Ignorance is strength

That was supposed to be an ironic and humorous warning when Orwell wrote it in his book 1984. Who would imagine that someone on the staff of the most popular news network on American TV actually said it in support of Sarah Palin's qualifications to be Vice President. Her ignorance of foreign policy is so profound that anything she does accomplish will be cheered. Crazy as Fox hardly covers it any more.

One has to wonder what Fox News would say if the Republicans decided to promote Bonzo the chimp as secretary of state. There' s no doubt they'd find a reason to be just overjoyed and dismayed at the farleftliberals who gagged at it.

There's not much difference actually in Steve Doocy's Fox News jaw dropper, which now seems to have been picked up as a standard talking point by Cindy and the Delegates, and talking up a Chimp as a cabinet member; although the chimp is far more likely not to lie to you than Old Straight Talk and his aging beauty queen who have been piling up lies to match the Tower of Babel in height and incomprehensibility.

Yes, Alaska is next door to Russia and that trumps that farleftliberal elitist stuff about intelligence and education and experience as far as these demented, deranged and dimwitted Republicans are concerned. We don't need brains, we don't need knowledge, all we need is fundamentalist doctrine and Jesus will wrap up the loose ends of our disaster when he comes back next week to kill the unbelievers.

Unbelievable -- and I don't want to play poker with anyone who can deliver that line with a straight face. Of course Alaska is right next to Canada too. Don't forget Santa Claus - he's up there too.

What will the story be when he appoints some skateboarder who dropped out of High School to the Supreme Court: he watched a lot of Judge Judy? Suddenly the treasonable partisan appointments of the Bush administration seem almost statesman like. What can I call it but treason? It's a deliberate attempt to destroy American values and constitutional government and as far as I'm concerned, the media morons who keep representing this outrage as a legitimate act by a legitimate candidate with a legitimate interest in the safety and prosperity and commitment to justice of the United States of America.

Bridge to the twelfth century

"I told Congress, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere,”

Nothing like starting your campaign with a lie. Of course anyone who can't tell the difference between thanking congress for a bridge and thanking them on a bridge should be thrown off a bridge, but that's another matter. Americans don't notice such things anyway and a correct preposition might make her seem "elitist."

Fact is, support for the bridge was part of her campaign platform and although she apparently withdrew support when it turned out Alaska might have to contribute to the project, she didn't say no to the money, or on the money, as she might be expected to phrase it. She spent it elsewhere, telling Ketchikan residents she "felt their pain." Her actions hardly qualify as the kind of "cost-cutting" she claims to support as a new leader of a party that has been party to the largest deficit spending of the last 2/3 of a century and the largest most intrusive Federal government ever.

Of course to any Republican, the past is plastic and malleable. It can be molded and shaped to create anything one likes, and indeed her personal history entry in Wikipedia was changed -- tuned up as it were, and apparently by her son the day before her selection was announced.

What reason predominated in the sclerotic mind of the Maverick when he made that selection remains a mystery, but it isn't a stretch to think that it's all about Roe V. Wade. Opposition to that by a woman seems more palatable than from another old white male Bible-thumper, but of course opposition to alternative energy and allegiance to an oil consuming empire can't be discounted.

Of course it's more important, if one has any regard for truth, decency, justice, democracy or liberty, that these people be thwarted while there's still anything left to steal. That is if you don't value your Hummer and your Church more.

Cross posted from The Reaction

The Thrilla from Wasilla

Little Georgie won't be at the Republican convention in Minneapolis tomorrow, or so say the people who interpret his inchoate mumblings for us. The official story is that he "has concerns" about hurricane Gustav. The real story is probably different, but we'll never know whether he's been dis-invited or is simply having too much fun riding his bicycle in Beltsville, Maryland. I hear he's finally finished My Pet Goat and needs something else to do. Perhaps he'd like to surpass his already record number of vacation days and go for 1000.

The former Miss Walissa will be there with her pet goat however, while the Gulf Coast boards up and heads for high ground. It's harder to know what to do with the far greater national disaster looming ahead for this crumbling country as the idiots and the madmen and religious insurgents hold their quadrennial war dance and camp meeting. The storm surge of nationalistic, religious and anti-intellectual frenzy won't subside by Tuesday as will Gustav and there is no high ground to provide refuge from the "farleftliberal" screaming tsunami.

