Gentle Reader -- You are welcome to peruse my web-based journal. I assure you that my contributions to this medium will be both infrequent and inconsequential. Read on!

HEDY LAMARR

Just some trivia: This smoking hot babe, the first actress to do a nude scene in a feature film, also co-invented and co-patented a technology for electronically guiding torpedoes and missiles that is the basis for cell phone technology today.

Doesn't she look a bit like Alida Valli?

I would have loved her for her mind, of course. posted by Carlton at 11:19 PM

RESISTANCE NOT FUTILE

I've found that there comes a time when the good habits that one builds up over the course of one's life must be resisted, and that habits of thought and attitude must be knocked down. For example, it was drilled into me from an early age that one does not quit. One never quits. One perseveres. One gets set on a path and follows it in a straight line of constant advancement until its ultimate culmination. This is fine and all right for quite a long time, especially while one is in the structure of school and goals and measures are achievement are set by others.

For me, what this meant was that after I graduated from college, I naturally went on to graduate school in English, a subject I had studied because I found it pleasant and relatively unstressful at the undergraduate level. The natural progression, of course, was that I would get my Dr. degree, become a teacher or professor of some type, get tenure and settle into a long, productive and secure career as an academic. Others have done so; it's not a bad life.

It took me a long time to realize the proper response to this schedule: Fuck that. It may seem simple, even axiomatic, in hindsight, but there came a time when I had to examine the natural progression and determine whether or not it was a good one -- at a basic level, whether it was something that I wanted to do. It turns out that it wasn't. The process of realization, however, was really shattering -- the idea that I had to generate my own goals, my own measures of whether I had accomplished them, and that whatever I did someone would be there to criticize, knocked me for a loop. The idea that, on the road from Point A to Point B, Point B is really death, is a tough one.

I find myself on a similar schedule now. Practicing law in a big firm is, if anything, even more regimented and hierarchical than being in academia. For the first decade, one identifies oneself by how long ago one graduated from law school ("I'm a third-year."). At the end of that time, one gets to the top of one totem pole and, if lucky, leaps to the bottom of an immensely taller totem pole. I've heard the leap to partnership described as "a pie-eating contest, in which the prize for first place is more pie."

What's the point? I am acutely aware that I have yet to find my place in the world. I am in a very good situation, relatively speaking -- good job, debt under control, interesting work, etc. Having leapt from one moving train, however, I am acutely aware of the possibility of leaping yet again. The only question is -- leap to what?

(Yes, I got started using "one" and just couldn't stop. Sorry for the pretense.)
posted by Carlton at 11:13 PM

SELMA'S REALLY ON

My brother gave me a copy of the Silmarillion for Christmas (a fine and appropriate present). I am at home sick on New Year's Eve (while Ms. Twink is off kicking up her heels at a party, naturally), and I thought I'd give it a spin. I find myself faced with a dilemma.

I've read LOTR a couple of times -- at least once when I was a kid and once after seeing the first movie. In both forms, characters tend to drop references to other times, places and events that I find tantalizing. There's one line in the books where someone makes reference to a former Dark Lord who had Sauron as a servant (and who, by extension, was a ten-times tougher baddie). My ears, of course, prick up. When the characters keep referring to men as "Numenorians," I want to say "Hmmm, what's that mean?" And of course, people keep asking questions like, "Where the hell are they all going to in that boat at the end?"

And the fact is that I have some basic answers to those questions (which I don't feel like getting into here). There are appendices. There is the Silmarillion. There are other books -- some written by JRRT himself, and some compiled later. Some of them have cool pictures. And the geeky part of me that was always a good student eats this stuff up -- not only am I interested in finding out the answers to the questions, but I find myself learning the information. I'm talking about facts like who the different kind of elves were in the distant past (for the "present" of LOTR), why their leaders were, why they fought, where they lived, etc. There are an infinite number of names, words in made-up languages, stories of all types.

Here's the problem -- how much time do I want to spend on this? This is knowledge that, outside a geek circle-jerk, is of absolutely no use. It's not even knowledge -- it is trivia of the rankest sort. And yet, like certain others who have an interest in baseball statistics, rock history and the number and frequency of specific trains, I find myself drawn in.

I think I will resist. After all, what's the point? posted by Carlton at 10:52 PM

UNFAIR EXCHANGES

I can't say that I know much about the stock market -- I have a small sum in a mutual fund that tracks one of the major indices -- but I am disturbed by the media's fixation on the market rising and falling. I'll admit, it is somewhat heartening in a ain't-this-the-greatest-country-in-the-world kind of way when the market goes up. Frankly, however, not everyone wants it to go up. I don't, for example.

See, I subscribe to the theory that you don't put any money in the market that you might want to get at in the next few years -- most people say the next five years, I'd like to leave my pittance in place until I retire. The market is too volatile to try to score a quick buck.

But more importantly, I am adding to my pittance -- every month, an even pittier pittance (?) is deducted from my bank account and added to my mutual fund. I hope that my pittance plus these small contributions will eventually grow into something substantial -- substantial enough that I don't have to live in an alley and eat castoff pizza crusts.

Simply: I want the market to stay depressed. You are supposed to buy low and sell high, which is hard to do if everything is high all the time. Because I want to buy low, while I am young and building my pittance into a hoard, I want everything to BE low. Those who are done buying and want to cash in want everything to be high. Note that this puts me at odds with people of the older generations -- your parents, my parents. Generational warfare!

But we don't want the market to go up all the time. No, we don't. posted by Carlton at 6:54 PM

ADDITION TO LIST

I have an addition to the list of my favorite movies: The Limey, starring Terence Stamp. Never has a man named Terence been so tough. If you haven't seen it, go forth and do so. posted by Carlton at 4:43 PM

RETURN OF THE RING-A-DING-DING

So I finally saw the movie. You know, the one I've been waiting three years to see. And it was good.

My one complaint, aside from the fact that there is an Extended Edition floating around out there that I have yet to see, is that it was too short. Seriously. There should be five movies. No, six.

I enjoyed the whole thing tremendously, but I had the feeling throughout that the scenes were compressed, that Peter Jackson had boiled everything down to its bones just in order to get it on film. Chances are, if you have a favorite character who isn't a hobbit, you will be left aching for more from that character. There just isn't enough time, never enough.

A bunch of uber-nerds shelled out big bucks this week for the "Trilogy Tuesday" show, where you get to stand in line at 5 AM (dressed as Gollum, naturally) in order to get into a movie theater at eleven for a four o'clock showing of the extended version of the first two movies, followed by a midnight showing of the third. I had snickered in my sleeve at these people, and never considered even atempting to attend the thing myself -- especially considering that I'd have to spend nearly an entire day in a room full of people who, frankly are not known for their social graces or hygeine. (Can you imagine what that theater smelled like when the credits rolled on RoTK? Uber-nerd spooge, is what.)



posted by Carlton at 4:41 PM

QUOTIDIAN RITUALS

Every once in a while, I look up from whatever I am doing and have to ask a David Byrne question: How did I get here?
My morning commute is an example. To get to my new job, I leave my front door, take a 5 minute walk through a park to a big T-stop, ride the train for about fifteen minutes, ride an escalator to ground level, cross a busy four-lane street, enter the Copley Mall, ride up an escalator, walk through the mall, cross to the Prudental Mall via a skyway over another busy street, go up another escalator, malk through the mall, get to the entrance to my office building, show my badge to the attendant, get in the elevator and ride to the eighteenth floor, buzz myself in with my badge, and sit at my desk. I have recently discovered that, at the place where I normally go outside and cross the street to enter the mall, I have the option of crossing under the street via a tunnel (and two sets of stairs) -- which means that I could enter the T near my house and get to my desk in Back Bay without ever going outside. It's like someone has built a tunnel between my front door and my office.

For some reason this strikes me as intensely strange. Anyone else? posted by Carlton at 4:47 PM

TOP 5 MOVIES (Mine)

I was only able to come up with three -- in no particular order:

The Lord of the Rings (counting it all as one film)
The Third Man
Pulp Fiction

I briefly considered Kangaroo Jack, but it turns out it was putrid.

Not that anyone asked . . .
posted by Carlton at 11:00 PM

SHOULD WE TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER?

It's time to get with the program, I guess. Snow is no longer an excuse to lose touch with reality. Got to go to work every day. Got to make the donuts.

Oh yeah, I'm going to have to vote for Howard Dean in November. I will do so, with a happy heart, only briefly pausing to consider what might have been . . . posted by Carlton at 10:58 PM

ON FOXES AND HENHOUSES: NOTES ON AN INVESTIGATION

Maybe the most infuriating thing for me about the current administration is that it routinely, and openly, engages in the kind of self-dealing that should set off media and political watchdogs of all types. The Bush family's history of business dealings with the Saudis is one example -- ever wonder why we haven't been more critical of them since their citizens blew up the World Trade Center and attacked the Pentagon and their government actively endorses the strain of Islam that endorses such attacks? There's also the administration's dealings with corporations like Halliburton, Bechtel, Enron, the timber industry, the coal industry, etc. Everyone knows, and no one seems to care to mention any more, that Cheney is still getting money every year from Halliburton, and that he continues to hold its stock in his blind trust (he doesn't get accounts from the trust, but if he knows that there is a shitload of the stock in there, and he knows how the stock is doing . . . you get the picture). Just to re-iterate: Halliburton received contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq valued in the hundreds of millions (actually billions, after cost overruns) of dollars, with no competition. They also have the contract to build and service the facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, which they also received with no competition.

