Cobb

National Geographic

I've got a clever idea that might make me rot in Gehenna. Every time I hear stories about Border Patrol agents playing catch and release with the Southern Millions, the same idea comes into my head. Tag 'em. Why not just insert a little chip into them and watch their migrating patterns?

The triple fence at Tijuana is pretty much impregnable for rookie trekkers. Only the experienced body traffickers know how to get through. These coyotes are making 500-800 dollars a head with no guarantees. Man that's a hot cash business. But who knows who is moving whom and where? Well, that's a job for GPS implants and Star Wars software. I mean tracking a million objects can't be that difficult can it?

Did I say 'objects'? Am I dehumanizing? Oopsie. I have all kinds of ideas about what we should do. But first we ought to determine what we can do.

Aside from that opportunity, I have a difficult time believing that no BP agents haven't flipped a coyote for the bucks. There's a huge dislocation here and that means lots of money, danger and risk. It's an environment certain to generate unscrupulous profits and bureacratic inefficiencies. Interesting work for the right guy. I think this is going to be the scandal of the future. It's probably happening right now and we're just not getting political wind of it - like drug confiscation seizures. And the Southern Millions have no legal representation nor recourse I bet. All that to live in Arizona. Tsk.

Maya Who?

It turns out that Maya Keyes, if photos are to be believed is a hottie for girls. Her dad is that famous Republican always a candidate never an officeholder Alan Keyes. So what? Exactly. I will note this however, it's a lot easier to be against the evils of abortion when you know your daughter can't get pregnant.

I saw that episode of 'Rescue Me', and I understand.

Fishbone, Monk & Mingus

Back in the day, while I was still Talented Tenth but not yet through the more radical phases of Black Mental Liberation, I used to wonder what kind of white man I would resemble. In every black man's vocab is found 'cool white boy', although these days on XBox Live I more often hear 'white niggas'. Be that as it may, at one point or another I believe all of us think about trading skins.

This is different from trading places, it's just the whole what would I look like if I was white and still the same person. Naturally, one would be a 'cool white boy'. So after some time engaging in this fantasy I finally figured out the type I would want to look like, if I had the reverse Watermelon Man power. It turned out to be Eddie Rabbit. I thought about this yesterday upon seeing a picture of Sir Richard Branson because he has that same kind of look, at least to me. The other person who has it is Chuck Norris. Redford has it now but he had always been just too pretty. So there you have it. I would have a kind of redheaded, blue-eyed weatherbeaten cowboy look and very likely to be wearing facial hair.

Since I haven't thought about this for a long time, over 20 years in fact, it surprised me when I went to the Charlie Hunter & Bad Plus concert to see how the fashion has changed from the 1980 version of Eddie Rabbit. See the house was packed, but there were only 3 black heads in the room - one of them Hunter's drummer.  The rest of the young hipsters have a look I now know but not well enough to describe in their own argot. Yet it reminded me of how I often felt way back in the day at Fishbone concerts.

Fishbone is the black rock & roll band. If you don't know who they are, I would say that your understanding of modern rock is severely crippled, especially if you think the Red Hot Chili Peppers have any talent. Fishbone and the Peppers were the hottest bands in LA back in '84. Both have lasted to this day, one in the sun of popularity the other in shadow. If Fishbone has a flaw it is that they never had a song that girls would like to dance to. Or put another way, back in the days when there was Wendy O Williams and everybody else, there weren't many chicks who'd accompany you to the mosh at a Fishbone concert. A black girl? Perish the thought. There were maybe 5 out of 3000, three were with the band, one didn't know where she was and I married the fifth.

Where is Fishbone today? I have no idea. Fish was one of the greatest rock drummers ever. But the point is that they were out there in territory that aint mainstream, nor even mainstream black.

To the extent that one's identity comes from this modern sense of affiliation and fan loyalty, not to mention inspiration, it has always been somewhat disconcerting to me that we black rockers were dipped in the buttermilk. It wasn't that we minded our company, but that we were alienated from our homes and homeboys. Then again, isn't that what much music is all about? Fishbone was all about too much energy for cool. They weren't smooth. They were happy rage.

Being a part of the Fishbone world put me on the edge, if not the outs with the Talented Tenth. And my love for them, as well as for the angular crankiness of Monk and Mingus is part of the reasons I consider myself on the progressive edge of the previously proud group formerly known as the Talented Tenth.

Pops is about to put together a seminar on Monk and Mingus. So he asked me to whip him up a DVD full of mp3s. I have just shy of seven hours of recordings. I also have the 'Straight No Chaser' video, and I swear it's still a marvel to watch Monk play 'Just a Gigolo' solo.

If alienation and rebellion are part and parcel of brilliance, then it means a great deal for the individual. And yet what is a concert but a gathering of individuals who are different from the world in the same way? One cannot help but look around to see who else shares the love. We can all buy the same T-shirt, but then we spread out and disappear into the interstices of modern life.

No conclusion...

Black Jews

Today is Sukkot, I think.

I listened at length to an interesting inside story about a Jewish cat who found the equivalent of a Jewish Almanac which had references dating back about 350 years. He is using it to help wayward Jews find their way back to knowing Sukkot and other holidays as more than just dates on a calendar.

It immediately occured to me, as such parallels do, that 350 years is the kind of authenticity we modern Americans drool over. So it comes as no surprise that this cat made it to NPR's radio show. But it didn't escape my notice, as he began describing the feeling of connectedness that this newfound old knowledge game him, that it sounds precisely like what blackfolks are often found wanting. I know, having represented, how cavalierly some folks have dismissed Kwanzaa as a wannabe Jewish holiday. I take their point, but only so far.

As the Jewish cat rambled on about the significance of doing things just like the enslaved Isrealites, my tolerance hit a wall. Nobody really wants to be an Isrealite slave. Reenactments are so bourgie, and modern. What we want is the feeling of home and belonging. Everybody wants that, and especially wayward Jews and American blacks. But can anyone really trace their bloodline back to the house of Levi? That's very dubious for the overwhelming majority. What Jews have, after all is said and done, is their faith. Faith is learned. Those who do, get. So as you can imagine, I began to become slightly peeved at this cat whose newfound pride had him representing the Israelites, kinda like Whitney Houston at the Slave Castles.

So what have Jews got that blacks don't? It's a dumb comparison that everyone keeps doing. It's the slavery thing, it's the political thing. There is supposed to be the special bond that Jesse Jackson famously unmade for us way back when the Rainbow Coalition was still something of a good idea. But the fact is that Jews have nothing blacks don't, culturally speaking, because whatever Jews can get by faith, blacks can too. Just join your local synagogue.

Huh? What?

There's something slightly unbelievable about a 40 year old man receiving First Communion in the Catholic Church, but there is nothing unserious about it. I don't see why it is that Evangelical Christians should get all those who 'get it' later in life. Furthermore, there are so many different degrees and sects of Judaism, there must certainly be one ready for new converts. Considering how many slacking Modern, Reformists for Jesus there are (if you believe the Lubavichers) it's a wonder that more folks don't take to Judaism. Well, I can see why certain whitefolks might think they have something to lose, but for blackfolks that might not apply.

As for me, I'm rather devout to the church of American Black History, so I've always looked at our acceptance of our Africanness not so much as a necessary recovery but as a global cosmopolitanism. There was a time when I considered myself a New World African, never so much as when I was dating an Afro-European within a year of my first trip to Europe. It was a Diaspora thing and she did a lively business in Kente and Mud Cloth. But that was then. The point is that I'm hardly looking for that ineffable something that Jews supposedly have 'over' us putatively 'rootless' blackfolks. I know my family tree back 7 generations. That kind of kills a lot of longing for me - and I think the more one knows one's family the more ideological Black Nationalism suffers, but I digress.

