arse poetica

$200,000 is the New Black

Why I hate the New York Times, pt. 9478648392b. Kindly go straight to hell, you entitled, ostrich-head-in-the-sand,  can't-see-the-downtrodden-for-the-plummeting-wages, class-baiting elitists.

To (t)wit:

But $100,000 isn't what it used to be. It has been devalued, in the practical sense by inflation and psychologically because it is now a relatively common salary for newcomers in fields like law and banking. For today's executive strivers in the more affluent cities, there is a new grail: $200,000.

"It's the new black," said Bill Coleman, senior vice president in charge of compensation at Salary.com, an online career service based in Needham, Mass., that tracks executive pay. "There's a lot of bunching between $100,000 and $150,000. That's the vast majority of the people who used to aspire to $100,000. Now they are aspiring to $200,000 or $250,000."

"It's the players," he added, echoing a common sentiment, "who make $200,000.

Moral of the story: Don't be a playa hayta.

Oh, but they do go on.

"There are certainly cities in this country where it takes an income of a couple of hundred thousand dollars to start to genuinely feel affluent," he said.

Man, do I feel sorry for those who don't genuinely feel affluent. Tell it to these folks, Rockefellers.

I mean, it's not like the Times has anything serious to report. Damn them.

There's No Global Warming Because I Said So

Don't look here for pictures of global warming, because it doesn't exist. No, really. It doesn't. Besides, the BBC is a left-wing cabal of God- and America-haters. Plus, they kick puppies and steal from grandmothers. Clearly, they are not to be trusted.

And thank goodness I'm going to Argentina in a couple of weeks, or these glaciers, um, may ... not disappear, and, um, they'll always be around, cos they're not melting, because I'm going to Argentina and there is no global warming. Yeah.

And thus ends the B*shCo.-sponsored portion of our message.

Here is where I hope soon to trek, Glaciar Perito Moreno. It is an ice shelf 60m tall and 6km wide and is said to stretch 250 km back to the Andes. It is the most visited of all the glaciers and the only one that isn't shrinking. In fact, it is slowly, slowly advancing, so visitors are treated to loud cracks as hulking pieces break off of the glacier and drop into Lago Argentino below. I think the word 'spectacular' was invented for just this sort of thing.

Good lord, it doesn't look real, and I'm beside myself to think that it will actually be possible that I'll see it. And step on it. Deep breaths. Much gratitude. And I imagine the breathtaking vastness of the glacier will allow me to forget about the B*sh madministration for a few minutes. Trancendent beauty will do that.

[UPDATE: edited just after posting because some content was just too bratty.]

Brother, Can You Spare $1 Billion?

Spent the entire day at a conference with lots of smart folks dedicated to promoting a progressive vision for the South. Panels such as: "Mind of the South: Understanding Public Attitudes," "Rethinking Tax Policy," "Belief and Politics: Rethinking the Roles of the Faith Communities," "The Changing Face of the South: Rethinking Culture, Community and Politics." Hallelujah!

Drat. Where to start when after one spends an entire day in the company of (presumably) like-minded others working toward a coherent progressive future one wants only to crawl under the bed and lie there in the cool darkness away from the rest of humanity? It's too important and it's too dismaying. I left so ambivalent about the whole thing.

But let's start with the positive. Careful thinking, sound policy, a fair reading of the continuing impact/import of race, a willingness to connect and collaborate, a head-on approach to perceived failings of Dem movements, esp. around issues of faith, a decided lack of bitterness (ahem), and, last but not least, sense of humor. These are all good things. We have reasons to celebrate, for sure. But that's not what worries me. I'm never worried that the progressive vision is correct or based on sound policy or centered around a multiplicity of views. It is, undeniably. (Strategies and implementation of those policies can be debated, of course.)

