any columnist who uses warner brothers imagery to make a political (ok, any)point is a friend of mine. from maureen down at the nytimes:

 

It seemed cartoonish, with Osama as Road Runner beeping by Wile E. Bush as Dick Cheney and Rummy run the Acme/Halliburton explosives company - now under F.B.I. investigation for its no-bid contracts on anvils, axle grease (guaranteed slippery) and dehydrated boulders (just add water) .

 

"george...w...bush.....super genius...."

 

 

 

  

 

i have competing self-images that will probably never be resolved.

 

 

 

 

i can't vote for kerry. but if he wins this election, i could almost forgive him his assinine war-vote if, upon inauguration, he immediately launches a criminal investigation into the bush administation's decision to invade another country. 20,000+ civilian iraqis dead; widespread, institutionalized torture with a green light from the bush admin; intelligence twisted into lies told to america and the UN (under oath). the evidence is there, mr former-prosecutor, that everyone in this administration from feith to condi to dick to rummy to colin, all the way up to the "trecherous freak" (hunter s thompson's moniker for the PotUS) lied and knew they were lying.

 

war crimes. do it, kerry. if you win, pack these bastards up and send em to the hague. you have to do it because (a) these neo-con vampires will rise from the dead in 4 years if someone doesn't throw some sunlight on em and (b) there's a whole segment of america that will go to their graves thinking that iraq was a just crusade, clinging to that belief like ex-nazi rank and file, because they can't bear to accept the awful truth of what they supported and praised. there's enough shitty denial in this country without something like that festering. so do your work, mr high-end ambulance-chaser. you got the mad skillz. use em up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i found a recipe in spanish for pan de los muertos ("bread of the dead"!) which i've been wanting to make for el dia for years. we'll set up the ofrenda tonight, haul out our favorite old photos of people we've lost in recent years, and rock the spirits all weekend long. i'll lay out some kahlua for my dad. green-top carrots for the iowa gramma, and pickled herring for the danish one. cat nip for the lost karintha. i scored a handsome lil tarot gig at a shee-shee restaurant on halloween night, which will be non-stop speed-reading for at least 4 hours, so it will be nice to hang with the ancestors and other dearly departed in the quieter moments.

 

 

 

via herr beistle

(who really should have his own blog

but he's too busy teaching fascists how to spell):

 

the bar bot! 

 

actually, its specs read like a description of, oh, wisconsin, now that i think about it...

 

 

 

the flipside of functional utilitarianism is maxmimizing pleasure and minimizing pain. so this baby fits right in to the holistic grok of robotics, when it belches a la foster brooks and slurs, "woah! i am feeling no pain, doctor!" 

 

 

 

isaiah likes the pbs kids page online, mainly so we can make cookie monster eat cookies together (the cookie monster puppet he has, however, scares the living shit out of him).

 

while slouching around the site today, we discovered the lyrics to this classic mr rogers tune:

Girls grow up to be the mommies.
Boys grow up be the daddies.
Everybody's fancy.
Everybody's fine.
Your body's fancy and so is mine.

 

while "dragons in manhattan," by francesca lia block (in girl goddess #9), shows that sometimes the boys do in fact grow up to be the mommies, we nonetheless appreciate what fred's trying to do here (boys are fancy on the outside and girls are fancy on the inside). in fact, we appreciate the effort so much that we wish barry white were still alive to cover everybody's fancy. imagine big daddy's voice all over this one:

 

I think you're a special person
And I like your ins and outsides.
Everbody's fancy.
Everybody's fine.
Your body's fancy and so is mine.

 

somebody pass this idea on to ruben studdard, k?

 

  

 

Here’s an interesting article at Grain explaining how The Empire enforces agricultural law and order in its new thralldom of Iraq.

 

In order to bring the Iraqi economy and agriculture to heel at America’s side, the US is donating winter wheat seeds to Iraq. On the face of it, the action looks altruistic enough. But by donating proprietary seed stocks while also imposing "Order 81" which enforces the use of patented, proprietary seeds, Paul Bremer has created a virtual colony for America. And Iraqi farmers find themselves officially the subjects of US patent law.

 

Saving seeds is at issue here. Most 2^nd-3^rd world farmers (and many 1^st-worlders) are accustomed to saving their seeds for future seasons. As a farmer, if you save seeds from crops that you grew from Monsanto seeds, however, you violate Monsanto’s patent. Order 81 insures that Monsanto can and will sue you.

 

Think that won’t happen? Think again. It’s the raison d’etre for Order 81.Monsanto recently sued a farmer in Canada. They could do this because Canada willingly agreed to observe US patent laws where seeds were concerned.

 

But Iraq is another matter. As the article in Grain puts it:

 

Iraq is a special case in that the adoption of the patent law was not part of negotiations between sovereign countries. Nor did a sovereign law-making body enact it as reflecting the will of the Iraqi people. In Iraq, the patent law is just one more component in the comprehensive and radical transformation of the occupied country's economy along neo-liberal lines by the occupying powers. This transformation would entail not just the adoption of favoured laws but also the establishment of institutions that are most conducive to a free market regime.

 

The neo-liberal comment is particularly pertinent, since GMO-seed giant Monsanto has pressed that agenda for all its worth, in wrecked countries all over the globe, and in rural America where independent farmers have found themselves jailed for saving patented seeds. Independence is not a factor here. Nor is nationality, nor sovereignty. Use Monsanto's seeds and you'll obey US laws.