Of course it's possible that Bush is simply trying to be Georgie-on-the-spot in order to smooth over the inevitable memories of his legacy of uncaring incompetence and the images of him playing air guitar while New Orleans drowned. After all, as the representative of Petroleum, he has a vested interest in continuing their reign by electing McCain, but all in all, it really doesn't matter. This nation of enthusiastically ignorant saps will be so entranced with Miss Wasilla's little behind, we'll miss the best and possibly last chance we have to prevent our new century from being the last stand of western liberal democracy and becoming the bottomless tar pit of freedom.

War: forever isn't enough

We're all distracted at the moment what with the conventions and America's obvious descent into theater of the absurd as millions of Americans obey the hypnotic suggestion and suddenly decide they're in love with a small-minded fundamentalist Alaskan with a dead bear in her office.

What better time for George W. Bush to craft his legacy, or rather to cram his legacy into any of our orifices he can? To put it succinctly, George wants Congress to affirm that we are in a permanent state of war with the Taliban and al Qaeda and since the next president and the next will be the sole decider of what those organizations are and whether they still exist as a threat, we will be assured of limitless, never ending, yet totally unwinnable war and a Republican boot on our neck.

Of course the eternal and undefinable enemy will always exist and so will the emergency war powers of the Republican Caesars as the Republic fades into rewritten history.

The lady on the right

Somewhere in a closet I have an old Louisville Slugger. I'm thinking of getting it out just in case I have to listen to any more crap about the New York Times and the "liberal Press." Face it; anyone who isn't still asking themselves what the hell John McCain was thinking could use a good whack on the head, but serious questions are not what I am reading in the Times this morning. Instead we have Sarah Heath Palin, an Outsider Who Charms

"She rose to prominence by impressing voters more with gumption than with an established record."

Is gumption some code word for opposing abortion rights, gay marriage and perhaps censoring the public library? Does it stand for deficit spending and unrestricted drilling leases for the oil companies? Yes, her ability to garner support without having to delineate policy has many people dumbfounded. It should have us worried as concerns a country where looks and personality trump intelligence, honesty and knowledge every time.

And then we have: Choice of Palin Is Bold Move by McCain, With Risks Bold Move? Does Bold mean random or erratic or counterproductive nowadays? McCain risks undercutting the "inexperience" gambit, says the article. Yes, sure, but he has already risked undercutting belief in his sanity if not his commitment to hire competent people rather than those who share his religious dogmas.

Let's hope our "paper of record" ends this honeymoon quickly and gets down to doing its job of giving us a clue as to what or whether McCain was thinking!

Cross posted from The Reaction

Christianophobia?

I'm guessing that the blog world as well as the commercial media will be gobbling about Sarah Palin for the rest of the weekend. You can almost see the WTF? rising like a cloud of smoke over the entire planet, but lest you think the supply of utterly and unfathomably absurd things has been exhausted, take note of the latest from the Vatican -- and try to supress your gag reflex.

Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican's foreign minister, spoke yesterday concerning the death of 13 Christians in India that were the result of sectarian violence against Christians who were attacked after the murder of a Hindu leader. Let me take the opportunity to speak against it myself and in support of religious freedom, but how can I forget that this same Vatican, with it's infallible knowledge of good and evil, arguably has been the largest supressor of religious freedom from it's inception until the rise of Stalin. Stalin is dead, but the Vatican is still there.

"'Christianophobia' should be combated as decisively as 'Islamophobia' and anti-Semitism,"

said the representative of the organization that invented anti-Sematism and slaughtered the Muslims, Jews, Protestants and Cathars in Europe and abroad; the organization that persecuted religious dissent and even scientific inquiry with torture and genocide.

It's hardly a phobia when the fear is real, when the feared people had to be legally restrained from running the biggest pederasty ring in the world and when Christians are still doing all they can to make sure we don't hear about evolution, cosmology, geology or large parts of history; to make sure they alone determine who can marry whom or have intimate relations with whom and to force our children to hear about their gods and make oaths to them.