I'm worried that there was not an explicit class analysis, that there was a too-heavy reliance on the example of the Civil Rights Movement as a movement of united faith communities*, that there was no media plan of attack. I wanted a discussion of the structural underpinnings of our battle to win hearts and minds and a Nielsen share. It's no longer "just the facts, ma'am." People have only so much use for facts; they need a philosophy, a worldview, a reason to contribute to the greater good. If the mantra is fear, fear, fear, no one can hear why sound tax policy makes sense for us all. They're too busy buying duct tape and scrimping so their kid can go to private school. What are we doing about this? Duct tape and private school are the symptoms of the Dem malaise. Why have people given up on public education? Why do we think Osama is going to bomb us in our beds? Where are the Dems? Why aren't we talking about equity and education as avenues to safety and success? Hello?

[*God bless the Civil Rights heroes. Of course we should take the lessons of the CR movement -- we'd be idiots not to -- but we're in a different age. We need to look forward, to devise strategies that work for a contemporary movement. People think we've conquered racism (sheesh), that people are in total control of their destinies; that corporations need defending, that the American Dream hasn't vanished. No. Faith is one way to get back to the people, but the church can do more and the people can do more. We would be well served to remember that MLK, Jr. was marching for workers' rights when he was killed in Memphis. He had to be brought around to the idea of marching for labor, and to his credit, he did come around. Class and race are inextricably bound, and maybe the Dems can take a page from John Edwards' popular "Two Americas" idea, for example.]

So why was I so depressed? We're in an overbooked two-day seminar in one of the Carolina Inn's bigger ballrooms, which is filled to capacity. We're talking about these things and acknowledging that we need to move forward. Blah blah blah. Maybe it's because there aren't many young people there; maybe it's because there isn't much actual strategizing going on; maybe it's because we're still getting our sealegs, and I just can't stand to think it. It's patently obvious that we do not have an overarching philosophy and we need one; lots of nice, young and/or old guard foot soldiers is wonderful, but no message and no way to convey it? We've got to get it together, pals. We need to say something and have it stick. We need an updated and savvy class analysis. This is how we bridge otherwise disparate groups with otherwise disparate (-seeming) "values" (e.g. black & white, urban & rural). We need our own version of Newspeak, which would be, you know, the truth. We need polemicists AND a TV news network. And I'm dead serious. I don't want to waste our time quibbling over whether we should have "our own FAUX News." "Our" F0X News wouldn't be F0X News. A partisan view does not necessitate craven disingenuousness and misleading the public. One can advocate for one's position, one can be partisan even, and have one's arguments based in material fact. And, actually, I'm advocating for an independent TV news network, one free from partisan taint. Can somebody please let me have $1 billion? I promise to use it for good.

There's so much more to be said, but I'm going to have to write this stuff down in some more meaningful way and send it to the conference sponsors if only to make myself feel better. I just can't stand the innocent goodness of coming together and everyone saying their piece and all of us feeling good about our multiculturalness and tolerance and high-minded appeals to the greater good while the other side loots the treasury, sets progress back another century, makes war, ravages the environment, puts forth a policy of deregulation above all, and does very real injury to the idea (and ideals) of democracy. It's heartbreaking. We have got to stop reassuring ourselves for our correctness and goodness and start strategizing and acting on a real vision of progressive values. Sigh.

So I spent the entire evening in a funk until db started intoning into his beer bottle in a faux-James Earl Jones voice, "Dingo, I am your faaathaa!" Ha.

President-for-Life Sheelzebub announces new competition for ministry titles

Pinko Feminist Hellcat (damn, why didn't I come up with that name?!) is assigning ministry posts in line with her position as President-for-Life Sheelzebub. As any good dictator would do, she is doing this out of the goodness of her avarice, greed, and megalomaniac tendencies. For cash money, baybee, so cough up the dough and get your very own Ministry! Me, I'm looking to head the Ministry of Polemical Farce, Political Art, and Poetical Arse.

The Crackers

I'm tempted, of course, to make a snide remark about the "Mayberry Machiavellis," but I'm too big for that, so nary a peep from me about these cracker-ass crackers running the country (into the ground). Somehow came across "The Crackers," and it had me giggling on and off all day Monday, and everyone's been passing it around all over the place, but it hasn't diminished my giggles. Every once in a while snarky humans fill my heart with snarky gladness. Crackers ... ha. They look so innocent lined up there in their little row on a wall, jauntily turned this way and that. I'm still giggling.