For those who need a groove and something a bit more historically weighty than Kwanzaa.com, the Jewish faith should be wide open. So consider it.

More Dirt on DeLay

I could almost be sympathetic to people who call us Repugnicans after hearing today's interview with the new biography of Tom DeLay. On Fresh Air, author Lou Dubose lays it flat. DeLay is an ugly character whose strongarm tactics have materially degraded the democratic function of Congress.

It's worth noting loudly that a cowering, bootlicking House Ethics Committee is partially responsible for letting DeLay get away with parliamentary murder. It is also worth noting that Newt Gingrich, whom I've had plenty time to re-evaluate much to the positive, got snookered by DeLay. Had Gingrich's man won against DeLay, we'd have a more robust Congress today. Ironically, it was Gingrich's insistence on Committee Chair term limits that paved the road for money to do things in Washington pretty much the way it does things in Las Vegas.

I am somwhat astonished at the revelations but not completely surprised. I've been wondering where all the backbone of Congress has gone in these post-911 days. Now I'm starting to question with a jaundiced eye, rather than simply a skeptical one, the non-activities of the Congress. I'll put it this way; if a character like Kerry is what you get after n-terms we ought to know that something is radically wrong. The effect of the polarization is clear and the blame falls on the party leadership. Our Congress seems to have lost its capacity for rational debate, and the freshman Republicans beholden to DeLay have served as an example of dogs showing their bellies. So the next time I hear somebody use the phrase 'activist judge' I'm throwing a pie.

This opens a new chapter for me with regard to my views of Republican politics. I was quite correct to take Armey's side before, but with the news of the new Indian Gaming scandal with Abramoff and Scanlon, I'm more determined than ever to see this ass put down.

I don't know if he's got his trackback working, but I suspect that Richard Morrison is about to get launched. I hope so anyway.

More Work Talk

After, or during a long day slaving over hot algorithms and queries, the last thing I want to blog about is work. In fact, I've probably talked more about crap I have absolutely no clue about than things that I'm probably world class in, which is OLAP and data warehousing.

These days I'm getting a little fed up with having this blog be of no use in spreading the word and working with work. Since my mind is made up about this upcoming election and I really don't think that people who are undecided should even bother, I'm not going to take up much more space on that tip until after the election. Plus P6 and I get to kiss and make up. So starting today I'm going to start blogging about OLAP and DW, which may be a very uncompelling subject, but...

But I have work for people who are interested in this very cool field and you all need to be aware that I have a little bit of moving and shaking ability. My little business, Metro Decisions is ready willing and able to start responding to the interest in the field, and quite frankly I am really tired of telling the recruiters and agents that call me every week: "Sorry, I'm booked and I don't know anybody who is available to work now."

If you're interested. Start talking. Right here. Right now. There's lucrative work sitting undone and several industries which are untouched by some truly cool technology that I'm trying to bring. My other site, CubeGeek.com can use a little assistance so I'm goosing it here. You can see all of the jobs referrals that I get. I will continue to post them there and perhaps refer to them here. This will make Cobb a bit more boring, but it can lead to economic happiness.

By the way, I'm also getting into more traditional web development stuff as well, so if you're ready to talk that, let's do it.

Immigration Reconsidered

It has been a while since I've thought about Victor Davis Hanson, but the time is rolling around. Immigration is likely to be the next thing I start thinking about. My mind is made up about the continuing struggle in Iraq, so as prompted by Michael Savage yesterday, I think I'll reconsider immigration.

There have been a million Mexicans per year entering this country. That's an astounding number. We've got to reconcile our laws and policy with our economy, and we've got to make Mexico accoutable.

Cool Kids Games

I've just discovered a blogger out of Iowa who has some pretty cool kids games posted up on his blog. Check them out. I especially like 'Muscle Man'.

Bring an over-sized sweatshirt for each team. Also bring about 10-15 small balloons for every 4 kids in your group. Have each team choose a guy representative or use leaders, and ask them to put on the sweatshirt. The object is to make a “muscle man” by blowing up, tying and stuffing as many balloons into the shirt of the guy until he is as “muscular” as possible. Give them about 2 minutes. Determine the winner by a panel of judges. The first guy to break all his balloons by himself is also declared a winner.

When I become 'Uncle Mike', my all time winner at birthday parties is the Crusty Crab Race. The key is crabwalking. Get a kid to sit on the floor with their feet in front of them, knees bent, and their palms flat on the floor. Then they lift themselves up leaving their arms straight and pushing their hips up. This is the basic crab position. Now crawl. Try forwards and backwards. Try sideways. If they're really good, try elephant crabbing where one side is in the air at once instead of corners. You can do sprints, laps and relays. Hands get nice and dirty. Kids love it.

Optimism

I Can See My House From Here

What could possibly be cooler than Terraserver? This: CaliforniaCoastline.org. Just in case you wondered, this is Redondo Beach, where I chill at the crib.

The Home Network

I'm about to build out a few more pieces of my home network and I'd like to discuss it here generally with folks. Software, hardware, networks. What do you have? What do you like? What's next for your setup?

For me, I've always wanted to build an entire batcave at my place. I just finished installing two new P3-800 Dells that I got used for 145 bucks a pop. They're running wireless (G) off a WAP secured Linksys router which is inside a wired router which is inside Adelphia cable modem.

I'm running an XBox and 2 other servers, both Win2k Server. Plus my pride and joy, a black 3Ghz Shuttle running XP Pro SP2 with no problems. My laptop is on life support but I was just about to replace it with a new Think Pad T42.

Next I want to get a nice Linux box or two. I'm likely to get another cheap Dell P3, or upgrade one of my Win2K boxes to a two way Dell Precision and use that. I've played around with Red Hat most of the time, but now there's this new Fedora thing. I've got a set of Mandrake disks lying around - I got them with the Shuttle. What's Gentoo? I've got an image of the free Solaris as well.

My Linux box is strictly for hobby and fun - to have all the fun tools and whatnot. When I need a real one, for a development environment, I'll know which brand to get. I have yet to be impressed with any Linux desktop, but I'll tell you what. If there's one that can use a Radeon board and play DVDs in the background with translucent windows on top, I'll definitely consider that. Something with customizeable themes that I could run a couple different monitors on - that would be for me.

Also, is there any reason in the world for me to play with OSX or is this strictly a Mac fetish?

No I Didn't Feel It

Things are perfectly normal and boring in LA. I didn't feel the earthquake.

Defiance Deferred

I've been thinking about what I might do if I were kidnapped and prepared for beheading.

For the longest time, predating this crisis, I was confident that I would be defiant. I would find some clever way of disguising my voice and dropping hints that I would be glad to be sacrificed for the cause of my captors. In fact, the model of the voice I would use would be that of Robert Townsend's Stepin Fetchit from the film 'Hollywood Shuffle'. Every American would instantly know that I was acting, although my captors would not.

My presumption was "Never get caught." Of course I would abandon all hope if I did, and my only hope would be that I was wearing a cellphone that could be traced. Bomb this location would be my call. I'd want Americans to take out the bastards who took me out. But no more.

Now I am so contemptuous that I wouldn't be caught in the same hemisphere as those rogues in their rogue nations. I don't want to sacrifice jack. I believe there are things called 'standoff weapons'. That's what I want to do, stand off to the side and lob shells.