 

Despite the Bushie/Neo-conservative power structure, the finger prints of New Democrats can be seen all over Bremer's Order 81: Guys like Monsanto’s Board of Director member Mickey Cantor, Clinton’s Secretary of Commerce, apparently know how to keep questions of Iraqi sovereignty off the table, when the topic of protecting corporate agribusiness' patents is on the line. 

 

"The reason we are in Iraq is to plant the seeds of democracy so they flourish there and spread to the entire region of authoritarianism." - George W. Bush

 

dead tired. isaiah has a croupy cough and it sounds so awful, it makes me feel like a shitty parent just to hear that noise come out of his mouth. it's also made me into a zombie. i don't think i've slept more than a few hours in the last few nights. damn, man, it's like we have a newborn all over again.

 

the saddest thing is to see how sick he is in his eyes and posture. he's just wiped the fuck out. he'll cough, cry, cough, then sigh. and after a long pause he'll say "done. done. done." he even says "done" in his sleep. poor dude.

 

in other fun news, i sold my story "the night-soil boys" to jason erik lundberg and janet chui's Scattered, Smothered, Covered.

 

 

 

god bless the pythons. er. rather, i mean, dubya bless the pythons. please?

 

~

 

here's a thought. if kerry wins (and frankly, i'm thinking the very best turn out for this election is bush winning the popular vote and kerry winning the electoral vote. nyuk nyuk nyuk...), how fast will democrats start blindly supporting the war in iraq, and how fast will fox news start throwing slime at their once beloved war effort? how fast will donkeys become elephants and elephants become donkeys? to quote dr seuss in the star-bellied sneetches*, the perfect fable for america's truly bipolar political system:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* this link has a sermon or something after the seuss stuff. please ignore that and just read the sneetch text if you need the refresher.

 

 

 

two days ago, i got the best phone call a writer can get. my agents (kris o'higgins and jesse vogel of scribe agency) called me to say that juliet ulman of bantam spectra made an offer on my novel the patron saint of plagues. it's a really good offer, and she's an editor i've been watching for about a year. so

 

i accepted.

 

i really believe in this book. i think it's fun, immersing, and i even look forward to editing it. so i'm excited to have an editor who seems excited to work with me on it. it feels like a match made in heaven and, damn, i just couldn't be happier.

 

thanks, david and rachael, for the champagne! but friends shouldn't let friends blog drunk.

 

 

moveon.org. the MN state dems. a taped message from the DNC. the wellstone' action committee. jesus. it's like 4-5 calls per day! i've been expecting an important call for about a week now, so sucker that i am, i keep snatching up the phone, expecting news. nope. just another democrat asking for money.

 

i did hear about potential voting abuses in my neighborhood from one of the phone callers, though - people going into apartment buildings around here and telling residents that votes won't be counted if you have a criminal record, if your credit report is bad. insidious. so i do plan on monitoring our voting site when the time comes.

 

 

i keep reading about guillain-barre syndrome (GBS) in the papers, as it relates to the current flu vaccine shortage: Many people should not get a flu shot under any circumstances. They include those with a severe allergy to hens' eggs and people who previously developed Guillain-Barre syndrome six weeks after getting a flu shot.

 

ten years ago, i contracted GBS, which is a pretty serious and potentially debilitating auto-immune disorder. doctors don't know what causes it (hence the name "syndrome"), but in short, your immune system mistakes the myelin sheath surrounding your peripheral nerves for antigens and attacks it. permament nerve damage is a real possibility, and if left untreated, GBS can paralyze.

 

the last time GBS was this newsworthy was in the late seventies, when the US was vaccianting the coutnry for swine flu. the flu vaccination was tripping off thousands of GBS cases. so the current warnings are warranted.

 

a flu shot didn't set off my case of GBS - but then, i'll probably never know why i was so lucky as to receive this visit from something out of a medical manual. when the symptoms came on, i was in austin, texas, working in the produce dept at wheatsville co-op.  over a 48 hour period, i couldn't feel items in my hand while i held them, couldn't feel the impact of the knife on the cutting board while i trimmed celery (i thought it was just a hand-cramp), had trouble with stumbling while i walked. very strange. finally, i realized something was up when, while i driving, i couldn't feel the brake pedal under my foot. i got into see my doctor as fast as i could. just telling them my symptoms got me a rush appointment.

luckily, i had a doctor who was willing to admit that he didn't know what was up with me, since GBS can hit very fast - in retrospect, mine was coming on in a matter of hours so time was of the essence. he sent me to a neurologist who made me walk a straight line, touch my finger to my nose, grabbed my hands to see how strong they were and said, "well, sir, you have guillain-barre syndrome." two hours later i was in the hospital with electric shocks zapping through me (a nerve conduction velocity test) to see how bad the nerve damage was - one of the most painful things i've ever experienced.

all they can do for GBS is take out your blood, spin out the plasma wherein all the confused antibodies dwell, put the red blood cells back in, and hope your body gets the idea to knock it off and stop attacking itself. i did that every other day for two and a half weeks. meanwhile, the syndrome was advancing. i couldn't make a fist, couldn't hold anything, not even a book. so i got very well-informed about the OJ trial, and i think my current obsession with football is probably rooted in GBS as well.