Hey, I'm all about public art, crackers included. I think The Gates are wonderful -- bright orange against February gray. That's lovely. And I'm a sucker for symmetry and scale. Big proportions, big thinking, a fleeting moment ... of course it expands minds and possibilities. I wonder who wouldn't go home thinking, Yeah, orange. And lots of it! Was it a dream? That can't be bad, can it?

To wit: db and I wanted our office to be bright and vibrant so it would be a warm space that we would want to read and write in, some place that would turn our minds on. So we painted it orange, and I'm talking orange, not some darlin' pale pastel orange-y color approved by the Greater Charleston Ladies' Auxiliary Garden Club Jubilee Committee on Interior Decorating Etiquette. [Yes, that could have been longer; you're lucky I stopped there. -- Sadist Ed.] Nope. Orange. Like a brilliant fireball, like the orangest orange you've ever seen, like cartoon pumpkin orange. it was so bright that we had to wear shades (not really, but it was veeery bright). And what happened? We loved it. Everybody loved it. Hands down. People came in and were like, Whoa! Oooooh. And we influenced a small but dedicated group of friends to seriously reconsider their home color palettes. All from one not very big orange-ass orange room. A whim. A thought, a small action, and there you go. Minds expanded before we can step in to refute them. Good on ya, orange.

So what if people think The Gates is pretentious. What is it pretending? What claim does it make? By all accounts the artists wanted to put something up -- a specific something in a specific place, they spent their own money to do it, and they engaged an entire city/country/world in their process. You can literally stand next to a stranger from your or another country and say, "I hate it," but you're standing outside with hundreds of other people engaged in a public space, having a public conversation. Feel free to hate it; feel free to say so. Works for me. I suspect that Christo and Jeanne-Claude would welcome it. Not surprisingly, I like my art to have a broader political commentary, but I'm down with purty, too. It ain't all eatin' your vegetables; there's time for chocolate cake. Big ol' public art. And little ol' snarky art. The Crackers are a great counter-commentary. Heehee.

I'm sad that I won't be able to see The Gates (or The Crackers) in person. I would have liked to; bad timing. Now the airlines have jacked their prices in a "You snooze, you lose, Philistines!" campaign to gouge those feeling the last-minute impulse to see it all for themselves. Hey, I resemble that remark. Checked today. It's like frickin' $350 to get to NYC this weekend. Pfft.

Neighborhood Watch?

A very loud helicopter is flying low overhead at 1 in the morning. I live in a neighborhood, an old one, one in which nothing that would require a helicopter could possibly be happening. Most of my neighbors have undboubtedly been asleep for hours. It's making its second pass overhead. The house (at least this room on the ground floor) is actually shaking it's flying so low. I can feel the rumble in my chest. The dingo doesn't like it. She's looking at me, but her ears are back like she's listening, trying to figure out what that booming whumpa-whumpa-whumpa sound is. She looks worried. It's further away now, but I can still hear it in the distance. The dingo has resituated herself and is now curled up sleeping again on the bed. I'm hot, half in, half out of the covers. db is sleeping but lightly; he keeps tossing and turning, not really awake. Tomorrow he won't remember anything, but he will be tired, a reminder of the restless night. I get a funny feeling when I hear a helicopter overhead. Why is that? I didn't grow up in a war zone. Must be all those years of watching M*A*S*H*.

Now much fainter but a low grumble in the distance persists. Now it sounds like something less worrisome, like a washing machine rumbling along the spin cycle. It's just barely in earshot. Odd.

The dingo has relaxed again and is looking at me expectantly.

The Tar Heel Tavern Is a Go!

Thanks to Bora at Science and Politics, the Tar Heel Tavern is taking off! NC friends, send your submissions in now.

Dang.