Christian organizations and the governments they control have a rotten history of supporting Colonialism, vicious exploitation, drug addiction and disrupting "traditional values," in Asia, Oceania, the subcontinent and elsewhere. It took hundreds of years and untold amounts of blood and destruction to pry the Church out of governments of Europe and while they are still persuing the conversion of the non-Christian world, identifying all other religions with Satan and still teaching the fires of hell and damnation for anyone they don't approve for heaven, that "phobia" is going to continue to seem more like a legitimate fear to billions of people. If there ever is to be religious freedom, will it have to be pried from the cold, dead fingers of prelates?

Sarah who?

Perhaps only in Alaska can you find such a perfect woman: huntin', fishin' wildlife preserve drillin' Oil industry sympathetic, NRA member and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who might just pull in a disaffected Hillary supporter or two. As Creature at The Reaction says this morning:

" hasn't McCain has just blown his experience argument out of the water?"

Experience: did anyone really place much store in that trope of desperation anyway? Nixon had all kinds of experience and Dan Quayle was a Vice President. Abe Lincoln had practically none. Still it's amusing and glaringly inconsistent amidst the constant yapping about Obama's inexperience. Of course I wonder whether anything John McCain ever said or did exhibited any consistency other than the passion to win at all costs?

Fixing boilers with Biden

One of the most constant things about the United States is our set of criteria for choosing candidates. Although we regularly elect aristocrats; aristocratic in terms of money and power at least, we place great store in their sometimes real and sometimes fabricated proletarian roots. Although our first presidents could be numbered amongst the landed gentry, at least by American standards, we have always had a very obvious love of the log cabin bred, self-made man, and that image has been important in the selling of candidates from Andrew Jackson to Abraham Lincoln. It played a part in such diverse campaigns as Jimmy Carter's and Richard Nixon's, Ronald Reagan's and of course George W Bush, the AWOL, drunk diving, president's son born with a silver spoon in his nose.

My take is that we Americans hate to be looked down on by anyone; we hate even to imagine that anyone is smarter or has better ideas, particularly if they actually are and do. I don't remember any president more condescending toward those of his fellow citizens having more brains than money than our current Commander Guy, but somehow his cowboy boots and vacation ranch bought him a lot of sympathy and a lot of time before his ratings began to slide. Of course intellectuals like Kerry or Dukakis never really had a chance because they never were able to play the part well enough to seem natural at it and indeed were worse off for trying to drive tanks and shoot ducks. We forgave them nothing, least of all their education and accomplishments and ability to run a government.

So it's no surprise that we're already being officially reminded of Joe Biden's "regular guy" credentials. James Rowley writes today at Bloomberg.com about Biden's ability with hand tools and how quick a study he was at learning boiler maintenance, even though the writer doesn't seem to know the difference between a boiler and a furnace, we can bet Biden does -- and of course Joe can swish a basketball from half court too, just like Barak.

I'm no different than anybody else. I give credit for being able to adjust a gas burner and knowing the difference between a Morrison tube and a firebox, but having been in the boiler business and having worked in a boiler plant, I don't recall any of my friends there being prime presidential material. In fact I know more than one ex-prisoner of war and the same thing applies.

If we've learned nothing else, we should have learned that regular guyness at G8 conferences comes across as childish and ignorant buffoonery, but of course we probably haven't. We haven't even learned to tell a rich New England playboy phony from a real cowboy or rancher. Perhaps we even prefer the sedentary slug with a larcenous, condescending and failing heart ( and bad aim) to the real hunter.

So OK, Biden does not appear to be pretentious or socially condescending, and those who insist that Obama is "elitist" are simply referring to the fact that he's a damn sight smarter than most of us and far better educated in things that directly relate to the job description of president. That's snobbery of the worst sort, which brings me at last to my point: we're not hiring a boiler inspector or basketball coach or ranch hand. We don't need a hero or a mediocre pilot and even though we don't need a guy like McCain, for whom money does indeed grow on trees, to tell us how to fix a failing economy, ability and integrety and intelligence and honesty are independent of nearly everything we seem to be looking for. Presidents aren't going to drink beer at Your Moose lodge and no matter what they think about abortion or gay marriage, they don't decide such issues. Whether their faith in some invisible entity is unshakable or non-existent has no effect on your life or mine any more than their ability to bowl or shoot baskets or hunt or even wind-surf. Fulsome promises of unconditional love for America, its flag and each and everything the country has done speak more to dishonesty than anything else, but we go on being snobs with the conceit that nobody who might in any way feel socially superior shoule hold the office. And so we elect the greedy, inept, corrupt and basically stupid who feel so superior that they don't obey our laws or tell us the truth. Odds are we'll do it again.

