Sunday, January 21, 2007

Boomer Blog

Tony Bennett, on Nancy Pelosi, in Salon:
“I think she is just the best thing that’s ever happened.”

Take that, sliced bread.

The Weather Channel’s hidden agenda, according to Melanie Morgan:
“The Weather Channel is launching a new website and broadband channel dedicated solely to global warming called ‘One Degree’ and has a weekly program called ‘The Climate Code,’ devoted almost entirely to liberal advocacy on climate matters.

“The network is running advertisements showcasing scared and confused Americans, including children and senior citizens, wondering about the coming apocalypse caused by global warming.”

Imagine that. Not scared and confused formerly burly strapping Nascar fans, but children and senior citizens. Stop The Weather Channel before it kills again.

From Reuters:
“British television star Jade Goody, accused at home and abroad of being a racist bully for her treatment of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, was evicted from the ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ show on Friday.”

But what would Orwell do?

One Boomer’s Admission
I hated the Chicago 7. Ditto Timothy Leary, William Burroughs, et al. The 60’s sucked, especially after the Beatles started taking acid.

Barrack Obama writes in his new book: “In the back and forth between Clinton and Gingrich, and in the elections of 2000 and 2004, I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the baby boom generation — a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago — played out on the national stage.”

Iran
We’re not going to invade Iran. Probably not, anyway. As a last resort. Maybe. Well, okay. If you insist.

Why they hate us, part whatever
Christopher Hitchens in Slate, on Patrick Cockburn, who was describing the new Iraqi flag, introduced in 2004:

“It looked, he thought, like a beach umbrella: white with two parallel blue stripes, a yellow band, and a blue crescent. The blue stripes immediately reminded people in the street of the Israeli flag, and they were not mollified to be told that these supposedly represented the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Moreover, ‘hundreds of thousands of young Iraqi men had fought and died under the flag in the Iran-Iraq war. I had often seen it used as a shroud to cover their cheap wooden coffins.’ True, for the Kurds it was a flag representing massacre and oppression, but their solution was not to fly it and instead to display their own. But for much of the rest of the population, an arbitrary decision to scrap and replace the national emblem was profoundly hurtful and insulting and had been made, moreover, without any consultation. It then turned out that the unappealing new design was the result of nepotism: One member of the Paul Bremer-installed Iraqi Governing Council had called his brother, an artist living in London, and told him to dream up a fresh flag. Nothing has been heard of the new banner since 2004, but many Iraqi insurgent groups can and do now wave the old one with additional patriotic zest.”

Hangman
Saddam Hussein’s botched and gruesome execution was an aberration. What? They did it AGAIN? Only a surge can put an end to this behavior!

"Extremely bitter men"
Great article by Sebastian Junger in the current VANITY FAIR (with Semi Moore on the cover), about MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta), a group of militants fed up with the embarrassment of oil riches in Nigeria, as poor Nigerians never see a drop of it. MEND is kidnapping oil workers, sabotaging pipelines, and like that: “Leave our land while you can or die in it,” warned a post-attack spokesman’s e-mail.

MEND’s spokesman calls himself Jomo Gbomo. He communicates with foreign journalists via e-mail. He told one: “We are not communists or even revolutionaries. We’re just extremely bitter men.”

Judge Judy
Makes more money than all the Supreme Court judges combined. Worth it? You bet.

American Idol
I have yet to watch this Amateur-Hour-On-Steroids, and have no plans to watch it in the future, but I understand that part of its appeal is the withering sarcasm leveled at losing contestants by the judges. I have heard snippets of songs by some of the winners. Perhaps some of this sarcasm could be sent their way. America needs to eliminate melisma from its musical fare, not encourage it!

The Compact
I am a subscriber to this relatively new group. The Compact of its name is a promise not to buy new stuff. Pretty basic concept, really. The Compact has generated a lot of media attention, mostly favorable. But if you actually read the posts to The Compact, there’s very little advice, tips, and information. It’s mainly personal confessions by people you don’t know, or really want to know, self-congratulation, and nasty flames. Stuff like this:

“I am also happy to say that yesterday, I resisted shopping, driving, and eating out; though, I was very tempted to get in the car and go thrift shopping.”

Thank you for sharing. Now shut up, and keep your eye on the road.

“We all come to a group like The Compact with very noble intentions: To reduce our footprint, help save the Earth, set a good example, learn to live without so many things. But each of us has different ideas about what this all means, no matter how many times we all try to define it. Each of us comes to the group with a different reality too. A different personal reality, and a different world view.”

And yet we are all special, because we bring our own bags to the grocery store.

"I truly feel sorry for those who have resorted to shoppying (sic) and Disney world (sic) in place of their own creative energy."

Sic’em, Mickey.

“We adopted our baby, and I guess that would fit with compacting values. We did try to conceive naturally with no success, so we were not motivated by environmental concerns.”

That’s getting a child second-hand, I suppose, which is sort of in keeping with The Compact, in a Maoist kind of way. Though I never really considered having a child as a form of shopping. But what do I know? I hate hippies.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Merle Kessler wrote:
>Hangman
Saddam Hussein’s botched and gruesome execution was an aberration. What? They did it AGAIN? Only a surge can put an end to this behavior!

It was only a matter of time before "Improving the quality of the hangings" became our goal. Once we achieve that, we declare victory, and leave!

-D.E.

1:32 PM  

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