All this would be bad enough if the country were doing well -- but we aren't. The stock market has had an uptick in the last few weeks, but are there any new jobs? The Medicare bill which recently passed is designed, it seems, to bankrupt the program shortly after the end of a hypothetical Bush term. Our credibility with the rest of the world is at record lows, and we have so overstretched our military (the only foreign policy tool that the administration seems willing to use) that people are seriously discussing a revival of the draft (after the election, of course).

There are a lot of people out there who were terribly unhappy under the Clinton Administration who think things are just ducky under Bush. I believe that these people are confusing an affection for the person with the good or ill that results from the person's position in the White House. I'll concede that Clinton was a bad guy -- maybe he did kill people and snort coke and molest children and worship the devil as Jerry Falwell claimed in those videotapes he was selling. But when Clinton was President our standing in the world was very high, and we were engaged in an active campaign against the crime of terrorism (as opposed to the entirely wasteful and counterproductive "war" which we are currently prosecuting). Not to mention the fact that people were, um, making money.

Most importantly, however, we had people in government who acted like they were in government -- like their primary charge was to make policy that was designed to help the people of the United States, or at least make it run smoothly. The current administration is engaged in a large-scale version of what my Corporations professor called "looting" -- essentially, taking control of a company and bleeding all of the value out to yourself and leaving the shareholders with an empty husk. Nothing that the Bush people are doing is designed to make us more safe, or more prosperous (as a nation) or more free in our actions and beliefs.

One more time: Nothing that the Bush people are doing is designed to make us more safe, or more prosperous (as a nation) or more free in our actions and beliefs.

Update: Krugman thinks so too. As does Josh Marshall. In fact, that's probably where I got the idea in the first place.
("I am a part of all that I have read on the Internet." -- Tennyson) posted by Carlton at 5:27 PM

PROPOSED RULES

Can we all agree on the general rule that, the more corporate tie-ins that a movie has, the worse it is likely to be? As proof, I offer up the two newer Star Wars films, Wild Wild West , and most recently, the Cat in the Hat. I hear the Cat sux, and big time. If your big soda at Taco Bell has an image from the movie, it ain't gonna be good. If it appears on a box of laundry detergent, it's going to be awful.

Anyone care to vouchsafe or gainsay?

Another rule that I have formulated for myself: When going to an asian restaurant, make certain that there are old people working there. If everyone working there is under the age of say, fifty, it's going to be terrible.

Again: Vouchsafers? Gainsayers?

posted by Carlton at 5:02 PM

ATTENTION COMPOSITION INSTRUCTORS

Ever run into the dreaded five paragraph essay?

I think I was taught something vaguely similar, but just for use on exams. posted by Carlton at 7:37 PM

HELP!

This "Spyware" thing has taken control of my computer, constantly changing my homepage and suddenly flooding me with popups. I don't know how I got this, and I want to get rid of it. Can anyone help me?

Also -- my first day of work at my new job is tomorrow, so wish me luck. posted by Carlton at 6:34 PM

TWO TOWERS EE

I have this DVD collection, and have watched it enough to get quite tired of it, and vow to get on with my other important activities of life. Whenever I walk into the living room, however, I rediscover an appetite for switching it on and plowing through the myriad extras, commentary tracks, documentaries, etc.

Comments (Very Derivative):

1. Sean Astin SHUT UP. Shut your fucking pie-hole. You have nothing interesting to say and you are using up oxygen that might better be breathed by any of the other actors. I'll cut you some slack because your mother was batshit crazy and you clearly had a hard childhood, but that only goes so far. I wonder why the editors of the commentaries allowed him to go on like that.

2. It occurs to me that the Two Towers (the movie) has all of three instances in which a major character who is thought to be dead by the other chjaracters is discovered to be alive (counting Mippen as one). I would say that this is overuse of this dramatic trick, except that I didn't notice it until just now. Also, the film only tries to fool the viewer into thinking that the character is dead in one instance, Gandalf, which was a carryover from the last flick. So, I guess it works.

3. I think this product pushes the DVD into an entirely new realm of importance in regards to cinematic product. The extra forty-five or so minutes that is included here is going to be regarded as essential for fans, and the theatrical version will fall away. Is it right to say that the theatrical version is a commercial for the DVD? Putting aside my inner geek, I am completely impressed with the quality and attention to detail that is shown in these two EE DVD's. Peter Jackson should be praised for, among many other things, keeping his eye on the end product in the consumer's hands.

4. More Boromir! Yay!

5. If ROTK is at least as good as the first two movies (and I'm going to bet that it will be), then this will be the only one of the major franchises that hasn't dramatically disappointed a base of fans. There won't be a Return of the Jedi, a Matrix Revolutions, a Godfather III, a Highlander II, a Phantom Menace (shudder) or any other horribles that one could list. That would be a great accomplishment.

6. Any thoughts about showing the entire LOTR on television as a miniseries? There may be eleven hours of screen time when ROTK EE comes out, and no bad language or sex at all. Certainly one of the cable movie networks should show the entire thing nonstop once a year or so. People would watch.

7. This is enough to get me excited about King Kong, which otherwise leaves me cold. posted by Carlton at 5:01 PM

DELETED POST

I mention here, simply because someone asked, that I deleted a long response to Scott's comment about the "four points". I thought it was a bit snarky, which was not the tone I wanted to strike. Boiled down to its nuggets, it said the following:

Scott is right to assert that his students are not Carlton or Greg or Scott -- for one thing, he points out that his students as a group are on a different skill level (allegedly lower -- I have a hard time evaluating my own level at the time, Scott seems positively insecure about his). I think he's correct about that, but that he may be ignoring this idea by assuming that all of his students are similar to him in personality and having similar experiences with similar solutions.

I would point out that he almost certainly has a wide variety of personality types in his class (Gregs and Carltons, for example), for whom his "four points" are at best inappropriate and at worst confusing and discouraging. (Student: "Scott said we should be staying up overnight and eating all the time and living in lean-tos and washing our hands every five minutes! Why am I not like the others? Wah!")

I imagine that Scott was actually more moderate in his lecture than he presents himself in his post. A simple disclaimer of "your mileage may vary -- many students find this helpful" would probably do the trick. posted by Carlton at 4:36 PM

THE LAWS OF ROBOTICS

Scott just posted the following principles about the college experience, which were noteworthy for me because my experience has taught me the exact opposite of each. They are:

1. Never turn down free food.
2. Home is anywhere that keeps the rain off your head.
3. Sleep is optional.
4. College will make you obsessive-compulsive.


1. Most of my adult life has been occupied with learning to avoid free food. I was reatively skinny in high school, but once I got to college where food was free and plentiful (in that I could eat as much as I could stuff in my greedy face all day every day in the Commons and my scholarship covered the bill) I packed on the pounds and never looked back. In my current situation, a large law firm, there are always sandwiches, cookies, drinks and other emuscables available somewhere, if you look for them. Many times, they are foisted on you by some well-meaning person who will be sad if you don't accept. The food-avoidance skill is a necessity, especially for a natural "grazer" like me.

2. It's really quite difficult to get a space to feel like home. I lived in the same room in the dorm for three years, and I think it took me an entire semester to hang anything on the wall in my part of the room. In the fun-but-dirty semi-commune where I lived during law school, I believe I cooked a meal exactly four times -- it only takes one instance of discovering someone has put a saucepan back into the cabinet without washing it at all to put you off of the kitchen for good. Such a place is not 'home' to me.

3. Sleep is vital. I organized my classes around my afternoon naps. I soon discovered that if I had not learned or written it by 11PM, it would not get learned or written.

4. This one simply baffles me. I don't even know what phenomenon this refers to. Can anyone help me?

posted by Carlton at 12:01 AM

DEMOGRAPHICS

There are people in the world who, upon finding themselves blessed with a couple of weeks of vacation during which they weren't going anywhere, would have a very clean house. I'm not one of those people. I walk through a room trailing dirty dishes, it seems.

There are also those who, in the above circumstances, would post to their blog. I am also apparently not one of those people.


I AM reading a book entitled War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges, which is double-plus good. Go out and get it.
posted by Carlton at 8:59 PM

NEWS

So, I have a new job. I have been quite unhappy at my old job for a while now, since a bit before our merger with the big national firm in Febraury. The specifics don't bear mentioning, but I can safely say that whenever we had a big meeting (and we had meeting after meeting after meeting) to discuss for great the new firm was and how we would be constantly moving forward into a bright new day, the message that I got loud and clear was "You will not last here, Carlton".

So, I got a new job, at the firm where my friend Amy works (though she's in a different department). I'm exited to make the change, and excited to be working closer to Ms. Twink's office. My compensation is exactly the same, although there is the possibility of a raise as early as January (based on my "year" as opposed to any work that I may or may not have performed by then). I had it on good authority that I would probaby never ever get a raise at the old place (they are cheap).