it was a hard time. to me, GBS symbolizes the lowest moment in my life. the relationship i was in really should have ended long before that point in time, since my partner was on her own fucking planet (called "grad school"). she left me in the hospital to take a winter-break job elsewhere, making that time in the hospital incredibly lonely. it was early december, and it didn't look like the blood-whip procedure was having an effect. i remember the day the doctors finally decided to talk to me and actually respond to my small-talk. they told me that they thought i'd be in the hospital well into the new year, maybe into the spring. i didn't know many people in austin, so while a couple friends came to visit, for the most part, i was alone. worst of all, i couldn't write. god, it was fucking pathetic.

but a boy's best friend, as they say, is his mother. just when it looked like i'd be spending christmas alone in the hospital, mom, who was volunteering at a quaker hostel in mexico city, took a bus up to texas to see me. nothing like having the dashing and fashionable bonnie anderson arrive like a one-woman cavalry. so funny to remember her now, showing up in the sterile environment of that hospital, wide-brinned red hat on her head and red and black serape thrown over one shoulder.

anyway, to make a long story short, the blood-whip started working, despite the medical team's predictions, and i started a fast recovery, totally out of the blue. not only did i get out before new year's, i got out before christmas eve. was it a miracle from the baby jesus? maybe. or maybe it was a miracle from the goddess who sent her surrogate up from mexico. who knows?

whatever the cosmic case may be, i got off very lucky indeed. lots of people who suffer from GBS relapse (i think it's a 70% relapse rate if i rememebr correctly), and the relapse is usually the crippling aspect of the syndrome, i.e., it comes on stronger, demanding, in the end, the use of a walker or cane, or even crippling breathing muscles, or as i said, paralysis sets in. me, i only have a slight bit of nerve damage in my fingers which i feel on very cold, wet days. all things considered, it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

so...have a flu shot on me, america!

 

 

the "big dawg" is on the trail, and across the "internets," democratic-party nipples are hardening in delight (read the posts).  it's hard not to blame them. i mean here we are, late in the burn-zone of the presidential election, and jesus/elvis himself is rising from the grave to sex up the tedious, 24/7 sneering, and to whistle the clinton-republicans to heel.

 

here's my advice: if you're gonna let this man unzip himself into the campaign, then let bill take the stage like the hotel-trashing american idol he is. own the perceived weakness of clinton-as-lecher - except for the stuffy neocons, everyone in america has a great big boner for ol' #42. so play it, and play it hard.  let spot lights search the stage and leggy dancers precede the ex prez. here he comes! as "the big dawg" takes a gangsta stroll across the stage on behalf of your candidate, DNC, send "scandalous" by mis-teeq pounding into the skeletons of every campaign-rally crowd from philly to cleveland to johnson city tennesee to little rock. cue bassline:

 

 

never mind that he destroyed your party with his New Democrat / 50's era republican schtick, so that now, john kerry has to run like a 70's era republican. my gawd, bill is just so scandalous, i don't care anymore!

 

 

did i mention i won the football pool this week? i only got two games wrong out of 14 and ranked them very low, so i only lost 4 points out of 105. more importantly, i glommed 60 clams! it's rare that i win this early in the season. normally, i can only get a break once stacy the prescient lesbian packer-fan drops out.

 

meanwhile, in coffee news, it's finders keepers, ethiopian weepers. (i've been watching this story for months and was really hoping for a brazil/ethiopia trade war. oh well. if anything new dusts up, i'll let ya know).

 

 

 

here's a great article on the slow food movement in italy, along with quotes from noted gastronomer carlo petrini. slow food, as opposed to fast food, stresses buying local ingredients (their fresher and taste better) and taking time to prepare them - a complete paradigm shift from "fast food" culture and its aesthetic of overworked people swallowing cheap shit because they think they have to because its cheap.

 

as president of the movement, petrini is a big advocate of a well-rounded and holistic approach to buying and preparing food - one takes into account unique biodiversity and alternative diets as well as taste.  in other words, don't eat something because its vegan, eat it because it tastes good and because its vegan (for example). don't eat corn simply because it was grown ten miles outside of town. eat it because it's the very best corn grown in your region.

 

Not that Petrini has become a tofu and bean-sprout ascetic. The old hedonism shows through when he insists that "pleasure is a physiological need, not the quasi-sin that Catholics and Puritans have made of it."

(i also like petrini's line, "i'm for concrete utopias.")

if you like what you read, check this out, too. slow food, sustainability, and fair trade are tied together in what will eventually become a strong, multi-front movement that emerges as much out of economic and environmental necessity as it does out of finding ways to excite the jaded taste buds of the wealthy and bored.

 

 

 

 

two new pics here - iko and my cat, boutros.

 

 

 

i made an apple crisp the other night for some freinds who just had a baby. the apple of choice in minnesota for such ventures is the haralson - the cultivar created by the famous charles haralson at the minnesota agricultural experiment station and fruit breeding farm in excelsior, minnesota (1922). this isn't just dorky minnesota provincialism - haralsons really are a superb baking apple. granny smiths are a bit dry/grainy, macs and cortlands turn to mush, and no other apples i know have the haralson's tart, sturdy reliability for baking. it's too bad that haralsons don't seem to be readily available outside of MN (lake city is the biggest producer in the nation, which should tell you how small the national market is). because, to my taste, they're twice the apple that grannies are, and only fresh-picked apples can challenge the haralson's juiciness. plus, they store like potatoes - a cool basement will keep haralsons for months (your fridge will kill apples with the circulating air). crisps in february with bourbon and candles. yes.

 

anyway, we delivered the crisp sunday night, then came home for butternut squash soup, a hearth loaf, slices of havarti, and followed it with the now infamous haralson crisp. sweet and gooey and decadent - apples are good and all, but there's nothing like a barrage of brown sugar and butter to prep for the coming winter.