Meanwhile

Outside the Big Top in Denver, there are all kinds of things to delight us at the sideshow. Take the primary election victory of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens who is under indictment for concealing a quarter million in free stuff from an oil services company. Ted is very popular amongst his constituents for bringing Federal money into the state even if he skims a little when nobody's looking. Incumbent Alaska Representative Don Young is also in a very tight contest ( currently too close to call) despite being under investigation for taking money from VECO, the former oil services company and for pushing through a questionable earmark for a Florida road project. One has to wonder if Alaska Republicans are very concerned with the imagined ethical failings of Barak Obama, the farleftliberal.

Meanwhile back here in Florida, people who are intent on restoring the integrity of the Republican Party, as one neighbor of mine says, have selected Tom Rooney to run for the House seat vacated by the lacivious boy-loving Mark Foley and now occupied by Democrat TIm Mahoney. Tom of course is the scion of the Rooney Family who owns numerous gambling enterprises in Florida and New York along with the Pittsburgh Steelers Football franchise. We can be sure Tom will never take into account what's good for gambling when determining what's good for Florida. Even if he does, he's not a "farleftliberal."

A more cynical man than I am might be convinced that Republicans not only can be bought, but can be bought cheaply with a few mumblings about abortion, farleftliberals and America's "Greatness." To be a cynic however implies that the critic actualy cares. I don't. I'm happy to let it all fall apart if for no other reason than to spite the McCain idiots who challenge Obama for not attacking with sufficient anger, anyone who questions America's "greatness" and god given right to world domination. The world would be far better off without people like that and if we indeed are like that, the world would be better off without us.

Clear as mud

Is there any concept murkier than Moral Clarity? When John McCain tells us Barak Obama lacks that sticky, opaque and thoroughly uncertain medium through which events must be seen, he's really telling us that what John sees as morally imperative is simply opinion that can't otherwise be defended.

What do we see when John asserts that Obama isn't being honest or possessed of good judgment for suggesting that the US should lead by example, by thinking twice before invading? When he asserts that

"If he [ Obama] really thinks that, by liberating Iraq from a dangerous tyrant, America somehow set a bad example that invited Russia to invade a small, peaceful and democratic nation, then he should state it outright,''

he must be asserting that massive bombing, huge civilian casualties, the destruction of a country, its roads, its schools, it's institutions of learning and culture, it's homes, its businesses and the exile of millions of families is a morally clear way to remove one particular dictator while ignoring all the rest. I think Obama was saying it outright.

Such morality as McCain praises is best cloaked with the smoke of burning bodies, and of course it has been. Is it really necessary to point out the way McCain describes disputed territory as a "peaceful and democratic nation?" It should already be obvious that he's indulging in convenient fantasy. It should be obvious that when he insists Obama is morally unclear for suggesting that the US, riding alone on its moral high horse "won" the cold war, that his idea of clarity is about waving flags so you can't see the truth.

If I were one to write aphorisms, perhaps I could produce something cute about avoiding those who tell you that morality is clear, but those who won't accept that won't accept it because morality for them is simply a sleazy excuse for sacrificing others for your own gratification.

Perhaps if John McCain thinks that this war and its shock and awe was a good thing and has produced good things sufficient to justify more killing and destruction than did the man we removed from power, perhaps he should have the guts to say it. He should have the guts to admit the trumped up, fabricated, forged and ever shifting excuses Bush used to initiate it instead of justifying it with sleazy sophistry sold to war lovers. He should have the honesty to step away from the crepuscular casuistry he uses to insinuate that attacking Iraq had anything whatever to do with morality or anything to do with punishing al Qaeda.

To me, the fact that McCain lacks anything like the leadership qualities, the education or the intelligence to be the President we need is beginning to take a secondary place to the increasingly ineluctable conclusion that he's a flim-flam artist of little talent selling the moral, ethical and practical failures of his predecessors as salvation.