Best of all, however, is that I don't start until December, so I have a couple of weeks to sit around and watch TV in my underwear. posted by Carlton at 11:29 PM

NOW IT CAN BE SHOWN

If anyone out there is interested in looking at some of the anonymous postcards I've received, they may be seen here (click to enlarge). More will be forthcoming.

I think I know who it is. posted by Carlton at 8:16 PM

NEWS UPDATE

There STILL may be news on the horizon for me. It STILL may be good.

And NO, the news is not that I am asking Ms. Twink to marry me. (She already gave her heart to Michael Stipe, anyway.) posted by Carlton at 4:48 PM

MY NEW FAVE WEBSITE

Is here. posted by Carlton at 6:16 PM

NEWS

This is simply an announcement that there may be some news with me in the next couple of weeks, which may be good. Let's hope this works out.

posted by Carlton at 5:40 PM

FROM THE MAILBAG

My anonymous correspondant has reared her ugly (?) head again, this time with a two-parter, which I hope can be viewed here. Including these, I have received about twenty-five of these cards since last December (give or take, I may have lost a couple when I moved). Anyone who knows anything about this should feel free to let me know.

And yes, I recognize that I am rewarding this person with attention, but I'm not too concerned, really.

posted by Carlton at 5:32 PM

THE HARSH TRUTH

I'm getting to this late, but Bush's comment about his reading habits confirms what we didn't want to believe.

The comment: "I glance at the headlines, just to get kind of a flavor," he told Brit Hume of Fox News last month. But, "I rarely read the stories" because "a lot of times there's opinions mixed in with news." Instead, "I get briefed by [White House Chief of Staff] Andy Card and Condi [Rice, the national security adviser] in the morning." The president concluded, "The best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world

The conclusion: Our president, our head of state, commander-in-chief, sole propounder of our policies and perspectives to the world, is a retard. He is an empty suit, a puppet, a tool -- and not the sharpest tool in the shed, either.

How do we let this go by? He doesn't READ THE NEWSPAPER? He only knows what his sycophants and courtiers want to tell him? It is unbelievable that I, Carlton King, read more newspapers than the President of the United States -- even if I just read the Metro on the subway every morning. And before anyone objects, do we really think that he's holed up in the White House reading anything else -- State Department position papers, CIA intelligence summaries -- if he can't make it past page A1 of the Washington Post?
posted by Carlton at 3:47 PM

ER, WELL

Or should I say ORWELL, everyone's favorite author to use as a reference in these wacky times. I think that's all well and good -- although whether all of these people making the references have actually read much George Orwell is an open question. In a classic case of brand confusion, you get the idea that a lot of people out there think that Orwell was actually a bad guy himself, rather than an incisive writer commenting on the dark forces he saw gathering. This confusion is itself a tribute to his writing, I think, since the ideas themselves ("doublethink", Big Brother, the Thought Police) have taken on a life distinct from the texts themselves. But what do I know?

I have myself only read a bit beyond the high school reading list: Animal Farm, 1984, the essay/story "Shooting an Elephant" and a book entitled Burmese Days which was interesting but not as engaging as the others. I'd be interested in getting some kind of omnibus reader of his writing and curling up by the fire with it some winter. I think that would be time well spent.

Here is a link to a blog posting which uses a relatively intelligent comparison of the "chocoration" phenomenon in 1984 and the current dismal jobs numbers ("The lowest unemployment rate since February!"). posted by Carlton at 9:53 AM

HEARTBREAK FOR GREG

But he's nowhere to be found! Greg -- please weigh in on the misfortunes of your beloved Cubs!

As far as the Sox, go -- well, the games have been good thus far!

Would anyone watch a Marlins/Yankees World Series? I guess the players have families. posted by Carlton at 8:28 AM

MORE OF THE POLITICS OF WEAPONRY

I think this speaks for itself:

I wonder if the US even noticed that at the funeral in East Baghdad, people were walking around with G3 rifles. Guess which Army uses the G3. Not the Iraqis. Not the Americans. Not the Syrians. That would leave.....Iran. Is Sadr getting help from the Iranians, or are Iranian arms being smuggled across the border. The G3 is a Heckler&Koch rifle first used by the German Army in 1959 and exported where the AK, FN/FAL or M-14/16 didn't get shipped. This, not the AK-47 and varients, are the descendents of the SG-44 Assault Rifle used at the end of WWII by the Nazis.

More here. (October 14) posted by Carlton at 4:01 PM

A DUMB THEORY ABOUT THE CURRENT DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY RACE

In the weird documentary Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, one of the persons studied is an elderly lion tamer of the circus variety, and he answers a question: Why do lion tamers use chairs? (Whips, we understand, or think we understand.)

His answer is pretty interesting. Lions, while fierce and noble creatures, are not very bright. If a lion has one opponent to focus on (Roy Horn?), the lion can easily tear the opponent to shreds in about one second. But if you give a lion multiple things to focus on, he gets confused and becomes inactive. The four legs of a chair apparently count as separate items, even though they are all part of a single object and guided by the same hand, and even though the chair itself is really not even much of a threat.

You probably see where I am going: the big right-wing beast is currently confused by the fact that we have nine or ten constantly shifting candidates stuck up in its face, even though they are all from the same party and saying most of the same things. The beast is having a hard time focusing on any one of them to destroy, and so is strangely quiescent.

My hope is that the beast will remain confused until early into next year, when we trade the chair for a whip, in the form of a single candidate. With Al Gore, last time, it was apparent for a long time that he was going to be the candidate, and the beast attacked him relentlessly for twenty months or so. If we give it less time this go 'round, it may have less time to attack, and we will be able to whip it back into its cage. posted by Carlton at 3:12 PM

WHAT?

File this one under 'S' for "So Crazy I Can't Believe It!"

US soldiers bulldoze farmers' crops

US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops.

The stumps of palm trees, some 70 years old, protrude from the brown earth scoured by the bulldozers beside the road at Dhuluaya, a small town 50 miles north of Baghdad. Local women were yesterday busily bundling together the branches of the uprooted orange and lemon trees and carrying then back to their homes for firewood.

Nusayef Jassim, one of 32 farmers who saw their fruit trees destroyed, said: "They told us that the resistance fighters hide in our farms, but this is not true. They didn't capture anything. They didn't find any weapons."

It's things like this that really make me lose heart. I mean, what do we think we are doing? What are we trying to accomplish?

The only good thing about all the bad stuff going on in Iraq is that it is bad for Bush -- worse for the Iraqis, of course, but bad for Bush all the same.

posted by Carlton at 1:45 PM

I'M UP TO MY EYEBALLS IN DEBT

Per an email exchange with Scott yesterday, I'd like to register my outrage at how much it costs to educate oneself in this country. Many, many of my friends who have advanced degrees are in the high-five and low-six figures in student loan debt, and that doesn't even begin to address the credit card debt that is almost inevitable after several years with NO INCOME to speak of. I was lucky in that I was able to keep my housing costs to a minimum during law school, which is pretty difficult in Boston -- if you consider it "lucky" to live in a room which is theoretically uninhabitable for two years.

I think our society wants to encourage people to educate themselves, right? I would like to think that includes education in fields that don't have any immediate economic rewards, like nineteenth century French literature, or medieval studies, or classics or some of the more obscure fine arts. So . . . why must it cost so much?

Of course, I did volunteer -- no one made me -- to go to a PRIVATE law school, which would be maybe five times more expensive than a state school. My current state of domicile, Massachusetts, is notable for the fact that it doesn't have a public law school and apparently doesn't want one.

And, for the record, I applied and was accepted to Ole Miss, which offered me a nice fat scholarship . . . UNTIL they realized that I had registered to vote in another state (Indiana) and was therefore no longer a resident of Mississippi and not eligible for the scholarship. Indiana, naturally, wanted nothing to do with me. So the prospect of public education was foreclosed to Carlton.

But don't we want people to pursue these degrees? Shouldn't we support higher education in a more effective way that simply allowing students to borrow themselves into debtor hell? posted by Carlton at 1:17 PM

PRURIENT INTEREST ANYONE?

This should be no surprise, but you increase your hits tremendously if you start writing about nude pictures of Valerie Plame. Or even pictures of Valerie Plame in a bathing suit. Or Valerie Plame's wedding pictures.

Many of these hits are from pentagon.mil.

Go figure. posted by Carlton at 1:02 PM

FILTHY LUCRE

For a cogent explanation of why we really need an 18-cent coin, go here. posted by Carlton at 11:47 AM

WHAT THEY REALLY WANT

Calpundit starts a very interesting discussion of what the Republican Party is really all about today by taking a look at the Texas Republican Party Platform. Comments discuss whether this is an accurate gaugue of what the national party is all about.

They are crazy. Crazy, I tell you. (Return to the gold standard?) posted by Carlton at 9:04 AM

WHERE IS GREG?

I have been paying attention to baseball lately, which is very unusual for me. This is a baseball town, unlucky in love, and the Sox have actually won a few. The game last night was quite a good one.