 

 

 

my co-op's newsletter was again nominated for "general excellence in newsletters" by the utne reader's independent press awards. (second category down.)

 

 

i'm not a fanatic about my kid eating health-food, despite what you may think. sure, i insist on organic only for iko, but hey, peer-reviewed studies out of major universities all point to heavy metals in pesticides slowing synaptic development in kids up to the age of seven. if you want your kid to be a brain-victim of agri-kkkulture, be my guest. but beyond organic fruits and veggies, i'm really not a hardliner.

 

anyway, lisa and i have a fun running gag about white bread versus whole wheat for isaiah. she wants to corrupt my poor son with white bread - which in my mind is not so much a sin against health as a taste-sin. white bread is fine, as far as it goes. it just doesn't go far. bland white flour muted by milk?  only on special occasions, like, um...when rural republiicans come over for baloney sandwiches, maybe?

 

when isaiah and i are together, i only feed him good, grainy bread - rye, whole wheat, pumpernickle - and he wolfs it down two-fisted. lisa keeps trying to feed him white bread (hot dog buns are the usual method) and i never interfere, knowing that you just have to let your kid make their own choices about food and taste. she'll take a little pinch of white bread, wad it back into dough (gad), and offer it to isaiah, who'll accept it because mama has alleged that it is "bread." but a second later, he'll push it out of his mouth with the flat of his tongue, a betrayed look of "what the hell was that?" on his face, waving one hand in the "no more" gesture, and saying "done. done. done."

 

well, you'll just have that when you feed a kid paste.

 

i doubt this will work with, say, white sugar versus fresh fruit. but for now i feel pretty smug about isaiah being daddy's boy in this one regard.

 

 

 

 

the NYT has a superb article by ron susskind that will no doubt get quoted to hell on the kerry stump this week. the strength of the article is in its assessment of bush's "analytical method" (such as it was, in the beginning of his term) being straight out of harvard business school: crack the case of the failing business. sadly, this requires input and round-table discussion, two approaches that, post-911, died a quick death, in the bush white house.

 

Christopher DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise Institute, the neoconservative policy group, told me. ''It's a too tightly managed decision-making process. When they make decisions, a very small number of people are in the room, and it has a certain effect of constricting the range of alternatives being offered.''

 

it's easy to see why, when susskind offers up the following anecdote, where bush's astonishing ignorance is publicly exposed before members of congress and his own staff:

 

Lantos [Democrat from California and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress] went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.

''I don't know why you're talking about Sweden,'' Bush said. ''They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.''

Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ''Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.'' Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

Bush held to his view. ''No, no, it's Sweden that has no army.''

meanwhile, here in MN, the election is a deadheat:  45.6% for kerry and 45.6% for the president who doesn't know the difference between sweden and switzerland.

 

gad.

 

 

 

 

oh no! science fiction writer kilgore trout committed suicide! (or will, in three hours and 19 minutes, as i write this).

 

 

 

one last thing. i've been reading naomi klein's website/blog no logo a lot lately, and i find myself wanting to post whole passages in mine. so go and read, especially the james baker material which outlines the former sec of state's ostensible efforts to have iraqi debt forgiven, while trying to secure funds for kuwait and the nefarious carlyle group:

 

 

 

 

finally. a place i can go on the 'net to get away from you godless freaks:

 

and, via lucius shepard, don't forget to check out excerpts from lynne cheney's steamy lesbian western called Sisters. here's a taste:

 

 

a joke you say? nuh uh.

 

 

 

isaiah eats a ton just before hitting a developmental burst - and he's eating like a damn fiend right now. the last time he ate like this was two weeks before he started walking and talking.

 

i ask you: in the name of god, what could he possibly have in store for us now? i mean, he walks, he talks. he knows the difference between a cartoon kitty and a real kitty. he makes fart noises on cue. he even imitates john kerry* but still he eats! yogurt! rice! apple! carrot juice! he even eats food off our plates like a racoon! where is the event horizon on this kid? my god, at the rate he's eating, soon you'll see me writing a blog post like this:

 

 

 

 

 

*the other night during the debate, kerry was making a point with a long, raised index finger, and isaiah suddenly discovered that he too has an index finger. soon, iko, lisa and i were making points at each other with raised index fingers.

 

 

a chat with journalist seymour hersh, whose scoops have shed light on the my lai massacre in viet nam and the abu ghraib atrocities in iraq:

 

 

 

 

iko mocks me when i say "whoa," and i say "whoa" a lot. i say "whoa" whenever he surprises me, and a moment later he mimics me in his own, high-pitched "whoa."

