arse poetica

Xmas Glimpses

[L] A tree the beasties actually didn't knock over or into. Hmmm.

[R] Rainy Xmas day makes for a rained on Dingo. How is it possible that she is even cuter wet?

[L] The Xmas booty reading/watching pile grows! Y'all let me know if you want to borrow one of these. It's going to take me a minute to get through them. db's already put a hurtin on the Jeff Tweedy DVD, which is his present.

[R] My two fave ornaments -- the monkey and the disco angel. That disco angel rules and I wish I had a black one, too. Then I would name them Diana Ross and Rhianna Doss. =)  Another fave not pictured: the googly-eyed octopus. Awesomeness incarnate.

The Devil Reveals His Hand

A little wishful projection maybe? Please, please, deities, let a conviction come down the pike. What if it were possible that justice could be done? What if we had leaders who lead, leaders with integrity and conviction and strength of purpose, leaders who actually did the will of the people, intelligent leaders. What if.

Cheney hails Ford's pardon of Nixon.

Ford's decision to pardon Richard Nixon, so divisive at the time that it probably cost him the 1976 election, was dealt with squarely in his funeral services by his old chief of staff, Vice President Dick Cheney.

"It was this man, Gerald R. Ford, who led our republic safely though a crisis that could have turned to catastrophe," said Cheney, speaking in the Capitol Rotunda where Ford's body rested. "Gerald Ford was almost alone in understanding that there can be no healing without pardon."

Dealt w/ squarely, hunh? Nice story you're selling there, Dick, but I'm not buying.

Seems Ford was so alone in understanding that that he himself was unaware of his intention. Let's hear what Ford had to say on the subject:

"I looked upon him as my personal friend. And I always treasured our relationship. And I had no hesitancy about granting the pardon, because I felt that we had this relationship and that I didn't want to see my real friend have the stigma," Ford said in the interview.

That acknowledgment represents a significant shift from Ford's previous portrayals of the pardon that absolved Nixon of any Watergate-related crimes. In earlier statements, Ford had emphasized the decision as an effort to move the country beyond the partisan divisions of the Watergate era, playing down the personal dimension.

Well, lookee here. Seems that the nation's healing was not tops on Ford's list. Shocking! So why the need to sell us this story of national healing when we could really have used a national clean sweep of criminals in our highest office? I wonder.

Makes me wonder, too, why the rush by the Dems after the November sweep to reassure the criminals in power that impeachment was off the table? Hmmm. Government of the people, by the people, for the people, my ass.

Let's all do our country a favor and 1) quit making heroes out of shills and 2) prosecute white collar criminals who damage the republic. Else, all these positive ideals of the country's founding will be just a quaint, historical fluke.

Can the World Diminish Masculine Violence?

Posing the question in this way is a start. So much of the world is seen/taken as "the way it is," as if nebulous, unknowable forces dictated generic action and violence, victimization, and social control were not highly gendered. If only. The reality is that men kill, assault, and control women (and children and other men) in a patriarchal system enforced by sexual violence. (Of course, other forces come into play to reinforce the power structure like corporate capitalism and religion, to name two hegemonic biggies.) Therefore, for women and children and other men to be safe, men, individually and as a class, need to take responsibility for stopping rape, forced pregnancy, murder, and war. Why is there such a taboo against recognizing and calling out the system under which we all suffer?

Guardian Unlimited | Big Questions 2007.

Gloria Steinem, feminist

Can the world diminish masculine violence?

From female infanticide and genital mutilation to domestic violence and rape as a weapon of war, six million female lives are lost each year just because they are female. At least 80% of today's slaves on the global market - conservatively estimated to be 12 million, more than during the 19th century slave trade - are women and girls.

The major way to diminish violence is to empower a critical mass of females to protect ourselves and become decision-makers so violence is de-normalised. This is the deepest, anthropological remedy for violence and we've never needed it more than we do now.

Stop female genital mutilation.

End domestic violence. Also, Family violence prevention fund. Also, Domestic violence hotlines and resources.

Men can stop rape.

End human trafficking.

Stop violence against women = Support women's rights.

P.S. Gloria Steinem is many things -- journalist, writer, activist, publisher, one of the loves of my life -- but I love that her title here is 'feminist.' I have got to get on the ball so one day mine can be the same. That's the coolest thing I've seen in ages. Plus, Buddha bless her for talking about anthropological remedies. Why this woman does not run things, I'll never know. Feh.

Barbarism

Sometimes I really do despair for humanity. I sure hope there is a grand(er) scheme somewhere somehow someway, because we sure as shit seem to be fine tuning our baser instincts down here.

A stolen election to install an imbecilic figurehead.
A fabricated threat to cynically capitalize on a nation's fear.
An illegal war: the triumph of thuggery and the irrelevance of history.
An unconscionable occupation.
Hundreds of thousands dead.
A dictator captured, mission photo-op accomplished.
A second stolen election to cement fraudulent figurehead thug's executive privilege, making fat cats fatter, future wars inevitable, and history whatever the victors (whoever they are) deem it.
After a mock trial, a thug is hanged by thugs while imbecilic figurehead thug makes bleating noises about justice. Good luck, Iraq, in building a democracy from the ashes of that.

And what? We're supposed to celebrate? F*cking barbarism. This might as well be the Middle Ages.

Saddam Hussein hanged: Iraqi official.