I was thinking about a Hunter S. Thompson quote about journalistic ethics and truth telling:

If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people - including me - would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

And this is what I wonder about constantly when I read the drivel, not even well-written, that passes for "journalism" in our nation's papers, including the so-called Paper of Record (pah). Here we all are (well, some of us) politely accepting that national/social/cultural fictions and rolling along as if what is clearly happening in front of our eyes (our "leader" is an idiot; this war of choice has failed; we've stranded our soldiers/youth/elderly/poor; those in power do not act in our interest, and on and on) is not happening or means something entirely different (dumbyass is in charge; we are winning the "war on terror"; we support our troops/opportunity abounds/the elderly will be protected/f*ck you, poor people, you don't vote; Halliburton/Enron/Worldcom need tax "relief" to give you jobs). It's sickening, and one did not have to agree with all Hunter S. Thompson did and said, and I surely didn't, to know that an original ass-kicking voice is gone. I'm sad but strangely buoyed, because the rabble-rousing, speaking-truth-to-power torch has been picked up by the blogging community and the light shines on. The "New Journalism," indeed.

R.I.P. Hunter S. Thompson. The Man hardly knew what hit him.

I know the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started.    -- Ernest Hemingway

$.05 + $.05: The Doctor is In

Dammit! It's mere minutes before midnight and, thus, the inevitable Next Day, and I have yet to note, with scintillating flair, of course, the happenings of Sat. and/or Sun. And, like, I'm staring down the barrel of Monday! This, eventually, is what turns me off about blogging. I always feel frickin' behind, as if every moment must be recorded. It obviously does not have to be, as I rarely do it, as no one else does either, as it is impossible (and none too desirable, frankly). I'm wondering if this strange feeling of needing to play catch-up is, at the root of it, just a desire to blog, regardless of quantity or quality (snort) of content? That is, it's not just my failure to record what "needs" to be recorded but my wish that I were typing away rather than doing the 2 jillion and one things necessary to be in a family, run a household, or Have a Life. Hmm. Mysteries of the Universe solved here for two nickels. A bargain at any price.

Geeks Rule; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blog

So, yeah, dial-up sucketh. It's now Friday, and I was able to get on the comp. a whopping 3 times today to check email and not much else. In-laws, beach time, and shopping commitments do not allow for much navel-gazing blog time.

It's a number of days after the first Chapel Hill Bloggers Meetup Wed. night at Caffe Driade -- again expertly organized by Anton. Thanks, Anton! -- and I still haven't commented on it. I almost didn't go, because I don't really think of myself as a blogger, though I suppose I like blogging well enough when it isn't causing me existential grief, writer's block, and to forget every tenet of the Slow Movement. Mostly I like other people's blogging. And for that reason, I thought I'd show up and hear what the locals had to say. Obviously I'm a little behind the 8-ball here. I wanted to jot my thoughts down on Wed., but off-comp life beckoned and there were Things To Be Done, and then it was late, and I was sucked into the world of plumcots. The next night had us driving to el beacho, and I was so worn out from the week and driving and work-related crap that I went to bed with db at 10:30. He was warm and, thus, my eyelids would not stay open. Then this morning, which would have provided me with the most ideal blog-time, as everyone was puttering around in their own morning routine, we had a 4-hour power outage.

The universe is thwarting me. Fine. It's bigger, and I can pick my battles. I'll just ... read.

Evidently the world is very concerned what Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are not doing together, John Negroponte has been appointed "Intelligence Czar" (oh, I could go a week on that phrase alone), because we apparently live in an ahistorical vacuum wherein bankrolling criminals to murder innocent people does not matter, and Alan Greenspan's just utterly given up being a person of his own mind. Alright, that's obviously enough reading for this month. Back to news hiatus to preserve sanity.

So, robust crowd on Wed. night at Caffe Driade where I hadn't been in years. I'd forgotten what a nice spot it was, and besides not being set up for wifi, it worked well. Anton's got the list of attendees. It was interestingly hi- and lo-tech and we moved easily from topic to topic. Some folks knew each other already, but many others, like me, were first-timers. The camaraderie was apparent, and it bode well for future meetings. There was a nice serendipitous moment when Dave and Bernard realized that Bernard uses Dave's blogging software at the National Cancer Institute. Wonderful. It was nice to see everyone so excited about the promise of blogging. And spending any evening in the company of people who state baldly that one of their goals is community-building is A-OK with me. I wish I'd taken more careful notes, but I was soaking it all in and failed to note all the stuff I did not know. Next time. Y'all be there or be L7.

P.S. Corey, send me a picture of your pup! =)