But my point is -- where is Greg? I want his commentary on the Cubs' success. I want it, I tell you.

posted by Carlton at 8:51 AM

TIMELINES

In case anyone in interested, here's a timeline of the events leading up to and including the Plame affair.

And you should click on this timeline/summary of Bush's tireless efforts to get to the bottom of this matter. He wants the truth! posted by Carlton at 10:17 AM

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

. . . about Valerie Plame: she's hot.

The mother of 3-year-old twins, Plame turns heads when she steps into a room, sources said.

"She has classic good looks: very shapely, long legs and blond shoulder-length hair," a source said. "She would be a star in her own Hollywood picture."

And she's also, uh, involved in some, um, important stuff.

Plame "ran intelligence operations overseas," said Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA counterterrorism operations chief.

Her specialty in the agency's nonproliferation center was biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and "recruiting agents, sending them to areas where they could access information about proliferation matters, weapons of mass destruction," Cannistraro said.

What you need to know is this: the White House is chewing it's own arm off by outing the very specialized agents it needs to accomplish its stated mission regarding weapons of mass destruction.

posted by Carlton at 10:34 PM

PLAME NAME BLAME GAME

L'Affaire Plame has succeeded in pulling me out of my general depression regarding the state of our democracy and making me genuinely angry. Here's the big one this weekend:

After playing White House stooge and outing Ambassador Wilson's wife Valerie Plame as a CIA operative, which compromised her and her legitimate intelligence assets in foreign countries (as well as any, you know, friends or acquaintances she might have had while working undercover), journalist Robert Novak continued his voyage of insanity. Just this week, he argued on CNN that Valerie Plame couldn't have been an undercover CIA operative because -- ok get this -- on a form she had to fill out in making a contribution to the Gore campaign, she listed a suspicious-sounding (to Novak) employer: Brewster-Jennings and Associates.

Aha! cries Novak. CIA agents are supposed to list REAL companies as their employers on such forms, therefore Plame must not be undercover. Even if you accept this as a logical argument, which I can't quite bring myself to do, there are two facts which Novak didn't have on hand when he made the announcement:

1. Brewster-Jennings is a real company, and

2. It's a CIA front for covert operations.

Which means, well . . .

The inadvertent disclosure of the name of a business affiliated with the CIA underscores the potential damage to the agency and its operatives caused by the leak of Plame's identity. Intelligence officials have said that once Plame's job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered.

A former diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said yesterday that every foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities.

And now, of course, they can run the front company's name through the database as well and identify every agent using that company as a cover in the country.

Why did Novak (and by extension, the Administration) want to reveal this information? To show that Plame gave money to AL GORE, and is therefore not "one of us". That's all. Damn the torpedoes.

How much more damage can these people do? I am convinced that the administration is thrashing about in desperation,
not caring what or whom it harms as it attempts to get at its enemies. posted by Carlton at 10:27 PM

HOWDY

Just to keep everyone updated on what a loving, accepting and supportive environment the Baptist church has created for all God's children, we have a few churches being expelled from a state organization simply for accepting gay people as members.

I have nothing further to say. Draw your own conclusions. posted by Carlton at 10:03 PM

YES, I HAVE BEEN LAX ABOUT POSTING

I'm getting back into it, however. In case you really need something funny to read (and I swear, this is the funniest thing I have ever read on the internet), go here for a discussion of bad baby names, if you haven't already seen it.

I'm quite fond of "Otis", myself. For a girl. posted by Carlton at 2:51 PM

AWOL

Yes, I've been absent from posting for a while. Don't hassle me, OK? You don't know what it's like to be me. You're just trying to keep me down.

Seriously -- I'll get back on this horse very soon. Maybe not today, but soon. posted by Carlton at 12:36 PM

WHOA

This website is crazy.

I mean it.

I need an aspirin. posted by Carlton at 12:31 PM

KRUGMAN ARTICLE

I'm posting this link for myself, so I'll be able to come back to this long article later -- I was only able to read the first couple of pages, but it looks to be a rip.

Oh, you can read it too, if you like. posted by Carlton at 11:23 AM

PREDICTIONS

Molly always makes fun of me for trying to make predictions. Well, here's five to make fun of:

1. Before the election in 2004, someone in the political wings of the administration will succumb to a guilty conscience and leak some very damaging material to the press about the events of 9/11/01.

2. If this administration loses to a Democrat in 2004, expect massive shredding of documents and destruction of computer files.

3. North Korea will explode a nuclear weapon within the next year.

4. Colin Powell will resign as Secretary of State before November 2004.

5. Before the next election, the administration will be linked to at least one mysterious death in Washington D.C.

Let's see how I do! posted by Carlton at 11:52 AM

GHOST RIDERS IN THE SKY

We lost Johnny Cash today. I am very sad.

It was because of him that I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die, and why I built a Cadillac out of parts I stole from the factory over several years. He is also why I tried to kill my daddy because he gave me such a sissy name.

Very, very sad. posted by Carlton at 11:50 AM

THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE SATIRE, PEOPLE

Not predicting the future.

Seriously, who is writing the Onion? Nostradamus? posted by Carlton at 5:24 PM

posted by Carlton at 3:14 PM

COMMENTS

My comments are AWOL, which is just too bad, since all of you out there were clamoring to put your two cents in regarding my pearls of wisdom. ("I think Carlton is very smart!" "Well I think Carlton is SUPER smart!" "Everybody knows Carlton is the smarty-est!" -- that kind of thing.)

Maybe they'll come back. I don't have the enrgy to investigate. posted by Carlton at 6:30 PM

GEE, OFFICER KRUPKE

The latest bombing in Iraq helps confirm what I have been thinking for a little while -- the question is not whether the US has control of the situation in Iraq. The answer to that is pretty clear: we do not. What is happening, however is that other forces are forming, interest groups are coalescing around leaders and determining who their enemies are -- and shortly, if not already, the U.S. military will become just one of several powerful forces acting within Iraq. What's worse, we will be the force that doesn't know what's going on.

I don't pretend to know what those forces will be in any detail -- my guesses include Islamic fundamentalists of both the Sunni and Shia varieties, some kind of Iraqi and Kurdish nationalists, non-Arab tribalists, and collaborators (the ones that help us). The membership of these groups will probably be fluid, with average Joes hooking up with whichever one their friends are in, or in the one which opposes whichever one killed his mother, brother, etc.

They will ally with and fight each other on an ad hoc basis. Some will help us; most will not. And we will be totally clueless. posted by Carlton at 11:37 AM

DOOMED SPIES

In a classic move, Saddam may have fooled us before the war by misleading his officials about the WMDs and then allowing them to escape to the West. Well, it worked -- but not in the way I think he intended. Such a devious fellow! Such gullible Americans!

As evidence, officials say former Iraqi operatives have confirmed since the war that Hussein's regime sent "double agents" disguised as defectors to the West to plant fabricated intelligence. In other cases, Baghdad apparently tricked legitimate defectors into funneling phony tips about weapons production and storage sites.

Story in the LA times, though you have to register.

The question is, how many types of spies did he use?

Hence the use of spies, of whom there are five classes: (1) Local spies - Having local spies means employing the services of the inhabitants of an enemy territory; (2) Moles - Having moles means making use of officials of the enemy; (3) Double agents - Ha ving double agents means getting hold of the enemy's spies and using them for our own purposes; (4) Doomed spies - Having doomed spies means doing certain things openly for purposes of deception, and allowing our spies to know of them and report them to t he enemy; (5) Surviving spies - Surviving spies means are those who bring back news from the enemy's camp. posted by Carlton at 12:49 PM

HERE'S WHAT I WANT

Here's what I want to hear John Kerry say:

"The war in Iraq was a mistake. Along with my fellow Senators, I authorized the President to take action, and the action he took was a mistake. Further, the administration of Iraq has been mistake after mistake, and those mistakes have cost our soldiers theur lives."

(If pressed, Kerry should be able to list off 20 or 30 examples of mistakes.)

And then, hammer home his signature line: "As president, I will not ask our soldiers to die for a mistake."

(Wait for applause to die down.)

And then he might say:

"As president, I will do X about the situation of our troops in Iraq. My opponent has shown he is unwilling to do anything."

What is X? Whatever he thinks is the right course. Get us out? Turn it over to the U.N.?

It's a winner. It gets better as Iraq gets worse.
posted by Carlton at 5:01 PM

SUPPORTING THE TROOPS

One shameful thing about this shameful war we are waging in Iraq -- the extent to which we are underequipping our soldiers there.

Forget the niceties, like food, mail, toilets, clean water, etc. Our troops don't have enough guns.

US Army regular soldiers using AK-47s is very significant -- the U.S. and Soviet style of armament have long been the Coke and Pepsi of the developing world's militaries. Many countries (such as Iraq) have gone towards the Soviet line of products simply because they are cheap, readily available, and rip-off replacement parts are made everywhere. The M-16 and the AK-47 are examples of two totally different schools of thought: the M-16 is much more accurate and fires a smaller round -- I'm told it's more precise all around. It requires a lot of maintenance, however, and jams under adverse conditions. The AK is much cheaper and will work anywhere -- in dust, in mud, after being rained on and neglected. It may be a more suitable weapon for our soldiers to be carrying in the circumstances.