I find myself, in recognition of the exaggerated cesspool American reporters claim Iraq to be, increasingly irritated at those elements who have demonstrated their ability to wreak havoc. It is part of my growing awareness of our interconnectedness as humans. I was thinking yesterday, in light of some of the fabulous opportunities I have been offered lately, exactly what it is that makes me worth now at the age of 43 that I was lacking 5 years ago. It is that sense of the preciousness of human interrelations. I am loathe to let people get away from me unrecognized. We all need each other, and I do feel this profoundly. Just as profoundly however is the understanding of the social contract which undergirds this basic need. Our disposition to each other is based upon a very loose trust, one which is rarely verified, that we will do each other no harm. Breaking that social contract can be unforgiveable.

What is astounding is that whole tribes of people can behave so reprehensibly that destruction of the social contract is an everyday occurrance. I am told that kidnapping of Iraqis by Iraqis is so commonplace that they take joy that Europeans and Americans are suffering likewise. I hardly believe half what I am told of Iraq, but it is difficult to explain the continuing chaos could persist and deepen without the moral capitulation of the majority of the nation's men. There is, of course, the important proviso that the Iraqi Army has been scattered to the four winds and perhaps it takes a lot more work to make in the Sunni Triangle what has been maintained in Kurish Mosul. But the capitulation is undeniable.

I don't want to be anywhere near there. My life is not for sacrifice, although I certainly understand and respect those who soldier in my stead. I am one of those who cannot stomach the destruction of society, I rage at the rip of the social fabric. I would overkill.

Today I am despondant that our journalists are mostly of my type. And I find it difficult to believe that their organizations are capable of putting them where those of us who take democracy seriously would need them to be. I want a War Channel, all battlefield coverage all the time. I want to see from Iraq what I see on 'Cops' and 'Americas Wildest Police Chases'. I want cameras and eyeballs on the ground watching these 'insurgents' ply their brutal trade. I want a soldier's eye view of what it's like to stand post in New Barbaria. I want to see the Humvee chase of the mad mullahs. But we won't see that, because most American journalists are bourgie like me. Perhaps like me they used to be ready for sacrifice, but how will we ever know? They just talk about car bombings. They're scared to cover them.

Iraq has been dark for a long time. I always assume that the fog of war is somewhat impenetrable. We know we've won. We know there's chaos. We know our own body counts. What some Americans don't know, or refuse to acknowledge, is how we are showing ourselves to be a great country. How our president has forced some of us to sacrifice for the greater order of Iraq - to give them the opportunity to repair their social fabric. It's going to take a long time for them to organize and muster their courage and beat down their own barbarians. But it will inevitably be worth it. Those of us who hold human interrelations sacred understand that implicitly.

BSOD

I have encountered the Blue Screen of Death.

Please Standby.

That is That and This is This

Mumbling aloud here.

The predominating theme is too much work, not enough help, not enough time. I need to meet more people like me who can do the kind of work I get offered but cannot possibly do on my schedule. But that woman on whose finger I put five diamonds told me to forget about all that an have another martini. At least I made one good choice.

The house is clean; the boy is with his cousin on his way to Raging Waters with Uncle Deet. We dropped the sisters off at Kids Night at the Y and then immediately headed to the bar at Claim Jumper. The new game I'm going to play is see how many olives I can cadge off the bartender. The less I respect them, the more I'll get. Tonight was a seven. Meanwhile the seared ahi was bomb-like and the shrimp was very nice.

Previously I put together a foundling desk that M10 and the spousal unit rescued from God knows where. A couple L brackets and a nicely bruised thumb later, voila. A desk for the kids' new Dell. As I rant on against the digital divide, I understand that those who are information poor still think they have to purchase from Best Buy, while us penny pinching snots get ours for $145 a pop at Computer Show Dot Com. Nobody needs more thatn 800MHz. Nobody needs more than 6 cylinders. Nobody needs more than 3 bedrooms. Them Joneses is wack, fuck 'em.

It turns out that things are looking up in the music department. Truth be told, Charlie Hunter was eclipsed by The Bad Plus in real life and his 'Friends Unseen' CD wasn't all that hot either. I guess if you don't see him play, it doesn't seem so incredible, but this was also a piss poor recording, muddy as a swamp. Consequently, only the blues tunes sounded good. But Paco de Lucia is delivering on his two CDs in the recently recieved Amazon pack. Right after I publish this badboy, it's off to James Earl Jones' King Lear. Holy smokes it looks captivating. Oh. By the way Modest Mouse' second single is on MTV. I'm so pleased.

I cannot recommend highly enough that you arrive slightly toasted to see 'Shaun of the Dead'. You'll enjoy it that much more, not that you wouldn't but instead of it being merely hilarious, you'll throw up laughing. Maybe it's just me, but everything seems so much funnier if you feel you must stifle vomit. Think '28 Days Later' played completely for laughs. It seems that the Brits have all the wit these days, and yes it's subtly funny. Put it on the level of 'Clerks'.

Did I mention how difficult it is to unzip your jeans after you've slammed your thumb with a hammer? You could piss your pants if you're not careful. You realize of course I'm going to be completely nuts this weekend. I still have friggen work to do. Poorman gets included in a college seminar and I'm wasting time being serious? Ha. From now on, weekends are made for Michelob.

Anyway, I hear King Lear ends bad, but I want to see it anyway. Later.

The Impluse

"When the world gets too much to carry
And when life becomes to bizarre
And all my friends seem ordinary
As compared to the Rastafar"
-- Bobby Caldwell

You don't understand. I'm a writer. I do other things for fun, but I am most happy when I am turning a phrase.

Before online, I was the guy sitting in the coffee shop or the cafe ignoring everybody around him and scribbling notes on a quadrille pad. When I wasn't writing, I was reading. And I'd be sitting in the middle of a crowd and asking myself what the chances were that speaking to that woman would be more fruitful than reading another stanza of Borges. Like Borges I dreamed a world and lived in that dreamworld.

Nobody wants to sit and listen to me talk. The impulse to share what's on my mind with the person next to me has been completely sublimated and transformed to a complex and subtle level of impenetrable socialization. Furthermore, I'm not interested in what you have to say because you'll be entirely incapable of saying it in a way that would magnetize readers to the page. I'll hear your story out and then make it connect in my nearly infinite reperatoire.

Furthermore, I am an outcast writer. It would be more accurate to say that I am beneath contempt of writers because like the curly blondes that escape the bikini lines of Baywatch babes, I spit this stuff out naturally with an effort which is asymptotic to digestion. Every attention I get from not working hard is a spike in the palms of those who write to be paid. If I never get paid for this verbiage, I will not have failed. I'm not anxious. I'm oblivious to literary criticism; I've only bothered to capitalize in the past two years.

I am reconciled to this. I expect almost nothing. I am satisfied to have the entire blog, the entire online set of works just to remind me of what I've already said. Maybe one day I'll rate an anthropologist, but I don't hope for it. I am a pack rat of ideas. I am a transcriber of transient impressions. I am an archivist of syllogisms. I am a time traveler with earlier and later selves and writing is my time machine.

I'll only have 4 or 5 brilliant ideas in my life. People will get sick of listening to me in due time. But I still think that I'm better than Ethel Mertz.

When life becomes too bizarre, when people are focused on the ridiculous and I don't feel like grabbing their attention on this plane - on the Cobbian, upper middle class doohicky voice - then maybe I'll go back to creative writing. So I was thinking about, and actually jumped into that voice for a hot minute this afternoon before you asked me to discover the joys of cooking. I'm not going to finish it today because my hands are sweaty. I just found out that my two new Dells are on the FedEx truck, plus I have a date at the Whale and Ale tonight. Still, there's novels in there to be written when I get sick of SQL and Perl.

You wanna see some?