 

 

 

Tell the Bush administration not to lead the way for expanded use of a banned pesticide Friday’s New York Times ran an article about the increasing use of methyl bromide, an extremely toxic pesticide United Farm Workers founder Cesar Chavez battled to ban. Methyl bromide is considered more destructive to the earth’s protective ozone layer than some banned chemicals and has been linked to increased risk of prostate cancer in farm workers.   Under a treaty known as the Montreal Protocol, the chemical was to be banned for most uses by the end of this year. But politics have allowed continued use of methyl bromide.   After a decade where the use of this dangerous pesticide decreased, it is now poised to rise and the United States is leading this charge. The U.S. has already received approval to increase usage by 16% over last year.  Environmentalists fear a domino effect as other countries have applied to use more of a chemical they had been learning to do without. Requests for 2006 exemptions already exceed amounts granted for 2005.   Please help us continue Cesar Chavez’s fight against this dangerous pesticide.  Help us remind President Bush’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that methyl bromide threatens the earth and the health and safety of farm workers.  A study published last year in a medical journal, based on a study of 55,000 farm workers, showed those exposed to methyl bromide were two to four times more likely to develop prostate cancer.   The EPA is now taking comments on procedures for allowing exemptions for methyl bromide. Please e-mail federal officials today and say enough is enough! We’ve had more than 10 years to find alternatives and the U.S. must be a leader in this critical fight. Tell the EPA not to approve any more exemptions or allow trading of exemptions.   Please send your e-mail today!   Instructions: Click here to take action on this issue Tell-A-Friend: Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this.  Tell-a-Friend! If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for United Farm Workers. If you would like to unsubscribe from the UFW List Serve, please visit your subscription management page by clicking here. United Farm Workers, 29700 Woodford-Tehachapi Rd., P.O. Box 62, Keene, CA, 93531, http://www.ufw.org Privacy Policy

 

don't you think if bush were honestly surprised (or dismayed) about the lapse in intelligence over hussein's lack of WMDs that he'd sound more outraged? i mean, if YOU had sent your country into war, and you honestly thought your intelligence was solid, you'd flip if you found out it was bullshit. you wouldn't just go, "well, it was still justified. hussein was still a bad guy." you'd do everything in your power to earn back your country's credibility.

 

bush is so obviously stonewalling. wish i could play poker or mafia with him. such a shitty liar.

 

 

ah...the poetry intrinsic in writing about hot zones. from the NYT:

"When Japan culled chickens last winter, workers dressed in outfits resembling space suits and used bulldozers with airtight cockpits to plow the diseased birds under. But in Vietnam, the process was more brutal and included few protections for workers: barefoot teenagers, sometimes with scarves over their mouths, threw live, squawking chickens into pits, sprinkled on fuel and set them afire, tossing back into the pyre singed birds that tried to crawl out."

 

 

from the NYT via organic consumers:

Among the proposed rules that have been postponed until after Election Day are:

FOOD SAFETY -- A proposal by the Food and Drug Administration, after a case of mad cow disease was reported in Washington State, to tighten rules governing the content of animal feed.

Part of the proposal was delayed after heavy lobbying from the beef and cattle feed industries. A few weeks after the administration announced in July that it would slow the regulatory process, the beef association broke its nonpartisan tradition by issuing an endorsement for the re-election of President Bush.

"shocking. positively shocking." - james bond, goldfinger

 

 

one of my very favorite writers, chris barzak, has a deer-hunting story up at strange horizons called "the trail of my father's blood." 

 

A predator's eyes are set face-forward in their head, so that they see only what's in front of them. A sort of tunnel vision. The eyes of prey are most often set on either side of their heads, enabling them to see peripherally, to see all the odd angles from which they might be attacked.

 

i love chris' ability to make magic in rural settings, in this case, hunting stands in backwoods ohio. chris writes with such resonant detail that his story could take place in the kettle morraine of WI where i grew up. or north dakota. or the upper peninsula. and he always manages to offer a taste of the nihilism that these places nurture in their people, rather than solely using those settings as ironic vehicles for fantasy. quite a talent.

 

 

 

when the times get weird, conventional wisdom says parody becomes irrelevent. breaking down the brilliance of dr strangelove, fred kaplan in the NYT shows how kubrick didn't bother straying too far into absurdity (a la duck soup) for his anti-war message. indeed, he embraced the reality of military intelligence as it existed, knowing that "truth" would scan as "surreal" or "hilarious" on most viewers' radar. shoot it with a straight face. use a turgid black and white, with lots of the grim-faced WASP action heroes of the day. let the ironies in the dialog come crackling out for themselves.

 

but obviously some absurdity - at least a wink of it - works to let audiences feel how fucking crazy the subject matter is.  peter sellers' random weirdness (i.e., strangelove's arm) offers up marx brothers-like departures from the film's otherwise poker-faced sobriety. and somehow, it helps underscore the very truths that kaplan sees gleaming in the script.

 

 

 

 

while i gave him a bath today, isaiah farted in the tub. and then he giggled about it.

 

what's a one-year-old find so funny about body schtick? is it just the goofy noise? did it surprise him? were the bubbles tickling him?

 

maybe he was just reacting to me - i thought it was pretty goddamn funny.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we're coming up on the second anniversary of sen. paul wellstone's death, so here in the so-called "sabo isle" of minneapolis (i.e., a very lefty bubble), it's time to reheat these leftovers. talk in the co-op breakroom has been about the "murder of wellstone" all day - my office is just across the hall, so i hear it ignite, flame, fade, and reignite as each new shift takes it up.

 

in 2002, the bushies were heavily involved in the wellstone/coleman contest, even going so far as to have dick cheney tell prospective republican challenger tim pawlenty to back off and let the hand-groomed norm coleman face wellstone. and both president bushes's hatred of wellstone is well documented in lefty lore (bush sr. once called wellstone "a little chicken shit" ).

 

but i dunno. i find little comfort in all that huffy-puffy conspiracy ranting. i understand that in missouri's ashcroft/carnahan senate contest, mel carnahan's little twin-engine plane also went down with icy wings. and i know that bombs were planted, probably for wellstone, just before his visit to colombia. but what does knowing this stuff get ya ultimately? the ability to explain a tragic death. that's it. it doesn't bring paul back and it doesn't bring the supposed criminals to justice. 