With love, from Denver.

Michelle Obama loves this country. She made that clear last night, as she was obliged to do. Anyone associated with a candidate needs to appear infatuated with the United States, after all; needs to be seen as being of the opinion that no other country on Earth could have offered them what the US has offered them.

A candidate, or a spokesman for a candidate, needs to stay away from the obvious fact that the lives of many people have been limited, ruined or indeed ended by the government in its official capacity or by its tolerance toward those who have institutionalized injustice in the name of "consrvative" philosophies. Criticizing our history or the people who made it can and will be seen as "American bashing" or as "blaming America for everything." That sort of thing has been an effective barrier, keeping truth out of patriotism far better than any tin fence ever kept Mexicans out of New Mexico.

AP tells us this morning about Americans arrested for protesting against China's annexation of Tibet. They weren't treated with a comfy chair, needless to say, but from the moral heights at which we view such things, it's easy to forget how Americans have been treated for the same thing right here -- or at least in Chicago. Pictures of Police throwing citizens off highway overpasses, into bodies of water; pictures of police dragging people from busses by the hair and clubbing them don't often appear in the press any more and only old timers like me remember when others brag about our "Freedoms." I remember the commedian and political commentator Dick Gregory being arrested off the street and thrown in jail for simply walking toward the Democratic convention. I remember a photographer being thrown to the ground and having her camera smashed for photographing the felonies of the police. I remember columns of National Guard coming down State Street simply because there were protests and being afraid to go out of my home for fear of the police. What about the small town mayor and his mother, roughed up, hog tied and thrown face down in a puddle of dog blood by police dedicated to protecting our "freedom." That didn't happen in China.

I could spend all day about the persecution of Americans who once read Marx or who were simply suspected of it. I could lament that Navahos aren't allowed to use the water that runs through what's supposed to be their land. I could spend the rest of my life railing about the Genocidal deportations of the Indians, the enslavement of Africans and the hundred years of persecution that followed their emancipation. I could talk about the hangings in Chicago of people who were present at a rally for an 8 hour work week. I could scream about the abuses of civil rights in our "wars" against pornography and marijuana and even against Islamic literature. I won't. You are either already aware of America's dirty laundry or you refuse to be aware lest it tarnish your patriotism.

But of course acknowledging some of the dark horrors of American history and current events is not the way to get elected. You have to be mindlessly rapturous about the unique and unsullied freedom we pretend to enjoy -- or else. Michelle has to seem wildly greatful for what the country has promised as an inalienable right to everyone and has denied to a great many. She has to pretend that protest is never censured, that people aren't beaten and tortured without the protection of the law and that it's always been that way. She has to pretend not only that she's always been proud of every thing this country has done, but that at all moments she is and has been proud to the maximum level. We've seen the negative consequences of her saying that she was now more proud than before.

All this is far more important than knowledge of trade policies, the capacity for diplomacy and negotiation, the understanding of economic and monitary policy, a true willingness to follow the dictates of law and a renunciation of the thirst for conquest so absent in our current government.
She needs to appear to be grateful to "the man" for what were supposed to be the natural and inalienable rights guaranteed by the constitution and so long thwarted by "conservatives."

I've often been - have usually been in fact, ashamed of one aspect or another of this country for as long as I've been old enough to feel shame. Anyone who hasn't is no kind of patriot, nor is patriotism in itself a virtue. Shame motivates change. Shame is the result of having a sense of morality. Ask anyone who has raised children. Without a sense of shame, and the honesty to acknowledge responsibility for what we have done or allowed to be done, patriotism is just another pagent of dishonesty and self congratulation and the midwife to half the evils of the world.