Jerry Orbach

OK you would have never convinced me in a million years, but it's true. Jerry Orbach who just retired from Law & Order's Lt. Briscoe is the same Jerry Orbach who was the voice of Lumiere in 'Beauty & The Beast'.

Yes, the little Frenchy candlestick who sings 'Be Our Guest' is Jerry Orbach. Well blow me down.

DJ Six0Seven

I'm thinking about doing something else as a hobby in the mid-term. That may be going back to the basics and playing an instrument, or it may be just mastering the electronics. I'm not really sure.

What I do know is there's a kind of music that I would like to hear a bit more of - or perhaps I should say that it's something I never tire of. It has a lot to do with Charlie Hunter, but I'll get back to him later. Basically when Sade does a tune with a hiphop beat, that's what I'm talking about - a funked up Cafe Del Mar, or a Laswell that doesn't trip entirely too hard. That's where Sixoseven music is, carrying weight for the cool of the future. Funk, ambient, hiphop and torchy blues.

It turns out that there are two layers of hope. The first is that Turntablism is ramping up. I'm hopefull that I have the fingers for it and I'm pretty sure that I have the theory. I found a couple of interesting docs. This is the TTM. I don't know how widely adopted it is, but it seems pretty cool. Now I jumped all over hiphop for not getting out of the street, but it looks like some of that is happening for real. The creation of a language that allows turntablism to be transcribed, that's what I'm talking about.

The second inno is that digital turntables are serious business now. I got to get one of those puppies.

Einstein's Negro

Care of Art McGee

There is, however, a somber point in the social outlook of Americans. Their sense of equality and human dignity is mainly limited to men of white skins. Even among these there are prejudices of which I as a Jew am clearly conscious; but they are unimportant in comparison with the attitude of the "Whites" toward their fellow-citizens of darker complexion, particularly toward Negroes. The more I feel an American, the more this situation pains me. I can escape the feeling of complicity in it only by speaking out.

Many a sincere person will answer: "Our attitude towards
Negroes is the result of unfavorable experiences which
we have had by living side by side with Negroes in this
country. They are not our equals in intelligence, sense
of responsibility, reliability."

I am firmly convinced that whoever believes this suffers
from a fatal misconception. Your ancestors dragged these
black people from their homes by force; and in the white
man's quest for wealth and an easy life they have been
ruthlessly suppressed and exploited, degraded into slavery.
The modern prejudice against Negroes is the result of the
desire to maintain this unworthy condition.

---Albert Einstein
"The Negro Question", 1946

Trauma

There's a big stink over the imminent closure of the Trauma Center of the twentysomething MLKJr Hospital down in the ghetto. It would be the 6th Tramua Center closed in LA County in the past couple of years. The others were due to budget irresponsibility, this is due to incompetence.

It seems to me that if a hospital is incompetent, the ER should be the last thing you close down. It's the thing the community needs the most. Not just because its a ghetto, but because most people don't need to be hospitalized, they just need to see a doctor. On the other hand, if you've been critically injured, there's no quicker way to kill you than in an incompetent ER.

So the question is would you rather see an incompetent doctor who is 10 minutes away or a competent doctor 40 minutes away. That depends on where you've been shot or how small your automobile was when it wrecked. The LA County Board of Supervisors, whose call this is, are going for quality over quantity, and hoping beyond hope that more people don't get wrecked or shot.

It's a crapshoot.

One thing I've learned as I've followed this is that the more ERs you close, the higher the murder rate of the city goes. More people die who might have lived.

Semper Pol

Kerry the Emissary

I listened to Kerry spew out his new soundbites against the 'arrogance' and 'bad choices' of GWBush today on NPR. Yike. This guy is really bad. Again, no plan.

Here's the line of questioning a reporter with balls should ask Candidate Kerry, should he or she get a chance:

How good is Kerry's grasp of the geopolitical reasons that the dissenting Europeans fail to send troops to Iraq? His current responses hang it all on the 'arrogance' of the President. The logical conclusion of this, and key to Kerry's argument, is that a changing of the guard will restore 'credibility' to US foreign policy.

But let's get down to specifics. The rebellion in Iraq has made the place unsafe for elections, which disables the provisional government's validity. This is really the nut of any argument about things going bad in Iraq. The question is whether or not this is the same nut for the dissenting Euros + Russia. (Let's agree to call them the Weasels, OK?)

If the problem with 'Bush's War' is that it was too unilateral then what is the Weasel interest in keeping troops away now? Do they not support Allawi? Or is it simply too dangerous for them to commit troops? There doesn't seem to be any wiggle room when you say the occupation is going poorly because of the rebellion, because on one hand either the rebellion can be crushed with more troops or it can be diplomatically supressed with more supplication. Why would the Europeans choose to do anything in support of Allawi (or against him) only after the US election? The answer is that they wouldn't. The Weasels are withholding support from the alliance because they are betting against what Bush started, plain and simple. They are either incapable or unwilling to make the situation in Iraq any better than it is. It makes absolutely no sense that this attitude would suddenly change based upon the US presidential race. Unless you believe that the Weasels' logic is identical to that presented by Candidate Kerry. I do not.

The second line of questioning goes something like this:

Kerry suggests that Bush made the wrong choices because he was beholden to the ideologues. He's halfway right. However Kerry refuses to talk about what he would do, other than 'restore credibility' to make the situation on the ground in Iraq any better.

So is Senator Kerry getting his strategic view of Iraq from Fox News? If not, then whom? We know who the PNAC is and what they are all about. We understand their ideas and why they said 'go' on Iraq. We have no idea where Kerry's braintrust lives or what it thinks. Remember what Dumbledore said about that.

Here, Candidate Kerry is doing a Clarence Thomas. He is suggesting that he is eminently qualified to occupy the highest office in the land, but is not giving any clues as to his strategic position on critical issues he will inevitably handle. Kerry refuses to answer hypotheticals on Iraq. All he says is that GWBush was wrong, wrong, wrong.

This is shady.

Trial of Tears

The pantywaists who shackled themselves to a tree seven years ago are going to kill yet another piece of woods as they appeal for the third time.

You remember these fainthearted protestors who got hostile about the fact that police officers applied pepper spray to them when they refused to unshackle themselves. Of course it wasn't the normal application of a good squirt from the sprayer, but a light dose with q-tips. So far, two different juries have failed to render any judgements against the officers' tactics. But our protestors are undaunted and will take up more years of their lives in pursuit of cosmic justice, generating another ton of paperwork.

Nice going.

Raymond Cobb Bowen

There are a lot of reasons that I am proud of my family, but I've got to admit, it sounds like a whole new level when other people are saying nice things. He has now been included into the HistoryMakers site. We continue to be proud of this man, who just turned The Big 70! Like Pops, Unk defies his age. I don't know where they got that picture because most of the time, he's looking dead at you and you know it. In fact, I really don't like that picture and I'm going to replace it as soon as I find a better one.

Scientist turned college administrator Raymond Cobb Bowen was born September 19, 1934 in New Haven, Connecticut. Growing up in the Elm Haven public housing projects, Bowen's parents, Raymond Curtis Bowen and Lucille Cobb Bowen, were frustrated in their attempts to gain a higher education and wanted more for their son. He attended Baldwin and Winchester elementary schools and graduated from James Hillhouse High School in 1952. He earned a B.A. in zoology in 1956 from the University of Connecticut, an M.S. in biology from the University of New Mexico in 1962 and a Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut in parasitology and biochemistry in 1966. From 1956 to 1959, Bowen served in the United States Army.