But the M-16 is our weapon. We invented it, we produce it. It is our standard. We aren't out shopping from a third party. This is analagous to Microsoft employees buying Macs to use at home -- it's an admission that something isn't working.

We aren't alone in this: British soldiers apparently have to buy their own equipment (including boots, after their standard-issue melt off their feet.)

What a world, I tell you.

UPDATE: I am not a gun nut. I fired a shotgun and a .22 rifle a time or two during my youth in Mississippi, and a .38 police revolver once. (Until a guy showed up and said, "Will you boys stop shooting towards my house?")

posted by Carlton at 11:01 AM

BIG LIES

Some provocative prose from Joe Conanson's new book:

If your workplace is safe; if your children go to school rather than being forced into labor; if you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a 40-hour week and you are allowed to join a union to protect your rights -- you can thank liberals. If your food is not poisoned and your water is drinkable -- you can thank liberals. If your parents are eligible for Medicare and Social Security, so they can grow old in dignity without bankrupting your family -- you can thank liberals. If our rivers are getting cleaner and our air isn't black with pollution; if our wilderness is protected and our countryside is still green -- you can thank liberals. If people of all races can share the same public facilities; if everyone has the right to vote; if couples fall in love and marry regardless of race; if we have finally begun to transcend a segregated society -- you can thank liberals. Progressive innovations like those and so many others were achieved by long, difficult struggles against entrenched power. What defined conservatism, and conservatives, was their opposition to every one of those advances. The country we know and love today was built by those victories for liberalism -- with the support of the American people.

Link to the first chapter via Tom Tomorrow, at left. By the way, I just got the Tom Tomorrow book in the mail, and it is pretty fab. I should be getting Al Franken's book pretty soon (it was supposed to be a present for someone near and dear, but she foiled that one by getting it herself.) This should all put me on a list in a file somewhere in John Ashcroft's office. posted by Carlton at 12:27 AM

HEH. INDEED.

This cartoon is pretty funny.

-bzzzt!- It sucks! -bzzzzt!- posted by Carlton at 11:48 AM

THE SMELL OF FEAR

John Ashcroft seems to have some peculiar security concerns:

"You’re going to have to stand back," [the Secret Service Man] said. "We have to take precautions, in case you were thinking of throwing acid on the attorney general."

I shook my head, stunned and amused. "In case we decided to throw acid on the attorney general? Specifically in case of that?"

"That’s right," he said, folding his arms, "In case you decided to throw acid at the attorney general."

I hear that's a big problem these days.

posted by Carlton at 2:51 PM

LATE FEES

Attention Postal Service! Please deliver my Visa Bill to the SAME address as ALL MY OTHER !@#$ing mail! Otherwise, I might MISS A PAYMENT and incur you know what's.

Ugh. posted by Carlton at 10:46 PM

MY NEW JOB

Evidently, I'm the new speechwriter for Gray Davis:

This recall is bigger than California. What's happening here is part of an ongoing national effort to steal elections Republicans cannot win.

It started with the impeachment of President Clinton, when the Republicans could not beat him in 1996. It continued in Florida, where they stopped the vote count, depriving thousands of Americans of the right to vote.

This year, they're trying to steal additional congressional seats in Colorado and Texas, overturning legal redistricting plans. Here in California, the Republicans lost the governor's race last November. Now they're trying to use this recall to seize control of California just before the next presidential election.

Compare with my post from July 9 of this year:

It looks like there will be a recall election in California, for a governor who was legitimately elected less than a year ago. This, plus the redistricting mess in Texas, plus the impeachment of Bill Clinton, plus the 2000 debacle, plus the weird controversy over a Republican owning a big stake in the company that makes all those voting machines (heard about that?) is just more evidence of a simple fact: the Republicans are working to destroy our democracy. Fundamentally, they disagree with the idea that there should be rules that apply to everyone, and that when you get fewer votes, the other guy gets elected. They are deliberately setting out to unmake elections which do not go their way, or to change the rules (districts in Texas, filibusters in the Senate), so that there is no competition in future democratic processes. They believe the rules should always favor them, and they are working to institutionalize the principle.

That cracks me up.


-bzzzt!- He stole your schtick! Kneecap the SOB! -bzzzt!-
posted by Carlton at 8:49 AM

WELL, WE KNEW THAT

So, apparently the fact that Star Trek has sucked for some time now has given rise to some legal action.
You haven't heard ME talking about Enterprise lately, have you?

They'll put it to bed, and then ten or fifteen years from now there will be a revival, and some more money will be made and some more mediocre actors will leap at the chance to "remodulate" their careers into typecast hell. Man, I hate Star Trek. posted by Carlton at 3:16 PM

DUMB IDEA

So, Maybe former general Wesley Clark will run for president -- he says that he will decide in the next couple of weeks. Consenseus is that he'd be a good candidate. He's got the national security cred sewn up, he's from Arkansas, seems pretty moderate overall. Most people assume he will run as a Democrat.

But . . . but . . . but . . . what if, just what if, he ran as a Republican? Made W debate him in the primaries? Made W talk about his military "strategery" and how Iraq is going so great -- made W explain himself to a former general on nationwide television?

Oh, that would be sweet.

I'm sure it won't happen. posted by Carlton at 9:14 AM

SCORE!!!!

This morning at about 8 AM I became the first person to SCORE in our little Dead Pool -- with Idi Amin! Bless you, Idi -- this may be the only good thing you ever did for anyone in your whole stinking life!

We are still accepting applications, actually, if anyone wishes to join. Rules are posted here. posted by Carlton at 10:31 AM

AND I THOUGHT I WAS A BEER . . .


Congratulations! You're a Long Island Iced Tea!


What Drink Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
posted by Carlton at 10:10 AM

A HEART THAT'S FULL UP LIKE A LANDFILL

I attended the Radiohead concert on Wednesday night in Mansfield, Mass, which was great. The band played my FAVORITE song, "No Surprises", as an encore. If you're not familiar with this song (shame on you!), it's a relatively slow, quiet song about one person's desperation and alienation, sung from that person's point of view. At one point the narrator grouses, "Bring down the Government/They don't, they don't speak for us." Upon hearing that line, the crown CHEERED, which gave me chills.

Someone needs to tap this feeling, and fast. posted by Carlton at 9:45 AM

POWER

I've just heard about these major power outages in NYC, Detroit and elsewhere. What does it mean?

UPDATE: It's nuttin, really. posted by Carlton at 5:03 PM

BILL

A sixtyish second cousin of mine died unexpectedly last year. Bill was a nice fellow who didn't treat himself well -- he was overweight and in bad shape otherwise; he had a history of heart problems. Still, his death was unexpected.

Based on a bunch of circumstantial evidence and some very stereotypical inferences (the large collections of Wedgewood china and Waterford crystal do point one in a certain direction . . . ), I think Bill was gay. I think the reason he moved away from his family in rural Alabama to the New Orleans area when he was young was to be able to live his life as he needed to live it without alienating his kinfolk. If this is the case, he did a really good job -- subsequent to his death, I have heard family members complain about what a crying shame it was that Bill never married, and how there was a very nice girl once (or maybe more than one) who wanted to marry Bill, but he just wasn't interested . . . they never seem to hear the ellipses that follow their own statements. It is a shame about Bill -- he ended his life alone, although he had many friends, and seemed dispirited in later years, as though he had given up. He was discovered by a female friend who came by when he didn't answer his phone. It's a sad story.

It appears that Gayness is going to be a really big issue in the coming months. Like most people, I see the issues through the lens of the people I know -- friends from college and grad school, the lesbian couple for whom I prepared estate planning documents, and Bill. When the world was younger, everyone (gay and straight) was just trying to get their rocks off with someone attractive. Now, everyone wants to get married -- in my conversations with my lesbian clients, I must have said, "because you two aren't legally married" a hundred times. Bill remains a mystery, although I know what I think.

I don't see how this society can withhold the benefits of civil marriage from gay people for much longer. It is simply a question of freedom -- the sexual acts are not prohibited, and most people agree that adults should be able to arrange their lives as they see fit. Persons who want partners of the same sex are in the minority, to be sure, but our society is premised on the notion that the minority's rights are protected. The people who protest that the institution of marriage needs protecting from gay couples are making a religious/moral decision that -- in my opinion -- is outside the authority of the government to make.

That said, I think that our language needs some fine-tuning. This debate is peeling off some layers of the word "marriage" that most people (i.e. me) don't think about very much. I support extending all the rights and benefits (tax status, health care, etc) of marriage to gays and lesbians, along with the necessary hassles of getting into and out of the status of civil marriage. Many people have no interest in pursuing this status at any point in their lives; some are desperate for it; most people are willing if they meet "the right person".

What can't be legislated, however, is the aspect of marriage that is not civil, but social -- the implicit approval of society. What is fornication one day is blessed marital consortium the next, with the difference being simply a magical spell spoken by a wizard over the couple. Bastards become legitimate, whores become wives, the subversive is made orthodox. My lesbian clients would take advantage of a civil marriage in a heartbeat (indeed, they have already had a ceremony with rings, etc, in Vermont), and would not care that a great many people in this country would regard their union as illegitemate, sacreligious, etc. Cousin Bill, I hypothesize, might not have made that leap -- since his family was both vitally important to him and completely intolerant of his kind.