 

i don't want to remember paul through the distorted lens of a conspiracy theory. he was bobby kennedy to a lot of minnesotans - me included. i got to meet him at a fundraiser that a couple friends and i threw, just a week and a half before he died. wellstone looked tired - really exhausted in his bones. the drumbeat for invading iraq was loud and unignorable, and paul told me he was torn, because he'd just spent a week looking at the intelligence on what saddam hussein was doing to his own people. "this is not a nice guy," paul told me and said it in a way that suggested he was a bit shaken by what he'd read and seen. "but i can't vote for this war. i'm the one who has to meet my maker." he actually said that.

 

the senate race was tight until the war vote. then paul voted against giving bush the power to pre-emptively invade a faraway country that posed no credible threat to the US - and he actually started pulling away from coleman. by the time he died, what had been a roman knuckle-lock was shaping into a 9-point romp. the rest is shitty history.

 

so remember wellstone's example, my democratic buddies, when you say that kerry "had" to vote for the war. here in minnesota, which is actually just as divided as the rest of the country, far-left liberals can beat conservatives. wellstone did it twice.

 

it's all a matter of conviction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

one-year olds, man. it's all about the one-year olds.

 

the other day isaiah and i were playing in the living room, and he had his necklace of mardi gras beads, which he was whipping around his head and screaming like a gay cowboy. then all of a sudden he stopped and held the beads right under his nose, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. i watched him watch the beads for a few minutes and finally i asked him what he saw. he turned and pointed to the ceiling fan. "yep, that's the ceiling fan," i said, not understanding really. then he looked back down into the beads and made his syllable of indignation. "Nn." and i realized, "oh, you see the fan reflected in the beads? do you see lots of little fans, iko?" which earned me the syllable of affirmation, a wide-mouthed, "Aa." the rest of the day he was pointing out reflections: the sun off his spoon casting a shimmer on the kitchen ceiling; the flag in a puddle. best was him pointing down into the toilet. stupid grown-up that i am, i'd forgotten the reflection game and looked down into the bowl, a little nervous about what had caught his eye. "what's in there?" i asked. and he pointed at the vanity lights over the bathroom mirror. "you see lights in the toilet?" syllable of indignation as he pointed back into the bowl. "mirror lights," i said, and he pointed at the lights over his head. "lights in the toilet." point. "mirror lights." point. "lights in the toilet." point....

 

these are my days these days, accompanying isaiah as his mind expands in investigations of reflections and shadows. and squirrels. cone flowers. swings. the moon. reading where the wild things are eight times in a row. wrestling until i have to tell him not to bite me. finding words that make him laugh (whoa! rice! boing!). throwing plastic frogs at the couch. just soaking up isaiah's life as it comes and letting it redeem mine, moment by glorious moment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

a review of "the ninth arrest" written by patrick samphire:

 

Anderson's story is superbly written, well-researched, fleshed out with believable detail, and weaves in several of the myths surrounding Jesus. But despite this, the core of the story--the truth about what the Messiah really is--seems no more than a new age vacuity. 

 

pretty much on target, as is the rest of patrick's critique (judas is a pretty predictable ally for jesus).

 

i deliberately wanted the discussion of "what the messiah is" to hew to a fairly mundane message, one that i think actually exists beneath all the pauline, messianic propaganda, which is so awkwardly plastered over the gospels. if this speculation rings as "new age vacuity" (that jesus' message was probably more individualistic than the more cosmic paul would have it), i think in part it's because expectations of jesus remain as overblown today as they were 2000 years ago.

 

though, chiefly, it rings vacuously because this is one of the (many) knots in this story's wood that i didn't work very well around.

 

 

 

 

 

from the christian science monitor:

 

The Kerry campaign has responded with an ad of its own, accusing Bush of misrepresenting Kerry's comments - since Kerry also said he would never cede the right to strike preemptively - and of lying about national security matters in general.

 

the discourse of this election is going right down the very toilet that i feared it would go, right down into an argument for institutionalizing pre-emptive war. pre-emptive war, AKA, invading other countries and occupying them, takes america out of the already dubious role of "global cop" and puts us in the far more naked role of despotic and random empire. we are officially romans, ladies and gentlemen. the invasion of iraq, of course, was not simply "wrong" or a "collossal error in judgment" as kerry puts it. it was evil, by any moral standard you choose, because it was an invasion of an oil-rich country that posed no threat. it was an invasion executed by former CEOs of oil companies and weapons manufactuers whose families, friends, and former associates are profiting handsomely from the action. there is no moral footing for this "bush doctrine," but rather than attack it for the moral outrage that it is, kerry criticizes the "way" in which the war was fought. during the debate, kerry had the unmitigated gall to say that presidents have always had this right. yeah, it's in the constitution: "the chief executive may conquor other nations according to individual whim."

 

this insane dithering comes out of kerry's mouth because he voted for the war, a moral coward's move, shoring up his right in preparation for a presidential candidacy (then voted against funding his own war when dean looked invincible - strike two, my kerry). while 23 other senators took a stand, kerry got in line behind bush. worse, he refuses to snap out of it, refuses to say that just like the rest of america who thought maybe sacking a foreign capital was a good idea, kerry was mislead by this administration and the "bush doctrine." and as a result, we won't leave this mad era for years, maybe decades. indeed, whether kerry or bush wins, this bizarre dr. strangelove logic will become the status quo in "fighting terror."