What the HistoryMakers folks probably don't know but I'll tell you, is that Unk is a tremendously competitive man. He studied martial arts and has a pretty sharp mind for real estate. He is a no-nonsense kind of guy with a that classic Bowen laugh, but is the last guy you want to cross. I still have yet to study enough at the feet of this master of administration and bureacratic politics but I assure you that in a manner of speaking, Putin has got nothing on Unk. Look at those dates and those positions and you suddenly understand how much he was a pioneer and the highest ranking black anything a lot of people ever saw. He can wheel and deal like nobody's business, which made him loved and feared from what I could tell at my distance. Unk's quite a prankster too. I like that very much about him.

Like most leaders, Unk can read people like a book. I'm glad he's been patient with me and I know that he's helped me break through the Gordian Knots of life, whereas if I only had Pops' influence, I'd be contemplating forever. Unk is one of three or four people in the universe who may be able to barbecue better than I, and I can't wait to get out to the next reunion on the East Coast next summer. Wait 'til you see what his kids are up to.

Stumping

Rant Time

I have had no time whatsoever and I am neglecting all kinds of things and people. I spent 2 hours in traffic heading West home from work today with a huge ball of Sun in my eyeballs - completely unable to see traffic signals and stop signs. Every idiot was aiming to dent up my Chevrolet and I was getting sick of the same songs on the CDs I bother to burn.

Pops was supposed to be here for dinner so everybody cleaned up the house and suddenly he has a Vestry meeting he forgot. So I'm rushing home (and making no progress) for nothing. There are weevils in the flour so the spousal unit is going to make me fetch some more for the fried chicken- but I was supposed to be BBQing steaks.

I still haven't gotten paid for more than two of my 16 weeks of work for the second job (of four) that I'm currently working. I know this is like Trump complaining that he's losing money in Jersey, while he's making money in NY but if I didn't complain during the good times, how could I respect myself as a competitor? I've still got bronchitis and I'm sick of coughing like a goddamned geezer. It really makes me angry. Every time I breathe deeply I feel like I'm going to hurl.

There's a chick who sits across from my fourth desk on the job who is totally distracting to me. I am not, repeat not, accustomed to having incredibly hot babes around me at work. I can't fricking function. And she doesn't have the decency to have a name plate at her desk so I can't figure out her email address. I have to say something to piss her off so that I can get her out of my mind, but I absolutely can't figure out how to do it.

I have to meet with my accountant and my Quickbooks are two months out of joint. I have to complete my assessment for the new project. My boy wrote a retarded essay about how the native Americans wore shorts and T-shirts after the end of the Ice Age. F9 is complaining that fourth grade is too hard. Some spammer named Bob is driving me up the wall. I am sick of talking about politics and it is interfering with my ability to write decent music reviews. I haven't been online with my gaming clan in over a week and I have completely dropped the ball on the Black Hole thing.

I need to buy a new linux box, a new latptop, a new for port KVM, a new Hollywood suit and a new car. A guy from Deloitte literally walked up to me and said he could get me a job and I sent him an old lame resume like an ass. My Beijing connection called me and asked me what's up and I stuttered like a damned fool.

I don't have enough frigging time.

I tried to eat a fruit salad from McDonald's today. It was just apples, grapes and yogurt and I paid 3 bucks. Fortunately the Chicken McNuggets were on point. I'm still 20 pounds overweight. I pay 67 bucks for a family membership to the Y and none of us have been in 2 months. I'm sitting up here at my desk and a bag of Chips Ahoy is staring me down.

I'm sure that I have 40 posts in 'Draft' mode on the blog, but I can't get the words out. So I make them into cartoons instead. My fingernails are dirty and I can't find the clippers. Speaking of which, I need to buy a new blade for my electric clippers. They snagged on my head the other day and I had to shave too many millimeters of hair with a razor. That Olivier version of Henry V was a complete waste of $25 and Groove is not synching with my old tired laptop.

I'll tell you what else is getting on my nerves today. I'm starting to like the really weird Modest Mouse songs on their latest album, and I realized that I have absolutely no Shostakovich. Burnout 3 is sold out everywhere and I still haven't preordered Halo2. eMule is incredibly slow.

Well, at least Ambra pinged me three times tonight, and Chip and Kim won. Tomorrow is another day. I'm out.

Chip & Kim Win!

OK I admit it. The spousal unit and I have been watching the Amazing Race for the past three weeks and on and off before that. Our team won.

I don't think I saw anything in the couples that nobody else could see, and I didn't really feel strange about them being black, although I get embarrassed for anyone who stresses out and calls out to Jesus for help. I didn't really start pulling for Chip & Kim until they put the time-out on the Models. Then they were fumbling with the Jeepney parts and barely got out of Manila. So when Brandon got behind the bull and lost his mind, I was jumping for joy.

Still, I could relate to Chip. He's got big daddy written all over him. He's a big teddy bear, and I know we could hang out. I liked the Bowling Moms too. Being 43, I know I've got a backhand reserved for childless couples, so what can I say? There's definitely an existential thing going on. But I'm really happy for them, and since they're down here in Southern Cal maybe I'll bump into them.

But wait. He did say that being from Cali, he wasn't ready for the cold. Dang! How can he represent Orange County and be a non-snow bird? What's up with that? Anyway. It's all good. Congrats to Chip and Kim. Good winners. Good people.

Ashcroft

It struck me suddenly that John Ashcroft has not been a political liability to GWBush at all. I had considered for a moment that John Kerry, if he had any sense, would make hay of the political liability of John Ashcroft. But there is none.

It absolutely floors me that nobody has made Ashcroft into the ball and chain he could have been. Has he done no wrong?

Veeps

Bigger?

The Bad Plus at the Knitting Factory

I'm clearly not going to be able to transcribe my experience last week at the Knitting Factory. I'd be drafting this post forever. I'll just put it out there. In a word, phenomenal.

The Bad Plus is an acoustic jazz trio that performs like a rock band. They have, between the three of them, as much dynamic range as an orchestra. The amount of noise, control and wit they display is mind-boggling. At once you want to close your eyes and absorb it all, then you want to shout for them to play a favorite song, and then you want to stare with your mouth open. Then you look at the crowd and see if all the dudes are bopping their heads at the same rhythm that you're feeling. Yep.

I spent the better part of an hour mesmerized by drummer David King's acrobatics. Using everything from walkie-talkie feedback to tinkle toys, he extracts a pile of clinks, bumps and grinds from his kit that bring to mind the raving staccato of cups against bars in an asylum. His arms seem to be doing the rubber pencil trick. I've never seen cymbals go from full roar to silence in a fraction of a second and then back again in the next. He stands and slams the outside of the cymbals and a half second later he is seated at the hihat with all of the gongs silent, a half second later he's rubbing a stainless steel mixing bowl over the ribs of the kettle drum. What you hear in the end is extraordinary punctuation bracketing playful silences in the midst of Bad Plus music. 

Ethan Iverson, the pianist, suited up, is playing as if he had an entire symphony behind him. He is at once completely in his own world of intricate melodies and in eerie synch with the band. He has a perfect sense of oblivion to the antics of his sidemen, and when watching the trio from behind him, stage left, you get a completely different sense of the band. He runs with his right hand and doesn't play left like a jazz pianist at all not that you'd hear much considering the prodigious work of the bassman, Reid Anderson who manages to hold all this wild energy together.  As the writer of most of the material played, Reid knows what works and has an impressive sense of what these three can do.

I didn't hear my favorite of their tunes from their most recent albums 'Vistas' and "Give' which is called 'Dirty Blonde', but I recognized enough of what they did play to realize that what sounds unleahsed is actually very precise. In fact, when you really get to know the complications of their rhythmic interpretations you find that they are suggestive and playful almost to the point of silliness. They stretch everything beyond breaking with an almost cartoon physics, and yet without quite swinging, they rock. They literally rock.