It is important to make this distinction -- gay couples who are married will never have the approval portion of the concept from a large percentage of Americans. I would have given it to Bill -- I hate to think that he could have lived a happier life but for the rest of us. posted by Carlton at 4:41 PM

CONDOLENCES

I was very sorry to hear about Shelley's father. There's not much else to say. posted by Carlton at 5:39 PM

MISCELLANY

1. I took an online French test:

You are at the Advanced Intermediate level.
You scored 118 points out of 150.

You scored 78% overall.

My vocab is better than my grammar. I could have told you that!

2. I am really quite idle at work these days.

3. High School friend Heather is still in Kuwait, sweltering in the sun. She sent me a picture of herself in (what looks to me like) full combat gear riding in a Humvee.

4. Drove Buzzy (the car) to Montreal with Ms. Twink this weekend, it was a good time. Couldn't understand crap (hence the French test).

posted by Carlton at 5:38 PM

WHAT THE HELL

is this? posted by Carlton at 1:30 PM

THE DEATH OF IRONY or THE DEATH OF SINGING A SONG ALL THE WAY THROUGH

A week or so ago, inscrutable fates and irresistable forces conspired to take me somewhere I would never have expected: The American Idols Live concert in Worcester, Massachusetts. This is a show where the better of the contestants from thie season's show appear live onstage, performing abbreviated versions of songs you've heard before. There's Ruben and Clay, of course, and a couple of other miscellaneous trashy dudes and skanky hoes.

The reason I was there, in my defense, was to humor the Princess, the fifteen year-old sister of Molly Twinkelstein. When the Princess wants to do something, I have been told, she normally is able to do it. This time, I was her enabler, along with Molly herself. Actually, she and I get along pretty well, and it was really not a problem.

To say the show was cheeseball is a total understatement: to make it through the show, you had to check your cheese sensor at the door. There were pyrotechnics, large screen graphics of sunsets and butterflies, plenty of machine-produced fog, costumes galore. The songs were simple retreads of hits from days gone by, with canned patter in between. It was all deadly, seriously, unself-consciously earnest. It was not terrible, actually, but it was earnest.

[Americans ARE really fat, by the way. There was a big fat family sitting in the seats ahead of us, eating snowcones out of these special plastic cups with a light in the bottom so the snowcone glowed green -- it must have been hard for them to fit in the seats.]

I was actually affected at one moment: Ruben (I know all their names, I watched the show with Molly, I admit it) sang an abbreviated version (naturally) of "Imagine", by John Lennon, a song I had been thinking about quite a bit that week. I have always thought that it is one of those songs that is so simple and profound that it became an instant cliche -- the kind of song you know how to play on the piano if you only know how to play one song on the piano. It had been in my head for a few days, mostly as a soundtrack to all the horrible news coming out of Iraq, and when Ruben sang a verse and a chorus I found myself welling up. (He is a pretty good singer -- I think they gave him some training between the end of the show and the tour.) Maybe we could all live as one.

And then, of course, they segued into "I'm Proud To Be An American", by Lee Greenwood, and all the other contestants came out waving oversized American flags. Fireworks went off. I decided not to throw up right there in front of the Princess and Molly, so we just went home. posted by Carlton at 5:17 PM

REAL POLITICAL DRAMA

This is why politics is better than sports:

Finally, one British reporter shouted out: "Have you got blood on your hands, Prime Minister? Are you going to resign over this?"

Blair froze. He stood uncomfortable and silent at the lectern for what must have seemed like the longest 30 seconds of his political career, until Koizumi called a merciful end to the press conference. posted by Carlton at 4:50 PM

BOB HOPE

He's dead. Yep. I saw one of his "Road" movies once. It was kinda funny. I don't have much else to say, except that this was a guy who was a nostalgia act before I was born. He had his laughs.

Except . . .

Are there going to be ANY celebrities left alive by the time our Dead Pool gets started? I was going to put ol' Bob on my list, just to make sure I got SOME points (you get more points for younger celebs who die, but at least 10 for each one you get right). If we had gotten the thing cranked up by July 4 (as we had originally intended), I would have those points now. Buddy Ebsen, Buddy Hackett, Kate Hepburn (who was quite a goddess, back in the day, really), Gregory Peck, Hume Cronyn -- they are kicking off like mad. I was thinking about putting Uday and Qusay on my list as well -- what a difference a month makes!

Barry White was actually ON my list -- a little post-it that is on my computer monitor. What, he couldn't wait around for six weeks?

In case anyone is interested, the start date is August 15, and we are letting it run until August 30, 2004. Anyone interested in reading the rules should look here. posted by Carlton at 6:10 PM

INTERESTING

Saw this quote from Bush on CNN:

"I am mindful that we're all sinners and I caution those who may try to take a speck out of the neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own," the president said."


I reproduce this, not for its content (It is possible, however, that not EVERYONE agrees that we are all sinners, whatever that means. ), but for the fact that CNN did not correct Bush's bad grammar. I swear, if the media stops whitewashing our Dear Leader's misstatements, that would go a long way towards exposing him for what he is: a mendacious puppet.
posted by Carlton at 1:01 PM

BUSH JUMPS THE SHARK

Here. I can't really add anything. posted by Carlton at 11:14 AM

DISGUST

Well, I totally deleted a post in which I attempted to make some lame jokes about prominent political figures. They were dumb jokes, but they had good hearts (I do think that John Kerry looks like a tree, for example, and I think there's something really funny about calling Condoleeza Rice "Tootie"). But they were crimes against nature, and had to be destroyed. Oh well.

What I am really disgusted about is the recent assassination of the Hussein brothers by our military. It's this kind of thing that makes me ashamed of my country. Yes, they were "really bad people", as W likes to say -- they were, by all accounts, insane rapists, murderers and torturers. At the time that we killed them, however, they were not in power -- in fact, they were hiding out at their cousin's house, by all accounts, a cousin who thought so little of them as to turn them in for a reward. If I have read correctly, U.S. forces cordoned off the neighborhood, surrounded the house with HUNDREDS of soldiers and then blew the house up with a MISSILE.

We didn't have to kill them. Our forces were so overwhelming, and their force was so weak (just a couple of guys with AK's I think), that we could have arrested them without much trouble. In fact, the NYPD could have arrested them without much trouble -- it's probable that the HATTIESBURG police could have arrested them without much trouble. But we killed them instead, with a missile.

Putting aside the fact that these were bad men who deserved to be tortured to death (as they had done to others), and putting aside the question of their value as prisoners and sources of intelligence -- these were criminals who we could have arrested, and chose instead to kill. That, my friends, is murder. I think that it was morally reprehensible -- if it was wrong at Ruby Ridge, it's wrong here.

So, why do it? There are a number of explanations. Simple bloodlust is one. Expediency is another -- it is possible that they would have been embarassing to the administration in some way if allowed to live. More likely, however (and perhaps most awful), is that they were killed simply to break up the news drumbeats that are increasingly against Bush -- as counterspin.

What kind of a world is this?
posted by Carlton at 5:54 PM

BALLET OF THE UNHATCHED CHICKS

I don't expect any sympathy, but I would like to note that I always find it depressing to actually accomplish goals, especially the long-term ones. Recently, I've been banging out the goals like crazy -- I found myself a new apartment, sold my old one, bought the car I have been thinking about for almost a year, paid off some debt. These were all things that I had been scheming about for months or a year, not only counting my chickens before they hatched but constantly estimating and re-estimating how many eggs there might be.

And now the hatched chickens have been eaten, and I have a couple of leftover drumsticks in the fridge and a bunch of well-gnawed bones in the trash. And now what? I had this same feeling upon graduation from college -- as though getting my diploma was the worst thing that could have happened. I note that some friends have recently had plans come to fruition: Scott, for example, has recently become Dr. Scott (a very big deal). Any thoughts?

So, there's a void. I think I am now casting about for something else to obsess over. posted by Carlton at 1:00 PM

WHAT ELSE IS NEW?


Threat rating: Medium. Your total lack of decent
family values makes you dangerous, but we can
count on some right wing nutter blowing you up
if you become too high profile.


What threat to the Bush administration are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Thanks to Ms. Twink! posted by Carlton at 5:41 PM

JOIN MY DEAD POOL


My friend Jason and I are running a Dead Pool. What is a Dead Pool?

What It Is: A Dead Pool is a game in which each player prepares a list of celebrities whom the player thinks are likely to die in the following year. Points are awarded for each correct person on a player’s list, and the person with the most points at the end of the game wins.

The Dead Pool will commence on August 15, 2003; celebrities who die on or before August 30, 2004 will count towards winning the Dead Pool. An entry fee of $20 will be required to enter the Dead Pool. All entry fees collected will be used as prize money. A prize for highest score will be awarded on or about August 30, 2004. If enough people participate, there may be prizes for second and third highest score as well.