Is this all a simple minded diatribe? You bet, but I'm talking to America, not to the Princeton philosophy department. I'm talking to a country as dishonest and ignorant about itself as it is about other countries. Dont' get me wrong, Michelle Obama seems to be intelligent, virtuous and open and would be with or without the obligatory blue collar, log cabin background. Indeed she's a huge relief from the slithery, cynical, chip on the shoulder personnas we're used to from other candidates' spouses. What I need to hear from her husband, however, isn't how he just loves, loves, loves America, but about how we've mortgaged our freedom to wage fraudulent wars, about how we've been sold economic policies that have failed every test for the benefit of a quasi-feudal elite; about how we've been sold colonialism, jingoism and fraudulent economic policies, sugar coated with patriotism -- and how he's going to help end this shameful state of affairs without undue concern with the effect on corporate sacred cows. I don't need to hear about the hard time he had in life or the easy one. I wan't to see his ability to inspire us to altruism and to understand a complex world. I don't care about his "faith" or whether he has the flag tattooted on his rump, but I'm betting that no matter how dedicated he may be to improving our nation, this is just what we're going to hear from Denver.

I hope I'm wrong.

Honor thy mother and father

ABC's web site today contained the following video clips:

• WATCH: Kids in Hot Car as Granny Gambles
• WATCH: Cops: Granny Led Family Shoplifting
• WATCH: Grand Theft Granny
• WATCH: Cannabis Granny Convicted

Now substitute "boy" or "beaner" or any other term derogatory of a group and watch the feathers fly, but it's still just fine to make fun of someone over 60; it's still fine to perpetuate nasty stereotypes as long as it's about women over 50. It's acceptable to chastise those who defy your stupid Alzheimers and diapers and false teeth bigotries and other slanders -- and it shouldn't be. Why is any women who doesn't know enough to sit on the porch in a rocking chair and knit, comical to the media?

Why am I the only one pissed off about this?

Scurrilous

It's from the Latin Scurille for buffoon and somehow it's the word that came to mind when I saw the attack ad that Fox News "accidentally" ran yesterday; an ad that attempts to associate Barak Obama with radical groups from the 60's and with the terrorists of 9/11/01.

Scurrilous -- among the definitions one finds are: given to vulgarity, evil, containing obscenities, abuse, or slander. Not a perfect word, perhaps, but close, and it marks the opening ceremonies of the Olympics of Opprobrium. I'm afraid that once again, the gold medal will go to the side that is willing to do and say anything whatever and without scruple or restraint. There are always enough people willing to believe something that allows them an excuse to exercise their private bigotries and secret prejudices; always enough to swing an election.

The utterly scurrilous attempt to prove that Obama is not a natural born citizen, even though he was born in the US (unlike McCain) continues and an attack ad against Obama's Vice Presidential choice Joe Biden aired within hours of the selection being known.

Of course McCain has a chance to disassociate himself from the sleaze. McCain is perfectly capable of running a dignified campaign; is perfectly capable of announcing that "I'm John McCain and I do not approve of all this, but we know he won't. He will be happy to let it fester and ferment as long as he can get a single vote out of it while washing his hands like Pilate and blaming it all on someone else.

Liberty is a terrorist

The story goes like this: you're told you can no longer work at your current job and you can no longer find employment in your profession because your name is on a government list. The government won't confirm or deny it, so you can't go about demonstrating that you've been falsely put on it because you have no idea of what you've been accused of or why -- or even that the list exists. As far as you know the list is only there to keep you from working.

No, it's not a newly discovered Franz Kafka novella, it's the story of Erich Scherfen, a man who served honorably in the US military and during the Gulf War. He's currently employed as a regional airline pilot, but has been told that he can no longer fly because the TSA has him on a "terror" list -- a list that no one is allowed to see, not even to demonstrate that it's all a mistake.

But wait -- aren't we guaranteed the right to confront our accuser? Don't we get a day in court? Doesn't the government have to show we've committed a crime before taking our rights away? Hell, no, not in the Republican fascist hellhole full of apathetic consumers and mewling, cringing cowards that we used to call a free country. The "terror" list itself is the most terrifying thing about our pathetic pretend democracy and more pathetic for the fact that the only organization anywhere who will stand up for this man, the ACLU, is the favorite demon of the ruling party.

Of course they know why Scherfen is so terrifying and so do I -- he's a Muslim and his wife, an American citizen, was born in Pakistan and came here as a kid. His crime is flying while Muslim. Our crime is not giving a damn. Our crime is not storming the Bastille, dragging the bastards out of their offices and pillorying them. But we don't, we mumble about the Pledge and God on the money and them damn "Libs" in the ACLU and how John McCain will deal with "terror" much better while freedom itself is on the "terror list" and cannot fly.