It is in this that they are a phenomenon in the making. Their cover of 'We Are The Champions' is subtle, witty, melodic and punctuated with just the right reconstructions of their deconstructions. More of this will make them big stars.

Think Big

Bush vs Al Sadr

This past April, GWBush called Al Sadr by name. Today, Al Sadr is not in jail. I happen to believe Moqtada Al Sadr to be a murdering scumbag jackleg Hamas symp and a wanker as well. I suppose I could be more kind and call him the leader of an insurgency, but I must confess to not have read quite enough of Juan Cole. Be that as it may, it upsets me that five months have passed and this asshat has not yet been arrested.

If anyone can provide a concise explanation to why this has not occurred - that our President has called for his head and he is still running around free with his ragtag outfit - please help me understand. I have a myth to maintain, which is that when the President calls you out, and the Marines are shooting at you, you lose.

I'll say it now. Al Sadr free is making GWBush look foolish.

Reference One.
Download file

Cachuma

This time it was me. You know, the slightly harried bald middle aged guy yelling "Hey Kids", on the verge of losing patience. Fortunately, I have the Master Sargeant voice and the ear piercing whistle, and yes I did make Chris get down and give me 5 pushups. But on the whole, my kids, my brother's kids and my other brother's kids, and my sister's kid were all pretty good this weekend camping at Cachuma Lake.

There's not much to say. A car and a truck packed to the gills with gear. 3 adults, 9 kids under 12, 5 tents, 3 days and two nights, (not to mention 100 wasps and a hungry raccoon.) We managed to get the six girls in one tent - the giggles could be heard clear across the lake.

We swam. We hiked. We ate. We sang. We chanted. We watched birds, told stories, and did Indian dances around the campfire. One of us even had a White Russian in a hammock between two massive oak trees and finished off a few crossword puzzled between naps.

There's about an inch of crud on all of us and I hope we don't have to call the plumber after tonights showers. Maybe things will be back to normal tomorrow.

H-Day

Do you know what November 9, 2004 is?

It is the debut of the most eagerly anticipated game in the history of gaming: Halo 2. This past week the Beta of the game completed. All the news is awesome. New weapons, new vehicles, new capabilities.

We have predicted that grades and productivity will drop all over the nation, as gamers get immersed in Halo2.

Charlie Hunter + The Bad Plus

I went to the concert last night. My head is still reeling. I'm digging into my pack of superlatives and will try to deliver my review before I head off to the hills to go camping this weekend.

Awesome. Phenomenal.

Probation

Kerry?

A Man's Home is His Castle

On my way to Wal-Mart last evening I was cursing traffic, wondering who's blogging Ivan, and rehashing an old argument about the Civil Rights Movement being over and done with in conjunction with thoughts about McWhorter's rejection of 'African American'. The other thing, which is a bit closer to my core, that has gotten under my skin is some reference P6 made about the Ownership Society and Feudalism.

Feudalism is good.

Here's what I believe. I believe that in 15 years the blogosphere will be to big media news what cable TV is to broadcast TV today. That means there will be '500 wire services and no real news'. As the proliferation of information technology transforms the literate world, a great number of societal norms will break down. Are you with me so far?

The paradigm is every man's home is his castle. It's becoming more real. We are less a grey flannel suit hierarchical society than we were 30 years ago. Secretaries don't do our typing for us, we don't hold jobs for 25 years, and the idea of the pension is about to go the way of the tie clasp. The upside is that we are more independently able to do for ourselves than ever before. Through technology and our changing culture, we are composers, publishers. We depend less on traditional structures of organization, we do more of our own networking. Community is more important - we do play dates. We get our own circle of close friends and families, cell phones, email distribution lists, frequent flyer clubs, online gaming clans, investment clubs, Tivo profiles. This is feudalism people.

Quick. Who is the richest person you know? If it's not somebody you work for, chances are you're on your way to figuring out why your fortunes lie somewhere outside of traditional paths.

I bring this up tangentially to the extraordinary point Nykola brought up this Spring. An all abiding trust in our secular society and the promise of education is being eroded. The creation of our own private networks is more important than what's out there for the public. Now perhaps this is something I just see because I am climbing through certain social classes I hadn't previously experienced. But the power available to the average American with regard to financial instruments, and other dangerous accoutrements of the Ownership Society do indeed move us towards feudal networks.

I see feudalism going from the bottom up, it is the ultimate expression of self-determination, of family bonds and trust in self as opposed to dependence upon institutions. Feudalism is the exact opposite of corporatism and to a certain extent of modernism itself. Feudal relationships and peer networks should be unbreakable.

Here in the blogosphere we're all great examples. We all know who our blogfathers are - those who send us the most traffic. They are our lords. Our recognition owes not only to our own skills but with our association. The organization may be flat and shallow, but the direction of power and notariety goes from the top down. When I'm blogrolled by Glenn Reynolds, I don't pretend that he needs me more than I need him (though I haven't gotten much traffic from Glenn lately... hmm). These links are far more important than the generic ones people get to broadcast news.

One more tidbit to add to this is that over in La Puente, there are old Chinese women who drive S Class 420s at 25 mph in the 40 mph zone. You'll never see them on the Westside. Where do they come from, where do they go? It doesn't matter - they're just hooked up in their little networks. That's where we're headed. There will be no mainstream.

Blog Ho

I just now found out about the Blog Ho. Maybe I am too serious.

I don't know why anybody should bother to wonder where exactly America is going because homechick doesn't represent. After all, she's just a dumbshit white girl with nice legs on vacation from reality. With that in mind I'll cut this entry short. She got her 15 minutes.

Four More Years!

It occurred to me that if John Kerry wins this election, he'll have to appoint Michael Moore Minister of Truth. Or as Orwell would say, Minitrue. As I leaned out of my abstention a few weeks ago, I've been hearing more things about Iraq that raise its importance over domestic concerns.

One can still get, here in Los Angeles, a 650k loan with no points at 5.89%APR. Well, you can, I can't and I'm not trying. But since we still get our gas cheaper than the Europeans, things can't be all that bad - except for the least of our brothers as usual. But Christopher Dickey and Samantha Power have emerged on my radar and they make me want to look at Iraq again and again. I hear that 18 Billion earmarked for reconstruction hasn't gone anywhere (you can't have it spent and complain about KBR too). There are lots of reasons to remain focused on Iraq, not to mention Iran and North Korea.

I really, really want to see GWBush re-elected, because that's the only way that the opposition is going to prove they have a better idea. Kerry hasn't shown his, and the Congress is absolutely silent. If this election is to be the most important test of our democracy, then let it be a test of the whole of the democracy and not just the presidential horse race. Let's see the other branches of government start flexing their muscles. Let's the the people do more than go out to the movies and say "Yeah what he said".

There is only one way to make GWBush accountable for what he has begun in Iraq. That's to force him to do the right thing, not to kick him to the curb. I don't want any tit for tat. I don't want to see democratic complacency. I don't want to wait another 18 months to get a grip on who the new head of the Pentagon is. I want to see somebody force the president to fire somebody.

That's what I'm talking about.

Supply & Demand

John McWhorter and the Beginning of Blackness

What strikes me most about John McWhorter's latest essay on blackness is that he spells out his name. It's a deeply personal thing that resonates with me, and with my father as well. The long and short of it is that John would appreciate it if we never call him 'African American' again. I agree with him, fundamentally. But when he says we should use Black with a capital 'B', I become enthusiastic.