Anyone intereted in playing (or seeing the rules) should email me at carltonwking@yahoo.com. We're hoping to have 20 people or so -- with more, the potential prizes could get really big!

posted by Carlton at 2:05 PM

STORY?

It's been awfully political around here lately, for which I apologize -- but it is an awfully political time. Here's the germ of a story which could be a really big deal if, you know, the media actually REPORT it (and, of course, if it's true).

So you may recall that in early 2001 -- before September 11, before Enron -- Vice President Cheney had a big meeting to plan the U.S. energy policy. Predictably, the energy policy that emerged boiled down to something along the lines of "Suck the planet dry, drill for oil in every spot that doesn't already have a coal-burning power plant built on it." Many people were unhappy, and tried to make an issue of it.

If I understand the story, several groups inquired of Cheney's office about this meeting. The questions were pretty innocuous-sounding: Who was there? What did you talk about? Are there any minutes we could read? Who presented on what topics? These are basically the questions you would ask about a philosophy class you weren't able to attend.

Surprise! Cheney's office completely shut down these inquiries. No information is available. National security is at issue. Cheney invoked executive privilege (despite the fact that EP is supposed to protect the PRESIDENT, and Cheney is not -- officially -- the president). This was very odd behavior. (Though this kind of secrecy, we later find out, is typical of this administration.)

Stay with me now.

Then the Enron scandal hit. "Aha!" said many. "They won't release the information because of the presence of Kenneth Lay and friends, and because the information might implicate the Administration in the scandal!" People stared to get interested in this story. The General Accounting Office (the investigative arm of Congress) sued Cheney to get the information (a suit which was unprecedented, by the way). Cheney again stonewalled, and threatened to slash the GAO budget the following year -- a classy move. The case was later dismissed by a friendly federal judge.

Don't go anywhere -- this is getting good.

There are OTHER lawsuits. Organizations Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club, both interested in this matter, prosecute a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request for the documents used in the meeting. Recently, their request was granted. Guess what they got! Bet you can't!

Maps and charts of Iraqi oilfields. A memo entitled " Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts."
Remember, friends, this was BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11. This could mean that Cheney and his people were planning to divide up Iraqi oilfields and sell off the rights BEFORE THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ATTACK. It could mean that the Iraq war had nothing to do with terrorism OR weapons of mass destruction. What was it about? Oil! How much simpler can it get?

This could be big.

UPDATE: I guess you could always read what the Associated Press has to say. posted by Carlton at 2:11 PM

MEA NON CULPA

One thing is very evident in the recent scandal regarding the fact that we invaded a foreign country which was not threatening us based on a lie. Here it is: The people in charge of our government, and responsible for this mess, are totally incapable of admitting that they make mistakes. The more you listen to them talk, the more it rings like a bell: We weren't wrong. If you think I said something wrong, I didn't. You must be wrong. I never said it. You have a record of me saying it? It's not important. That's over. Let's move on. Why are you being so partisan? You must hate America. You don't support our troops. And so on.

Personally, I think it would go a long way for Bush to take the world stage and announce that he, himself, erred in the analysis that let up to this stupid war -- not even a full Jimmy Swaggart, but an admission of a mistake and an assumption of personal responsibility for the consequences. Americans, especially heartland Americans, believe in redemption, and accept apologies. He might not get reelected (God willing), but he'd go a long way towards rehabilitating his character for the American people. Heck, *I* would have a lot of respect for him if he did that, and I really hate him as a President. That would put me out to a great degree.

The good news is that there is zero chance of that happening. Anyone following W with a critical eye knows that he lacks both the strength of character and the sense of responsibility to the people that an admission would require. Bush has never taken responsibility for any of his deeds or misdeeds, and is not about to start now that the misdeeds have enveloped entire regions of the globe. I do believe that, in all the roundtable brainstorming that must be going on right now in the White House about this problem, the idea of admitting to a mistake does not ever come up.

True as ever: Being W means never having to say you're sorry. posted by Carlton at 7:14 PM

WHAT ARE WE DOING?

The U.S. is operating open-ended protectorates in Afghanistan and Iraq, at a combined cost of $5 billion a month, or $60 billion a year. That's roughly triple the entire foreign-aid budget, and almost double the federal government's budget for elementary and secondary education. Meanwhile, intervention in Liberia appears just around the corner. U.S. soldiers reside in nearly 100 different countries. During the president's trip last week to Africa, there was talk of opening bases elsewhere on that continent.

More here. posted by Carlton at 11:20 AM

DOOMED SPIES

Too long to reprint, but this (Thursday, "Somebody Please Tell Me", etc.) looks to be a fascinating tale, if true. If true, it's also a really good example of how petty and stupid those, you know, people in charge are.

posted by Carlton at 8:38 AM

THE CURRENT SCANDAL

Well, things seem to be coming apart for the Bush people. I'm not sad about that -- don't get me wrong now -- but I am very distressed at the state of affairs that he has left us in. Even if Bush is turned out of the White House in '04 (please, God!), it will take a lot of doing to fix the mess he's made -- or messes, I should say.

The weirdest part of this brou-ha-ha about the Niger uranium is that it is the tiniest possible aspect of a much larger campaign of deliberate deception. I recall listening to the State of the Union Speech and hearing Bush cite the uranium information. "I thought that was discredited," I remember thinking at the time. Me, an uninformed yokel -- *I* knew it was a bunch of hooey. It's taken months and months for the media to catch on, and they choose this?

I've thought the following for a long time:

1. The Bush people lie because they know their agenda is unpalatable to the general public. They have to disguise it in order to make it happen. They disguise it with fear, with threats, with false patriotism, whatever.

2. The more of his goals W accomplishes (the secret ones, not the stated ones), the closer he comes to destruction, as people start to figure out what he is really after.

My analysis: The WMD story is falling apart because it was phony from the start. WMDs were NEVER the reason Bush wanted to invade Iraq -- it was just a cover story. What was the real reason? Hard to say, but I think it has something to do with an open, naked, blatant grasping for power by men who are used to doing whatever they want with no accountability. Any thoughts?


posted by Carlton at 6:45 PM

THE WAR PRAYER (Mark Twain)

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

posted by Carlton at 4:17 PM

NEWS FLASH

Tomorrow is my 31st birthday.

Sigh. posted by Carlton at 11:30 AM

ELECTORAL ENGINEERING

It looks like there will be a recall election in California, for a governor who was legitimately elected less than a year ago. This, plus the redistricting mess in Texas, plus the impeachment of Bill Clinton, plus the 2000 debacle, plus the weird controversy over a Republican owning a big stake in the company that makes all those voting machines (heard about that?) is just more evidence of a simple fact: the Republicans are working to destroy our democracy. Fundamentally, they disagree with the idea that there should be rules that apply to everyone, and that when you get fewer votes, the other guy gets elected. They are deliberately setting out to unmake elections which do not go their way, or to change the rules (districts in Texas, filibusters in the Senate), so that there is no competition in future democratic processes. They believe the rules should always favor them, and they are working to institutionalize the principle.

Why don't we care about this? That this is harmful to our method of self-government should be evident to everyone. Would the Republicans want Attorney General Hillary Clinton to have the powers enumerated in the Patriot Act? Would they acquiesce to Tom Daschle gerrymandering his own state to establish certain Democratic House seats? No -- they would change the rules BACK and cry foul if they were the minority party.

Why are we not outraged? I think this year may see some outrage, especially if this recall election goes forward. Nothing like the feeling you get when the guy you voted for wins and still gets his ass kicked . . . I've felt that before.
posted by Carlton at 6:11 PM

SHAMELESS THEFT

. . . from someone else's blog: How the French hate us, and always have. posted by Carlton at 5:59 PM

IN OTHER NEWS

Well, now that's out of my system -- the below rant was actually inspired by my realization that I would be more outraged by a remake of Casablanca starring Ben Affleck and J'Lo than about the invasion of Iraq . . .

I got my car! It's a MINI Cooper S, white on top and black on the bottom. Molly and I rode the commuter rail up to Peabody on Saturday where lies my dealership. (There's a MINI dealership in Boston as well, but I have heard bad things about their service.) I presented the largest check I have ever written in my life to the dealer and drove away -- it was surprisingly easy. Since we were already on the road, we decided to drive up to Maine along Route 1, the coastal highway which is more scenic and slower than the interstate. It was 95 degrees outside (according to the readout on the dash), and we stopped for a quick paddle at York beach. While there, we played a few rounds of Skee-Ball at the "Fun-o-Rama" (which Molly won, I'm sorry to say, so I owe her a lobster dinner). It was a fun trip -- the first of many, I hope.

As I believe I have mentioned, buying this car is somewhat in disharmony with my "keep it simple" philosophy. I don't need a car. I've been thinking about what else I could have done with the cash -- hoarding it away for a rainy day springs to mind.