UPDATED 12.30.06 w/ illuminating photo of BFFs Rumsfeld and Hussein.

2000 Million Years

AAAAAaaaaaaaaiaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyggggggggggggghhhhhhkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhtttttttttttt!

(pant pant, deep breath)

AAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Park Service Can't Give Official Age Of Grand Canyon For Fear Of Offending Creationists....

Due to pressure from Bush Administration officials, the National Park Service is not permitted to give an official age for the Grand Canyon. Additionally, a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood is for sale at the National Park's bookstore.

The sale of Grand Canyon: A Different View was scheduled for review over three years ago, but no such review has been scheduled or even requested. The creationist book was the only item approved for sale in 2003 (22 other items were rejected).

I simply cannot speak, so please insert cursing, throwing things, staring in slack-jawed disbelief, revisiting that quaint old document -- what's it called again? oh yeah -- the Constitution of these here United Benighted States, tearing hair out, and/or googling "how to learn swedish in 1000 difficult lessons" here.*

[*In honor of my oft-frantic googling re: my fantasy homeland, as spurred on by insanity of this sort, I've added a new category to arse po. Please see below.]

What If We Saw Love All the Time?

Yeah.

First Day of My Life.

Friday Beastie Blogging

The holidays have plum tuckered us out.

Tempus Fugitive

I mean, is it just me? This headline is comedy, right? No one could read it w/ a straight face.

Bush Taking More Time to Craft Iraq Plan.

pResident Bush worked nearly three hours at his Texas ranch on Thursday to design a new U.S. policy in Iraq, then emerged to say that he and his advisers need more time to craft the plan he'll announce in the new year.

Three whole hours? A banner year for Dim Son! He'd better go back on vacation, get some rest. Presidentin' is hard.

Can somebody please find me a Republican to yell at? This dim bulb, cowpoke hero of theirs defies all logic, reason, sanity, decency....

Should We Mourn Gerald Ford?

Not so much. [Where, pray tell, are the truthtellers in the broadcast media?]

Gerald Ford, Unsentimentally.

Let’s look at Gerald Ford’s record.

The first thing he did was to pardon Richard Nixon, even though ten days previously he had said that the special prosecutor should proceed against “any and all individuals” and a year before, he averred that “I do not think the public would stand for it.”

The pardon short-circuited the necessary prosecution of Nixon, which would have served as a salutary check on future inhabitants of the Oval Office. Instead, the pardon set a precedent for such flagrant lawbreakers as we have in the White House today.

If impeachment of Bush and Cheney may be just a remote possibility, prosecution and incarceration remain inconceivable. And so Bush and Cheney, thanks to Ford, can float comfortably above the law.

On domestic policy, Ford was a standard issue Republican, vetoing social spending bills, cutting food stamps and housing and education programs, infamously denying aid to New York City while all the while boosting Pentagon spending. And, in a move Bush and Cheney would have applauded, he proposed the nation’s first official secrets act to provide criminal penalties for the unauthorized disclosure of classified material.

On foreign policy, Ford was damnable.

Read on.

I greatly appreciate this author's assetion that there is something profoundly undemocratic about the sort of mandatory salutes we are expected to offer recently deceased presidents. The disgusting hagiography that ensued at Reagan's death was almost impossible to stomach, and I can barely tune in for the somber intoning re: Ford's passing.

Ford's tenure predates my political consciousness; I was not that precocious a toddler. My only sense of him is via the history books. I'd sum him up as: Affable fellow, shill. And what's to respect about that, friends? Was he the original "drink a beer w/ him" president? What good did that EVER bring us? Maybe Ford's legacy should (have) be(en) a warning to us to take all of this more seriously. Jesus.

Hotter Than Your Average Bear

Things must be bad at their absolute nadir if these BushCo. idiots actually have to make a public gesture in defense of animals and contrary to their campaign contributors' interests. In less deceitful, unbossed circles this would be known simply as doing the right thing.

Agency Proposes to List Polar Bears as Threatened.

The Interior Department proposed Wednesday to designate polar bears as a threatened species, saying that the accelerating loss of the Arctic ice that is the bears’ hunting platform has led biologists to believe that bear populations will decline, perhaps sharply, in the coming decades.

The Interior Department proposed designating polar bears as a threatened species. The bears’ population is 20,000 to 25,000.

Many experts on the Arctic say that global warming is causing the ice to melt and that the warming is at least partly the result of the atmospheric buildup of heat-trapping gases from tailpipes and smokestacks. The plight of the polar bear has been held up by environmentalists as a symbol of global warming caused by humans.

But in a conference call with reporters, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said that although his decision to seek protection for polar bears acknowledged the melting of the Arctic ice, his department was not taking a position on why the ice was melting or what to do about it.

While the Bush administration “takes climate change very seriously and recognizes the role of greenhouse gases in climate change,” Mr. Kempthorne said, it was not his department’s job to assess causes or prescribe solutions. “That whole aspect of climate change is beyond the scope of the Endangered Species Act,” he added.

Cowards! Reckless, wanton shills. They ruin everything they touch. And Dirk Kempthorne's just the next corrupt yes-man reckless wanton shill in a long line of them in the Republican party.

Please, American people, please. The republic, let alone the earth it inhabits, is not invincible no matter what the mythmakers trumpet and how many flags we fly. Please don't let this happen again.