I don't know how many times I've written about African American vs Black. It's pointless to search this site for a citation. (But this is interesting, especially given my evolving appreciation of JM) The basic way I've been using the terms since Jesse encouraged the use of African American is this: African American is demographic & ethnic. Black is cultural and political. Black is a self-definition, it is an intellectual construction of mental liberation from the chains of an identity defined by white supremacy.

In order to substitute Black for African American, as McWhorter suggests, leaves us in a bit of a quandary. You see, in order to accept Frederick Douglass as Black, one has to do a bit of anachronistic fudging. Is it reasonable to say that Douglass' problem was very much like my problem? Do we have the same problem with the Fourth of July? No, not exactly. Douglass predated the Black Consciousness Movement. But if you broaden the principle, you could say that Douglass' solution was a Black solution. In fact, in order to call Sojourner Truth or Mary Bethune the same Black as Medgar Evers or Stokely Carmichael you'd have to do some awfully clever trickery. But let's assume that were possible. The great advantage is that you could place the best of all historical African American (demographic) political philosophy, into one big Black bucket, and then have all African Americans feed from the same trough.

I hear scholars screaming 'Ahistorical'. OK, true. But not quite as ahistorical as Africa's effects on us blackfolks as any good linguist will tell you. I will leave it to the scholars to work out the kinks in such a program. However, I will enthusiastically endorse the existentials of capital B Blackness, because I know where this fifth generation McWhorter is not taking it. He is not taking it to the hiphop streets.

I've been using the term 'blackfolks' and 'whitefolks' here. So let me remind you what exactly I mean by that. Blackfolks would be average African Americans who have an average amount of Black Consciousness and apply it to themselves. Whitefolks would be the average European Americans with and average amount of White Consciousness applied to themselves. You're black if you understand what it means to be black in America and you have some sense of the lessons of Black Consciousness. Simple. Consequently, as Boohab, I have demanded that whitefolks ask themselves why they continue obliviously to act white. Because everybody knows what that means.

But a new capital B Black would force a renewed evaluation of whether blackfolks are indeed acting Black. Considering the fact that he's claiming it positively I do not doubt that the inevitable conclusion is that there is something of value he sees in it. In other words, there must be a false 'black' which stands in distinction from the true 'Black'. Otherwise why would he care to claim 'Black' instead of the falsity of 'African American'? It has to do with pride, and that must be the pride of accomplishment. In other words to be Black you have to claim the right accomplishment, you have to be proud of the right things.

This is not the end, but the beginning of a new Blackness.

Sy Hersh's Fear

I think I understand Sy Hersh's point based on hearing him speak (and stutter) to Terri Gross this evening.

Hersh has to be a permanent thorn in the side of any non-pacifist administration. When he discovered that war was nothing like John Wayne movies it must have shocked him into a permanent state of apoplexy. He says America didn't know. It was just him. My people knew what ugly was.

It's a good thing that we don't have to depend on people of his sensibility to define victory in war. He thinks all war is hell and that no good can come of it. This son of immigrants who went to school for free thinks no good can come of war. But he has to be who he has to be. I think he is a very reasonable person, for a journalist, but I also think he exhibits exactly the kinds of traits that David Brooks predicted. That when suddenly his inside Washington 'friends' kick him to the curb and he realizes what power is and what it is not, and it hurts to know he doesn't have it. Thus the stuttering. Hersh understands that there are lines he cannot cross, names he cannot divulge, that his compact - his code of secrecy, his journalistic shield - is the only thing that keeps him in the loop. He is the agent of dissent. He is the link between power and consent.

To undo the role of sensitive journalists in the American system is something that would be a jarring shock to the systems of checks and balances. But that journalists are involved is a striking indictment of the system itself. Nobody speaks out like Benedict Arnold any longer. Nobody speaks out like Thomas Paine any longer. That job has been outsourced. You see we cannot depend on the integrity of individuals within the system to stop, resign, tell the truth and be done with it. We're team players, and when the team heads in the wrong direction we're captive. What if these 'highly placed administration officials' blogged their own confessions and put Sy Hersh out of business? Fat chance.

That's not an option. So all journalists have to be rats. Fortunately, Hersh has the exact sensibility. He is a man shocked by dog bites, as he must be for those of us in this vast land who are. How would anyone know anything if journalists weren't overly sensitive? You can't depend on the team to break ranks. Where else are they going to work? I mean 99.8% of Americans could not answer the question, who is Scooter Libby and what does he do? But we have sensitive journalists to raise alarums on Scooter's pals when and if they behave badly and Scooter can't stand up and say so. That's why the immigrant son and the guy named Scooter are linked. That's why we depend on Hersh and his peers.

Someday when my eyes get too weak to correct and my fingers too frail to type, I'll have to depend on people right in front of my face. And depending on how much fear that generates in me, I will pray to God to save me from it. Whatever 'it' is. I'll be too old to fight it and I will wish for a world where 'it' didn't exist. And I'll think back on the days of my youth and vigor when we didn't have to worry about 'it' and 'it' didn't harden and coursen all the men who deal with it. And the fight the youth will fight will frighten me, because I'll be an old man closer to death, closer to the end of my powers on earth. Because there will be nothing I can do about 'it'. I don't know what that thing will be for me, but I think for Sy Hersh 'it' is terrorism. He is afraid of what it has done to his old pal Rumsfeld. It has turned Rumsfeld into a man who doesn't care much about the care and feeding of prisoners.

Sometime soon I'm going to read up on Samantha Power. She suggests that there are some crimes that are unpunishable. I truly want to understand that, because having contemplated Putin's fate these days, I lost my mind. I know the burden falls to the strong and to the wise, but to my eye the King must always kill the Assassin. Even when the Assassin's rationale makes the King wiser. In the meantime, I must deal with the fact that I'm bloodied by this war, and no matter how righteous my cause the blood on my hands is just as thick.

I don't believe it was Hersh's job to weigh the costs of Abu Ghraib, secret operations or any of Bush's initiatives and reactions. It's his job to report the costs. That he is incapable of weighing them doesn't make his job any less important. In fact, the more spirited our team is, the more necessary Hersh's position. Too bad. Because we know Colin Powell ain't Benedict Arnold. None of the President's men has the stomach. But in the end Hersh is just a link, and the final judgement lies with us citizens. As much as I appreciate the candor he forces through his professional craft, I'm not convinced that all of this wasn't worth it. I may be wrong about that, but at least I'm telling you straight.

Fear Factor: Torture?

Yesterday I heard that Seymour Hersch, the New Yorker columnist who made his fame breaking the My Lai Massacre has now published a book which indicts the Bush Administration for Abu Ghraib tortures.

I've said before that the elements of torture revealed to me were not surprising, or particularly horrific and that most of them appeared to fall into two categories. One: Going over a known line in the usual course of interrogations. Two: Amaturish pranks by weekend warriors. Most attention has been focused on the second category. Of them I have said that the reason they are not surprising is because of the content of American vulgar pop culture as exemplified by our jocularity about prison rape ("Don't drop the soap" - Martha Stewart's bunkmates, etc) and television and movies, particularly 'Fear Factor'.

I watched Fear Factor again the other night. There were three stunts. On the other side of these stunts were $50,000 of prize money.

1. Climbing to a height of 110 feet over concrete pavement, leap 8 feet to a cargo net. (Subject is tethered).

2. Eat after thorough chewing 5 live earthworms & 1 live centipede.

3. Crawl 200 yards through a sewage pipe in pitch darkness.

Is this torture? If we made prisoners of war do this, would we be cited by human rights organizations? Does the $50,000 make a difference? Does volunteering make a difference?