But oh, I love it. It's small and peppy and fun to drive, although I'm a little rusty on the stickshift, as it turns out. There are a number of MINIs in my neighborhood, but very few in the countryside, and I could see people turn and look (and sometimes point) at the car as we drove past. "Cute!" seems to be the consensus, though this car doesn't seem to have been gendered like other "cute" cars -- the Mazda Miata and the New Beetle, for example. Even if it were gendered though -- it sure is fun!

posted by Carlton at 4:43 PM

CO-DEPENDENCE DAY

In the past few months, I've read a few articles trying to "diagnose" Bush, to identify what it is exactly that is wrong with him (since it is clearly something). Ms. Dowd recently opined that the Bush Administration has a version of Attention Deficit Disorder. Several have noted that Bush himself exhibits many of the symptoms of a "dry drunk", an alcoholic who has stopped drinking but has not sought treatment for the psychological problems associated therewith, and who will often sustitute a kind of intolerant monomania therefor.

This is a democracy we live in, a government by the people. If Bush is mentally ill, an addict, learning disabled or has any other type of recently-recognized disorder (I can, in all seriousness, believe that this is the case), then we all take responsibility for putting him where he is today, and for what he does there. When the 2000 election was stolen by the Republicans, we looked on in shock and let it happen. I believe the Supreme Court did the same thing -- although nakedly partisan, their decision was rooted in a desire to avoid the disorder and chaos that would have resulted from a recount, and to avoid taking a hard look at whether our democracy is really working. The Republicans exploited all of our desire for a smooth transition, and beat that democracy bloody, while we doubted the evidence of our own eyes. We enabled this, making excuses and hoping that if we were good it wouldn't happen again.

We must take responsibility for Bush. I know very few people (outside of my blood relations) who will admit voting for him, and it is easy to throw up one's hands and say, "I voted for Gore!" I've been doing it a lot lately. But as the person who is in place as our President, properly elected or not, acts for us and is our representative -- and nowhere moreso than in the area of foreign policy, as no other officer of the United States or any particular state is permitted to deal with other sovereign nations. He is speaking and acting for you and me.

During this Administration, I have become very interested in politics -- it's really better than sports or "Survivor". But politically active? I've never written a letter to an editor. I've never attended a protest. I've only recently contributed any money towards any political entity (a pittance to MoveOn.org). It is becoming clear to me, however, that I am as resposible as the goons who stormed the Florida election office in 2000 -- I am enabling George Bush by my inaction. I am the parent who just doesn't want to know what is happening to the children in the other room. When the truth comes out, people will turn on me and demand, "Why didn't you do anything?" posted by Carlton at 4:03 PM

NEW LINKS

Check 'em out! posted by Carlton at 10:09 AM

WTF

. . . is up with my site? Nothing against the Dalits, you understand, but . . . WTF? posted by Carlton at 3:33 PM

POSTCARD UPDATE

So I recently received a couple of more postcards, this time from Alaska. The character and tone of these cards has varied pretty wildly -- some have been fairly cordial, while others (these last ones) are insulting. Yes, I'm sure I do have a "tiny member" and I am a "dickhead". Thanks for letting me know, however!
I do wonder whether this is a person who has ever had access to my member. There aren't that many.

These cards have been from all over the US, with different kinds of artwork, messages and handwriting. Several have had individual letters wriiten on them (in addition to the text) and circled, although I have been unable to make any sense out of them as an anagram (the first three were "CWK", my initials). Since no one really jumps out at me as a prime suspect -- which is to say that I know people who are crazy and would do this, but none that I think could organize it -- I am led to one of two theories:

1. This is a random person whom I do not know, which means there is nothing to figure out, and I'm just receiving some low-level harassment from a troll, perhaps an internet troll, OR

2. This is someone whom I know, but who plays a less significant role in my life than she appears to believe. In this case, the person expects me to say "Aha!" and realize who she is immediately, because I am undoubtedly thinking about her all the time anyway. Apparently that is not the case.

I do believe that this person reads this page. If so, I'd invite her to go ahead and let me in on it. Otherwise, she can keep sending the postcards -- I have a nice little stack in the drawer. I show them to people when they come over -- my guests find them much more interesting than I do.

I got tickets to Radiohead! posted by Carlton at 3:35 PM

ANOTHER LITTLE NOTE

About Iraq . . . (UPDATE: in retrospect, this post really isn't about Iraq at all! How interesting!)

Looking back on our Glorious Leader's track record, a pattern emerges: through no merit of his own, he is placed in a position of prominence and authority (director of a company, owner of a baseball team, political office), and in EVERY CASE the operation goes downhill during his tenure. The constituents (shareholders, citizens) suffer. And he profits.

My Corporations professor used to call that "looting".

The latest in what I think will be an endless stream of articles criticizing the Bush Protectorate of Iraq appears here.

And some irony, courtesy of the Memory Hole. posted by Carlton at 12:26 PM

HULLO, BERTIE

Ms. Twink's book club is reading The Code of the Woosters, one of my fave books as a kid! I'm so excited! Interestingly, I have a theory that a lot of people will hate it. But I love it! posted by Carlton at 5:24 PM

8-MINUTE ABS

Actually, I am referring to 8-minute DATING, a new thing that is sweeping the nation and Boston bars specifically. It works like this: the organizers get a roughly equivalent number of single males and females together in a room (usually a barroom), and they sit across from each other at little tables. The newly introduced couples get to talk for the magical eight minutes, and then a bell rings and the couples all switch. (to the best of my knowledge this is just a hetero thing -- I haven't heard of gays and lesbians doing it.) There are several rounds of this.

After each round, the conversation partners rate one another (basically "Yes" or "No"). I believe that when both partners rate each other a yes, one of them is given the other's phone number.

A friend of mine (girl) is going to do this sometime soon. Back when I was a swinging single (cringing lonely wretch), I had made a date with another female friend to go check it out -- which we never did. To be honest, it sounded like a lot of fun. I have NO game in the bar setting, but I interview well, so it would be interesting to see which one prevailed. It could have been a big ego crusher. I guess I'll never know . . .
posted by Carlton at 5:22 PM

CAT'S AWAY

So, the light of my life is out of town for the weekend. What kind of trouble can I get myself into?

I see that our Dear Leader is pushing us towards war with Iran. That's cool, since our other wars are going very well. Bush is climbing the ladder of enemies, since Iran has about THREE TIMES the population of Iraq, and is much bigger to boot. Of course we could defeat the Iranians in war -- that has never been in doubt, or the point. Do we really want 66,000,000 new subjects in our empire?

One possible result of all this that I KNOW Bush et alia do not intend is the waves of immigration from our new colonies that are bound to result. Britain has very large populations of its former colonials in its borders, as does France. I believe that we will end up with a great many more Iraqis, Persians and Afghans in the lower 48 than we would have had otherwise. I'm not complaining -- it may even be a good thing -- but I KNOW it is not what these cats intend.

posted by Carlton at 5:14 PM

THE ETERNAL QUESTION

"What kind of people loot dirt?" Things in occupied Iraq not going smoothly. posted by Carlton at 12:55 PM

WRITING A BOOK

I used to think I wanted to write a book -- a novel, almost certainly. I liked to write fiction when I was younger, and I still think about it. Teachers, etc. used to say "Carlton's going to grow up and be a writer!" Yeah, whatever. The cares and woes of adulthood have educated me about what you need to do this: freedom from the day job, tenacity, a willingness to fail spectacularly, a belief that the process is worthwhile no matter if no one ever reads or likes the product. Oh and, uh, talent. I'm missing at least one of these.


Anyway, I found this on the web over lunch.

So why do people do write books? I come up with these possible explanations:

Some hope to hit the jackpot despite the odds

Some have a dream about being an author, or taking part in "literature"

Some are obsessed lunatics -- ie., they feel they just gotta

Some don't know better (these usually never write a second book)

Some have other ambitions, and writing a book is a step along the way

A handful are determined to be trade-book authors as a career, and know what the game consists of, and have (or think they have) the tenacity, toughness, talent, luck and energy to succeed.

Saddam Hussein wrote romance novels. They were big sellers in Iraq, I hear. posted by Carlton at 1:26 PM

FILTHY LUCRE

This week, I am finally able to pay my parents back what I borrowed from them 2 1/2 years ago, which is nice. They seem to like it, too -- I think that parents who make loans to their children must subscribe to that "if you love it, set it free" philosophy. Maybe it will be made productive, maybe it was used to pay for an uninsured car accident that I never told you about -- sorry! Well, this actually made it back, unharmed and better for the experience. posted by Carlton at 7:55 PM

FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

My advice to all those out there on the front lines against the Bush people: do little things to annoy them. It is apparent that these radicals are utterly humorless (well, W joked about putting people to death, but I don't think that counts) and very prickly in temprament. They also tend to fly off the handle when confronted or directly questioned -- hence W's refusal to be confronted or directly questioned about ANYTHING. Some have explained W's mania for ousting Saddam as a result of Saddam's "thumbing his nose" at the Bush Administration. It certainly looks like that war was not such a good idea.

The trick here is in getting to them. We are all asking questions that they don't like, but they simply refuse to be questioned. Our media won't do it, and the Dems seem to be congenital cowards. Bush's people seem very able to ignore the general public.

But if you CAN get to them, just watch -- they get rattled, go off script, off message. Sometimes they even say whet they are actually thinkng. I'd like to see that. posted by Carlton at 2:00 PM