Cross posted from The Reaction

The Birth of Rock & Roll?

On a lighter note -- and can't we all use one -- Brian at World Gone Mad seems to be running a contest for the oldest Rock & Roll tune anyone can remember. OK, I was only 6 at the time, but Jackie Brenston and the Delta Cats' Rocket 88 from 1951, which later made the charts with Jerry Lee Lewis' cover is it for me. That's the one I remember and Jerry Lee still makes me fire on all 8 cylinders.

Blue's fans like me have have a hard time determining just when Rock & Roll emerged from the womb and although Rocket 88 seems to be a favorite of a majority of musicologists, some pick Elvis' That's All Right Mama (1954). I don't care actually, I'd rather listen to Son House or Robert Johnson, but of all the later covers, Jerry Lee's version actually put me in the drivers' seat. Actually thinking about anything by Jerry; thinking about an open car and a country road makes my right foot feel heavy. Get in the back seat and let's go . . . .

Limbaugh and the "little black boy man-child"

Rush Limbaugh seems finally to have responded to criticism of his indefensible attack on Elizabeth Edwards's sexual practices and prolix propensities.

"You can't hit the girl"

he laments, with a gratuitous dig at Feminism and Hillary Clinton. Sure you can Rush, and you'll hit anyone and then act like you've been unfairly treated by the nasty "Liberals" who call you an immoral, dishonest and reprehensible bastard for having been all those things for so long.

His latest gambit is to complain that we're complaining that Obama is being attacked and we're complaining because of course, he is above criticism. I would commend him for this inventiveness, but it seems to come so easily to him that I can't give him any credit. Of course nobody is putting Obama on a pedestal, nobody is treating him like a Messiah, that's only the game the Limp Boy is playing because the man is obviously a better leader, more intelligent and better able to express coherent thoughts and policies. Sorry to disappoint you Rushbag, I just think Obama is better, not that he's Jesus Christ and Elvis rolled into one.

"you can't criticize the little black man-child.

You just can't do it, 'cause it's just not right, It's not fair. He's such a victim"

whines Rush, posing as a victim.

Sure you can Rush. It's really only you pretending that anyone is above criticism. It's really only you pretending that our revulsion at your bigotry, your limitless amorality and your viciousness toward anyone you feel like being vicious toward justifies it all. Do you think anyone doesn't read "man-child" as your snickering replacement for Boy? Criticism of a political candidate is always fair, but libel, slander and all the other fictions you excrete for the benefit of your fatuous and furious followers is not fair. Undermining truth and justice and decency isn't fair and that's just the way you make your $38 million a year. If you had any real concern for the United States of America you'd fill your pockets with bricks and start wading East from your magnificent beachfront property until you drown.

Will the real man please stand up?

There's a divide and you're either on one side or another and whether genetics or experience is the greater factor, one can tell your polarity even without discussing politics. No, I'm not talking about Liberals and conservatives; I'm not quite sure what those things mean any more, I'm talking about the cultural divide that puts John McCain in the same camp as the fellow I know who lives in a shack out by lake Okeechobee, whose tattooed torso is shirtless all Summer and who has never owned anything but old, beat-up trucks. Those in the category I know personally, include a retired engineer who used to design ordnance, several retired military pilots and others who share very little in life but the "me against the world" attitude, an appreciation for John Wayne movies, authoritarian governments who never the less govern less - and the distrust of intellectuals.

Now that the media has decided to tell us that violence in Iraq has declined dramatically, it seems that such people are seeing John McCain as someone who can be most obstinate and forceful in dealing with the Iraqi Government's desire for the kind of freedom and independence and sovereignty we have made such a fuss about giving them. Barry says we're going while the Maverick shows his "maverisciousness" by saying "not so soon" to the colonials. That's what we can see John Wayne doing and that's what they fear Obama will not do: give us a settlement that seems more forced than negotiated; a settlement that makes us look more victorious than negotiated; that makes the whole misguided enterprise look like a glorious demonstration of imperial power.

Whether or not violence has decreased and whether or not the Iraqi government is now strong enough to fight its own battles, the gap between McCain and Obama, at least in the polls, seems to be closing as it becomes more likely that the glorious and victorious peace with honor we were denied in Vietnam is more likely with the former than the latter, under whom it might just quickly and quietly end.