 

pre-emptive war is a complete deal-breaker for me with the democrats. in my mind, its on level with the HUAC investigations into "communist infiltration," the policy of mutually assured destruction, macnamara's "domino theory," and the arm's race with the USSR that turned out to be entirely unnecessary in retrospect. since world war 2, this country has a terrible history of blindly marching lockstep with bullshit policies that defy common sense. and here we go again. history will look back at the opportunity the democrats had in this election and it will shake its head in sad regret.

 

you don't have to be a progressive, far-left, anti-war peacenik to say that making the argument for pre-emptive war is fucked. any wonk with a Risk board can tell you the difference between evil gamesmanship and sane statesmanship. and for a sobering slap, just look at what's happening in iraq right now* and you'll see that both these candidates are arguing for a downward spiral of epic proportions.

 

*on a similar note, there's this via stinky: "We're like frogs being slowly boiled in a beaker."

 

(2nd link gakked from heather.)

 

 

 

hey look. you can buy alchemy #2 online.

 

 

this issue includes my story "sand dollars and apple halves," which is about oceans, sea-walls, and gods consuming vast amounts of cool food.  at the above site, you can also buy alchemy #1, which has great stories by dora goss, alex irvine, and r.a. lafferty among other treats.

 

 

your sunday morning sermon:

 

lamely trying to finish the refrigerated grocery pages for the web site and, at the same time, an article on reverse osmosis water. i'm so bored i want to press my forehead into a buzzsaw.

 

so i'm taking it out on you. kyped from bondgirl from wence most memes flow into my blog. emboldened entries are the ones i've done.

 

01. Bought everyone in the pub a drink (washington house bar)

02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain

04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid (new world pyramids don't rank?)
06. Held a tarantula.
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone 
08. Said ‘I love you’ and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Done a striptease 
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Stayed up all night long, and watch the sun rise
15. Seen the Northern Lights
16. Gone to a huge sports game
17. Walked the stairs to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa
18. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
19. Touched an iceberg
20. Slept under the stars
21. Changed a baby’s diaper
22. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
23. Watched a meteor shower (see #20)
24. Gotten drunk on champagne (mixed with gin)
25. Given more than you can afford to charity
26. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
27. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment (grampa's funeral)
28. Had a food fight
29. Bet on a winning horse (mexico city. in pesos. i was king for a day.)
30. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
31. Asked out a stranger
32. Had a snowball fight
33. Photocopied your bottom on the office photocopier (nipple)
34. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
35. Held a lamb
36. Enacted a favorite fantasy
37. Taken a midnight skinny dip
38. Taken an ice cold bath (see #107)
39. Had a meaningful conversation with a beggar (wtf? a dickens meme?)

40. Seen a total eclipse 
41. Ridden a roller coaster
42. Hit a home run (standing triple at UWWC drunken intramural sports)

43. Fit three weeks miraculously into three days
44. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking (always)
45. Adopted an accent for an entire day ("Ren" for weeks.)
46. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
47. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
48. Had two hard drives for your computer.
49. Visited all 50 states
50. Loved your job for all accounts 

51. Taken care of someone who was shit faced
52. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
53. Had amazing friends (have)
54. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
55. Watched wild whales
56. Stolen a sign (and a statue for my brother.)
57. Backpacked in Europe
58. Taken a road-trip
59. Rock climbing
60. Lied to foreign government’s official in that country to avoid notice (told a cop in mexico i was english.)
61. Midnight walk on the beach
62. Sky diving
63. Visited Ireland
64. Been heartbroken longer then you were actually in love
65. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
66. Visited Japan
67. Benchpressed your own weight
68. Milked a cow
69. Alphabetized your records (records?)
70. Pretended to be a superhero (pretended?)
71. Sung karaoke (my garth brooks is kung fu)
72. Lounged around in bed all day
73. Posed nude in front of strangers
74. Scuba diving
75. Got it on to “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye (see also, roxy music's avalon, both sides)
76. Kissed in the rain
77. Played in the mud
78. Played in the rain (78a. played and kissed in rainy mud)
79. Gone to a drive-in theater
80. Done something you should regret, but don’t regret it.
81. Visited the Great Wall of China
82. Discovered that someone who’s not supposed to have known about your blog has discovered your blog (hi mark!)
83. Dropped Windows in favor of something better
84. Started a business (i'm counting writing as a biz)
85. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
86. Toured ancient sites
87. Taken a martial arts class (tai kwon do and kendo)

88. Swordfought for the honor of a woman
89. Played D&D for more than 6 hrs straight (just getting going at 6...)
90. Gotten married
91. Been in a movie
92. Crashed a party
93. Loved someone you shouldn’t have
94. Kissed someone so passionately it made them dizzy
95. Gotten divorced
96. Had sex at the office
97. Gone without food for 5 days
98. Made cookies from scratch
99. Won first prize in a costume contest
100. Ridden a gondola in Venice
101. Gotten a tattoo
102. Found that the texture of some materials can turn you on (there's this rayon-polyester blend? well, the drape makes me fevery.)

103. Rafted the Snake River
104. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
105. Got flowers for no reason
106. Masturbated in a public place (masturbated myself or someone else?)