Somebody please explain to me exactly how this qualifies as entertainment.

Scarred For Life

Obligatory Seriousness on Rathergate

So that's what everybody was talking about.

I find it rather amazing that so much blather can be actually summed up better in one minute piece on NPR than in 15,000 blogs. Summaries are not what we do well here.

I think it is notable, and perhaps I've said this before, that blogs represent the excess intellectual capacity of our nation. For everyone who is not an editor in a newsroom, yet has the ability to be one, blogs can make real talent that would otherwise remain trapped in 10000 brains. Instead 10000 blogs flower and big media sneezes. But it's not just journalism whose inefficiencies will be exposed, but those of every other industry people will choose to blog about.

This is not really new, but it is the strange relationship between journalism and computer mediated communications that brings it to our attention. Certainly before blogs, online communities performed the same function. We only heard about the Well because so many there were journalists. We only heard about Salon because they dared to call themselves a journal.

Over here, I've been invested in CMC for so long that I honestly haven't watched Dan Rather for 10 minutes straight since he covered the LA Riots.

Aside from all that derivative nonsense is the derivative nonsense which is the material focus of this 'scandal'. Note to self, if it has a -gate, it's not worth your attention. The election season is too long, it's like Christmas ads in September. If you don't know what you want, then you watch more television and pay more attention. The only people that benefit from this length are the political consultants and others who profit from the massive size of campaigns these days. Certainly not thoughtful people who don't need voter registration drives and television news to get a thoughtful political response out of us. No doubt Michael Moore will usher in a new era of spending. You heard it here first, 527s will go from 30 second spots to short films to feature length.

I find it an appalling waste of the heretofore mentioned excess capacity that so many minds are occupied with such minutia. But since so many people spend so much energy and money on such picayune matters, they end up mattering. I'm not one to tell you what an historian might notice but I fail to see how the zillion pages of blogging over this could possibly amount to anything referenceable 20 years from now when one of us bloggers runs for office. I've often wondered what it is that hapless graduate students must put up with when they decide to research and how many of us will ultimately merit the attention of one miserable PhD candidate. Short of that how is anyone to displace professional journalists, warts and all? Rather isn't making a mistake, nobody should be paying this much attention to this amount of trivial detail. We are below the limit of causality here, it's all informational Brownian Motion. We're not seeing the forest for the seedlings.

Suppress This!

If you catch me gaming online, especially in racing games, you might hear me say with competitive contempt "Out of my way, peasant!". Sometimes that is followed with "I am your king!" accent on the second word, following the Monty Python skit. Like Moe Greene at Sydney, I am letting people know that they are about to get served.

But even on more serious occasions, though I am often likely to dress like an underachiever in various homeboy suits, incognegro, I still retain a certain amount of arrogance. Maybe I'm just like my father, too bold. I think it's necessary for a kid who grew up in the 'hood to understand the people and institutions that build the marvels of this civilization. Who would dare take your money and promise to cure cancer? Who would dare build a skyscraper over the ruins of Ground Zero? Who would dare build jets that fly 3 times the speed of sound? Who would dare build networks that could send the digital content of a DVD halfway around the world in four seconds? Americans, that's who. The nerve of these people. But I understand.

When it comes to the title of leader of the free world, and it takes even a greater amount of nerve to invent, much less assume such a title, arrogance has got to be the order of the day. Imagine what it takes to back that up. Well, all of us have to. It's our duty as citizens, and as nervy as we are we choose one to stand above us all.

So it is from the perspective of an uppity negro (RIP Aaron) that I consider the matter of vote suppression. Do I believe that somebody with the nerve to want to be President of the United States would try and suppress the black vote. Yes I do. Do I think they could get away with it? Yep. Do I think they could get away with it twice? Only against peasants.

Deep down in my heart of hearts I believe that most people are peasants. Just as strongly, I believe that nobility has no permanent address and you never know where the next king will be born. Maybe in a cotton field. Perhaps in a manger. So I know that people will not stay down and that abused enough times will rise in their own defense. What goes around comes around, and you really don't want to mess with those pitchforks and torches too many times.

Now John Kerry comes and makes promises to blackfolks like we're all peasants and what we want as blackfolks, more than anything else, is the comfort of knowing that he's on our side when it comes to fighting voter suppression. Considering the fact that I consider myself one of those nobles born among the common folks, how do you think I take that? Well, I tell you. I'll round up some of my fellow nobles and show him exactly our attitude towards usurpers. Though I've learned to be handy with a sword, I might go incognegro and stick a fork in him just to remind him that peasants may be peasants, but they're not all stupid.

You won't find me grumbling about rumors of voter suppression like an old wife. I just know that I'm not about to be intimidated or suppressed, and that people like me won't either. I don't make it my business to second-guess blackfolks. I can only represent the Old School - me and people like me. And you can be sure that we remember who it was who faced the dogs and firehoses. We didn't ask for and weren't looking for a knight in shining armor to come to our emotional rescue, so we won't be yours all yours. We grow our own balls around here and we're not impressed with Kerry's.

Wood

On The Passing of Aaron Hawkins

I didn't know AHawk very well. He was one of my blogfathers though. When I started up way back when, it was he, George and Mister JT who passed me most of my traffic. He held up his end of the bargain we blackfolks have with each other and sometimes honor. Crack the door, wave the next brother or sister in. Introduce around, give a pound.

Since I thought it was done on the regular, I put a buck in his tip jar. I got back much more. Recognition which is the currency out here. Every once in a while I hooked into his Friday blogging memes. He called me Tuvok. I liked that.

I heard AHawk took his own life. I know something about that. My youngest brother did that. So I've been through the throes and the therapy. If you are family or friend here's something that might help.

i recall the phone calls coming in after the sudden death of my brother robert. he was only twenty something. it doesn't seem right fixing the number or the date. it simply wasn't his time to die. and yet it was, and so the phone calls kept coming. people were offering their every heartfelt condolence and placing themselves at our beck and call. it occured to me that i didn't know what my beck was, i never had a need to define it. death gave me a reason to think about what people mean to each other at defining moments. it wasn't a gift i was interested in receiving. who wants to be taught by a crisis? who wants to be anything but unconfused when all you can ask is why? why? why?

you know what you think you are supposed to be as you step in and out of uncontrollable moments but what are you? the round robin of emotional devastation and superhuman generosity and courage whipsaws you until you are exhausted. you don't know who you are any longer, you're just tired of being dominated by these thoughts and feelings. but you cannot help it, and somehow you know you shouldn't. and then you stare at the ceiling one day in bed wondering if it really makes any sense at all to bear your burden, your inexplicable burden to carry forward the meaning of a lost one's life in a world determined to move on, obliviously. you go to the park and stare at children in swings. you sit in the bakery and watch people chew donuts. you stare in the mirror and wonder if he really knew how much you loved him. you pick up litter in other people's yards. you hear simple lyrics in simpleminded songs suddenly send deep and poignant shudders rumbling through your soul and you collapse into a shameless heap realizing you were once part of the oblivious world.

once you held loved ones in your arms. and now they are gone. your arms don't only feel empty, they feel useless. what good are arms anymore? life eventually teaches them new things after death has squeezed all the meaning out of them.

I tell you what I'm going to do, which is what I do whenever somebody I know dies. I pick up a piece of their life and I carry it in the direction they were going. So I'm going to find out the closest thing AHawk and I vibed on, and I'll continue on that vibe. So that little part lives on.

Cry now. Cry as hard as you can. Cry it all out now until you dehydrate your eyes. Cry until it hurts, until you can't cry any longer. Until you feel stupid crying. Then pick up that piece and start walking. Strong.