An accord has apparently been reached however and if the Iraqi Parliament approves, the matter may be settled before any election. Perhaps McCain will have to invent a new attitude for himself as regards the 100 year occupation he's apparently comfortable with. Regardless of what that might be, the below average pilot who nearly flunked out of the academy his father got him into, will be seen as better be too many people simply because he wore a uniform than the far more intelligent and accomplished Obama.

Only a paper moon

Yep, it's only a tropical storm in a place far away - not worthy of national coverage since there aren't a lot of bodies floating down the street as there were in New Orleans and there are so many distractions elsewhere, but don't tell that to the guy looking at his missing roof and most of his waterlogged furniture lying in the front yard or the guy with just the top of his SUV sticking out of the 6 foot deep inland sea that used to be a parking lot. Keep in mind that most people don't have flood insurance and are just this morning finding out that their home owner's policy doesn't cover any of this.

Of course there's a lighter side to everything from nuclear holocaust to leprosy, and you may find more favorable ears attached to the carefree guy using his pickup truck as a tow boat so his kids can water ski down the highway or the deranged iPodal skateboarders with improvised sails doing 90 over bridges 60 feet above the water or the surfidiots who, so desperate for waves, can't resist the temptation to go out in hurricanes to the delight of the local shark population - or worst of all, the kite surfers who read in the papers that it's only a tropical storm.

Yes, the winds rarely exceeded 60 mph where I live, but it's the flooding that does all the damage - well, that and the tornadoes. Have a look at some slides from the Palm Beach Post while I go out in the wind and rain and see how my boat rode out the storm.

Fay go Away!

If you've been through a direct hit by a category three or four hurricane -- if you've been hit directly by three major hurricanes in 18 months and lived under the imminent threat of several more, you've learned to take them seriously. As with many possibilities of disaster, the waiting is the worst part.

We cut short a cruise this weekend, coming northward up the Indian River as the sun set; gliding into the Manatee Pocket in the dark, the shore lit up with points of light like holiday decorations from houses and marinas and restaurants and resorts, the engines rumbling softly at idle as the full moon rose pumpkin orange in the east, it was tempting to feel profound awe and reverie and indeed I did, although the mood was deeply eroded by the possibility of yet another of nature's screaming tantrums.

And so we sit and wait and pull up the National Hurricane Center's report again although we know it will be the same as it was ten minutes ago and hope that Fay will somehow continue to drift westward and stay away from my house, my boat and all the things people hold dear and that hurricanes love to smash and scatter.

So I'll make one last trip in the rain, making sure we have gas for the generator, that the spider web of dock lines are properly set, that my prescriptions are filled, the emergency batteries for the Amateur radio equipment are charged and then, with little else to do, I will take some aspirin for the headache, tums for the heartburn, blog a bit for the anxiety -- and wait.

Low, low Limbaugh

I was going to begin by asking what it might take to finally discredit Rush Limbaugh, but perhaps that's not a question any sane person could answer. His personal life is so full of reprehensible behavior, his professional life is so full of reprehensible and irresponsible slurs, misrepresentations and fabrications that nobody not predisposed to irrational hatred could possible see him as a reliable commentator -- and yet he remains wildly popular and highly paid. The answer, I'm afraid, is that nothing can discredit a liar amongst a population of liars, bigots, fools, idiots and madmen. That's a rather large population, it would seem.

None the less the statements he makes as he bounces up and down on his prodigious rump would stun anyone with a minimum of decency and honesty. He latest, as you may have heard is to defame Elizabeth Edwards for causing her husband to cheat on her. Who, he implies, would want an intelligent woman who is capable of expressing her opinion?

"It just seems to me that Edwards might be attracted to a woman whose mouth did something other than talk."

Giggles the gelatinous Limbaugh. But it just seems to me that's exactly what Rush's mouth does as he fellates the limp wits at the bottom of America's barrel. It seems that way to Keith Olbermann too. Of course the Republican Right dislikes Olbermann and would portray him as some sort of irresponsible radical, but so far I haven't seen one of them risk seeming to back Limbaugh by criticizing his indefensible and disgusting performance.

What about it Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin -- are you listening?