107. Got so drunk you don’t remember anything
108. Been addicted to some form of illegal drug (define "addicted")
109. Performed on stage
110. Been to Las Vegas
111. Recorded music
112. Eaten shark
113. Had a one-night stand
114. Gone to Thailand
115. Seen Siouxsie live
116. Bought a house 

117. Been in a combat zone
118. Buried one/both of your parents
119. Shaved or waxed your pubic hair off
120. Been on a cruise ship
121. Spoken more than one language fluently
122. Gotten into a fight while attempting to defend someone
123. Bounced a check
124. Performed in Rocky Horror (define "performed")
125. Read - and understood - your credit report
126. Raised children
127. Recently bought and played with a favorite childhood toy (blocks!)
128. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
129. Created and named your own constellation of stars (see #89)
130. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
131. Found out something significant that your ancestors did
132. Called or written your Congress person
133. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
134. …more than once? - More than thrice? all to minneapolis
135. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
136. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
137. Had an abortion or your female partner did
138. Had plastic surgery
139. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived.
140. Wrote articles for a large publication
141. Lost over 100 pounds 

142. Held someone while they were having a flashback
143. Piloted an airplane
144. Petted a stingray
145. Broken someone’s heart
146. Helped an animal give birth
147. Been fired or laid off from a job
148. Won money on a T.V. game show
149. Broken a bone
150. Killed a human being
151. Gone on an African photo safari
152. Ridden a motorcycle
153. Driven any land vehicle at a speed of greater than 100 mph
154. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced
155. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol 

156. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
157. Ridden a horse
158. Had major surgery 

159. Had sex on a moving train
160. Had a snake as a pet
161. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
162. Slept through an entire flight: takeoff, flight, and landing
163. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
164. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
165. Visited all 7 continents
166. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
167. Eaten kangaroo meat
168. Fallen in love at an ancient Mayan burial ground
169. Been a sperm or egg donor (define "donor")
170. Eaten sushi
171. Had your picture in the newspaper
172. Had 2 (or more) healthy romantic relationships for over a year in your lifetime
173. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
174. Gotten someone fired for their actions
175. Gone back to school
176. Parasailed
177. Changed your name
178. Petted a cockroach
179. Eaten fried green tomatoes
180. Read The Iliad
181. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
182. Dined in a restaurant and stolen silverware, plates, cups because your apartment needed them  (almost a rite of passage in my family)

183. …and gotten 86?ed from the restaurant because you did it so many times, they figured out it was you
184. Taught yourself an art from scratch (define "art")
185. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
186. Apologized to someone years after inflicting the hurt
187. Skipped all your school reunions.
188. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language (cue rick james bass riff)
189. Been elected to public office
190. Written your own computer language
191. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream 

192. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
193. Built your own PC from parts
194. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you (probably means a painting, but i don't care)
195. Had a booth at a street fair (palm reader: the great barthini!)
196: Dyed your hair
197: Been a DJ (i did radio news...les nessman of west bend's wbkv.)
198: Found out someone was going to dump you via LiveJournal
199: Written your own role playing game
200: Been arrested (clogged up an intersection in an anti-war protest...charges dropped)

 

a response to fahrenheit 911 is forthcoming, george w bush: faith in the white house. from the nytimes:

 

The president - who after 9/11 called the war on terrorism a "crusade," until protests forced the White House to backpedal - is divine. He may not hear "voices" instructing him on policy, testifies Stephen Mansfield, the author of one of the movie's source texts, "The Faith of George W. Bush," but he does act on "promptings" from God. "I think we went into Iraq not so much because there were weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Mansfield has explained elsewhere, "but because Bush had concluded that Saddam Hussein was an evildoer" in the battle "between good and evil."

 

this is one of the great blind-spots of liberal/lefty america (if there is such an america): the inability to admit and understand, without being patently dismissive, that a huge portion of the country eats this shit up with a fork in each hand. left behind, billy graham, and the passion of the kee-rist. the left and even centrist intellectuals have no way to understand or combat this mentality except to roll their eyes, really.

 

but dismissing it doesn't weed it out.

 

 

 

 

i can hear all you democrats out there sighing in glee that your candidate rocked the house last night. but listen, kids, bush isn't down and out. as a matter of fact, this moment in the campaign is a little like when john hurt wakes up in the first alien movie and that face-hugger isn't grabbing his head anymore. all the dems are patting him the on back e tom skerrit, buying him lunch.

 

bush was pretty rusty from gliding through his "primary" season without anyone challenging him. what we were watching last night was not a defeat for bush, but a bracing wake-up slap. good for kerry, sure, but i think the real fight is yet to come.

 

[cut to kerry on his back with yaphet kotto trying to hold him down as a chest-burster pokes through his sternum...]

 

 

pot roasts are one of the greatest secrets kept from bachelors. bachelors are not supposed to make pot roasts. pot roasts are supposed to be too hard for bachelors. bachelors? this is a lie.

 

buy a pot roast, a nice football-sized one. get a roast that comes pre-herbed (the porketa roast from beeler's, if you can find it - yum, with a capital M), put it in a big dutch oven, pot, or oven-safe pan with a cover. throw in a couple cups of water. oven: 300 degrees. let it sit in there for three hours. and voila.

 

a couple days later, after you've devoured our brother the pig, put the bone and any meat leftovers in a soup pot. cover with about 4 quarts of water. toss in some cut spuds and carrots. let it sit on a low flame for an hour, and the herbs from the pre-herbed roast will do all the work (you might have to add salt, though). strain out the bone and any gross fat leavings. and double voila: pork stew. 5-6 meals out of a ten dollar roast? yo.

 

 

oh and i should mention that sports writers deliberately print such articles to hurt minnesota sports fans.