we feel when we're unable to see a terribly injured or dead person in the wreckage. As much as we'd like to think we're all in this together, most of us are unashamed voyeurs of other people's misfortune, and the more profound their suffering, the more aware we are of the distinction between our existence and theirs.

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